Taboo Mage - Chapter 38 - Bloodstain

Unlike the bustling emergency area, the inpatient department was a bit quieter. Especially in the deep of night, most patients were already asleep and even the sound of nurses walking around was barely audible.

I familiarized myself with the route to Li Mi’s ward and softly pushed open the door. The room was pitch black.

Earlier in the day, Li Mi had been in a regular four-person ward, but due to Xu-Jie’s influence, she had been moved to a private ward, which suited my needs perfectly.

In the darkness, I reached into my backpack for the peachwood sword and held it to my chest. Then I quietly moved to the bedside and turned on the wall night light.

The faint light illuminated a radius of about five steps around the bed. Li Mi was sleeping soundly due to the sedative. Bending down, I took the life amulet from her neck.

By the dim light, I saw that the amulet had a crack running through the middle. I pressed my hand against it, but couldn’t feel any hint of the Tree Spirit’s presence.

The life amulet really was broken!

My heart tightened. Although I had anticipated this outcome, facing it directly still brought a sense of panic.

Lin Huan, following behind me, seemed to guess what had happened by the look on my face. Silently, he took a small peachwood sword from his pouch and held it in his hand.

“How is it?” he asked.

I gripped the amulet tightly and instructed him to guard the door, making sure no nurses or doctors came in.

Bending down, I mixed the ashes of the burned yellow talisman paper with Rooster blood and used my right index finger to dab a bit of it on Li Mi’s forehead.

White smoke immediately emerged from the top of Li Mi’s head. I sighed deeply; it was indeed the Wutong Tree Spirit that had escaped from the cracked amulet and caused a backlash on Li Mi’s psyche, leading to her current delusional state.

This kind of illness was beyond my ability to cure.

I, regretfully, conveyed this bad news to Lin Huan. Without saying much, he just sighed and walked out of the ward.

After leaving the hospital, I didn’t say a word and sat in the passenger seat, smoking one cigarette after another. Eventually, Lin Huan couldn’t take it any longer and snatched the cigarette from my hand, tossing it out of the open window.

I glared at Lin Huan in irritation and told him to pull over onto the nearby bridge.

At midnight, the bridge was almost devoid of pedestrians, with only a few vehicles passing by. Summer was coming to an end and the wind blowing from the river carried a hint of chill.

Standing on the bridge, I stared at the river, feeling the cool breeze against my face. It cleared my mind considerably.

Lin Huan, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, shivered slightly as he looked at me. “Is something wrong with our business?”

“What makes you say that?” I turned my head, curiously looking at this young man who was only two or three years younger than me.

Lin Huan shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. First Brother Kai, then Li Mi, and now Yang Shuo. It’s hard not to think it has something to do with the life amulets.”

I gave a bitter laugh. If Lin Huan could see it, others surely could too.

That night, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep. In my dreams, I seemed to see my grandfather again. He looked the same as always, with his white beard and hair, and those eyes that were usually full of kindness but now dangerously narrowed.

He told me that a yin-yang life amulet master is chosen by fate. Since I accepted abilities that others didn’t have, I must also bear the corresponding backlash to maintain balance in the world.

The strength of this backlash depended on the power of the life amulet spirits. Because I had made too many life amulets recently, the backlash hit me all at once, which my body could hardly endure.

In the dream, my grandfather finally told me that there was a way to remove the backlash. He said I needed to find someone. Just as I was about to ask who that person was, my grandfather disappeared.

I woke up from the dream, my back drenched in cold sweat. In the pitch-black room, I stared blankly at the empty space, suddenly feeling a sharp pain in my abdomen.

I hurriedly pressed the switch, and the room instantly lit up. Lifting my shirt in front of the standing mirror, I discovered five deep red bloodstains of varying depths on my lower abdomen, as if cut by a fine blade.

Cold sweat immediately formed on my forehead, and I slumped onto the sofa. Grandfather’s words from my dream echoed repeatedly in my ears. Instinctively, I reached out to touch my lower abdomen, feeling no pain, but there was a distinct sense that something inside me had changed.

Early the next morning, I told Lin Huan that we wouldn’t take any new business for the time being. Seeing the puzzled look in his eyes, I drove quickly to the hospital, registered, and waited in line for examinations.

A series of tests took the entire morning. Holding a stack of lab reports, the doctor informed me that there was nothing abnormal with my body. Even the marks on my lower abdomen baffled the doctor, who furrowed his brows in confusion.

Sitting in the hospital hallway, I suddenly laughed out loud.

Karma had indeed come…

Back home, I shut myself in and spent a long time poring over ancient books, trying to find a way to heal Li Mi. I even tried all those methods on myself.

I hoped that curing Li Mi might reduce the backlash of the life amulets on me.

However, three days later, standing by Li Mi’s window with my latest concoction of talisman water, she still lay on the bed, staring blankly at me, drool trailing from her mouth to her chest.

I knew I had failed.

I attended Yang Shuo’s trial. The once shrewd and cautious woman now sat at the defendants’ bench with her head lowered, her facial expression obscured. Her hair was a tangled mess, as if it hadn’t been tended to in a long time.

Li Mi remained the same, and Xu-Jie, who sat by her bedside, rarely spoke to me anymore.

Gathering my things, I left the ward, leaning against the wall as I slowly moved forward. A patient across from me was holding a crutch, seemingly chasing something.

As he passed by, he suddenly turned his head to look at me, offering a bizarre smile and a slight nod. Just as I was momentarily dazed, his crutch came crashing down on my head.

In the final moment before losing consciousness, I heard a Buddhist chant and saw Jue Chi’s familiar face flash before my eyes.

I seemed to have a long, long dream. In the dream, I used life amulets to help many people, granting them wealth and prosperity in exchange for untold riches.

I became a wealthy person with villas and luxury cars, but in the end, I met an untimely death.

I didn’t know how long I had been asleep in that dream, but it felt as though I had lived an entire life-a life of both glory and downfall.

When I opened my eyes again, all I saw was a white wall, and I could still hear the sound of dripping water and Lin Huan’s familiar, noisy chatter.