Edited
Zhang Shun shut the door and turned back to look at his brother curled up on the hospital bed, his heart feeling as if it had been violently struck.
He knew it was because he had called out for help that his brother had suddenly awakened from unconsciousness.
Human potential was just that tremendous. A critically injured mother would wake at her child’s call. A wife saving her husband would suddenly erupt with the strength to lift a car. People would stake their lives for those they truly wished to protect. It was a terrifying power beyond imagination.
In that instant, Zhang Shun thought of Chu He’s plea again—Can you return Maha’s life to me?
Who was Maha? Endless doubts swept through Zhang Shun’s heart, but he was also certain of one thing: if Chu He truly wanted it, he too would abandon everything to fulfill his wish.
Li Hu had spoken with such certainty, yet she arrived very slowly. Over an hour passed with no news. Zhang Shun tried to call out on the internal line, but the signal seemed cut off, leaving only a busy tone. He could only stare at the door in terror. Just when he thought Li Hu would never come, a distant explosion suddenly rang out through the hospital building.
Zhang Shun’s pupils contracted. He heard the sound rapidly approach, followed by a thunderous bang! as if a heavy object had been violently slammed against the door!
Zhang Shun leaped to his feet. “Li Hu? Li Hu, is that you?!”
“Don’t open the door!” Li Hu’s hoarse scream came from outside. “Whatever you do, don’t open the door!”
“Are you okay?! What happened?!”
“I’m fine—AHH!!”
Li Hu suddenly let out a shriek, a sound that hardly seemed human. Before Second Young Master Zhang could ask, he heard her trembling: “Don’t… don’t open the door. Guard your brother. Whatever you do, don’t come out… AHHH—!”
Zhang Shun had never seen a woman suffer like this before his eyes. Just as he wanted to rush out, a low, ice-cold male voice sounded from outside—a voice that made one’s blood run cold from the bottom of one’s heart just hearing it:
“Forty-nine demon-suppressing nails. Let’s see how long you can survive.”
A sharp whistling sound of something piercing through the air. Li Hu’s distorted scream instantly rang out: “Feng Si! Feng Si, I know you’re in there! Wake the fuck up, I’ll fuck your ancestors—! AHHH!!!”
With a heaven-shaking thunderous explosion, Zhang Shun couldn’t hold back anymore. He rushed over and yanked the door open!
The next second, a frigid aura surged in like a tidal wave. Before Zhang Shun could even react, a massive force struck his chest and sent him flying!
With a bang, Second Young Master Zhang crashed into the wall and climbed back up. Through the pain, he saw a tall man in black robes walk through the doorway, holding Li Hu by the throat. The woman was dressed in red—one couldn’t even tell if the clothes were originally red or dyed red by the blood covering her entire body. Her long hair hung loose behind her, her feet twitching uncontrollably. Judging by the frequency, she probably had a minute or two of breath left.
Zhang Shun’s hot blood instantly rushed to his head. He grabbed a broken chair leg from the shattered floor, shouted, and charged forward!
But then, that black-robed man raised his blood-red eyes and looked at Zhang Shun—
Zhang Shun was immediately pinned in place by a boundless, bone-chilling aura, as if his blood had frozen solid. The chair leg clattered from his hand.
And in that instant, he recognized this man. He had seen him before—on the night of the haunting, after Chu He rushed to his room and the vengeful ghost vanished, this man’s figure had suddenly appeared in the corner of the room.
At that time, he had looked coldly at Zhang Shun, said nothing, and then vanished into thin air.
Back then, Zhang Shun had thought he was hallucinating, or that this man was also a ghost. But at this moment, enlightenment suddenly struck: “Y-you—you are—”
Li Hu’s throat emitted a terrible gurgling sound. The man applied force with his hand while glancing casually at Zhang Shun.
Zhang Shun couldn’t believe it: “You’re my brother’s—boyfriend?!”
The man: “…”
Li Hu: “…”
The man in black seemed to have suddenly heard something extremely amusing. For an instant, Zhang Shun even saw him truly smile. Then he changed his mind about killing Li Hu and casually tossed the woman aside like a sack.
“Boyfriend,” he repeated, finding it quite interesting.
With a thud, Li Hu crashed to the ground, her hair disheveled and utterly wretched, clutching her neck and coughing violently. Through gritted teeth, she rasped: “Demon Venerable Fan Luo…!”
