Another week passed, and the Lantern Festival came to an end. After a long hospitalization, Chen Yang’s doctor finalized the date of his discharge. Classes at the Imperial Capital University would commence the next day, but Lou Ming, who had been sleeping for more than half a month, still did not wake up.
“Soon, I guess in just a couple of days.” Because of Lou Ming’s delay in waking up, Elder Wu had been to the courtyard in the past days to check on him.
Did that mean he was going to wake up soon? Master Mao and Minister Lou heard the words and immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
“Master Wu, the magical tools I asked people to find have been sent here. Please see if they can be used.” Minister Lou had people search for magical tools for most of the month, and they were just sent over last night.
“Hmm.” Elder Wu nodded and followed Minister Lou and Master Mao, leaving the room toward the first floor.
Once they left, Chen Yu was the only one left in the room. Within the period where Lou Ming was in a coma, Chen Yu would visit him every day; sometimes only for a while, and sometimes for an hour.
Recently, because Lou Ming might wake up at any time, Chen Yu stayed in the room all day, wanting Lou Ming to see her as soon as he opened his eyes.
Chen Yu propped up her chin on her hands and carefully examined the unconscious Lou Ming. The longer she looked, the more she felt that her Third Brother was indeed better looking than all the good-looking boys/men she had ever seen. He was truly worthy of attracting her fancy.
Third Brother wasn’t only handsome, but also very smart. He had books everywhere at home. Chen Yu’s eyes swept over several books at Lou Ming’s bedside table. They were probably Lou Ming’s reading materials before going to bed. Pricked by curiosity, Chen Yu took one, flipped the pages, and found that it was a collection of modern poetry. Believing that this was Lou Ming’s favorite book, she also started reading it with relish.
In the living room on the first floor, six magic tools were placed in sequence, four of which were attack-type peach wooden swords, the fifth was a compass, and the sixth was a jade pendant.
Elder Wu’s gaze wandered past the six magic weapons disinterestedly. His eyes stopped on the jade pendant, and he said, “This alone is barely usable.”
“Only one can be used?” Minister Lou had searched all of these six magic weapons and bought them back at sky-high prices. Unexpectedly, only one could be used.
“As I said before, the evil spirit in Lou Ming’s body is extraordinary and requires an extremely high grade magical tool. Moreover, this jade pendant isn’t the top of the line. It’s just barely usable.” Elder Wu explained, “As for the other six, if they were forcibly used to store evil qi, they would probably shatter on the spot.”
“Is this enough?” When minister Lou asked this sentence, he was not confident enough.
“Not at all!” Sure enough, Elder Wu shook his head and said, “Although I don’t know how much of the evil qi within Lou Ming’s soul can be separated, it’s better for you to prepare more magic tools than to be without magic tools to carry the separated evil qi when the time comes.”
Minister Lou frowned and replied, “Okay, I know. I will let the people underneath to search for more.”
“Minister Lou, you shouldn’t be too anxious. Magical tools are essentially hard to find,” Master Mao said, “The Metaphysics shop has just stocked up a few pieces of good grade magical tools. I have talked to them in advance and asked them to send the tools directly to me. I think they’ll be here by tomorrow. What’s more, their quality is better than this jade pendant.”
“That’s great.” Minister Lou was overjoyed when he heard such good news.
Elder Wu also nodded at the news. He turned to Assistant He Qi nearby and asked, “Where is the hairpin?”
Elder Wu took the hairpin back and studied it for a day, after which he found that the hairpin’s aura was gone. Hence, on the second day, he had Chen Yu bring it back to the Lou family’s small courtyard.
“Miss Chen Yu said that the hairpin needs sufficient spiritual qi, so we placed it in the formation eye. I’ll go and fetch it real quick,” He Qi said. He turned around and headed outside the living room. The eye of the Spirit Gathering Formation in the Lou’s small courtyard was located on the edge of the rockery outside the living room.
In a short while, He Qi came in with a red sandalwood box and respectfully handed it to Elder Wu.
Elder Wu raised his hand and opened the box, revealing the dark hairpin inside. The design of the hairpin was very simple with only a pearl at the tip. The dark hairpin body was made of unknown material, but the Pearl-like adornment at the tip of the hairpin had become colorful after being nourished by spirit qi. The colorful spiritual light that day probably came from this hairpin.
“This spiritual artifact can also be used to separate Lou Ming’s evil spirit,” Master Mao blurted out when he saw the hairpin.
“This spiritual artifact can naturally be used, but…” said Elder Wu, “It’s also the only thing that can purify Lou Ming’s evil qi. Are you sure you want to use it to separate his evil qi?”
When Elder Wu reminded Master Mao of this, he immediately shook his head. The spiritual artifact could naturally be used to separate Lou Ming’s evil qi, but that would only reduce the evil qi in Lou Ming’s body, not completely solve it. Keeping this spiritual artifact and use it to purify evil qi whenever Lou Ming’s evil spirit rioted would be more valuable than using it to separate his evil qi.
After making sure that the spirit qi inside the hairpin had recovered abundantly, Elder Wu put the hairpin back into the box and handed it to He Qi and said, “Keep it stored. It’ll be useful when separating evil qi.”
“?” Master Mao looked at Elder Wu in confusion. Didn’t you just say that it was best not to use it to store evil qi?
“To prevent accidents,” Elder Wu clarified.
Hearing the word accident, the expression of the other three people present all drastically changed. When Elder Wu had first suggested separating evil qi to them, he expressly stated that the success rate wasn’t 100%, and there might be accidents. It was just that they had all selectively ignored this possibility.
He Qi took the wooden box somberly, and then returned the hairpin in the eye of the formation.
Lou Ming’s bedroom faced south and was wonderfully positioned. In the early morning, the sun shone directly on the bed through the window, but it was nearing noon, and the sunlight had retreated to the corner of the wall and was about to withdraw from the room. Nonetheless, the bedroom with the curtains drawn was obviously too bright even with the absence of direct sunlight.
Especially for a person who had been sleeping for half a month; his eyes merely opened a slit, and then closed again, stimulated by the sunlight.
Lou Ming instinctively turned sideways, so that his back would face the light. When he opened his eyes again, he found the poetry book he had placed on his bedside table, and the white slender fingertips on the light blue cover of the book.
It’s Shishi. She’s alright!
In a split second, Lou Ming calmed down, and a faint smile unconsciously crept through the corners of his mouth.