When Sun Fatty saw the surprised look on my face, he continued, "The night it all went down, all your Natal Talisman Papers burned up—yours, Lin Feng's, everyone's. But the ashes from yours indicated you'd merely lost consciousness. The rest of them? Their talismans showed they were all dead. Only Old Yi's remains were recovered. As for the others—not even bones."
At this point, Sun Fatty paused. It was clear he was truly furious—his usual grin was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a distorted, grim expression.
He took a deep breath and looked at me. "Lazi, you first tell me what happened that night. Then I'll tell you what happened afterward."
Maybe because I'd been unconscious so long, the events of that night were still vivid, as if they'd just happened yesterday. Even now, recalling how Po Jun and Wang Ziheng turned into a mist of blood before my eyes made my skin crawl. Sun Fatty lit a cigarette for me, and after a few drags, my nerves finally settled a bit. I told him everything, exactly as it had happened.
In the past two years, Sun Fatty's smoking habit had become massive. He lit another as soon as he finished the last.
"Didn't think it, but Old Wang sure died with guts. If I'd known, I wouldn't have kept so much distance from him," he sighed when I finished, then continued, "After your talisman burned that night, the team left behind at Division Five immediately reported to me and Boss Gao. We rushed to the mountain with all our people and searched the whole place. Found only Old Yi's dismembered corpse in the cave. At dawn, we found you unconscious at the base of the cliff. But Lin Feng, Po Jun, and Wang Ziheng—they were all gone. The only hope left was you. If you woke up, everything would be clear. Who could've guessed you'd sleep for two damn years?
"Right after you were sent to the hospital, Boss Gao suddenly made a call—not only did he switch your hospital, but he also had the two Yangs take turns guarding you. I found out later he'd even secretly arranged to summon Po Jun and the others' souls."
By then I understood: the person who had been watching over me all this time must've been either Yang Jun or Yang Xiao.
Sun Fatty was now on his third cigarette. As he smoked, he continued, "Not gonna lie, that soul summoning did give us some answers. Boss Gao only managed to summon Old Yi's soul—but he died too confused. He couldn't even explain how he died, much less tell us what had really happened. The ones who could've cleared things up—Po Jun and Wang Ziheng—had already reincarnated. And that kid Lin Feng… we couldn't summon his soul at all. No sign of reincarnation either…"
He paused for a moment, then added, "There have been cases before where a person's soul got trapped somewhere and couldn't be summoned, so Boss Gao didn't dare claim Lin Feng was behind it. But the winds were shifting. The Bureau started investigating both sides: trying to locate his soul, and at the same time, issuing his photo as a missing person to police departments across the country."
As Sun Fatty's voice slowed down, I could tell he was building up to something serious. I couldn't take his dragging pace and asked outright, "Dasheng, just cut to the chase. Did they find him or not?"
Sun Fatty exhaled a long puff of smoke, gave a bitter smile, and said, "They found him—but it cost us. Old Qiu's gone."
"Who? Old Qiu? Qiu Bulao?" I shot up from the bed. Before all this happened, among all the directors in the Bureau (besides the Two Yangs), I'd always thought that, aside from that near-godlike figure Wu Rendi, the strongest had to be Director Qiu of Division Two. I never expected him to be the first to go.
Sun Fatty was startled by my sudden movement. He quickly came over and helped me sit back, half-reclining against the headboard. I couldn't care less about that now. I stared at him and asked, "When did Old Qiu die?"
Sun Fatty took out a fourth cigarette, lit it slowly, and said, "Two days ago. They found his body in a hotel suite in the outskirts of the capital. From what we can tell, Lin Feng contacted Old Qiu and arranged to meet him in that suite. Maybe because of their past, Old Qiu let his guard down. Went there alone. That afternoon, the hotel discovered his body. After the police were called, we got the report."
Old Qiu died just two days ago…
Something suddenly felt off. I stared at Sun Fatty and said, "Dasheng, if Old Qiu just died two days ago… you still had the nerve to hang around here with me?"
"You think I wanted to be here?" Sun Fatty growled. "Division Two's already in chaos… but Boss Gao personally took over Old Qiu's case. No one else is allowed to get involved—including your Division Six. Probably worried I'd investigate on my own, so he sent me here to babysit you. Never expected you'd wake up now, though… Lazi, not gonna lie, if you'd woken up just a few days earlier, things might not have gotten this far."
After that, Sun Fatty went quiet. So did I. The room fell into a brief silence. After a while, I finally spoke.
"Dasheng… there's no way that's all you know about Old Qiu. Come on, it's connected to me too—give me the full story."
