Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 29: Mountain Spirit (Part 2)

Records of the Halls of Ten Thousand Affairs: Chapter 29: Mountain Spirit (Part 2)

Hearing this, Yunshan quickly stopped her. He knew Chen Jiu’s temperament well. This little disciple sometimes acted not just without rules, but utterly lawless. “What do you plan to do?” Yunshan frowned. “You can’t make people spit out meat they’ve already eaten. Don’t act recklessly.” Chen Jiu crossed her arms, concentrating for a moment before saying, “Master, you must have heard that scream just now too. If we don’t go now, there will be even less chance later.” “Hmph, they might be running a long term business.” Yunshan said mockingly. Chen Jiu spoke bluntly, “How long can a business dealing with dead people last?” Yunshan shook his head. Chen Jiu looked at him suspiciously and asked, “The developers aren’t deliberately doing these heaven defying things, are they?” “Foolish.” Yunshan shook the fan in his hand, saying, “When a repairman comes to your door, does he fix things properly? He has to leave a hole, so when it breaks again later, the homeowner has no choice but to invite him back. That’s their long term business strategy.” Chen Jiu sneered, making a simple and crude judgment, “Just a bunch of thieves.” Yunshan laughed until he coughed a few times, saying, “Your master is just a lonely old man. How would I dare rush over and cut off someone’s money path?” “Old men are the best. Old men have magic resistance.” Chen Jiu said, about to haul her master up, “Quick quick quick, come with me.” Yunshan: “…” So having just finished paying respects to her master, Su Xiaoyu was already preparing to follow her master and senior sister on a mission. Chen Jiu turned back and whistled several times, but Chen Xiaoxuan wouldn’t come. She simply let her son go wild. The master disciple trio of three set off directly down the mountain. Passing the mountainside, Chen Jiu asked several hikers about what happened below. Sure enough, some warm hearted people gathered around. “I heard a cable car suddenly had an accident. The bottom cracked open, and a little boy just fell straight through!” “Yeah, talk about coincidence. The parents were sitting on either side, both in safe positions. Only the child was in the middle falling straight down. These parents were really careless, not holding onto him.” “Falling from such a height, how could there be any chance of survival?” “I heard the mother has already cried herself unconscious. The family came with the child’s memorial photo making a scene, demanding compensation from the person in charge.” “Hey, do you know that quite a few people have already died in this area… Have you heard? I’m just saying what I heard from others. I can’t guarantee if it’s true or false.” … Everyone contributed their pieces, assembling the general truth of the matter. Those who loved gossip all stopped to listen. People coming and going gathered to chat, and they actually chatted for nearly twenty minutes before finally dispersing reluctantly when the conversation grew dry. After hearing the descriptions, Chen Jiu and Su Xiaoyu exchanged a glance, both agreeing that this little boy was the one who had passed by them on the mountain elevator earlier. However, he and his parents clearly lacked safety awareness in this regard. No matter what transportation they took, they never stopped his habit of jumping around inside. This was probably one of the contributing factors to his death. Of course, more than just this party bore responsibility. Going down the mountain, Chen Jiu saw a large area cordoned off with police tape. She was a bit curious. This incident should have caused quite a stir this time. How would the scenic area suppress the news? To verify her suspicion, she opened a local short video app. Sure enough, she saw many related posts, even some pixelated on site videos. The trending topic “Qinghua Mountain Cable Car Accident” was gradually rising in popularity, seemingly on the verge of trending. But soon, invisible hands began making moves. Within a few hours, large numbers of related videos had been reported and taken down. The online outcry diminished significantly. This development made Chen Jiu start sighing and shaking her head like Yunshan, as if she too had become a white haired, wrinkled old man within just a few hours. “How about it? Still going to steal this business?” Yunshan asked from beside her, hands behind his back. Chen Jiu looked back at the mountain peak again. This was the place where she grew up. From afar it still stood majestically unmoving, but up close she always felt there was faint weeping. “Can mountains cry too?” she murmured. Su Xiaoyu held her hand and also heard this rhythm outside the range of human hearing, listening somewhat entranced. She didn’t know who was crying, but felt she should save it? Or them? Yunshan glared at the two of them, finally scolding Chen Jiu, “Still standing here wasting time!” Chen Jiu was stunned, then suddenly understood some key point. Taking both their hands, she said, “Let’s go! Find their person in charge to talk!” Before long, the three went directly to the scenic area visitor center. Chen Jiu had no intention of hiding anything, pushing Yunshan forward and saying he was the metaphysical master Master Yunshan, wanting to discuss feng shui survey cooperation with the manager. And indeed, Yunshan had a proper immortal demeanor. Stroking his beard, he really looked the part. The front desk girl, however, looked troubled, hesitating, “I’m sorry sir, ma’am, our scenic area just had an incident. The manager is still handling it.” “Eh, precisely because there was an incident, that’s