“He did say that, right? He just said something about people grabbing children?” Gloria asked.

“Yes, I think he did.” Sue nodded, having her eyes fixed on the detective.

“God dammit Sitch!” The detective turned his head and yelled, his arms and legs tensed again, and veins popped out of his forehead: “What the fuck is that so called ‘cause’ of yours? What are you talking about? Why are you protecting them!?”

“‘Cause?’” “Sitch?” Gyuu Park and Sue asked at the same time, though seemingly drawn by different keywords.

“No! No! You can’t die! You can’t! There are children still missing! Children!” The detective seemed to be getting more aggressive in his dream, and the wooden bedframe began to squeak again.

Gloria rushed over and jabbed the detective on his pressure points again. This time she used some more Qi - for one, she wanted to hold him down for a longer period of time, and for two, she wanted to try and see if her theory about their Qi being compatible was true.

“No - let me help - he seemed to have been poisoned.” Gyuu Park leaned over and took a look at the detective’s face: “Hitting his pressure points would only work temporarily. We needed to drive out the poison, or at least help him burn it off.”

“Poisoned? How?” Gloria looked Detective Marcus Cai’s face up and down: “I can’t see any signs. How did you tell?”

“His breathing patterns, and - of course, I as a clergyman can see things from a little bit of a different angle.” Gyuu Park let out an exhale and nodded at Gloria: “Do you have a knife or some other kind of sharp objects?”

“Behind you, on the shelf, the book with a thick black cover.” Gloria answered.

Gyuu Park turned, almost hitting Sue with his elbow, and found the book, the book was hollowed out, with a small dagger and two folded up paper talismans inside.

“Why do you keep this here?” Gyuu Park could not help but be amused: “You don’t have something under your pillow?”

“I do - it’s just bigger and not suitable for a precise operation.” Gloria chuckled.

“Where is he injured?” Gyuu Park asked, then fixed his eyes on the bandage on the detective’s waist area.

“The worst one is on the waist. There are some others but not as serious.”

“So that’s the most likely insertion point.” Gyuu Park nodded: “Do you have some spare gauze and bandages? We may need to undo it a bit. ”

“Do you know how to suture as well? ” Gloria instantly got what Gyuu Park was trying to do: “I don’t really know how to do it, and - the wound looks bad. And if you tried to push the poison out that way - ”

“No - not directly from the wound, that would be unwise.” Gyuu Park shook his head: “Just a few incisions. We just need to make sure it’s deep and thin.”

With Gloria and Sue’s help, Gyuu Park undid the bandage on the detective’s waist. The gauze was already soaked in blood, and there was a slightly disturbing foul smell from it - it must be the poison, being pushed out by the detective’s own Qi.

Gyuu Park then proceeded to poke a few small but deep cuts into the area surrounding the wound. Then he placed his fingers around these incisions, and pushed his Qi into the detective’s body. After a while, slowly but steadily, dark and pungent blood clots seeped out of these incisions. Gloria immediately wiped the blood clean, and when the bleeding stopped, put some fresh new gauze on it.

“Okay.” Gyuu Park took a deep breath: “Should be good now. With your Qi pressing onto his pressure points, his meridians should stay dormant for a while. He’s the practitioner of some kind of really Yang oriented mystic Kung Fu. His body will be able to heal soon. But he might be - groggy, thirsty and tired for a while. Maybe even a bit of a hangover.”

“What’s next?” Sue sighed, rubbing her temples: “I mean, if he’s doing good now, should we send him away?”

“I don’t know. Your call.” Gyuu Park turned to Gloria.

“... let’s keep him here for a while.” Gloria thought for about half a minute, then she decided: “I need to see if he would say something more. And - while we’re at it, we should go and check on the docks area if we get the chance. I don’t know what happened over there just yet, all I could tell was that there was a fight, a pretty serious one with several dead. Probably between some street gangs, and this detective here got caught in the middle of it.”

“Good idea. I think - let me go check it out.” Gyuu Park considered for a brief moment, then turned to Gloria and Sue: “You should stay here. And Gloria, I will do a puke test on myself before coming in. And here - ” He gave a small piece of dark red wooden coin to Gloria: “This is - ”

“This is a - an oiled blessed coin made of lightning-struck peachwood?” Sue recognized this coin immediately: “Where did you get that?”

With Sue’s reaction, Gloria also recognized it. To her knowledge, though seemingly simple on the surface, authentic oiled blessed coins were actually relatively difficult to make. They required good pieces of peachwood, redwood or any other kinds of wood that had good Yin-Yang balance with slight affinity to Yang; and the carved and polished wooden coins needed to be placed in clay jars with arcane symbols drawn on their exterior and drowned in tung oil. Then, the clay jars needed to be placed on altars or buried in blessed ground for prolonged periods of time, during which the maker needed to change the oil regularly. This was the normal process for normal wood materials that were in normal conditions, and for wood in special conditions, in this case peach wood struck by lightning, the maker of the coin needed to balance everything according to their evaluation of the materials. For the wood materials having been struck by lightning, they tended to contain a special kind of evil and spirit repelling energy and aura, but were much harder to properly handle.

“Yes, one out of the only two I have. And three out of a handful of batches I tried. So use wisely.” Gyuu Park chuckled: “You know how to use it - don’t burn it too fast.”