“He did say that, right? He just said something about people grabbing children?” Gloria asked.

  “Yes, I think he did.” Sue nodded, having her eyes fixed oective.

  “God dammit Sitch!” The detective turned his head and yelled, his arms aensed again, and veins popped out of his forehead: “What the fuck is that so called ‘cause’ of yours? What are you talking about? Why are you proteg them!?”

  “‘Cause?’” “Sitch?” Gyuu Park and Sue asked at the same time, though seemingly drawn by different keywords.

  “No! No! You ’t die! You ’t! There are children still missing! Children!” The detective seemed to be getting mgressive in his dream, and the wooden bedframe began to squeak again.

  Gloria rushed over and jabbed the detective on his pressure points again. This time she used some more Qi - for one, she wao hold him down for a longer period of time, and for two, she wao try and see if her theory about their Qi being patible was true.

  “No - let me help - he seemed to have been poisoned.” Gyuu Park leaned over and took a look at the detective’s face: “Hitting his pressure points would only work temporarily. We o drive out the poison, or at least help him burn it off.”

  “Poisoned? How?” Gloria looked Detective Marcus Cai’s face up and down: “I ’t see any signs. How did you tell?”

  “His breathing patterns, and - of course, I as a clergyman see things from a little bit of a different angle.” Gyuu Park let out an exhale and Gloria: “Do you have a knife or some other kind of sharp objects?”

  “Behind you, on the shelf, the book with a thick bck cloria answered.

  Gyuu Park turned, almost hitting Sue with his elbow, and found the book, the book was hollowed out, with a small dagger and two folded up paper talismans inside.

  “Why do you keep this here?” Gyuu Park could not help but be amused: “You don’t have something under your pillow?”

  “I do - it’s just bigger and not suitable for a precise operation.” Gloria chuckled.

  “Where is he injured?” Gyuu Park asked, then fixed his eyes on the bandage oective’s waist area.

  “The worst one is on the waist. There are some others but not as serious.”

  “So that’s the most likely iion point.” Gyuu Park nodded: “Do you have some spare gauze and bandages? We may o undo it a bit. ”

  “Do you know how to suture as well? ” Gloria instantly got what Gyuu Park was trying to do: “I don’t really know how to do it, and - the wound looks bad. And if you tried to push the poison out that way - ”

  “No - not directly from the wound, that would be unwise.” Gyuu Park shook his head: “Just a few incisions. We just o make sure it’s deep and thin.”

  With Gloria and Sue’s help, Gyuu Park undid the bandage oective’s waist. The gauze was already soaked in blood, and there was a slightly disturbing foul smell from it - it must be the poison, being pushed out by the detective’s own Qi.

  Gyuu Park then proceeded to poke a few small but deep cuts into the area surrounding the wound. Then he pced his fingers around these incisions, and pushed his Qi into the detective’s body. After a while, slowly but steadily, dark and pu blood clots seeped out of these incisions. Gloria immediately wiped the blood , and when the bleeding stopped, put some fresh new gauze on it.

  “Okay.” Gyuu Park took a deep breath: “Should be good now. With your Qi pressing onto his pressure points, his meridians should stay dormant for a while. He’s the practitioner of some kind of really Yang oriented mystig Fu. His body will be able to heal soon. But he might be - groggy, thirsty and tired for a while. Maybe even a bit of a hangover.”

  “What’s ?” Sue sighed, rubbiemples: “I mean, if he’s doing good now, should we send him away?”

  “I don’t know. Your call.” Gyuu Park turo Gloria.

  “... let’s keep him here for a while.” Gloria thought for about half a mihen she decided: “I o see if he would say something more. And - while we’re at it, we should go and che the docks area if we get the ce. I don’t know what happened over there just yet, all I could tell was that there was a fight, a pretty serious oh several dead. Probably between some street gangs, and this detective here got caught in the middle of it.”

  “Good idea. I think - let me go check it out.” Gyuu Park sidered for a brief moment, then turo Gloria and Sue: “You should stay here. And Gloria, I will do a puke test on myself before ing in. And here - ” He gave a small piece of dark red wooden to Gloria: “This is - ”

  “This is a - an oiled blessed ade of lightning-struck peachwood?” Sue reized this immediately: “Where did you get that?”

  With Sue’s rea, Gloria als. To her knowledge, though seemingly simple on the surface, authentic oiled blessed s were actually retively difficult to make. They required good pieces of peachwood, redwood or any other kinds of wood that had good Yin-Yang bah slight affinity to Yang; and the carved and polished wooden s o be pced in cy jars with are symbols drawn on their exterior and drowned in tung oil. Then, the cy jars o be pced on altars or buried in blessed ground for prolonged periods of time, during which the maker o ge the urly. This was the normal process for normal wood materials that were in normal ditions, and for wood in special ditions, in this case peach wood struck by lightning, the maker of the o bance everything acc to their evaluation of the materials. For the wood materials having been struck by lightning, they teo tain a special kind of evil and spirit repelling energy and aura, but were much harder to properly handle.

  “Yes, o of the only two I have. And three out of a handful of batches I tried. So use wisely.” Gyuu Park chuckled: “You know how to use it - don’t burn it too fast.”

  Shoutouts to my patrons:

  Jonathan,

  mant06

  Thank you so much for your support.

  Also - I am going to take a break week, and uploads will resume e the week.

  Thank you!