“Oh, very sweet, and has an interesting aftertaste, what is it made of?” Marcus chewed and swallowed the pickled jujube handed to him by Wuzui in a small bowl, then asked Master Liaoran.

 

“It’s all different kinds of very … interesting material.” Wuzui hesitated to answer, while slapping the young boy’s hand away.

 

“It’s a mixture of ginseng wine, the venom of cobra, toad and gecko, plus some rabbit feces, lotus blossoms and Lingen roots, with a bit of honey for taste. ” Master Liaoran smiled at Marcus and the young boy, who immediately retracted his hand: “Go meditate now Marcus, or you’re gonna risk hurting yourself.”

 

Marcus was about to frown and retch, but he quickly felt a rush of warm energy exploding from the lower center of his abdomen - his Dantian, the origin and of all the Qi in one’s body. This burst hit him while he was almost completely unprepared, and he had to immediately sit down and start meditating and directing the Qi like the master instructed or the sudden burst of Qi would damage his Dantian and meridians.

 

The jujube fruit was pickled with poisons and other kinds of unusual ingredients, yet there was no arguing that it absolutely worked. Marcus’ Qi was almost completely exhausted before he came, yet right now he felt the energy originating from his Dantian was almost as much as almost 60 to 70 percent of his total amount on his best day, so all he could do at this moment was to focus entirely on himself, on his own Qi circulation.

 

The Qi arose in Marcus’ Dantian was pure, raw but also gentle and balanced. It appeared fierce at first but was still just right for him to manage. As it coursed through Marcus’ meridians, it also seeped into his muscles, his bones and even his internal organs, fortifying and tempering them to help make him slightly stronger every second and every minute.

 

“What - what’s he doing?” The young boy asked.

 

“He’s meditating.” Wuzui explained: “Detective Cai is a mystic Kung Fu practitioner, which means he has Qi in his body. And the fruit we just gave him, while poisonous to us normal people, can warm up his body and help replenish his Qi. This, of course, should be kept secret.”

 

“But, doesn’t the city ban mystic Kung Fu?” The young boy asked.

 

“The city restricts it, but it’s a little different for - well, for different people.” Wuzui shrugged and sighed: “Promise me you’ll keep it a secret, okay? I’m sure you will learn about it and understand it some day. But the detective is a good person, and he sometimes… a good person needs to go unnoticed so that he could help the most people.”

 

“I don’t understand.” The boy nodded: “But I will not tell anyone. I promise.”

 

The sudden burst of Qi finally calmed down after a while. When Marcus opened his eyes again, he found that his clothes were soaked in sweat, there was steam coming out of his exposed skin, and his body felt quite a bit lighter.

 

“Here, detective. Have some food.” Wuzui handed Marcus two steamed buns: “You were out for quite a while. We let the kid go home just now. And if you’re still feeling okay, the master is ready to teach you what you want to learn.”

 

“I’m good. Thanks.” Marcus’ words were muffled by the buns he shoved in his mouth: “Let’s go.”

 

The method to ask the spirits questions was surprisingly simple, he did not even need any tools like Ouija boards or enchanted pens or special coins. All he needed was an incense burner, some incense sticks, a bowl of boiled sticky rice and something he could use to link to the spirits. Marcus had no such thing with him, until Master Liaoran told him to cut a small opening on one of the bruises on his body and let out a little bit of blood. “There should be some Yin energy left in your body. And with your Qi replenished to some extent but not fully burning it away, it could serve as an okay medium between you and the spirits, not just to the one that fought you but others in general. Of course, if you could find a better, more relevant medium it’d be much more beneficial.” This was what Master Liaoran told him.

 

It was already late at night, there was no bus at this time, nor would there be buses. So the only thing Marcus could do to head over to the Mud River Docks was to borrow an old bicycle and ride it there.

 

The bicycle was rickety and felt like it was about to collapse at any moment, not to mention the almost completely deflated tire making riding it a much tiresome process than it would normally be. Yet Marcus had to keep on going. 

 

His actual destination was not the docks itself, but some place close enough to it, with a certain amount of traffic going through, preferably a crossroads, but also with as few people around as possible. Luckily, he knew just the place - it was a small intersection between two small roads, neither one was wide enough for cars but both could allow the passage of small groups of people or one motorcycle.

