Chapter 63

"Impossible! He would never do that to..."

Hearing Aunt Qiao's words, Li Bo blurted out, but halfway through the sentence, he suddenly remembered that Yang Siguang was right beside him, and his voice instantly choked in his throat.

The man took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

"Anyway, there must be some mistake here," Li Bo said decisively.

"No matter how deep his resentment was after my younger brother passed away, he might have left some lingering obsession in this world to continue haunting Si—but cast a fatal curse? Impossible. He wouldn't do such a thing. He..." Li Bo hesitated for a brief moment before continuing, "He always regarded Siguang as someone extremely important."

The moment his voice fell, Li Bo immediately noticed that Yang Siguang was giving him a profound look.

At the same time, however, Aunt Qiao sneered.

The woman had originally wanted to stay far away from this mess, but listening to Li Bo's words instead ignited her fighting spirit.

"Fine, so your point is that I'm wrong... Not that I'm boasting, but you're supposed to be a member of the Li family—can't you even tell?"

Aunt Qiao then looked at the crumbling young man beside Li Bo, her gaze as sharp and piercing as a dagger cutting through the heart.

"You've been having nightmares every single night these past few days, haven't you?" Aunt Qiao asked.

Yang Siguang hesitated for a moment and slowly nodded.

Hearing this, Aunt Qiao laughed mockingly at Li Bo.

"So, Li Bo, you tell me: which twenty-something young man has nightmares every single night for no reason? Isn't it because he's entangled by a fatal curse and his seven mortal souls have already scattered? Look at him—two of the three flames on his shoulders have already gone out, and I reckon even the three ethereal souls within his body can barely hold their ground much longer. Once those souls leave his body, even a celestial immortal coming down here wouldn't be able to save this kid from a thoroughly dead fate. And look at this ghost aura clinging to him! It must have taken quite a while to drive here to my place, right? For a normal person, it's just a dozen minutes or half an hour at most, but you—calculate the time yourself!"

The woman's voice gradually grew stern.

"And this layer of ghost aura on him—if you didn't tell me he was a living person, I'd have thought a wandering phantom had sneaked into my house! No wonder your brother Li Chen died so inexplicably; with such heavy resentment, why did you only end up with a rotting hand? It didn't really seem like that family's style at all. Turns out the main target wasn't you from the very beginning; you were just an ordinary passerby getting caught in the crossfire..."

As Aunt Qiao spoke with relish, the complexions of Yang Siguang and Li Bo grew increasingly pale.

"Aunt Qiao!"

Finally, Li Bo drew a breath and raised his voice to interrupt her.

Fortunately, reminded by someone, the woman seemed to realize she had revealed too much and truly fell silent in an instant.

She blinked and swallowed dryly.

Then, turning to Yang Siguang, she put on a very uncomfortable expression.

"Child, I'm not targeting you. It's just... sigh, anyway, I'm not the kind of person to beat around the bush or tell lies just to comfort someone. As for you, your luck is truly terrible to have provoked that little monster Li Chen. Frankly, from what this auntie sees, you really don't have much time left. Someone hit with a fatal curse has at most forty-nine days of mortal life left, and what day are you on now..."

As Aunt Qiao spoke, Yang Siguang's already pallid complexion turned an even more ashen and ghastly gray.

Catching this, Aunt Qiao's eyes flickered even more.

After pondering for a moment, she felt she should offer at least a few words of comfort, and sincerely added,

"Since you only have these few days left, whatever you want to eat, drink, or play—just go ahead and do them."

Yang Siguang: "..."

Li Bo pressed his throbbing temples hard and intervened just in time to stop Aunt Qiao from continuing her comforting words.

"Is there really no other way, Aunt Qiao?"

Aunt Qiao gave a light cough and simply shook her head.

"I told you, I really can't do anything... Your Li family—tch, I'm already considered quite capable just standing here talking to you. If you replaced me with anyone else, the tiny sliver of ghost aura stained on you would have sent them running away long ago."

In the end, Aunt Qiao stood still in her spot.

Everything that could be said had been said.

And those things that couldn't be spoken of... there was no need to voice them and scare people.

Thinking this, she finally just sighed and turned to leave.

Yet at that precise moment, Li Bo suddenly raised his voice at her.

"Five million."

Yang Siguang: "Li Bo?"

The young man, having just learned that he was cursed to death by Li Chen and had very little time left, was currently in a state of extreme shock and bewilderment.

Yet the sum of "five million" falling into his ears suddenly snapped him out of it.

Yang Siguang looked at the man beside him in disbelief, almost doubting his own ears: the "five million" he was thinking of couldn't possibly mean Li Bo was actually going to pay five million to hire Aunt Qiao to save him, right?

Aunt Qiao didn't make a sound either. She stared at Li Bo in utter astonishment, clearly as dumbfounded as Yang Siguang.

"...That's all the liquid capital I can mobilize right now."

Compared to the other two, the person who had offered this staggering price appeared exceptionally calm.

He ignored Yang Siguang's shocked gaze and stared fixedly at the woman in front of him.

Every word he spoke sounded extraordinarily sincere.

"For the sake of my biological mother, Aunt Qiao, please help and save his life," he said.

"Li Bo, there's, there's no need to push yourself like this."

Yang Siguang looked horrified. He instinctively reached out to tug at Li Bo, his mind in complete turmoil.

