Even after a long time, the spirit stood still. I was afraid that the Spirit Congregating Formation would lose its power. I closed my eyes and lashed the whip at the location that had the thickest murderous aura!

“Argh!”

At the same time, Jiang Teng screamed painfully. The murderous energy around me vanished at that instant.

I recognized that it wasn’t anything good. I turned the power switch on and ran to Jiang Teng’s room. On the way, I saw the bodyguard rush out of his room. Together, we went to Jiang Teng’s room. We had to take in a deep breath when we saw what happened in the room. Jiang Teng was clutching his bleeding head. He was rolling on the ground.

“Hurry! Call the ambulance!” I shouted and went to the living room to grab the first aid box to bandage Jiang Teng’s forehead.

The ambulance came and took Jiang Teng to the hospital. As he was pushed into the emergency room, some policemen walked to me from the other end of the corridor. It turned out the hospital had called the police.

Fortunately, the leader of that police team was Old Wu, the man that had taken me to the Evidence Department earlier. He helped me out of this possible misunderstanding. Old Wu knew that I was investigating these cases, so he had come to confirm the incident. Afterward, he waited with me and the bodyguard.

I hadn’t seen the spirit’s face yet, and my client was almost killed. I swore I would solve this case. If not, I would take my signboard down!

The doctors tried their best to save Jiang Teng’s life, but he was still unconscious. The bodyguard and I swapped shifts to watch him in the patient room for one day and one night. He hadn’t woken up by the evening of the next day.

The bodyguard was worried. “Will the spirit come to the hospital?”

My eyes brightened at his words. The Yin energy in the hospital was thick, which facilitated the ghosts to come here. Moreover, the spirit didn’t succeed in killing Jiang Teng yesterday, so he would probably come again tonight to accomplish his mission. I pulled myself together and asked the bodyguard to move Jiang Teng to another room.

The bodyguard shook his head. “The doctor told me that before Mr. Chairman wakes up, he needs to stay in the ICU.”

I turned to see Jiang Teng. It was true that he shouldn’t stay in another patient room. I thought for a while. “Could you persuade the doctor to let me enter the room? I can wear scrubs or protective clothes.”

The bodyguard was hesitant. I frowned. “Unless you want his head to explode, you should go.”

The bodyguard immediately turned and headed to the Dean’s office. After a while, he returned with two sets of protective clothes. He gave me one and put on the other set of clothes.

I realized that he also wanted to accompany me. “Later, just wait aside and be quiet. Do not let the spirit find you.”

When we entered the ICU ward, the door immediately closed behind us. It felt like all the noise of the world outside was stopped behind that door.

I took out the Sacred Text of Daoism from my bag and put the book on Jiang Teng’s bed. I didn’t know the origin of the spirit, so I decided that it would be good to use the most common method to deal with it.

I taught the bodyguard a few verses of the sacred t that were easy to remember. “When you see anything wrong, just read the Sacred Text of Daoism.”

The bodyguard nodded. He brought a stool and sat by Jiang Teng’s bed. I opened the Yin and Yang Umbrella to shield the entrance to the room and held the Sirius Whip in my hand. I felt more confident now.

At around midnight, a cold wind suddenly twirled up from the floor of the room. I immediately pulled myself together and waited to see if the Yin and Yang Umbrella would react. However, the umbrella had hovered still for quite a long time without moving. I knew that if I delayed it, something bad would happen. I hurriedly screamed, “Read the text!”

The bodyguard responded well. He started to read the Sacred Text of Daoism. As his lips moved, the book on the bed suddenly glowed in gold light. The book’s halo then expanded and covered Jiang Teng and the bodyguard entirely. As soon as the gold light shrouded them, an iron whip tore the wind and hit the halo!

The halo shook under the impact. I worriedly looked at Jiang Teng, then exhaled in relief as the man didn’t react badly.

While I was feeling lucky that the Sacred Text of Daoism worked, the wind turned to hit me from above. My heart dropped at the moment.

