Chapter 57: The Yin Hall Gathering (Part 2)

The moment the female lead sat down here, the eyes of the entire venue swept over from time to time.

Chen Jiu had originally wanted to casually dismiss the matter, but who would have thought that when her gaze swept across the other person’s facial features, she actually saw a bit of something.

Yu Wan saw her staring at her face, assuming she was once again captivated by her own beauty, so she smiled and tidied her temple hair, asking: “What’s on my face?”

“Have you dreamed of any unfamiliar people in the past few nights?” Chen Jiu leaned in closer, lowering her voice to ask.

This concerned a female celebrity’s private matters. She wouldn’t loudly publicize them either. She still had this bit of protective awareness.

Yu Wan looked at her in considerable shock, also lowering her voice in response: “How did you know? You calculated it? You haven’t even started looking yet?”

Chen Jiu inwardly scoffed. For such a small matter, one glance from her was eighty to ninety percent accurate. There was no need to exhaust herself with calculations like other practitioners. This was talent.

She continued: “Don’t ask about this for now. It’s not relevant. I only ask you, was it a strange man in the dream, not bad looking, you quite liked him, and even after waking up during the day you still remembered what he specifically looked like?”

Yu Wan nodded repeatedly, stunned and speechless, completely convinced. She placed both hands over her heart and asked: “How did you know? You calculated too accurately.” She said this while looking around, her gaze sweeping sharply in a circle.

Everyone uniformly withdrew their gazes, looking at the sky, looking at the ground, looking at their phones.

Yu Wan leaned close to Chen Jiu’s ear, whispering: “He is simply exactly my ideal type. But I don’t recall seeing this person in the industry. So I think he should be an ordinary person or some eighteen-line small unknown actor. I heard you are especially capable, so I wanted to ask you to calculate roughly what direction he is in. If you calculate it, I’ll give you a big red envelope. How about it?”

After saying this she retreated a bit, made a few bye-bye gestures, squeezed her eyes, her little appearance quite charming.

Chen Jiu secretly sighed, gesturing for her to extend her hand.

Yu Wan was very cooperative, opening her palm as instructed and extending it before Chen Jiu.

Chen Jiu extended her index finger, wrote a few strokes in her palm, then raised her eyes to observe Yu Wan’s expression. The latter indeed turned pale with shock, quickly withdrawing her hand, staring at Chen Jiu in astonishment, then repeatedly recalling the strokes just now, incredulously saying: “No… you’re saying he is…”

Dead?!

Chen Jiu nodded, instructing: “Get more sun exposure. This place has rather heavy yin and evil energy. In the past, quite a few things should have been buried here… Oh, and also, if he asks for your name or birthday in the dream, don’t answer. If he takes your hand asking you to go with him, you must refuse. Run if you need to, hit if you need to, curse if you need to. In short, don’t have too much entanglement with him. This is not your marriage fate. Remember this.”

Yu Wan momentarily felt somewhat dizzy and disoriented. She grabbed Chen Jiu’s arm, pressed her lips together, and said in a trembling voice: “I already… told him my name.”

“…” Chen Jiu slowly raised one eyebrow, saying: “Good.”

Yu Wan was about to cry: “Good what? What do I do? Save me, master, save me.”

Chen Jiu laughed despite herself, no longer frightening her. She took out a talisman from her bag: “Not difficult. Tonight before sleep, paste this talisman by your headboard, and he won’t dare come find you.”

Yu Wan received the talisman. The writing on it she couldn’t understand. But beyond this there was no other method. She might as well trust Chen Jiu once.

“But I can’t carry this thing everywhere with me, right?” Yu Wan furrowed her pretty brows, softly complaining: “Is there no way to completely cure it? So annoying, how did it get attached to me.”

Damn it, it was all because of this face that could topple kingdoms…

Yu Wan took out her small mirror, silently sighing, admiring her own reflection in sorrow.

Chen Jiu said: “Rest assured. Once this opera is finished performing, he naturally won’t come find you again.”

Yu Wan asked puzzledly: “What opera? Oh, you mean our movie? Then there’s still quite a while to film.”

At this moment Chen Ba came off set, sitting in the position beside his junior sister, flashing a fake smile at Yu Wan: “The director is looking for you.”

“Understood.” Yu Wan called her assistant over to touch up her makeup slightly, then blew a kiss toward Chen Jiu, got up, and walked with head held high to find the director.

Chen Ba unscrewed his water bottle cap, smiling: “I didn’t expect she and you could chat together. Truly surprising.”

“What’s wrong, are you rivals?” Chen Jiu sniffed out something different.

Chen Ba said: “Rivals is too strong a word. My status isn’t as high as hers. She’s a proper young lady, we’re grassroots出身. Can it be the same? We just don’t get along with each other.”

“Did you see it or not?” Chen Jiu asked.

Chen Ba hmmed: “That doesn’t concern me either. If I rush to remind her, she might instead blame me for having ulterior motives. Don’t you think?”

Chen Jiu thought about it and agreed. Yu Wan was clearly a spoiled young lady raised in luxury. Although not exactly unreasonable, she was definitely willful. If not for having just asked something of her, normally she probably wouldn’t be so easy to talk to.

