Chapter 114: Residual Souls

When we arrived at Willow Garden, we saw some people in plain clothes asking the residents everywhere.
They should be looking for that missing man.
But unlike the people in the morning, this group of people had a spiritual light emanating from within their clothes.

Mo Qingyan’s expression changed, and she said in a low voice, “Those people are plainclothes police officers.”
“What are they doing here?”

“Plainclothes police?”
“So a case has been filed.”
“It seems someone has gone missing in this residential complex.”
“Before, it was his relatives who were looking for him, but now it seems the police are helping to find him,” I replied.

No wonder their clothes emanated spiritual light; it turned out they had artifacts hidden inside.
But I could tell they were not ordinary people through the artifacts.
‘How did you determine they were plainclothes police, Mo Qingyan?’ I wondered.

Perhaps they felt that four high school girls wouldn’t be involved in a missing person case, so the plainclothes police didn’t come to question us, or they simply hadn’t gotten to us yet.
They let us in directly.

Not long after entering the complex, Bai Yue suddenly stopped.
Mo Qingyan asked in confusion, “Yue’er, what’s wrong?”

“My life-bound Gu insect is restless.”
“It seems there’s something attracting it nearby,” Bai Yue said, and without waiting for our reply, she walked towards the complex’s garden on her own.

We could only follow her.
Soon, Bai Yue arrived at a large sea of roses.
The roses were an extremely vibrant red, as if they were about to drip blood.

Bai Yue opened her mouth, and a golden bee flew out, landing on the flowers and burrowing into a rose.
Bai Yue smiled and said, “It seems it really likes the flowers here.”

That bee was very special.
Its body was like it was made of pure gold, its surface reflecting a metallic luster.
Even its wings were golden.
And just looking at it made one’s vision blur and the world spin, a bit like the feeling of meeting the Yellow Great Immortal’s gaze.

“Your Soul-Stealing Bee has gotten stronger again?” Mo Qingyan’s expression changed as she asked.
She seemed to have sensed something as well.

“Mm, Sister Xia gave me a tube of her blood, and my Soul-Stealing Bee has finally advanced to the sixth grade.”
“I really have to thank Sister Xia,” Bai Yue said, looking at me very happily.

Previously, I had only let the Golden Bee Gu suck a drop of blood, and it had evolved from a second-grade Gu insect to a fourth-grade one.
But Bai Yue had used a whole tube of my blood to raise the Soul-Stealing Bee from the fifth grade to the sixth.
It seemed that the higher the grade of a Gu insect, the harder it was to advance.

Xiao Qing leaned over to me and said, “The Soul-Stealing Bee is Xiao Yue’s life-bound Gu insect.”
“The grade of the other Gu she can control cannot exceed that of her life-bound Gu insect, otherwise she would be easily susceptible to a backlash.”
“Therefore, every grade increase for her life-bound Gu is a huge improvement for Xiao Yue.”

“That’s not entirely accurate,” Bai Yue heard our conversation and added, “Strictly speaking, even being at the same grade is not advisable.”
“As long as the life-bound Gu insect cannot suppress the other Gu, it’s very easy to suffer a backlash.”
“My life-bound Gu insect has only just advanced, and the other Gu I have now are no higher than the fourth grade.”

I understood why she had been so shocked when she saw the Golden Bee Gu advance to the fourth grade.
It turned out that at that time, besides her life-bound Gu insect, the strongest Gu she had was only a fourth-grade one.
Mine had directly advanced to her highest grade.

“My Golden Bee Gu also came to this sea of roses before.”
“It also collected honey here for a while before returning,” I said casually.

But Bai Yue looked at me and asked in a very subtle tone, “Sister Xia, do you think they are collecting honey?”
“They are not bees.”

“Huh? If not collecting honey, then what are they doing?”
“At most, they’re just eating pollen, right?” I was stunned for a moment.
Thinking about it carefully, it seemed that the Golden Bee Gu had indeed never lingered in other flower bushes, only showing a special liking for the roses here.
And it was a carnivore!

“It’s not wrong to say they’re eating pollen, but what they are really eating are the residual souls of the dead.”
“These roses contain very rich residual souls, which is why they attract Gu insects to feed on them.”
“This allows them to advance faster,” Bai Yue said.

“Residual souls?”
“Why are there residual souls in the roses?” I asked in surprise.
Residual souls?
I had seen this term in the book on the ghost-raising technique.
Those who raised ghosts used steamed buns to dip in blood, and stirred a lake where someone had drowned with poplar wood, all to collect residual souls.

“Do you even need to ask?”
“There’s a dead person in this garden, and I’m afraid there’s more than one.”
“They are probably buried right here.”
“No wonder the plainclothes police are here to investigate,” Mo Qingyan replied.

My hands and feet instantly turned cold.
I had chosen this place precisely because there had been a murder and haunting in another building.
Now, to learn that there were also dead people in this complex, I was speechless.

“We should leave quickly.”
“Let’s not stay here for too long.”
“If the plainclothes police discover that there’s a problem with this flowerbed, they’ll probably question everyone around here,” Mo Qingyan looked around and suggested that we leave first.

“Then let’s go back to my place first,” I said.
The thought of a murder case nearby made me feel unwell all over.

No one objected.
Bai Yue left the Soul-Stealing Bee in the flower bushes to continue absorbing the residual souls, saying that it would follow them on its own later.

While waiting for the elevator in Building Four, Mo Qingyan asked Bai Yue again, “Yue’er, what do you think of the Feng Shui of this Willow Cypress Garden?”

“I’m a spirit medium, not a Feng Shui master, how would I know how to read Feng Shui?” Bai Yue retorted.
But she paused for a moment and said, “Logically speaking, for roses to grow so vigorously by relying on human corpses as fertilizer, it should be a place of yin.”
“But there doesn’t seem to be any yin energy here at all.”
“Even my Gu insects feel that this environment is not comfortable.”

I suddenly remembered something and said, “There seems to be an old lady in this building, living on the tenth floor.”
“She has a bunch of Buddhist artifacts on her, and at night, this building emits a strong Buddhist light.”
“Could it be that the Buddhist light has forcibly dispelled the yin and ominous aura?”

The three girls were stunned.
As they rode the elevator, they felt the changes in the surrounding aura.
When the elevator reached the tenth floor, Mo Qingyan nodded and said, “I can indeed feel it.”
“Such a pure aura.”
“This kind of Buddhist light could indeed dispel all the accumulated yin energy.”

“Senior Sister Mo, even if an artifact can dispel yin and ominous aura, it can’t change the influence brought by Feng Shui, can it?” Ou Zhiqin asked.

“This, I’m not too sure either.”
“After all, this is a theory in Feng Shui.”
“If the artifact is part of a Feng Shui formation, then it should be able to change the Feng Shui situation.”
“But if it’s not, then one can only rely on its blessings,” Mo Qingyan said after thinking for a moment.

“Then is it possible that this residential complex is actually located in a place where yin energy gathers, which is why Xia Yubing’s parents turned into ghosts so quickly, and it’s just that it’s not apparent because of the aura from the old lady’s home?” Ou Zhiqin offered a speculation.

“It’s possible, but even if it is a place where yin energy gathers, the speed of raising a ghost shouldn’t be this fast.”
“And we are all amateurs when it comes to Feng Shui, so this is just a guess,” Mo Qingyan said.