Chapter Thirty-Nine Visitation

  Su Tong felt a bit frightened in her heart when she heard him say that, but in order to make Tang Ao feel less worried, she still forced out a smile and said lightly: "It's okay, didn't some philosopher say that the best thing in this world is to have thrills without danger? Because you experience the stimulation of the process, but don't have to bear the bad consequences!"

  Tang Ao heard her say that and relaxed a bit, smiled helplessly, and asked: "Which philosopher said this? How come I've never heard of it?"

  Su Tong pointed to his own nose: "It's this philosopher who said that from now on, you'd better listen more to my golden words of wisdom. It's best to take a small notebook and write them down, leave it for future review, deepen your memory!"

  Tang Ao was finally thoroughly amused by her, and after laughing, he let out a long sigh. He knew that Su Tong was considering his emotions, and similarly, there were some things that he didn't dare to say in order not to give Su Tong psychological burdens. For example, the matter of Su Tong's soul being damaged - although he had simply told her the facts, he hadn't explained the deeper details. He believed that with Su Tong's blank understanding of these matters, she wouldn't ask further questions once she understood them. Su Tong not asking didn't mean that she wasn't measuring things in her heart. When people conflict and fight, they can hurt each other's flesh and blood or internal organs, but when souls attack each other, even if one has a physical body, the harm is always to the soul. This is what is meant by "people hurting people" and "souls hurting souls". In fact, soul battles are similar to human fights - to hurt the opponent, you need a certain amount of strength, but more importantly, you need to accurately gauge the extent of the damage. This is absolutely not something that ordinary wandering ghosts or ancestral spirits can do.

  So the person who protected himself while also wanting to harm Su Tong is a mysterious figure with an unknown identity, and what his motive is for doing so. Tang Ao didn't dare take it lightly, but this wasn't something that could be figured out in a short amount of time. For now, the most important thing was still to uncover the secrets of the abandoned mansion, resolve the vengeful spirit in Su Tong's home, and try to find a way to help the children in the hospital.

  For this whole thing, Tang Ao's mentality can be described as a rollercoaster ride. At first, he didn't realize that there would be such deep involvement behind the scenes. A vengeful spirit could actually lead to such a strange and eerie mansion. Before, Tang Ao had always been confident in his own abilities in Taoist magic and divination, especially since he had helped several clients solve their ghost problems through his work studio. This had strengthened his self-confidence, but also made him overestimate his actual level of ability, or rather, lack a sufficient understanding of the ferocity of evil spirits. So when he first entered the mansion, he was still on guard, but was disrupted by the soul of a trapped child and fell under the spell of the evil objects in the mansion. When he just woke up from the mansion, his physical weakness and Su Tong's unconsciousness made Tang Ao feel unprecedented despair and frustration. However, this low mood quickly dissipated because he realized that his spiritual power had increased greatly due to his misfortune. From the moment he successfully drew a talisman in mid-air with his bare hands and sealed the entrance of the mansion, he felt that his abilities had not only improved but had taken a leap forward. Although he didn't understand why this was so, such a result was absolutely a good thing for fighting evil spirits. Of course, next time Tang Ao would definitely not be as reckless as this time, putting himself and Su Tong in danger. So he planned to first investigate the situation of the mansion, do his homework thoroughly, and then decide whether to capture the leader of the evil spirits or start from the smaller one at Su Tong's house.

  After adjusting his emotions, Tang Ao got up and moved a thick stack of books from the bookshelf next to him to the writing desk in the study. He looked at the time and said to Su Tong: "I'm afraid I'll have to spend some time looking up information. The situation we're facing now may be more complicated than we thought, and that abandoned house is even more sinister than it looks from the outside. We need to be prepared. If you're feeling tired, go rest in my room or watch TV in the living room, or I can lend you my computer to browse the internet or watch a movie. If you're hungry, just let me know and we'll go out for something to eat."

  "Never mind, I'd better just stay in this room." Su Tong immediately shook his head and involuntarily lowered his voice, "You mustn't forget, there's still one more in the living room outside..."

  Tang Ao couldn't help but laugh at her cautious appearance: "You don't have to be afraid, I still have some confidence in this, she can't escape, and you still have the jade pendant on your body, she won't even have time to hide from you. Just relax, the reason I didn't solve this so quickly is that I wanted to let her experience that feeling of being helpless and desperate too. If I don't teach her a lesson, I'm afraid she'll have evil thoughts again in the future and go harm other people. Not everyone has a friend who knows magic by their side, if she really succeeds, it would be harming others and herself."

