As soon as I heard that Lin Xia had gone missing, I remembered the person I had seen this morning. I had a strange and unlucky premonition. “When did he go missing?”

Lin Qiusheng stuttered. “I can’t explain through the phone. Could you come to my house to talk?”

To not let him figure out that I had followed Xiao Zhao yesterday, I even asked him the address. When the call ended, I grabbed my bag full of magic tools I had prepared and departed.

“Hey, wait, I’m going with you!” Li Mazi called.

“No need. I’m going there to check the situation. You should stay with Ru Xue and watch my shop!”

When I arrived at the neighborhood entrance, I saw Xiao Zhao waiting for me. She was excited to see me and walked forward to welcome me. She took me to an apartment building and led me to the fourteenth floor.

It was just one night, and I found that Lin Qiusheng was looking even worse than yesterday. He looked like a sick person in the last phase of cancer.

When he saw me, he looked dispirited. “I shouldn’t have hidden things from you.”

I gave him a faint smile and asked, “About your loss of taste?”

He was surprised and shot me a glance. “How did you know that?”

Before I could answer, he continued in a self-mocking tone, “Of course, it would be strange that you didn’t know. There are so many stories on the Internet. You can just use Baidu to search, and you’ll get thousands of posts…”

I didn’t continue this topic and asked directly, “Can you tell me about Lin Xia?”

Lin Qiusheng sighed. “I’m sure my son’s gone missing because of that thing!”

Then, Lin Qiusheng told me the truth. A week ago, he had bought an air-dried pinky phalanx. After he got the phalanx, he recognized that his sense of taste had recovered. Moreover, his tasting ability was improved by a notch. The only problem was that he couldn’t control his eating desire. He always wanted to eat.

For his career, he didn’t want to tell me about this otherworldly item. Unfortunately, Lin Xia stole the phalanx and disappeared. As he was worried that Lin Xia would be affected, and that he would eat non-stop, he wanted me to find him as soon as possible.

This morning, I was able to call Lin Xia successfully. “Mr. Lin, have you tried to call Lin Xia?”

Lin Qiusheng looked embarrassed. “My son called me. He asked me to cooperate with you to solve this. Otherwise, he said he would leave the house and not accept me as his father.”

I cheered up after listening to him. It was no wonder Lin Qiusheng suddenly changed. It turned out his son had forced him.

I called Lin Xia. “Lin Xia, your father told me the truth. You should come home now.”

“Master, help me! I’m in the small park of the apartment building…” Lin Xia coughed as he tried to talk to me.

I sprang up and rushed out. Lin Qiusheng and Xiao Zhao followed behind me. When I got downstairs, I recognized that I didn’t know where the park in this neighborhood was. I had to turn and ask Lin Qiusheng.

He immediately led the way. A few minutes later, we found Lin Xia at a bench in the park. His tummy looked so round it could burst in the next second.

The bench was covered with bags of chocolates, chips, cokes, instant noodles, and more. Empty wrappers and bags of junk food littered under the bench. It was hard to imagine how he was able to stuff all of those things into his stomach.

When he saw us, he burst out crying for help while continuing to shove chips into his mouth.

I stormed toward him and hit his forehead with the back of my hand. He lost consciousness immediately. The forehead was where a person’s Heavenly Temple was located, which represented their fate and fortune. Smacking his forehead could help to temporarily block the evil energy. However, this method couldn’t be used often because the back of the hand could smack the fortune out of someone. A person’s luck was limited. If we did that too often, the fortune of that person would gradually reduce.

Lin Qiusheng lifted Lin Xia and ran to the hospital. Looking at his son’s round stomach, the man’s eyes turned red.

I hadn’t expected that Lin Xia would use this method to force Lin Qiusheng to give up. More or less, I respected the young man, but I didn’t feel eased seeing his ballooned belly. If I had been more careful while looking for him this morning, he wouldn’t have been in this horrible situation.

He was taken to the hospital and had his colon cleansed. Afterward, Lin Xia woke up. His face looked ashen. Lying feebly on the bed, he didn’t forget to implore me to save his father.

I now remembered that Lin Qiusheng had said that Lin Xia had taken the phalanx. “Lin Xia, give me the phalanx.”

The young man checked his pocket, but the piece of bone was gone.

I was a little angry and said, “Why didn’t you give it to me yesterday when you had it? See what you’ve done?”

