Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Xie Qingfeng wasn’t surprised to see the woman who stopped him. He had sensed a slight change in her facial features when she overheard his conversation with Hao Jixin.

It indicated that she had been contemplating asking him to help her son as well.

The woman, distressed since her son's incident, had been sleep-deprived and dazed, but she had a strong impression of the young man she had seen a few times.

She remembered him from the water room incident when he had warned her, preventing a scald. Clearly, he was kind-hearted.

She had accidentally overheard his conversation with a friend earlier, not intentionally eavesdropping.

But what she heard was so shocking that she forgot to leave, and by the time the conversation ended, she was utterly astonished.

But at the same time, Mrs. Li realized retrospectively that there was something strange about her son's condition before and after falling ill.

She hadn't thought much about it until now, but their conversation had opened up her concerns, making her restless and ultimately leading her to seek help.

"Excuse me, sir, I accidentally overheard your conversation earlier, mentioning you're a master. Could you please help my son?" Mrs. Li asked timidly, her voice trembling but resolute, tucking a stray strand of graying hair behind her ear, too embarrassed to meet Xie Qingfeng’s gaze.

Xie Qingfeng looked at her weary face: "I charge a high fee."

Mrs. Li's eyes lit up with hope, "Of course, of course." Did this mean the master agreed to help?

Without further discussion, Xie Qingfeng followed Mrs. Li to her son's room, 1507.

It was just one room away from his foster father’s.

Entering the ward, the other patients' relatives looked up curiously.

Mrs. Li, focused solely on her son, didn’t notice their stares and nervously led Xie Qingfeng to the bed at the far end. She drew back the curtain, revealing a young man lying on the bed, looking frail and gaunt.

Xie Qingfeng silently observed the young man’s face, confirming his earlier suspicions.

The young man seemed to be under a life-threatening curse.

Xie Qingfeng had found Mrs. Li's facial features unusual during their first encounter. Her face didn’t show the traits of a woman who had lost a child early in life, yet her later years were marked by the absence of children.

It suggested someone had tampered with her son's fate, leading to this peculiar situation.

As the curse was still in progress, it was reflected in Mrs. Li’s face, but once fully enacted, her features would change completely.

Even if he encountered her later, it wouldn’t be apparent just from her facial features.

Mrs. Li kept glancing nervously at Xie Qingfeng, growing more anxious by his serious demeanor, fearing this last hope might be in vain.

She was truly out of options. The doctors had said her son was physically fine, but he wouldn’t wake up, growing weaker day by day.

Recently, his brainwaves had even ceased temporarily during examinations, necessitating several emergency interventions. The doctors couldn’t find the cause and had advised her to prepare for the worst.

"How could my child, who was perfectly healthy just a month ago, suddenly end up like this?"

Sensing the gazes of others, Xie Qingfeng drew the curtain closed and spoke softly, "He's been cursed with a life-threatening spell."

"What, what?" Mrs. Li's eyes widened in shock. She hadn't heard of such a curse, but she understood the implication of 'life-threatening.' Her eyes reddened with tears, "How can we deal with this? Why would he be cursed out of nowhere? Master, is there any hope? I’m willing to pay whatever it costs!"

As she was about to kneel to Xie Qingfeng in desperation, he stopped her with an arm, "Money solves problems. It'll cost 9998 to resolve."

Hearing that it could be resolved, Mrs. Li didn’t care about the amount, which was far less than she expected. She nodded repeatedly, afraid Xie Qingfeng might change his mind, and hurried to transfer the money.

Xie Qingfeng, unhesitating, presented his QR code for the transaction.

The sound of the transaction alert echoed in the room, silencing the previously whispering crowd outside, creating an unusually eerie atmosphere.

Xie Qingfeng promptly silenced the notification tone.

Mrs. Li, focused entirely on her son, didn't notice the strange atmosphere in the room.

Xie Qingfeng, indifferent to the surroundings, having received the payment, channeled the remaining spiritual energy into his fingertips. He approached the young man's bed and drew a symbol to counter the curse, finally imprinting the unseen mark directly into the young man's crown.

Almost immediately, a golden glyph transformed into a stream of light, penetrating the young man's forehead, devouring the dark curse mark on his brow completely.

A drop of black blood seeped from his brow, sliding down his nose, leaving a distinct trace.

Mrs. Li watched the entire process anxiously, not daring to interfere even at the sight of blood, for fear of disturbing the master.

Xie Qingfeng withdrew his hand and turned, "It's done. He should wake up soon. As for who cast the curse, you’ll know by looking for someone suddenly falling gravely ill around him; that's the curse's backlash."

Mrs. Li thanked him profusely, her eyes red and at a loss for words.

Xie Qingfeng didn't linger, stepping aside to let Mrs. Li check on her son. He then turned and lifted the curtain, noticing the nearby family members of other patients scattering and looking around aimlessly.