 

Just like Master Liaoran taught him, he placed the bowl of now cold boiled sticky rice at the southeastern corner of the intersection, placed a single incense stick in it, a paper talisman with his blood from a bruise dripped on it tucked beneath the bowl, and lit the incense stick up. Then he snipped another incense stick, leaving only a very short burnable bud, lit it as well and placed it in the incense burner at the center of the intersection. Next would be the hard part - he had to maintain his body just over the burner with his hands supporting his body, and the tip of the incense stick pointing right at his chest like he was doing a plank of push up. 

 

When the short incense stick burned up, he had to get up and check on the rice. If the rice appeared blackened or moldy but not from the ashes of the burning incense, then he should suppress his Qi and eat the blackened rice. If not, he should put another shortened incense stick in the burner and try again.

 

Doing a plank over an incense burner in itself was nothing hard for Marcus. But after the first round, he went over to check the bowl of sticky rice. There was ash on the rice, but none of the grains were blackened.

 

So the second shortened incense stick in the burner it would need. Marcus went to check on the rice once again, there was more ash on the rice, but still the same - none of the grains were blackened at all. There was about a third of the incense stick left on the rice, which would be just right, because, as Master Liaoran told him, three tries was the maximum. It seemed the Yin energy left in his blood was probably all burned up, or it was just not strong or particular enough to attract the spirits around. Either way was not good news for Marcus.

 

With the final shortened incense stick, Marcus felt his heart was beating faster than usual when he went to check on the rice. This time, there appeared to be something dark on it. When he came closer, he could see that there was a small bite of rice that was blackened - not by ashes or ink, but seemed to be the result of something else, something changing it from the inside of every grain.

 

Marcus let out a sigh of relief, then he removed the rest of the incense stick from the rice, picked up the darkened rice, and swallowed it.

 

The night was chilly already, yet the rice was just extra cold, as if it was stored in a freezer. His Qi almost rushed into his stomach to protect him out of intuition, and he had to suppress it to prevent the chilliness from being burned away.

 

The moment he put down the bowl, he saw two young boys sitting in this corner. One of the boys was tall and missing an arm, his missing arm was nothing but a shadow, there were some egregious looking wounds and sores on his body, and he was eating something his only hand, while seemingly looking at Marcus with his eyes that were melted and partially covered by plumps of hair and melted skin. The other boy was wearing a red hoodie and used it to cover his face. He was also eating something from his hands, but looking at the ground.

 

“Well, two sticks of incense, as a gift and sign of apologies, for disturbing your peace.” Marcus frowned lightly, but still lit up two more incense sticks and stuck it onto the rice: “I’d like your help, if you’d be so kind as to aid me.”

 

Both the boys took a look at the incense sticks and seemed to have taken a deep breath at the same time to suck in the smoke, then they nodded at Marcus.

 

“Then please let me know: are there really people who are planning to set fire to the Mud River Docks during the food festival?”

 

The two boys did not even take a minute to “think” or “consider”. They just started nodding. 

 

“Okay, my gratitude. Here’s my next question.” Marcus nodded back with a sigh of relief: “Do you know where I can find things to stop them? Whether it’s sabotaging or exposing their plans, or just finding some of the people carrying out the plans to ask them for information?”

 

The two boys hesitated for a moment, then both pointed at the direction of the docks with their hands, then pointed both to the left. Marcus noticed that the boy in a red hoodie had a shorter left pinky, which looked like a broken stump.

 

“So, to the docks and go left?” Marcus took a look at the direction and nodded, then turned to the boys: “Thank you very much. And can you answer my final question? I’ll give you all of my incense sticks as thanks.”

 

The two boys hesitated for a short while, then nodded.

 

“These people planning this crime, are they the ones that hurt you?”

 

The two boys were stunned for a moment, then started nodding with almost lively passion. But before Marcus could sneak in a follow up, fear struck both of the boys at the same time, and they just disappeared into the thin air.

 

---

Apologies to readers who have tried to buy the book on Amazon:

The book seem to run into some trouble publishing to amazon stores. I've been contacting Amazon KDP nonstop these days but no one was able to help. I'll try to update if there's anything.

My apologies again.