Lin Xia blushed. “I wanted to bring it to you. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t help it. I had a strong urge to rush to a convenience store and buy a big bunch of snacks. I sat in the park and ate the whole night…”

I couldn’t blame Lin Xia. That damn phalanx had controlled him. I comforted him as he had started to blame himself. “You need to rest.” Then, I left his patient room.

However, as soon as I left the room, I felt that something was wrong. The corridor outside felt much warmer than his patient room.

I went into the room again. Indeed, the patient’s room was dark and cold. I hadn’t recognized it earlier since the hospital always had thicker Yin energy than other places, but it seemed that thing was still in the room.

“Oh, Master Zhang, why did you come back?” Lin Xia was surprised.

I signaled at him not to talk. I took out my compass and started to search. The compass hand shook hard for a while then stopped. I lifted my head to follow the hand’s direction. It was in Lin Xia’s bed.

“Get off the bed,” I mouthed. As soon as he stepped away from the bed, I lashed the Sirius Whip on the bed. A horrible shrill arose. The blanket suddenly swelled up and a piece of phalanx flew out with a sharp hiss. It wanted to escape.

I immediately followed it. The phalanx only chose dark and cold places. Its speed was so fast, and as it was daylight, I couldn’t invite a spirit around to carry me. Feeling helpless, I had to depend on my legs.

After a while, the bone took a turn. As soon as I followed its turn, I saw it flying downstairs. I now recognized an issue. Although the bone was flying fast, it had never ditched me behind. It seemed the bone was deliberately waiting for me.

I was frightened. Has this thing already set up a trap for me?

However, as I had come this far and it was hard to force the thing to show up, I wouldn’t let it run away. As soon as this thought popped up in my head, I found that the Yin energy around me was much heavier. I halted and found that I had inadvertently reached the morgue of the hospital!

The morgue had never been under the sunlight. It was the place where the dead temporarily stayed. This place had the thickest Yin energy in the entire hospital. When people go to the morgue, they should bring something that has strong Yang energy. When they go home, they should brush the dust before entering the house, and they should take a shower with hot water. Otherwise, they would likely carry foul things with them and to their houses.

Suddenly, the phalanx shook to the left then to the right, flying over my head. As soon as I turned around to chase after it, all the lights in the morgue switched off.

Without the light, the Yin energy in the morgue grew thicker. The cold wind went through my clothes and seeped into my pores. I shuddered. I held the Sirius Whip tightly in my hand. At this moment, pairs of green-glowing eyes gazed at me from the dark corners.

God damn it! I messed up this time!

My heart sank to the bottom. I put the Sirius Whip away and took out the Yin and Yang Umbrella.

Ghosts approached me as they crept through darkness. I stabbed the Yin and Yang Umbrella at the ghosts that came near me. As soon as the Yin and Yang Umbrella touched them, they screamed and turned into ashes.

It wasn’t hard to deal with these ghosts. However, there were so many of them. If things continued like this, my strength would be drained soon, and those ghosts would take the chance to swallow me. Thus, I needed to attack fast and win fast!

I took a deep breath and spun the Yin and Yang Umbrella faster. Instantly, a circle of ghosts nearest to me turned into ashes. I took this short chance to take out a Yang Concealing Talisman from my bag. Those ghosts used human Yang energy to target people. If I covered my Yang energy, they wouldn’t be able to sense me. Once their target was gone, they couldn’t attack anymore. With empty eyes, they started to search around the morgue.

I exhaled. I cautiously moved and avoided the ghosts that constantly drifted by me. I headed to the door of the morgue. Along the way, I had touched some ghosts, but the Yin and Yang Umbrella had helped me escape the danger. Eventually, I got out of the morgue. Wiping the sweat on my forehead, my fluttering heart finally relaxed. Due to this delay, the pinky bone had fled. I closed my Yin and Yang Umbrella and returned to Lin Xia’s room.

“How is it going?” Lin Xia looked happy when he saw that I had returned.

“That phalanx isn’t simple to deal with. However, I saw through its trick.” I shook my head.

Lin Qiusheng entered the room. When he saw me, he heaved a sigh of relief. I found it weird.

“My father went out to look for you as he was afraid that you were in trouble,” Lin Xia explained.

I sat on a chair and rested. “Mr. Lin, how did you get such a menacing otherworldly item?”

Without someone in this business, normal people would find it hard to access an otherworldly item.