NOVPUBBao Hui stared dumbfounded as his two close friends spoke to Teacher Gao in terms he couldn’t comprehend, then produced two small black booklets.
After showing the booklets to the guards, they were permitted to enter the area where the "thief" was being held.
Yan and Zhu Jue stepped into the prefab room and saw the thief who had sneaked into the construction site the previous night, only to meet misfortune.
From what they had gathered, this small gang consisted of three people, currently held in separate rooms. The one in this room appeared to be the one afflicted by the "curse."
Inside, a single bed stood against one wall, and a chair was placed opposite it. The middle-aged thief was handcuffed to the bed, his eyes vacant.
Likely to prevent any erratic behavior, the room contained only these two pieces of furniture.
"Are you alright?" Yan and Zhu Jue approached cautiously, stopping about half a meter away from the shackled man.
He shook his head, lips trembling, his entire body quivering.
"R-reporting to the authorities, I didn’t do anything, I swear I didn’t do anything!"
"I’ll confess, I’ll confess everything!"
Listening to his words, Yan frowned.
His tone and the way he spoke suggested this wasn’t his first time in custody. She was about to ask more when the man repeated himself, his gaze growing increasingly vacant, as if his mind had shut down. His mouth hung open, eyes bulging, yet no more words came out.
This was clearly not normal.
Yan exchanged a glance with Zhu Jue, who nodded—his phone had recorded everything since they entered.
"How long has he been like this?" Yan asked.
"Since last night. When we found him, he was kneeling on the ground, kowtowing nonstop. We couldn’t even pull him up—it was like he was frozen in place."
"It wasn’t until Teacher Gao loudly declared that he would face strict punishment that he finally stopped. Only then could we bring him in," one of the guards explained.
"From last night till now, we’ve tried everything, but nothing has brought his mind back to normal."
Yan proceeded to ask several more questions before sending the video footage to Ding Ling.
This was all she and Zhu Jue could do for now. 𝔫𝖔𝖛𝖕𝖚𝔟.𝖈𝖔𝔪
Teacher Gao clearly had the backing of state authorities, while Ding Ling’s "Special Case Team" was far better suited to handle the situation.
[Yan]: …That’s the situation.
[Yan]: I think you’ll need to bring the bells to deal with this.
Ding Ling replied instantly, promising to arrive as quickly as possible.
It was still morning, and with numerous flights from Bin City to Yangcheng, she would likely reach the site by afternoon to resolve the issue.
Though Yan didn’t know exactly how Ding Ling would handle it, she trusted her.
After all, those bronze bells had been gifts from Ding Ling, and they had proven effective during the Lan Ruo and Xie Zhen incident. Given the burial site beneath Bao Hui’s construction site, Yan suspected Ding Ling was already "in the know."
When the two stepped out of the prefab room, they were met with Bao Hui’s wide-eyed stare.
"What’s going on with you two? Tell me—well, if you can. If not, never mind," he said.
"Good news," Yan replied.
"Don’t worry, specialists will handle it from here," Zhu Jue added.
"Come on, take us to your dorm for now," Zhu Jue said, pulling him along.
"Really? No trouble? I get it—you contacted experts from back home, right? Did they give a solution? I knew it! We should’ve made offerings before starting construction. We must’ve disturbed the ancestors. If this gets resolved, that’d be great," Bao Hui rambled.
"Pretty much," Yan said briefly. "We reached out to an expert who’ll coordinate directly with the authorities here. Things should move faster now."
She had already learned from Teacher Gao that the relevant departments had initiated procedures as soon as the archaeological team reported the situation.
Still, Yan wasn’t sure which agency Teacher Gao represented—likely different from Ding Ling’s Special Case Team—and the information flow wasn’t seamless. It was quicker for her to call in help directly.
When in doubt, call for backup—that was her specialty.
Though they had reassured Bao Hui, his noticeably smaller lunch portion at the construction site canteen betrayed his unease.
They waited anxiously until, finally, a little past four in the afternoon, Ding Ling arrived!
A Jeep with special plates dropped her off at the construction site entrance. When Yan and Zhu Jue saw her, they noted her slender frame and the oversized bag she carried—the same one Lan Ruo had given her.
"Teacher Gao, this is Comrade Ling from our headquarters. She’ll be taking full charge of coordination with your team," a local Special Case Team member introduced.
Bao Hui squeezed his head between Yan and Zhu Jue, peering out. "This is the expert? She’s so young!"
The unusually young "expert" walked toward them, greeting his two friends.
"Yan, Zhu Jue, I’ll head over first. You two… staying outside?" Ding Ling glanced at the couple.
"Go ahead, we won’t hold you up," Yan immediately waved her off.
They had just been at school together yesterday, so there was no need for small talk—solving the problem took priority.
Ding Ling gave them a long look before quickening her pace.
In truth, before receiving Yan’s message, the special case team had already sent her a request for assistance, asking Ding Ling to lend out the two ritual artifacts.
She hadn’t even figured out how to reply when Yan’s WeChat message came through.
With Yan’s permission and the reminder she sent, Ding Ling naturally rushed over without delay.