Sun Fatty took out what must've been his umpteenth cigarette, but hesitated before lighting it. He toyed with it in his fingers and said, "Actually, Old Qiu made his own preparations. He brought all his gear and laid down several protective spells on himself. Besides the hotel's CCTV, he even hid a few cameras inside the suite where they met. What little intel we got later came from those cameras.
"But he still miscalculated. He was guarding against Lin Feng's spellwork, but Lin Feng… took a different path altogether. From what the cameras showed, Old Qiu wasn't too surprised when he saw Lin Feng. They only exchanged a few words before Lin Feng showed him something. Because of the camera angle, we couldn't see what it was. But whatever it was, it made Old Qiu's expression go blank. Then he instantly turned hostile.
"There's no audio, so we don't know what was said. But Old Qiu started beating Lin Feng without hesitation. Lin Feng didn't fight back, just stood there, letting him hit him. At one point, Old Qiu grabbed Lin Feng by the collar—looked like he was interrogating him. Lin Feng didn't say a word, just stared at him coldly.
"I thought maybe Lin Feng had some dirt on Old Qiu, that he was blackmailing him into helping on the inside. But what happened next... Even I had trouble watching it."
Sun Fatty's voice trembled slightly. Just remembering the scene seemed to shake him. He took a long drag from his cigarette to steady himself before continuing.
"Lin Feng took a bottle of water from the minibar and handed it to Old Qiu. He hesitated but eventually took it. Didn't even pause—tilted his head back and took a swig. And then… the 'water' instantly ate through his jaw. Within seconds, it had dissolved his chest—flesh, bone, organs, everything…"
Just hearing it made my stomach twist. I'd thought even if Old Qiu wasn't Lin Feng's match, he'd at least put up a fight. I never expected him to go out like that—so fast, so brutally.
Sun Fatty's description of Qiu Bulao's death kept swirling in my mind. But something didn't add up.
"Dasheng… from what you described, it doesn't really sound like spellwork," I said. "It sounds more like some kind of corrosive agent—sulfuric acid or something."
Sun Fatty nodded, flicked his half-smoked cigarette out the window, then turned to me. "Close… but what Old Qiu drank wasn't any low-grade stuff like sulfuric acid." His eyebrow raised slightly. "You ever heard of Demon Acid?"
"Demon Acid…" I racked my brain, trying to recall anything from Ouyang Pianzuo's archive, but nothing came up. Sun Fatty chuckled when he saw my confused look.
"Lazi, don't bother. You could turn the whole archive upside down and still wouldn't find the term 'Demon Acid.'"
Then he continued, "It's a highly corrosive chemical agent. A hundred million times stronger than concentrated sulfuric acid. I'm guessing Lin Feng diluted it just to make it easier to carry—if it had been full-strength, that one sip would've melted Old Qiu into a puddle."
I was stunned. I never imagined Lin Feng would ditch spellwork entirely and go this far with something so viciously practical. Among the directors, he and Qiu Bulao had always been tight—too tight, you could say. And yet the first person he eliminated after returning… was Qiu Bulao.
"So what's Boss Gao thinking now?" I asked. "He gonna hunt Lin Feng down and flay him alive?"
"If I knew what he was thinking, I wouldn't still be here with you," Sun Fatty muttered. But from the way he said it, I had a hunch he did know something—he just couldn't tell me yet.
I didn't press the issue. Instead, I changed the subject and asked about my family back home—whether they knew I'd been in a coma.
"Lazi, with the state you were in, who'd dare tell your folks the truth?" Sun Fatty said. "Your grandpa's old—what if we scared him into the grave? It was Old Xiao who came up with the idea. Told them you were going abroad on official business, and because of the risk of espionage, you wouldn't be allowed to contact family for a while."
Hearing Old Xiao's name, of course I had to ask how he was doing.
To my surprise, Sun Fatty's expression turned a little strange. At first, I thought something had happened to Xiao Heshang too. But what he said next caught me completely off guard:
"You mean Old Xiao? He's not with the Bureau anymore. About a year after you went under, he had a massive fallout with Boss Gao. Quit as a Bureau advisor. Then he went off and bought a villa in the suburbs, hired some folks, and actually founded a company—called it Lingyun Crown Film & Media."
Honestly, that didn't shock me too much. Back in my hometown, he'd already started a sham company called Lingyun Temple Film & Media. No one took it seriously then. Who'd have guessed that one day, that freeloading Taoist priest would actually launch a legit entertainment firm?
After that, Sun Fatty just chatted casually, steering clear of the Lin Feng topic. I didn't press either. The hospital delivered my specially-prepared recovery meals, and someone even brought in food for Sun Fatty too.
Turned out, this whole time, he'd just been ordering takeout to the hospital room.