  "I know, but I'd still rather stay in the same room as you, it feels safer." Su Tong actually believed Tang Ao's words, but objective facts are one thing, and subjective fear is another. It's like someone who's afraid of heights - even if they're standing inside a high-rise building looking out the window, knowing they can't fall, they'll still be scared to death.

  Tang Ao didn't mind Su Tong being by his side, so he nodded and handed her a few magazines from the bookshelf, letting her sit down and take a look. Su Tong was also afraid of disturbing Tang Ao, so she sat quietly on the side, flipping through the magazine with extremely gentle movements. Occasionally, she would look up at Tang Ao, and every time she saw him seriously studying his books. After a while, Su Tong's fatigue grew stronger, but she didn't dare leave Tang Ao to go to another room. She simply lay down on the table, resting her head on her arm, originally intending to rest for a bit with her eyes closed. However, as soon as her head touched her arm, she fell asleep immediately. It wasn't until her phone rang from the living room that she was woken up, and she sat up dazedly. The jacket that Tang Ao had covered her with had also slipped off her back. Tang Ao noticed this and quickly stretched out his arm to catch the jacket before it fell to the ground, then helped Su Tong put it back on her shoulders. As he stood up, he said to her, "You just woke up, don't catch a cold. Stay here and don't move, I'll go to the living room to get your bag for you."

  Su Tong nodded, rubbed her eyes, and after waking up from a nap, she felt like she hadn't rested at all, but instead felt even more tired. However, she didn't know the underlying reason for this, thinking it was just because her soul had wandered off for too long. When Tang Ao helped her pick up her bag, she glanced out of the study door and surprisingly didn't see the female ghost in the living room.

  "What happened to that female ghost?" she asked in surprise, fearing that something else had gone wrong.

  Tang Ao knew she must have thought that the female ghost had escaped during the time they were both in the study, so he quickly told her: "Don't worry, she's still there. You can't see her because I helped you temporarily open your heavenly eye again, and now it's closed, that's why you can't see her."

  Su Tong let out a sigh of relief and put down his guard, only then did he notice the phone that had been ringing non-stop. He took it out of his bag and saw that the caller was Wang Li. He knew Wang Li's personality - she would keep calling until the other person answered or finally heard the ringtone. Because of this, Su Tong had protested to her many times before, but unfortunately, it had no effect. From when Su Tong was woken up by the ringtone just now to when he picked up the phone, Wang Li's number had flashed on the screen at least three times. Who knows how many times she had called before that, when Su Tong hadn't heard the ringtone and wasn't woken up?

  To prevent his eardrum from being broken by Wang Li's nagging, Su Tong hurriedly answered Wang Li's phone call. As soon as the call was connected, Wang Li immediately asked with a worried tone.

  "What's wrong with you? Is there something wrong with your body? Didn't you encounter a robbery in the county before and get hurt, but pretended it was nothing and didn't tell me? I called you around noon, but your phone kept making noise and couldn't get through. Later, after finally getting through, it was Tang Ao who answered, saying you were in the hospital and couldn't take calls for the time being. Before I could ask what happened, he hung up on me! After that, either the call wouldn't go through or no one would pick up, I was worried to death! What's going on with you? Why did you suddenly go to the hospital? Are you injured or ill? This afternoon, I saw Zhang Min and it gave me a fright, he looked particularly disheveled. As a result, not seeing him would have been better, but after seeing him, I became even more worried about you!" Wang Li's tone was full of tension, asking long questions while worrying about Su Tong, and couldn't help but want to scold her a few times, "You're such a worrywart, why can't you just let people be at ease?!"

  "I'm fine," Su Tong hastily came up with an excuse to explain the matter, "it was Tang Ao earlier, he said he wasn't at ease and insisted on taking me to the hospital for a physical examination. At that time I might have been in the consulting room, so he probably answered my phone call instead. I'm really fine, don't worry."

  "No way, I'm not born yesterday, I know your character of only reporting good news but not bad news! Wang Li is not a person who can be easily placated. "I and Lao Lu are on our way to your house in the car, let's talk about it when we meet later, I want to see if you have anything going on so that I can rest assured."

  After she finished speaking, she hung up the phone, without even giving Su Tong a chance to decline politely.