Although Li Wenjing had no idea what had actually happened, based on her description, Si Ren felt that this situation was strangely familiar.
He still remembered the little ghost at the cemetery. Back then, his sensation had been identical to Li Wenjing's, except that he had explicitly known there was a little ghost perched on his neck.
Since the situation was the same, should they use strong liquor again?
He silently shook his head, dismissing the thought.
The reason he had drunk strong liquor was that he was inside a paranormal space; as long as he completed his task, he could return to the real world.
But the Dish Fairy followed her everywhere she went. Even if she drank strong liquor, it would only ward it off for a little while—she couldn't just keep drinking forever, could she?
Drinking too much alcohol numbs the human brain, and while intoxicated, her actions would be completely out of her control.
If the Dish Fairy made a move at that moment, she would undoubtedly die.
"Here is what we'll do: shortly we'll check you out of the hospital, and then we'll find a well-known temple where you can hide for a few days.
The Dish Fairy should be quite wary of temples, so you'll be relatively safe there for the time being.
Over the next few days, I'll think of a countermeasure to see if I can send this Dish Fairy away or completely eliminate it once and for all."
Si Ren completed the discharge procedures for Li Wenjing and drove her to the largest temple in Lianhua City.
In the car, Si Ren spoke up somewhat sheepishly.
"You have money on you, right?"
Li Wenjing nodded and replied,
"Yeah, I do. Why?"
"We're going to seek shelter at someone else's temple, so we really should bring a generous incense offering." It wasn't that he didn't want to pay; the crux of the matter was that his bank account balance was infinitely close to zero, leaving him willing but powerless.
After a brief moment of reflection, Li Wenjing understood Si Ren's predicament.
She took Si Ren's phone and directly transferred 50,000 yuan to him via QR code.
"I'm the only one left in my family. After my father passed away, all his assets were transferred to my name, which is more than enough for me to spend. So you mustn't refuse."
Young, beautiful, and wealthy to boot—and most importantly, with no living relatives—wasn't this precisely the ideal partner everyone dreamed of?
Yet Si Ren felt not the slightest stirring of emotion. His ex-girlfriend had inflicted massive psychological trauma on him, every single word she said still stabbing straight into his heart.
He also knew profoundly that in his current state, having nothing at all, he simply had no qualification to date anyone.
Especially now that he had taken on this kind of job, living from hand to mouth, never knowing which day he might end up dispatching himself while driving a hearse.
"Then I won't stand on ceremony with you. I'll take it as a loan from a buddy, and I'll pay you back before long."
Li Wenjing squinted her eyes and said with a smile,
"No need to pay it back. Not only did you save me, but you also helped me solve my problem—I don't even know how to thank you properly."
Just as the two of them were chatting away, a dump truck behind them came rushing swiftly and silently straight toward the two of them.
The cars behind them honked their horns continuously in warning.
Finding the sound of so many horns rather strange, Si Ren glanced in the rearview mirror.
That single glance nearly scared his soul right out of his body: the dump truck was a mere ten meters away from him and still closing in fast.
He jerked the steering wheel hard, not even caring about the vehicles in the adjacent lane anymore—preserving his life took precedence.
With a deafening crash, Si Ren collided with a properly traveling vehicle in the neighboring lane.
The dump truck scraped right past the rear bumper of the Alphard.
Immediately afterward, the vehicle that had been directly in front of Si Ren was slammed violently by the dump truck.
From start to finish, it took less than five seconds. Had Si Ren hesitated for even a fraction of a second, the two of them would be the ones lying flat on the pavement right now.
The driver whose car Si Ren had hit stepped out and, far from blaming him, spoke with lingering fear,
"Buddy, your reflexes were way too fast! A second later and you'd have been a goner. You can tell you're an old pro behind the wheel."
Si Ren got out of the car and helped up the shaken Li Wenjing.