Inside the makeshift shelter, Ding Ling examined the "victim"—who also happened to be the "suspect"—her gaze briefly sweeping over the "Teacher Gao" present at the scene.
To her slight embarrassment, she was only a nominal archaeologist. Yet, from Teacher Gao’s body—from his very soul—she could detect a strange scent, mingled with the musty odor of ancient soil.
"Comrade Lingdang, what do you need us to do next?" Teacher Gao nearly bit his tongue stumbling over the nickname.
The temporal diary he could access contained no record of the person who would resolve this in the future. But faced with this mysteriously young girl, Gao Yuan had no choice but to trust her.
He now belonged to a certain special division of the state, and this young female comrade before him was a "professional" dispatched by another classified unit after negotiations.
As for the friends of those two from the Bao family, they seemed to be peripheral members of the same organization.
"To untie the bell, the one who tied it must be found. Take me to last night’s scene," Ding Ling said.
"He’s entangled with the resentment from below. What comes from the earth must return to it—outsiders can’t sever this bond." Her tone was calm as she pressed her fingers against the suspect’s head in a few precise spots, instantly putting him to sleep.
"Holy shit, was that an acupressure point strike? The sleep point? When did you two meet such a badass sister?" Bao Hui exclaimed beside Yan and Zhu Jue.
Though he whispered, Ding Ling heard every word, the corner of her lips twitching slightly.
"Not acupressure," she said, glancing up.
Bao Hui immediately fell silent before muttering in awe, "Damn, she heard that from all the way over there?"
For now, Ding Ling used her own yin energy to suppress the resentment clinging to the man, keeping him in a temporarily lucid state. Though she hadn’t visited the scene earlier, the materials she’d reviewed on the way had already given her some clues.
Teacher Gao arranged for someone to bring a wheelchair to transport the "suspect" back to last night’s crime scene. Yan and the others followed, passing under a massive sign that read "Archaeological Site—No Unauthorized Entry."
"Where exactly did you pick up the pottery shard last night?"
"Boss, I… I don’t remember. It was too dark—I can’t recall a thing."
"Why did you pick it up in the first place?" Ding Ling pressed.
"I—I don’t know either! It was like something came over me. We knew this was an archaeological site—we never planned to come here! We just wanted to grab some scrap metal!" the suspect protested.
The moment he finished speaking, his body convulsed uncontrollably, pitching him forward from the wheelchair until his forehead slammed against the ground in repeated kowtows.
"I was wrong. I was wrong!"
"I’m guilty. I’m guilty!"
Bao Hui shuddered at the sudden change, instinctively clutching Zhu Jue’s shoulder from behind Yan.
He wanted to reassure them that everything would be fine, but feared speaking might invite something unwanted, so he kept his mouth shut.
Comrade "Lingdang" reached into her oversized H-brand tote, retrieving a wooden box and two bronze bells.
The bells appeared identical, one held in each hand.
Ding Ling’s "Heart-Questioning Bell" and "Soul-Bewildering Bell" chimed simultaneously.
A clear, ethereal ringing resonated in everyone’s ears, as if their thoughts had been pulled across time, leaving all else forgotten.
By the time they snapped back to awareness, it felt like an eternity had passed—or perhaps mere seconds.
"It’s done," the expert’s voice announced.
"But he’s still…" The suspect remained prostrate, forehead pressed to the ground.
Ding Ling glanced down. "What clings to him is accumulated resentment—what you might call underworld yin energy. Or, in simpler terms, the lingering obsession of the dead beneath this tomb."
"This is a burial site of the Nanyue Tribe. The Nanyue people died with unfulfilled regrets. Archaeologists work with righteous intent, excavating and preserving as part of the proper order—the tomb’s owner won’t blame them. But those with ill intentions will be sensed… and punished accordingly."
Teacher Gao froze at her explanation, recalling the description from his future diary.
In the future, when this underground tomb was excavated, those with ill intentions—those who sought to steal the relics and destroy the burial chamber—all fell victim to the "lingering resentment."
"Don’t worry, at most you’ll be kowtowing for half a day. It won’t kill you," Ding Ling said without even glancing over.
"There won’t be any issues with your continued work. Proceed as you normally would," she stated with certainty.
"So… it’s resolved just like that?" Teacher Gao asked cautiously.
"These two bronze bells of yours, along with the materials related to the Nanyue Tribe…" Teacher Gao’s gaze was practically glued to the bells in Ding Ling’s hands. They were engraved with characters he couldn’t decipher at all, yet it was clear this "expert" before him understood them.
She seemed to have a headache, speaking slowly, each word deliberate. "The special case team doesn’t have any records. I’ll stay here for now to assist you."
"This spot… should have been where pottery was fired," Ding Ling murmured.
Her mind conjured scenes from countless years ago—fields of pottery scattered everywhere.
She had thought her arrival this time was to settle the karma tied to these two ritual bells, which she had exchanged for.
But just now, when the bronze bells clashed, on this very land, Ding Ling felt a sudden daze.
She thought she might have been a hanged ghost. Or perhaps… she was a bell herself.
