“Missing a soul?” Ma Xiaodong’s mother gasped, her voice full of shock.

　　I took a slow breath and continued, “Every person has three souls and seven spirits. The three souls are the Heavenly Soul, Earthly Soul, and Life Soul. The Heavenly and Earthly Souls like to drift outside, while only the Life Soul stays in the body. If the Life Soul leaves, it can’t keep the mind grounded, and that’s when someone can go mad—or even end up like Xiaodong here, completely out of it.”

　　I wasn’t making this up. When someone loses their Life Soul, they might become emotionally unbalanced at best. At worst, they’d end up like Ma Xiaodong—nothing but a dazed fool.

　　As for the Heavenly and Earthly Souls, which wander outside, they’re always absorbing the world’s essence, nourishing a person’s body and spirit. That’s why humans are seen as the most intelligent of all beings. It’s also why, in Taoist practice, there’s such an emphasis on the harmony between man and nature.

　　“Ah!” Ma Xiaodong’s mother cried out, her face turning pale. “What should we do?” she asked anxiously.

　　“Well, if a soul’s missing, then we’ve got to track it down and bring it back!”

　　But as soon as the words left my mouth, something didn’t feel right. From what I could tell, Ma Xiaodong had lost his soul when he was just a child. Normally, bringing in someone skilled in this kind of work to perform a soul-calling ritual should’ve been enough to fix it. But based on what his mother had told me, it was obvious that the people she’d hired hadn’t managed to bring his soul back at all!

　　Something wasn’t adding up. It’s not hard to recognize a missing soul, so why hadn’t they performed the ritual?

　　“What exactly did those Feng-shui masters you hired do?” I asked.She thought for a moment and said, "Well, they didn’t really do much. Just chanted some mumbo-jumbo, burned a couple of yellow talismans. Oh, and a few of them set up an altar and started some kind of ritual, but they always stopped halfway through, got scared, and bolted like they’d seen a ghost."

　　I paced back and forth, mulling it over. When someone loses their soul, there’s usually a reason behind it. The first possibility is shock—this is common in kids under twelve. At that age, they're too young, their minds aren't fully developed, and they don’t have a strong enough will. If they experience a sudden scare, their soul might just slip out. The second scenario is trickier—it involves spirits or ghosts snatching the soul. “Ghosts” refer to various supernatural creatures, while “spirits” are those malevolent deities who mean no good.

　　Thinking it through, I took out the Luo pan I always carried and scanned the surroundings. Sure enough, something was off—the needle was trembling and pointing towards the northwest.

　　“Is there anything... unclean in that direction?” I asked, gesturing towards the northwest.

　　“Unclean? What do you mean?” She looked at me with a confused expression.

　　“What do you think?” I replied, raising an eyebrow.

　　She seemed to suddenly remember something. "Oh, yes! About five miles northwest of the village, there’s a place called Dead Man's Gulch.”

　　“Dead Man's Gulch?” I echoed. “What’s that place?”

　　“It’s where the Japanese soldiers committed atrocities during the war. They killed a lot of people and buried the bodies there. Later, they even tossed in the bodies of some who died from disease.”

　　“Figures,” I muttered under my breath.

　　“You’re saying… Xiaodong’s soul is stuck in Dead Man's Gulch?”I looked at her and said, “Hard to say. I’m just guessing—I can’t be certain.”

　　The moment those words left my lips, she broke down, sobbing about how miserable Ma Xiaodong’s life had been.

　　Though I claimed it was only a guess, I had a pretty strong hunch. The fact that those feng shui masters had taken off like they’d seen a ghost meant they’d definitely sensed something—something they didn’t think they could handle. And now, with what Ma Xiaodong’s mother just revealed, it seemed more and more likely that the root of the problem lay with the restless spirits in Dead Man’s Gulch.

　　“Who are you?”

　　A man strode into the room, wearing a rough shirt and work pants. His skin was tanned, and he had a solid, muscular build.

