“What the hell? I arrested you before?” Detective Kuhn asked.

“No, your old partner arrested me, because he caught me in an unfortunate situation.” Jianmen chuckled and rolled towards the diner on his wooden and barely functioning looking wheelchair: “But don’t worry, five years in prison is not that much for me. Plus I also got my forged identity legitimized, and I don’t really care about the trouble.”

“Oh … okay, my apologies.” Detective Kuhn scratched his head: “May I know what you were arrested for?”

“Aggravated assault, for beating a bunch of sadistic cultists.” Jianmen opened up the fridge and took out a clay bottle of rice wine and picked up another teapot being warmed on top of a boiler: “Now if you’ll excuse me, my student needs me now.”

When Jianmen rolled towards the entrance, Jason was also brought in by Detective Lee and Aimee. To Detective Kuhn and Thomas, he did not seem to be seriously injured, but mostly just exhausted. But to Jianmen, he could tell that the injuries Jason sustained was on par with that Caroline endured - only that his injuries were only partially manifested physically. Right now, Jason appeared to be in some kind of shocked state, his eyes were still and not moving with the right eye becoming all grey and pale, his face was expressionless, and he was barely walking on his own.

“Mr. Yu, I think he needs help.” Aimee said to Jianmen, with a black cat standing on her right shoulder: “We were in a crossover limbo, Jason fought off a monster inside of it and got a lot of the police officers out safely. But I think he might be too exhausted from whatever kind of fight he went through.”

“Just sit on the floor for now.” Jianmen handed the clay bottle to Jason: “Drink, finish all of this, then finish the tea.”

“Yes, boss.” Jason’s response was a bit robotic, but was still sensible and clear.

With one gulp after the other, Jason drank the whole clay bottle of rice wine up, with only a little spill. Then he robotically took the teapot from Jianmen’s hand, and started drinking it right from the teapot’s mouth, even though the mouth was still steaming.

“Woah. Slow down there.” Detective Lee wanted to stop Jason for fear of him burning his mouth and food pipe, but Thomas and Aimee stopped him.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Don’t worry, even a normal bullet from a gun fired at point blank couldn’t kill this guy.” Aimee shook her head and said.

After finishing the tea, Jason’s eyes finally started moving again, and his right eye started bleeding through his right pupil and his right eye socket. After a brief moment, Jason started coughing, and was finally fully himself: “Woah, Boss, what - what happened?”

“You were in a crossover limbo, and you saved more than half a precinct.” Aimee asked with a frown on her face: “And you tried to collect the body of a perp and a notebook. Then you almost fainted when someone from the Division wants to talk to you. Don’t you … you don’t remember? ”

“I - I can vaguely remember NOW that you mentioned it.” Jason rubbed his temples with a heavy frown and said: “I just feel like I was on some kind of autopilot mode after I got out of the limbo.”

“Come with me to the basement.” Jianmen nodded and started rolling towards the basement: “Normal methods of healing won’t be able to heal this. Caroline’s using the tub, so we will need to find another way to heal you.”

Aimee, Thomas and the two detectives couldn’t help but follow Jianmen and Jason to the basement. Something told them if they went down with the master and the student they would have a chance to witness something wonderful.

There were stairs leading down to the basement, but Jianmen’s wheelchair just glided through without any up and down like it was hovering on the ground. When he rolled into the basement, he clapped his hands three times, and some stone panels on the ground rose up and formed a stone bed that was roughly the size of a twin-sized bed and with the height that was roughly to the waist of Jason. On the side of the stone bed facing Jianmen and the others that came in, there was a symmetrical array carved on it that looked like a lotus flower

“Get on, head this way, feet that way.” Jianmen said to Jason: “Lie down and relax. Tell me how you’re feeling.”

“I feel better now, thanks Boss.” Jason lied on the stone bed and sighed: “Did I just go through some kind of special tribulation?”

“So it seems.” Jianmen asked with a smile: “And how are you feeling? Your eye still hurts?”

“No - it’s better now. I can see with it again. And my Xuanli changed, it’s denser, and somehow the elemental properties are less obvious and more ‘neutral’, I guess this is what the manuals call the phase of shaping my unique Xuanli?” Jason closed his left eye for a brief moment and said: “But - I still have a headache, and I still have this feeling that - like my body just feels strange like it’s not truly mine.”

“It’s because of the injuries to your mind and soul. You’ll feel better after a good long sleep.” Jianmen put his right hand on the lotus array and activated it. Fine, soft and silvery green sand came out from the bed and started to bury Jason’s body in it.

“Oh right, boss, before I forgot.” Jason felt that eyelids were getting heavier, and he took a broken notebook from his pocket: “This is from a perp we found at the SJPD precinct. He’s the one controlling the crossover limbo. We did bring him back, did we?”

“No, sorry Jason.” Aimee shook her head and sighed: “You fainted, and an officer from Division said they would take care of him.”

“Thank you Jason, no worries, I’ll talk to someone about the guy.” Jianmen took the broken notebook and flipped through the pages, and his smile gradually disappeared.

“We can go back and bring the body over if you’d like.” Aimee said to Jianmen from behind: “Jason cocooned it with his spell, but I think it’d be better if you can take a look … if it is convenient for you.”

“He’s a little dead though.” Detective Lee cringed and said: “He’s sliced in half from the middle, like a - like a sandwich bun.”