Immediately, I jerked backward to avoid the attack. However,I was too slow and allowed the whip to hit my leg.

I thought my leg would be broken, but it was just a little numb. I became skeptical. That whip could smash people’s heads like a watermelon, but my leg just felt a tiny bit of pain. Did he deliberately show me mercy?

Soon, I stopped thinking about this idea. I took a handful of cinnabar powder and tried to sprinkle it on him. The spirit moved aside to dodge it.

I almost cried when I saw that the cinnabar powder worked! I finally found one thing that this spirit was afraid of. After cursing, I sprinkled the cinnabar again. I cheered up to see that the spirit smoked where the cinnabar hit him. I hurried to control the Yin and Yang Umbrella to cover him.

The Yin and Yang Umbrella spun fast and hovered above him. However, I found that the light from the Yin and Yang umbrella didn’t create any damage to the spirit.

He lifted his head to look at me. He smirked.

It was the first time I saw his face. He had chiseled facial features. His nose was straight with a high bridge, and his eyes were as bright as the early morning stars. His beard also gave touches of natural righteousness to him. He looked familiar.

I was somewhat irritated, so I crazily lashed my whip at him. However, he was able to dodge all of my attacks. When the Sirius Whip’s power was drained, the spirit gave me another cold smirk. In the next moment, he flashed and disappeared.

After he was gone, an image appeared in the back of my head. It was the stone stele I didn’t have the chance to observe in my dream!

The next morning, I asked the doctor, “Are there any famous attractions in this area?”

“Hmm, there’s nothing famous here. Ah, yes. There’s Di Village.”

“Di Village?” My head buzzed. I finally confirmed my guess. I borrowed the car from the bodyguard and wearily drove to Di Village. However, there was nothing in that place. I had to ask some locals and learned that the remains of the Di Village had been relocated to Tanghuai Park.

Tanghuai Park was just a few hundred meters away. I walked and arrived there in around ten minutes. From a far distance, I saw a big locust tree. People said that Di Renjie’s mother had planted it herself. There was a stone stele in the shade of the tree. It read, “Old Hometown of Duke Di of Liang.”

Gosh! The stone stele in my dream was the same as this one!

I walked along the small path in the park and soon, I saw the ancestral hall dedicated to Di Renjie. There was a bronze bust of Di Renjie planted outside the ancestral hall. At first glance, everything seemed normal.

“Was I wrong?” I wasn’t satisfied and continued walking.

Inside the ancestral hall was a smaller statue of Di Renjie holding a weapon. He was wearing a black official uniform from the Tang Dynasty. His statue looked majestic. When I saw the weapon in his hand, I took in a deep breath of cold air. This whip that was made of four different iron sections was the same as the one the spirit used.

In history, Di Renjie was an important courtier his whole life, and he built everything with his bare hands. Moreover, he was the Chancellor twice during the Tang Dynasty. While in his office, he always took care of the people and got rid of the corrupted officials. He helped Wu Zetian build a prosperous Tang Dynasty. Moreover, Di Renjie had a special talent. He was a god-like and righteous judge, which was rare during that time!

When he was in his office at the Court of Judicial Review, he spent a whole year solving many cases of injustice. There were as many as seventeen thousand people involved in the cases. After he solved the cases, none of the people complained about injustice. People then started addressing him as the “Amazing Detective Di Renjie.”

When foreigners read about Di Renjie’s stories, they were stunned. They called him the Sherlock Holmes of the East.

In legends, to facilitate Di Renjie when he solved the difficult cases, the former Emperor bestowed upon him a weapon called Kang Long Jian—the Dragon Neck Truncheon. It represented the emperor himself. With this weapon, Di Renjie could first beat the incapable ruler and second, hit the evil citizens!

Whether the legendary whip really existed or not, it was where the people in ancient times put their hopes. It was representative of Di Renjie’s upright and plainspoken image.

Since Kang Long Jian only hit the evil-doers, I understood why Di Renjie had always shown mercy to me after a few confrontations.