Mercy from the King

It was February, with the winter sunset spreading across the world from the west, casting a quiet red hue as if painting all passersby with a new color.

The pedestrians wore smiles on their faces.

Today was the third day of the lunar new year, the perfect time for temple fairs. In the small city of Luocheng, there were six or seven places hosting temple fairs alone.

"Lü Shu, I want to eat candied haws with walnuts." A little girl tugged at the sleeve of the young man in front of her, pointing to the candied haws cart on the roadside. Through the glass window, the crystalline candied haws inside could still be seen.

The little girl was very young, probably only about ten years old, dressed in a clean white down jacket without a speck of dirt.

The seventeen-year-old named Lü Shu looked at the candied haws cart with a wry smile, then swallowed and said to the little girl, "Lü Xiaoyu! We agreed when we bought your down jacket that if you wanted this jacket, we'd have to tighten our belts in the future. Otherwise, I won't have enough money to pay for my senior year tuition next semester!"

"Lü Shu, you've changed! Weren't you just saying yesterday that you have more than enough money for senior year tuition?" Lü Xiaoyu said calmly.

Lü Shu's face darkened immediately. "Where did you learn this from? Stop watching so many soap operas!"

Then he calculated for a moment, sighed, and walked towards the candied haws vendor. "Boss, how much for the ones with walnuts?"

"5 yuan, get a string for your sister," the boss said with a smile. He had already figured out who wanted to eat the candied haws, the big and small one.

5 yuan... so expensive! Lü Shu took out a crumpled 10 yuan bill from his pocket and handed it to the boss, who then gave him 5 yuan in change.

With the candied haws in hand, a string of candied haws had 7 nuts in it. When Lü Shu handed it to Lü Xiaoyu, she said, "I'll eat 5, leave 2 for you!"

Lü Shu chuckled and patted Lü Xiaoyu's head. "One is enough."

The girl was so young that she only reached Lü Shu's waist. Lü Shu could just reach her head with his hand.

"Okay." Lü Xiaoyu didn't stand on ceremony. With her fair face and red lips, she looked like a porcelain doll in the winter.

At this time, a few young people walked by, still excitedly discussing novel things. "Did you see the news online yesterday? It said that a man's soul was seen before he died, but the news was deleted in seconds."

Lü Shu watched Lü Xiaoyu munching on the candied haws, muttering to himself. Recently, there had been more and more news about supernatural events. Not long ago, there was news of children emitting blue light from their hands and a strong man lifting a 2000-pound object barehanded.

He wondered if these were fake news or something else. As these news pieces were deleted, those involved disappeared without a trace.

There were also some videos, like when someone walked under a streetlight, it flickered mysteriously, looking quite eerie.

Another video showed a middle-aged woman disappearing into thin air.

Then there was a video shot from the perspective of an onlooker, claiming to have seen someone swallowing clouds and mist on a mountain top at a Taoist temple.

Consistently, these videos all vanished eventually.

Lü Shu looked at the sky and felt like something was about to happen, but he didn't know what.

Are there really such miraculous things in the world? But it couldn't be that he had lived for 17 years and these things only started appearing now, right? What's going on?

He felt like life was about to go off track!

"Let's go watch the acrobatics," Lü Shu took out the ticket from his pocket and glanced at it. "There's still 20 minutes left. They said there's a special acrobatic troupe at the temple fair this year, with fire performances."

By this time, Lü Xiaoyu had finished eating 6 of the candied haws, and she handed the remaining candy and the stick to Lü Shu. "Delicious!"

"Greedy." Lü Shu muttered.

...

This year's acrobatics were indeed unique, with a hint of magic. The organizers of the temple fair set up a huge stage, and the crowd below made Lü Shu feel the festive atmosphere.

At first, the acrobatics didn't seem very interesting, just the usual stunts like balancing on large jars and knife throwing.

However, the final act was a bit different. A young man came on stage and suddenly burst into flames from head to toe.

Lü Shu was shocked. Is this kind of performance really safe? Won't he get hurt?

"Lü Shu, Lü Shu, let me ride on your neck to watch," Lü Xiaoyu shouted.

Lü Shu sighed, "I can't lift you."

Lü Shu looked a bit frail, his complexion unnaturally pale, not because he was recently ill, but because he had always been weak since he was young. He had secretly taken Liuwei Dihuang pills for a while, but the pills he reluctantly bought didn't seem to have any obvious effect after he finished them.

Still weak...

At least this proved that his weakness wasn't due to kidney issues, which was somewhat comforting... Lü Shu comforted himself like this.

Lü Shu squeezed through the crowd with Lü Xiaoyu until they could see clearly.

It was at this moment that the performer on stage suddenly extinguished the flames all over his body, as if controlling them at will.

So Lü Shu felt that the 20 yuan ticket price for this year's temple fair was definitely worth it. They got to see both acrobatics and magic!

The person on stage sometimes had flames all over him, and sometimes not. The flames were red with a hint of blue, very dazzling.

At the end, the flame in the performer's hand suddenly flew out like a comet with a tail, seemingly about to hit the audience, but disappeared just before reaching them.

All the audience applauded and cheered, and the performer took a bow and left the stage.

Only one person remained silent. The splendid flame had just been closest to Lü Shu. When the fireball approached, Lü Shu suddenly felt a palpitation in his heart, a feeling... as if reuniting after a long separation...

What's going on? Lü Shu was puzzled. This feeling was so real that he couldn't doubt it.

"Lü Shu, Lü Shu, I want to learn this!" Lü Xiaoyu pulled Lü Shu towards the backstage.

"You, a little girl, want to learn acrobatics? This guy's performance is a top-secret skill. It's a miracle if he's willing to teach you. Plus, we don't have the money to pay for lessons!" Lü Shu said helplessly. However, he also wanted to go and see the performer. If possible, he wanted the performer to demonstrate again. Lü Shu wanted to figure out what had happened to him just now.

But just as they reached the backstage, they saw four or five people in black windbreakers raise their hands. Suddenly, a needle-like object pierced the performer's neck, and in just a couple of seconds, the performer collapsed motionless on the ground.

No one from the acrobatics troupe dared to speak. The atmosphere around these people in black was so intimidating that it seemed to freeze everything in place.

Lü Shu was dumbfounded. What's going on?! The situation seemed off!

However, Lü Xiaoyu didn't care about that. "Why did you knock him out?" she demanded.

For Lü Shu and his group, it would be a miracle if a normal person encountered such a bizarre situation and didn't wet themselves. But Lü Xiaoyu, who was usually carefree, immediately got upset when she saw the person she wanted to learn from collapse on the ground.

Lü Shu's face turned green. He wanted to drag Lü Xiaoyu away, but one of the men in black calmly said, "This temple fair didn't apply for a fire performance fire safety permit. He violated fire safety regulations, so he needs to be taken in for investigation."

Lü Shu didn't buy it! How could they just knock someone out with something like a tranquilizer needle for violating fire safety regulations? Shouldn't they go after the organizers of the temple fair?

And which fire safety department uses something like a syringe to knock people out?

There's something fishy here!