He simply couldn't fathom it; he and Li Bo were at most casual acquaintances... The other party had no need—and no reason—to spend such a vast amount of money on someone he had only crossed paths with by chance.

Aunt Qiao looked equally dumbfounded.

The woman stared straight at Li Bo for a long time before awkwardly squeezing out a sentence after a moment.

"Have, have you lost your mind..." she muttered.

Yet the next second, as if thinking of something, her gaze fixed once more on Yang Siguang's pale face, and she asked thoughtfully, "What, is this little friend of yours gay for you?"

"Aunt Qiao—"

"No, no, he and I are just... just..."

Even at this moment, hearing Aunt Qiao's commentary out of the blue, Yang Siguang still couldn't help blushing intensely.

stammering incoherently, he denied it repeatedly. When Li Bo heard Aunt Qiao's words, however, he froze for a long time before replying dryly,

"No, I just... well... I have my own reasons."

Aunt Qiao immediately let out a "tch."

"That's a pretty expensive reason you've got there. Five million... Ha, thinking five million can make me take over your Li family's mess? Are you kidding me..."

The woman stood up, wiped her hands on the hem of her clothes at her waist, and decisively turned to walk toward the interior of the agritainment courtyard.

Watching her cold retreating figure, Li Bo's heart gradually sank.

At the same time, he could feel that the hand Yang Siguang was using to grip him had tightened considerably, the latter's palm icy cold.

In truth, as someone who had experienced so many terrifying scenarios, Yang Siguang's reaction could already be considered quite composed.

However, upon suddenly hearing such a death sentence from Aunt Qiao, any calm person would still feel panic and helplessness, wouldn't they?

A familiar yet unfamiliar ache once again flooded Li Bo's heart.

The wound on his palm also began to throb faintly with pain.

He thought back to everything he had once seen in Li Chen's room.

A landslide of guilt washed over him, and he couldn't help turning his head to look at Yang Siguang's bloodless face.

"Don't be afraid, if worst comes to worst—"

*If worst comes to worst, I'll go look again and see if anyone else can lend a hand.*

This sentence remained unspoken because Li Bo knew very well that even though Aunt Qiao acted so carefree, unreliable, and even somewhat greedy, the woman's ability was undeniably formidable.

If even Aunt Qiao was unwilling to intervene, there was likely no one else left across the entire Divine Land who could save Yang Siguang from Li Chen, who had already transformed into an evil ghost...

Li Bo's heart sank deeper and deeper.

Strangely enough, Yang Siguang seemed to have arrived at the same realization.

There was not a shred of color left on the man's face, yet he still managed to pull at the corners of his lips, offering a bitter smile toward him.

"It's alright," Li Bo heard Yang Siguang say.

"Actually, I'm not that..."

Not that what?

Li Bo wanted to ask, but right at that moment, Aunt Qiao's footsteps paused.

The woman let out a long sigh, turned around, and looked at the two people behind her.

"What are you standing there dazing for?" Aunt Qiao scolded harshly.

Yang Siguang and Li Bo were both startled, lifting their heads to look at her in unison.

Twilight had deepened by now, and the surroundings were dead silent, save for the faint sounds of chickens and dogs barking from deep within the agritainment courtyard.

Yet, under the setting sun, a faint golden glow seemed to be cast over the plain, ordinary woman's figure.

"Why aren't you following quickly? Do you want me to invite the two of you?!" Aunt Qiao rolled her eyes at their surprised gazes and said coldly.

***

Aunt Qiao led the two of them through the courtyard filled with rustic charm.

Finally, she stopped in front of a main room located in the furthest corner of the courtyard and opened the door. The room was very dark.

A faint, lingering fragrance of sandalwood drifted out.

Right in the center of the room sat a shrine of unidentifiable style. Inside the shrine, there were no deities or Buddhas, but only an unassuming small purple clay jar.

Aunt Qiao raised her chin, motioning for Yang Siguang to step forward and kneel before the shrine.

The light in the room was extremely dim, and though two electronic candles were lit in front of the shrine, their shadows appeared much denser than anywhere else.

As Yang Siguang knelt there, his figure looked all the more delicate and minuscule, as if he could be dragged into the depths by some restless entities lurking within the shadows and devoured entirely.

"What are you dazing for? And you!"

Just as Li Bo was staring blankly at Yang Siguang's back, Aunt Qiao gave a fierce slap to his back.

"What's wrong? Do you think the stuff clinging to you doesn't need to be dealt with? That ghost aura is almost choking people, seriously—"

The woman glared at Li Bo in annoyance, muttering incessantly under her breath.

"You men... even if you're looking for a partner, you need to stay alive to actually be with them... I honestly don't know what kind of bad karma I accumulated to get tangled up with you little debt-collector. I told your birth mother back then not to send you to the Li family. What good is towering wealth in that rotten place? No matter how wealthy you are, you have to stay alive to spend it, right?! That place is nothing more than a den of evil ghosts... Back then, I consulted the immortals and calculated it for you; everyone said you'd die if you went there, but your mother just wouldn't listen!... After all the trouble of guarding you until your current age, I thought I could finally breathe a sigh of relief, and now this trouble is waiting for me here... If it weren't for your mother, who in the world would dare take on this damn mess..."