“If I hadn’t invited you, the next person to have an incident would probably be her.” Chen Ba placed his teacup on the small table, raising his brows: “Doesn’t this also count as me having done my utmost?”

Chen Jiu glanced at him, neither confirming nor denying.

She had secretly measured the contributions of various senior brothers to the sect. Among them, Chen Ba was definitely the most stingy. He neither came in person nor sent money. He was clearly the one earning the most, yet his whole person seemed to have drilled into the eye of money. Calling him a miser was not an exaggeration.

Yes, plucking a bit of fur from an iron rooster was truly not easy.

“She said she wanted to give me a red envelope separately. I won’t split this with you.” Chen Jiu deliberately said.

Chen Ba narrowed his eyes, smiling: “That’s yours. How could senior brother fight with you over this money?”

Time quickly arrived at the latter half of the night. Everyone was on high alert, working hard to finish, afraid of following in the footsteps of whoever came before. No one wanted to be entangled by underworld things. How creepy.

Unfortunately, this segment was precisely the opera troupe on stage singing opera in drawn-out tones, with several paper figure props placed in the background.

“This segment tells of how, after the warlord spent heavily to build a new mansion, he invited a hall gathering to warm the house. First to drive away evil and protect the house, second to show off wealth and status.” Chen Ba served as commentary beside her.

Today his scenes were finished. Sitting here was purely to see what capabilities his junior sister had now. Several years apart, he was still quite curious.

Chen Jiu propped her chin, her fingers lightly tapping the side of her face a few times, asking: “Before this mansion was built, what was this place?”

“Not clear. Probably also an old mansion, right? Heard it was finally burned clean by a fire. But during wartime everywhere was chaotic. Burned by fire, bombed by artillery, all normal.” Chen Ba said: “But coincidentally, the script also writes the final segment. This mansion is also to be burned.”

Chen Jiu nodded, thinking it was indeed a coincidence.

Three in the morning. The crew could finally wrap.

Ren Dong saw that nothing had happened, got up delightedly to find Chen Jiu, chuckling: “Master Chen, look, the moment you came, those things simply didn’t dare show themselves. You’re truly divine! Want to go eat some late-night food together? If going, ride in my car?”

Chen Jiu waved her hand to decline: “All is well, that’s good.”

She looked around left and right, didn’t see Yu Wan. But soon a girl with glasses came over holding her phone. She claimed to be Yu Wan’s assistant, had Chen Jiu scan her QR code, and the reward money would be transferred by her.

The arrival notification sound quickly rang out. Twenty thousand.

Chen Jiu couldn’t help widening her eyes, but quickly recovered her calm, nonchalantly putting her phone back in her pocket, politely handing over a business card, saying: “If there are difficulties in this area in the future, contact anytime.”

The assistant accepted it, smiling and nodding, inwardly sighing that peers were easier to get along with.

Previously when their company found feng shui consultants for their artists, they were either full of pretentious airs or old-fashioned and fussy, muttering mysteriously for half a day, but when translated into human language not a single useful sentence came out. Master Chen’s efficiency in handling problems was high, and communication was relaxed.

But after waiting for people to leave almost completely, Chen Jiu also had no intention of leaving. Ren Dong had to foolishly sit and accompany her. Since they weren’t leaving, Chen Ba also wouldn’t leave.

Finally when they were getting drowsy, a staff member who had finished packing props came over unclearly and asked them: “A few of you, when leaving turn off the lights? The main switch is in this position…”

He turned and pointed. All the lights in the venue suddenly went dark. Only dim moonlight cast on the ground, faintly reflecting the faces of several people.

Now Ren Dong wasn’t sleepy at all. He jolted instantly awake. He forcefully wiped his face, stood up, and tried his best to calmly ask: “Power outage? Should we withdraw first?”

Several staff members repeatedly said yes, then without waiting for them, they slipped away as fast as oil on the soles of their feet, each one running faster than the last.

Chen Jiu and Chen Ba didn’t make a sound. Suddenly they both said at the same time: “It’s here.”

Ren Dong’s entire body stiffened. He saw the flower-dan opera costume worn by the supporting actress float into the air, then gracefully and delicately drift toward them. No head, no face, no hands, no feet. Yet it looked precisely as if someone were wearing it. In the deep of night, utterly creepy.

He was so frightened for a moment he couldn’t even scream, as if pinned in place by some mysterious force, unable to move.

If not for witnessing it with his own eyes, he normally wouldn’t be scared like this.

Chen Ba placed one hand on Ren Dong’s shoulder, softly calling him back to his senses.

Chen Jiu drew out her peach wood sword, flying it backward in a thrust. The sword tip struck squarely at the heart position of the costume. Everyone heard a faint scream, then the entire costume suddenly went limp, losing its supporting force, rustling as it fell back to the ground, returning to a normal pile.

“Whew!” Ren Dong suddenly recovered, fiercely gasping for a few breaths, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead, repeatedly thanking Chen Ba.

Chen Jiu stepped forward a few paces, crouching to pick up the costume on the ground. Besides some mud and dust, there was no other abnormal condition. It seemed after receiving her heavy blow, it knew it had encountered someone not to be trifled with, and wisely ran away.

“Why is your hand still so lacking in restraint?” Chen Ba was somewhat helpless.

Violent beating and killing was not advisable!