　　“Daqiang, this is the feng shui master who just got here. He…” Ma Xiaodong’s mother glanced at me, then added, “Actually, I don’t even know your name.”

　　I smiled. “Doesn’t matter what my name is. All you need to know is that I’m here to help your son.”

　　Ma Daqiang scoffed. “A feng shui master? This young?”

　　“Who says a feng shui master has to be some old geezer?” I shot back, still grinning.

　　He gave me a sideways look, full of skepticism. “Probably just another con artist looking to make a quick buck.”

　　I didn’t take offense. I just said, “If I can’t help your son, I won’t charge you a dime. And if I do, I still won’t take your money—all I’ll ask is that you answer a few questions. Sound fair?”

　　“Daqiang, he recognized what was wrong with our boy right away. Maybe he really can help,” Xiaodong’s mother urged.

　　Ma Daqiang hesitated, then nodded. “Alright. Deal.”

　　I glanced at Ma Xiaodong, then looked back at Ma Daqiang. “I’m going to need a few things. Make sure you get them ready as soon as you can.”

　　“Go on, what do you need?”

　　“A sheet of white paper, a calligraphy brush, a bowl of rooster’s blood, and a set of clothes Xiaodong has worn.”

　　“No problem. That’s easy enough.”

　　“Good. I’ll be back at six sharp. Don’t forget a single thing.”I finished speaking and stepped outside. After glancing around, I decided not to go to Xu Xiaoli’s house but instead turned towards Dead Man’s Gulch in the northwest of the village.

　　Just as Ma Daqiang’s wife had said, the terrain here was sunken. Honestly, I’d prefer to call it a pit for the dead rather than a gulch. Decades of wind and rain had seriously eroded the ground, and if you looked closely, you could see some exposed white bones.

　　“This really is Dead Man’s Gulch!” I remarked as I gazed ahead.

　　The atmosphere here was thick with ghostly energy, far stronger than mere malevolent energy. But this ghostly aura only fluctuated within a certain range, suggesting that a powerful figure must have sealed it off at some point. Otherwise, that energy would have spilled out long ago, and the nearby villages wouldn’t be so peaceful.

　　I wandered around for a bit. This Dead Man’s Gulch was no small place; it stretched almost a kilometer in a rough circle. I couldn’t even guess how many bodies were buried here. Looking around, I felt like I could still smell a hint of blood in the air!

　　If Ma Xiaodong’s soul had truly been taken by some evil spirit, we were in for a tough time. There were two reasons for my concern. First, it had been too long since Ma Xiaodong lost his soul when he was still a child. Who knows if his soul is even still here after all these years? One thing was certain: his soul hadn’t descended to the underworld, or else he’d be dead by now.

　　Second, if there were any restless spirits here after his soul, it could mean serious trouble. If that were the case, I was definitely in for a battle against those foul entities!

　　As I pondered this, a sliver of worry crept in. What if there were a lot of those spirits? Surely, some of them would be vengeful ghosts, restless souls unwilling to find peace. A fierce fight would be unavoidable, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I could handle it all on my own.

　　But now that things had come to this, I couldn’t worry about anything else. I walked around Dead Man’s Gulch, setting up a Xuan Yin Overlapping Dragon Formation.

　　This formation was different from the Primordial Bagua Formation my master had laid out in Guangji Prefecture years ago. The Primordial Bagua Formation relied on one’s own cultivation to sustain the entire array, while the Xuan Yin Overlapping Dragon Formation harnessed the power of moonlight to activate the whole setup. The advantage was that even if the formation was broken, the person who set it up wouldn’t suffer any backlash.

　　Another reason I chose this formation was that today was the eighteenth day of the lunar month! As the old saying goes, "The moon is full on the fifteenth." Even though the moonlight's power had weakened by the eighteenth, it was still enough to activate this formation.

　　By the time I finished my preparations, it was already a little past one in the afternoon. I wiped the sweat from my brow and thought to myself, Finally, it's done! Now, no matter how powerful the spirits in this Dead Man’s Gulch are, I won’t have to fear them!