"Long time no see, Uncle Shen.
Why did you move to Chuan Province?
Is Little Bing...
Oh no, is Shen Bing doing well?"
Tao Bai smiled faintly.
Shen Yuan looked at Tao Bai, who was dressed in Daoist robes, his eyes filled with disbelief.
His lips trembled, and for a long time, he couldn't form a complete sentence.
Compared to seven years ago, Tao Bai hadn't aged a day;
In fact, he looked even younger.
His entire being seemed radiant, with a spiritual light flickering in his eyes.
He was brimming with vitality and spirit.
"Little Tao, come with me."
He didn't ask why Tao Bai wasn't dead, or how he had found them, nor did he ask what Tao Bai had experienced all these years.
Shen Yuan simply said with a trace of regret, "Come to my house for a chat."
Hearing this, Tao Bai followed Shen Yuan into an antique-style villa.
"Grandpa, you're back!"
A tender, childish voice rang out, and a little girl ran toward Shen Yuan.
Shen Yuan chuckled and picked her up, his eyes full of doting affection.
"Grandpa, who is this uncle?"
The girl's gaze landed on Tao Bai's face as she asked in confusion.
"Yaoyao, this is Uncle Tao.
Hurry and say Happy New Year!"
Shen Yuan explained.
"Uncle Tao, Happy New Year!"
The girl's voice was sweet and sticky, resembling Shen Bing's voice by seventy or eighty percent.
Tao Bai took a red envelope from his chest pocket and handed it to the girl.
"Yaoyao is such a good girl..."
"Dad, you're back so early? We were just thinking of going out to get some sun...
Hengheng just woke up not long ago, I just fed him..."
Shen Bing walked out of the living room holding a boy of a little over a year old, chattering as she went.
Suddenly, she saw Tao Bai.
She froze on the spot as if struck by lightning.
Her pupils trembled, and stormy waves rose in her heart.
How could it be him?
Isn't...
Isn't he dead?
What is he doing here?
"Bingbing, what's wrong?"
The man beside Shen Bing noticed something was off.
He put his arm around her shoulder and asked with concern.
The man was imposing and dignified, wearing a bespoke suit and carrying an extraordinary air.
Shen Bing had never told her husband that she had a past relationship that had reached the point of engagement.
She thought Tao Bai was dead, so she had concealed the fact that she had once been engaged.
"It's nothing."
Shen Bing said, suppressing her tumultuous emotions.
She handed the boy in her arms to the man.
"You hold him for a bit. This is... an old acquaintance of mine."
"Wah..."
The moment the boy changed hands, he started crying.
The man held the boy, gently rocking him back and forth and coaxing him lovingly, then walked into the house, leaving Shen Bing space to catch up with Tao Bai.
…
"How old is Hengheng?"
Tao Bai took a sip of hot tea and asked.
"One year and three months."
"A daughter and a son. That's good."
…
"How have you been these years?"
Shen Bing asked.
In an old teahouse, the two sat facing each other at a table, making sporadic conversation.
"Do you know anything about the massacre of the Tao family back then?"
Tao Bai didn't answer Shen Bing's question. Instead, he directly asked the question he had been harboring for months.
"I..."
Shen Bing hesitated. She lowered her head and slowly took a sip of tea, as if making up her mind.
"I only found out about it later..."
"What do you mean?"
"Shortly after you went missing, I contracted a strange illness.
I visited famous doctors everywhere and spent a lot of money, but no one could find the cause, let alone treat it.
Later, I met my current husband.
He provided me with financial help and found a famous doctor in Chuan Province.
When that so-called famous doctor came to me, I realized he was actually a Daoist!
But the miraculous thing was, after I drank his talisman water, my condition gradually improved.
He also gave me a talisman pendant and told me to wear it at all times.
My strange illness slowly healed, and it never recurred...
During my treatment, I sent you many messages and made many calls, but I couldn't get through...
Later, I thought that once I was cured, I would find you and pay him back the money.
But by then, I heard rumors about the Tao clan being wiped out.
I—I didn't believe it.
After I recovered, I quietly went to the villa deep in Mount Que...
And then I had no choice but to believe it..."
"What kind of strange illness? Is the talisman still on you?"
"It was just... I would often feel like my soul had left my body, and sometimes I would act strangely.
The talisman is still here..."
As she spoke, Shen Bing pulled out the talisman hidden against her chest.
However, since the string was short, it wasn't convenient to take off, so Tao Bai could only look at it from a distance.
The talisman was blackish-brown throughout, emitting spiritual fluctuations.
It was likely refined from the scales of a snake over a hundred years old;
It was indeed a decent artifact.
"Do you mind if I take a picture of it?"
"Go ahead."
Tao Bai took out his N95 phone and leaned closer to Shen Bing.
The Shen Bing of today carried the scent of maturity.
*Click!*
He took a photo of the talisman, then opened the gallery.
The talisman appeared only as a silhouette!
None of the details on it had been captured!
It seems I'll have to draw it with pen and paper...
Tao Bai asked the waiter for paper and a pen.
Glancing occasionally at the talisman on Shen Bing's chest, he copied the details onto the paper one by one.
*Scritch, scratch...*
Tao Bai's fingers danced across the paper, the pencil gliding and creating a rhythmic friction sound.
Shen Bing watched Tao Bai drawing and remembered that late autumn in 1998, when they watched the movie Titanic together in the cinema.
The current Tao Bai looked just like the painter Jack in the movie—
So focused, so roguishly handsome...
Thinking of this, a faint smile appeared on the corner of Shen Bing's mouth, but it quickly vanished, replaced by a sense of melancholy.
"What did the Daoist priest say at the time?"
Tao Bai asked as he drew.
"He seemed to say... that I seemed to be under the influence of some kind of Gu (蛊:Bug) poison?"
"Love Gu?"
"Yes, I think that's what he said!"
"Think back.
Before and after you got sick, were there any anomalies?"
Hearing this, Tao Bai breathed a sigh of relief.
Shen Bing hadn't betrayed him of her own free will;
She had been controlled by the Gu.
So, who planted the Gu?
Shen Bing was under a Gu spell.
It's one thing if I couldn't tell at the time, but how did she deceive my father and the other elders in the clan?
Although the Tao family doesn't cultivate the Dao of Gu, we aren't some reclusive family that only cares about cultivation and ignores worldly matters.
If it were just an ordinary Love Gu, someone in the clan surely would have detected it...
What kind of powerful Love Gu is this?
"Uh... let me think..."
Shen Bing fell into deep thought.
"After I recovered and learned that the Tao clan had been massacred, I was heartbroken.
I planned to find my best friend to go shopping and eating, to vent the depression in my heart.
But I unexpectedly discovered that I couldn't contact her anymore.
Nobody knew where she went, and she even deleted me from QQ..."
"Your best friend? Do you still have her QQ number?"
"I do."
"Let me see it."
"What were her hobbies usually?
Did she have any favorite Hong Kong or Taiwan stars?"