"Are you alright? Weren't you hurt? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
Li Wenjing's face was as pale as paper, and one look showed she had been badly frightened.
"I... I'm fine. I'm just shaken up."
Confirming that she was unhurt, Si Ren turned around to speak to the driver whose car he had hit.
"Buddy, let's settle our matter in a bit. Let's go see what's happening up front first and lend a hand to see if anyone can still be saved."
In truth, Si Ren felt quite guilty; if he hadn't suddenly changed lanes, the car in front wouldn't have gotten into an accident.
Although he had survived, the occupants of the lead vehicle were likely in grave danger.
The group hurried toward the site of the crash.
Looking at the utter devastation scattered across the ground, Si Ren was overwhelmed by lingering dread.
The driver and the front-seat passenger of the lead car had died on the spot, while the driver of the dump truck had been crushed to death by the construction debris piled in the back of his own truck as a result of inertia.
Traffic police quickly arrived at the scene and cleared the traffic.
Meanwhile, Si Ren reached a mutual understanding with the driver whose car he had hit.
Returning to the car, Si Ren tried starting the engine; everything was normal, and aside from the smashed front end, there wasn't a single other problem.
Seeing that everything was fine, the two of them continued on their journey.
Throughout the rest of the trip, neither of them spoke a word, whether out of lingering terror from the recent ordeal or because of the innocent, tragic death of the people in the lead car.
Si Ren gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, his mind replaying that scene over and over again.
Especially the gruesome state of the lead car, which left a turmoil in his heart that refused to settle for a long time.
Sensing his inner turmoil, Li Wenjing comforted him from the passenger seat,
"This wasn't your fault. If anyone's to blame, blame that dump truck driver.
He was overloaded and driving that fast in the city center—if you hadn't reacted quickly, the ones who died would have been the two of us."
"I know, but... it just doesn't sit right in my heart. I keep feeling like it was me who got them killed." Si Ren looked deeply depressed, unable to let it go for a long time.
Just as he was sinking into self-blame, not far ahead of them, a construction tower crane was hoisting several tons of steel beams, slowly swinging them toward Si Ren's side.
With a few cracking sounds of snapping steel cables, the crane operator panicked. Watching tons of steel plunge toward the highway below, he could only pray in his heart, hoping against hope that it wouldn't cost any lives.
At the same time, he grabbed his walkie-talkie to call the construction site manager.
If Si Ren had maintained his current driving speed, those tons of steel beams would undoubtedly have crashed directly down onto their car.
Yet, as luck would have it, a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon came speeding up from behind them, not only cutting off Si Ren's vehicle aggressively but also rolling down its window to flash a middle finger.
As it turned out, Si Ren had been dwelling on the earlier car accident, so his speed had remained consistently slow while the car behind him honked its horn incessantly to urge him on, though he acted as if he couldn't hear it at all.
The driver of the G-Wagon also had a fiery temper; spotting the right opportunity, he overtook them, parked his vehicle, retrieved a baseball bat from the trunk, and intercepted Si Ren to force him to a stop.
Si Ren pulled over, and before he even had a chance to speak, he caught sight of a dark shadow plunging from the high-rise sky, hurtling straight down toward the G-Wagon.
"Quick, get out of the way! Fast! Fast!" Si Ren yelled at the top of his lungs, gesturing for the G-Wagon driver to scramble away immediately.
Seeing the panicked expression on Si Ren's face, which didn't look like he was joking, the driver hurriedly bolted toward Si Ren's direction.
He had barely taken two steps when the steel beams crashed down onto the G-Wagon.
Terrified by the deafening sound, the driver threw himself flat onto the ground, clutching his head with both hands.
Only after the thunderous roar subsided did he cautiously and shakily stand back up, turning his head to look back at his beloved car.
There was no longer any sign of the vehicle—it was completely buried beneath the steel beams.
If he had stayed inside his car just then...
At that thought, cold sweat broke out in beads across the driver's forehead.