Xie Qingfeng paid no mind to their reactions and walked out, declining Mrs. Li’s offer to escort him.

Mrs. Li, still concerned about her son, didn’t insist on following him.

However, as soon as Xie Qingfeng left the room, the other patients' relatives immediately surrounded Mrs. Li, bombarding her with questions, "Mrs. Li, you weren't scammed, were you? Who is that young man, and why did you transfer money to him?"

"Yeah, yeah, these young people today, they look decent but are so deceitful, their tricks are endless..."

Mrs. Li quickly wiped her eyes and explained, "No, that's not what I meant, I..."

Before Mrs. Li could finish speaking, she suddenly froze, her eyes growing wider, shifting from initial astonishment to tears streaming down her face.

The others, following her gaze, were stunned to see a young man, who had been lying on a distant hospital bed for a long time, drop an arm over the side. His eyes were open as if trying to call out to someone. Meeting everyone's eyes, he managed a weak smile.

The group was dumbfounded: "Damn…"

After leaving the hospital room, Xie Qingfeng didn’t go straight back to his foster father's side. Instead, he headed to the end of the corridor and entered the small treasury in his mind.

The first time he saved his adoptive father, he used a jade cabbage, fearing his spiritual power wouldn't be sufficient, and absorbed all the spiritual energy within it.

This turned the jade cabbage into powder.

It reminded him of before his death, when most of the jade in the true treasury of the palace had been drained of spiritual energy by him, likely ending up similarly worthless, if not turned to powder, then just becoming useless jade.

This time, Xie Qingfeng had used a jade thumb ring on impulse, not realizing until it was almost too late that it was a favored trinket of the young emperor.

Instinctively, he left a bit of spiritual energy, preventing the ring from turning to powder.

But at the time, it wasn't convenient to examine it in the hospital room, so he only took a closer look now and felt relieved that the ring hadn't turned to powder.

Although the young emperor could no longer access these items, and even the treasures in the ancient treasury were ruined, it was still worth keeping them as tokens. If he found similar jade in the modern world, he planned to buy it to replace what was lost.

Xie Qingfeng believed the young emperor was fond of this jade thumb ring as he had seen him wear it a few times, which was rare for the young emperor to wear jade ornaments.

Each time the young emperor wore the jade ring and he saw it, along with his particular attention to objects rich in spiritual energy, it was hard not to remember.

After ensuring the jade ring was still intact, Xie Qingfeng left the small treasury and returned to his adoptive father's hospital room.

***

The Great Jing Dynasty's Imperial Palace.

Near the National Grandmaster’s Palace, the crimson door of the small treasury was tightly shut. Under the corridor outside knelt a group of palace servants, led by a senior eunuch whose forehead dripped with cold sweat.

Despite the summer heat outside, his heart sank lower and lower.

Ever since the emperor rushed back from the frontier two days ago, he has secluded himself in this small treasury, not even meeting the empress dowager who visited several times.

Eventually, the empress dowager had no choice but to instruct them to guard the area and report immediately if there was any movement inside.

The chief eunuch speculated that the Emperor's current behavior might be due to the National Master's death.

Although aware that the Emperor would be furious about the National Master's incident, given the latter's high cultivation and significant role in the prosperity of the Grand Jing Dynasty, the chief eunuch hadn't expected the Emperor to seclude himself, refraining from food and drink, for so long.

The scene witnessed not long ago had left the chief eunuch feeling uneasy.

He had always thought that the Emperor and the National Master were not close, perhaps even at odds.

This assumption stemmed from the fact that whenever the National Master came for lectures, the Emperor would purposely invite him to stay for meals.

Ironically, the meals served were mostly meat dishes.

However, everyone in the Grand Jing Dynasty knew that the National Teacher and his predecessor had been vegetarians since childhood, abstaining from meat and fish.

This led the head eunuch to suspect that the emperor’s orders might have been intentional.

But now, the eunuch harbored a completely different conjecture.

Inside the small treasure vault, Emperor Jing was kneeling on a cushion, his back straight and motionless.

If not for his open eyes, one might think he had ceased breathing.

Sunlight filtered through the lattice windows, casting a mix of light and shadow throughout the vault.

The entire treasure vault was silent, making Emperor Jing feel as if he might blend into it and become part of the stillness.

His gaze was fixed on the empty space in front of him, scattered with the ashes of jade stones and others dislodged by the array, creating a disarray unlike when he had left.

The items that used to matter the most to him now held no allure.

After an indeterminate time, Emperor Jing’s half-lowered eyes suddenly moved. Initially just his dark pupils, but then his lifeless gaze sharply focused on a specific spot on the ground.

He stared intently for a long time before slowly lifting his stiff fingers, reaching out hesitantly, then stopping just above the spot.

He seemed lost and uncertain, recalling that a jade ring finger had been there just moments ago. Now, it was gone.