Savage Wolf, Lotus Heart [Never Let You Go, Again: Book 4]

23: Saving Grace

"I'm back!" Jiang Cheng walked into Meilien's room to find it empty. "Eh? Where are they?" Sighing, he walked out and went to his own bedroom. "A-Huan?" Not a soul was in sight.

He found both father and daughter buried in books in the library. "Goodness, what's all this!"

"Daddy came!" Meilien hugged his leg and he picked her up.

"ChengCheng's back!" Lan Xichen chuckled and both hugged him, kissing him on either of his cheeks.

"Aish, such a fuss over nothing, it was just a couple of hours!"

"You left at six for the meeting at eight, and now it's almost six in the evening! Twelve hours, Daddy!" Meilien pouted. "What made you get so late?"

"On the way here I decided to drop by Lanling to check on Jin Ling and Mingxia. Little one was wailing and we had quite a time calming her..." Jiang Cheng shook his head. "Well? Tell me what's all this about?"

"Oh, right, ChengCheng come here–"

"WHAT did you call me?"

"Oh? I said 'Wanyin come here', why?"

"Yeah right," Jiang Cheng smirked. "Mn, what is it?"

"Have a look," Lan Xichen pulled him over to the table they had been seated behind and pointed to a book open at a certain page. "Meilien, get those other books you found."

Meilien arranged a line of books open at different bookmarked pages along the table and Jiang Cheng went through them in order.

Qiong Qi... one of the 'Four Evils' in mythology... 'eater of the virtuous souls'... disdains virtue... celebrates the stubborn and violent man...

Carnivorous... devour prey's head or feet first... believed to feed on those with long hair, thus a particular threat to shamans and demons...

"Ey, what shamans and demons, us too, no?" Jiang Cheng laughed, brushing his own long hair.

"That's just a folklore thing, I guess, because it really only feeds on 'virtuous souls'," Lan Xichen explained.

"Hm, makes sense," he nodded and read on.

Evil creatures who devour the loyal... feed the rebellious...

Also eat insect poison...

"Insect poison... Daddy, I was wondering, maybe we could get it to, like, eat some poison that might actually be harmful to it?"

"If the Heavenly Officials couldn't trap the damned thing with all their zillions of powers, I don't think insect poison would work, Meilien."

"But look," Xichen tapped another book he just brought out. "The thing does have one saving grace."

"HUH?" 

The Qiong Qi's taste for evil is so great that he eats demon spirits, so his presence is often invoked to help drive them away...

"A-Huan," Jiang Cheng turned to his husband. "Are you saying this might be of use?"

"Think about it," Lan Huan lied back against a wall. "If something like a statue or portrait of the Qiong Qi was used as an artefact to invoke its spirit, it's possible that whatever the artefact might have truly called on the thing to this world, and thus wreak havoc here. In which case, whoever called the Qiong Qi would have never meant for all this to happen, totally accidental."

"Hmph, seriously? The way you say it, this blasted beast is supposed to be intelligent enough to use its own energy to possess various beasts and cause chaos, all on its own thinking? Doubt it," Jiang Cheng stroked his ring.