Chapter 203: Chapter 198 – Full and Satisfied
Ji Ma finished two bottles of cola, a plate of boiled shrimp, a plate of stir-fried garlic sprouts with meat, and a roasted chicken leg, just as she was enjoying her lamb chops.
Her phone rang again.
Is it her biological mother again?
Ji Ma shifted her gaze and saw that the screen displayed just one word: “Dad.”
She had almost no impression of her biological father.
In Huaxia, generally, only children take their father’s surname, but hers was the same as her mother’s.
Without time to think too much, Ji Ma answered the phone, feeling an unusual pang of guilt.
He had been lying in a hospital bed, and she guessed it was her stepmother taking care of him, right?
They must be talking behind her back, saying bad things about her.
Ji Ma said, “Hello, is this Dad?”
“Ah Qi.” A weak male voice came from the phone, and Ji Ma could vaguely hear someone in the background shouting, “Change the dressing!”
“Don’t worry about it, Dad.” Ji Ma felt he was probably calling to ask for money: “My ex-girlfriend has already paid back three million. Give me an account number, and I’ll transfer it.”
Her biological father, Xu Ziqiang, said, “When are you coming back? I really want to see you.”
Go back? To her old home.
Ji Ma felt a wave of homesickness. Besides, her career was just starting. She had only recently experimented with the “humiliating rites” on Lin Feng.
She opened her mouth to say:
“Uh… maybe recently I’ve been… I just happen to know a responsible caregiver…”
But blurry and gray childhood memories surfaced from her heart, causing a slight, dull pain in her chest. It wasn’t too painful, and if she didn’t pay attention, she could ignore the past.
Ji Ma squinted her eyes; she felt it was necessary to get to know her former self again. After all, the main mission, “Revenge,” was essentially about healing her soul wounds.
“Then how about this,” Xu Ziqiang said, “Before Dad dies, I won’t get to see you… You don’t have to transfer the money to me; use it to start your business well. Your girlfriend is a nice and kind person; be good to her.”
In the background, she could hear a woman speaking.
“She’s not good,” Ji Ma said. “She cheated me out of my money.”
“Is that so? Didn’t you say she just had a bit of a conflict with you?”
“Forget it, let’s leave it at this.” Ji Ma said, “By the way, wasn’t that stepmother saying ‘You should call your son back to take care of you! We’re about to be worn out because of you!'”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone.
Xu Ziqiang sighed again, and his sigh painted a picture of a self-deprecating middle-aged man in Ji Ma’s mind.
“Well, how should I put it? Aunty (referring to her stepmother) isn’t wrong. Her son isn’t my biological child, but I’ve been taking care of him for a long time, and you haven’t come back. Ah Qi, don’t blame yourself; this is my fate.
“I was born to suffer. It’s alright if you don’t come back, oh.”
The “oh” had an upward intonation. Ji Ma could sense the sarcasm in it, but she could also feel the helplessness and inferiority in his entire statement.
“That’s normal.” Ji Ma replied calmly, “By the way, which hospital are you in? I’ll take a flight back the day after tomorrow.”
She had intended to go the next day, but then remembered Wang Ziqi’s body was still frozen in the rental apartment, so she planned to take a day to resolve that, which made her schedule very tight.
Xu Ziqiang sighed sadly; he couldn’t believe his own son didn’t even know what hospital he was in: “Longcheng First People’s Hospital.”
“Okay, I’ll remember.”
“Then goodbye.”
The phone was disconnected.
Ji Ma lightly patted her chest, feeling that to resolve her soul wounds—no, she didn’t expect to resolve them completely, but if she could heal a part of them and lower the magical power warning line by a couple of percentage points, she would be overjoyed.
“My plans have been disrupted again.”
Ji Ma quickly set up two tasks in the mission system, naming them “Resolve Soul Wounds—Understanding Past Life” and “Testing Ability Boundaries.” The task “Testing Power Boundaries” primarily aimed to see how far she could go in this world.
After setting up the tasks.
Ji Ma continued eating the food in her hand, slowly gnawing on the slightly gamey lamb leg until it was clean.
At this time, the charcoal stacked in the kitchen burned vigorously. Ji Ma made herself twenty skewers of lamb kebabs. After finishing them, she left a table full of leftovers, took a nice shower, changed into new clothes, lay on the big bed, and hugged a big teddy bear to sleep.
Meanwhile.
Fang Shiyun walked alone on the streets of Magic City. When she escaped from home, she didn’t bring her phone and didn’t dare to go back. For a moment, she found that the vast Magic City had no place for her.
Smelling the aromas of food on both sides of the street, her stomach churned more violently. She swallowed her saliva reluctantly turning her gaze away from the delicious dishes.
No one cared, no one looked after her, she couldn’t return home; everyone was so indifferent.
Fang Shiyun felt for a moment that she was the most pitiful person in the world. She walked until tired and found a small park to sit on a bench.
A nearby streetlight was broken, and the environment was somewhat dim.
Fang Shiyun became increasingly sad, wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes, and felt that this place was fraught with danger, recalling various violent criminal cases.
But her feet ached from walking so long. It had been a while since she had walked that far, and at that moment she couldn’t help but reminisce about Wan Ziqi.
He was such a good man back then.
All she had to do was to say whatever, and he would bring out his favorite milk tea and take her to the best places for a meal.
Lost in thought, Fang Shiyun leaned against the bench to rest, and without realizing it, she fell asleep in her exhaustion.
When she woke up again, she encountered a frightening scene that startled her.
In the distance under the dim light, she saw dozens of red bumps on her pale arms, with three mosquitoes sucking her blood.
Fang Shiyun screamed in fright.
After enduring through to the next day, Fang Shiyun had hardly slept all night; worn out, she could no longer hold on and walked back home on foot.
What did Wan Ziqi want from her? Whatever it was!
Upon returning home, she opened the security door, and what greeted her was not a gloomy home or a ghost hanging from the ceiling.
But rather:
A table in disarray, soda bottles overturned, black cola pooled at the foot of the table. The trash can had become a pile of garbage, with leftover bones and used toilet paper piled up together. In the corner of the kitchen table, there was a heap of charcoal ash, and a section of the wall was blackened.
Fang Shiyun stood frozen for several seconds, when a gust of wind blew, slapping a piece of paper against her face.
She picked it up to see it was printed with:
“I am a wandering immortal passing by. I temporarily drive the ghosts away, but you must fulfill their obsession; otherwise, your home will become a haunted house, and you will not escape reincarnation. The payment is simply borrowing your home for a while.”
“—Wandering Immortal.”
Ji Ma certainly wouldn’t clean up the dishes herself. The tenth worst part of eating was preparing the ingredients; the first worst part was washing the bowls, plates, chopsticks, and knives and forks.
Now.
Ji Ma had already passed through security at the airport and was pulling her suitcase toward the designated terminal.
Meanwhile, in the other world.
George’s face was serious as he held a sword in both hands, pressing his forehead against the blade, praying for the dawn to help him drive away the impending army of destruction.