why cooperation is needed.” Chen Jiu put on airs, saying, “It’s just that we came too late. If we had come yesterday, no one would have died today.” Yunshan cooperatively nodded once, still not saying a word. The front desk girl was a bit confused hearing this, but thinking about it, that did make sense. So she said please wait a moment and made a call on the landline. A few minutes later, the front desk led the three into an office. In the office sat the scenic area operations manager Liu Zhiyuan. He looked to be in his forties, with a severely receding hairline and a loosely tied tie. On the table before him were spread accident reports, surveillance screenshots, visitor lists, and several printed social media screenshots, covering the entire table. And on the sofa beside him sat the scenic area’s long term so called feng shui consultant, an old man about Yunshan’s age, wearing a gray jacket and a jade thumb ring. He didn’t look like a Taoist practitioner at all, more like a retired cadre. The moment they entered, this feng shui consultant clearly sensed the unusual aura on the three of them, their profound connection to the Dao. He instinctively frowned, intuitively feeling that these visitors came with ill intentions. Liu Zhiyuan was at his wit’s end, but seeing guests enter, he didn’t lose his manners. He stood up and extended his hand toward Yunshan, “Hello hello, you are Mr. Yunshan, right? My surname is Liu. This Mr. Zhao here is our scenic area’s long term feng shui consultant. He happens to be here today.” Yunshan was about to extend his hand when Chen Jiu pressed it down and helped him sit on the empty sofa. Liu Zhiyuan laughed dryly twice and withdrew his hand. Just then, the front desk girl brought in several cups of tea, resolving this brief awkwardness. This gesture was meant to put on airs, making Yunshan appear important. Chen Jiu and Su Xiaoyu stood on either side of Yunshan like left and right guardians, looking even more impressive. Yunshan raised a hand, pointing at the handwritten feng shui report on the table. Chen Jiu immediately understood and asked, “How much did you pay for this report?” Liu Zhiyuan was stunned for a moment, saying, “Uh… long term cooperation is on an annual fee basis.” Yunshan nodded again. Chen Jiu walked over to Liu Zhiyuan and said, “Excuse me, let me take a look.” Liu Zhiyuan was still in a dazed state, but there was nothing to hide about this. So he handed the paper document to Chen Jiu. Chen Jiu took it and flipped through two pages, quickly raising a mocking arc at the corner of her mouth, “This is called one glance feng shui. Look at the gate orientation, look at the mountain shape, say a few words like ‘heavy evil energy, place stone lions.’ Anyone who studied feng shui for three days could write this.” Old Zhao became somewhat agitated hearing this, but he couldn’t lose his composure in front of juniors. He just suppressed his temper and said coldly, “Little girl, what do you mean by that? I’ve been in this industry for twenty years.” “Twenty years?” Chen Jiu didn’t look at him, only at Liu Zhiyuan, shaking her head, saying, “Twenty years, and you don’t even know what’s hidden inside this mountain.” Hearing this, both old Zhao’s and Liu Zhiyuan’s expressions changed simultaneously. Liu Zhiyuan: “Hidden what?!” Chen Jiu placed the paper report back on the table, lightly tapping with her finger, “The support pillar of your cable car, did you have to drive its foundation three times before it went in?” Liu Zhiyuan: “…” Chen Jiu continued, “The first time you drove it down, the drill bit broke. The second time, halfway through, concrete couldn’t pour in, as if something below was blocking the opening. The third time you changed locations and barely managed to drive it in. Your engineering department should have records, right?” Liu Zhiyuan couldn’t help but look at old Zhao, “Master Zhao, this…” “This is a construction problem, not a feng shui problem.” Old Zhao said with a dark face. Hearing this, Yunshan laughed contemptuously, neither confirming nor denying. Chen Jiu continued to Liu Zhiyuan, “Manager Liu, have you ever posted talismans in your office?” “Yes, we have.” Liu Zhiyuan nodded repeatedly. By now, he was already subtly leaning toward this master disciple trio who had suddenly barged in. Whatever Chen Jiu asked, he answered. Chen Jiu asked, “Where were they posted?” “On the door frame.” Liu Zhiyuan gestured toward the doorway twice, “Right there.” “What kind of talisman?” Old Zhao quickly interjected, “House protection talisman, the universal kind.” Chen Jiu found it amusing, “You even posted them in the wrong position. Posting them there would block your wealth path, wouldn’t it? You thought you were blocking evil energy?” She turned to ask Liu Zhiyuan, “After you posted the talismans last year, did you have more minor accidents? It’s just that various construction projects indeed weren’t hindered anymore.” The flesh on Liu Zhiyuan’s face twitched. It was true. The situation improved slightly this year. It turned out the talisman on the door frame had become too worn, and some materialist leader who came for inspection had casually torn it off. He hadn’t really thought much about this before. Now that Chen Jiu pointed it out point by point, he couldn’t help but feel a chill down his spine. Old Zhao usually seemed to just look at orientations, place stone lions, and say a few words about “heavy evil energy.” He also never seemed to go deeper, at least not as deeply as this little girl who had just pointed out these shocking details right away. If this little girl was already so formidable, wouldn’t the master she was sitting with be even more powerful?