“As expected of a nine-tailed fox who cultivated a ninth tail. That guardian formation you set up was quite interesting. It’s a shame this hothead broke the formation’s core without understanding anything.” The Demon Venerable looked at Zhang Shun with great interest. “Little brother, if you had really managed to resist opening the door, even if I killed this fox I wouldn’t have been able to enter… What a pity.”
Zhang Shun raged: “Who are you? What do you want?”
The Demon Venerable didn’t answer, only walking toward Chu He on the hospital bed. Li Hu, who had been coughing as if half-dead, suddenly scrambled up as if injected with chicken blood: “Let go! You won’t get away! Zhou Hui is already on his way!”
The Demon Venerable said, “So?”
“You can kill me, but can you also kill Zhou Hui?!”
The Demon Venerable answered with practical action—directly lifting Chu He horizontally from the bed and walking toward the door.
“Even if it is Zhou Hui, following the scent of that zombie servant to find the onmyōji’s hiding place, then realizing that Japanese man was a decoy, and finally rushing over here—it would take at least two shichen1 at the minimum. Tell me, are two shichen enough for me to turn you from a fox into a fox-fur shawl?”
Li Hu’s face instantly turned deathly pale, staring straight at Chu He. “You’re just going to watch your paramour threaten me like this?”
Chu He was unconscious in the Demon Venerable’s arms, naturally unable to answer.
The Demon Venerable smiled. “Just now you said I was his boyfriend, and now I’ve become his paramour. Speaking of which, the two of you keep digging at each other while simultaneously being willing to fight to this extent for one another. Truly a strange relationship…” As he spoke, he turned and walked toward Li Hu. Even Zhang Shun could see from his posture that the words “fox-fur shawl” had not been a joke at all!
“Nine-tailed Fox of Yunnan Branch Six,” the Demon Venerable said slowly. “The debt of besieging the Hell Path back then—today I’ll collect the first installment from you.”
With one hand carrying Chu He, his other hand reached toward Li Hu coughing continuously at his feet. In midair, that hand suddenly erupted with countless bizarre red markings, followed by bursts of blinding serpentine lightning! Li Hu’s eyes went straight. This woman was also fierce. The next second she flew backward, roaring: “—Feng Si!”
Chu He still didn’t react, but the Demon Venerable’s figure appeared like a ghost behind her, a heavy fist striking her back!
Li Hu spat out a mouthful of blood, her body flying backward and crashing heavily into the immobilized Zhang Shun, then smashing into the ward wall and creating an entire web of cracks! The Demon Venerable landed and walked steadily forward. Li Hu, amid the rain of wall dust, trembled as she tried to climb up, failed twice, and in her desperation grabbed Zhang Shun and bit down on the back of his head where it connected to his neck.
“Ahh!” Zhang Shun screamed, feeling as if his flesh was about to be bitten off. “What are you doing?!”
“Fuck your sister!” Li Hu trembled. “Go! Don’t let him take your brother away! Once your brother falls into demonhood completely, the Heavenly Dao is finished!”
“But I…” Before Zhang Shun could finish speaking, he suddenly realized he could move. It seemed Li Hu’s bite had actually struck some acupuncture point. He scrambled up and charged forward—then froze after two steps: “I-I-I, I don’t know anything, what do I do?!”
Li Hu roared with all her might: “Are you stupid?! Your brother returned that breath of Buddha to you! That means he wants you to help him deal with the Demon Venerable!”
The moment the words fell, Zhang Shun discovered the Demon Venerable’s expression had changed—although this change was extremely minute, almost impossible to see amid the smoke and dust, Zhang Shun still keenly detected it. Almost without any hesitation, as if guided by instinct, he rushed forward, blocking the Demon Venerable with one hand while reaching for his brother with the other!
Everything happened in a flash, dazzling like fast-forwarded film.
The moment Zhang Shun’s hand touched the Demon Venerable, a golden swastika flowed from his palm, clashing against the Demon Venerable’s red demonic markings and producing a series of tooth-grinding explosive sounds. At the same time, the Demon Venerable grabbed Zhang Shun and casually flung him aside. Second Young Master Zhang’s flying body crashed down onto Li Hu, who had just barely climbed up, nearly sending this fox straight to meet the Buddha.
Li Hu: “Your sister—”
The next second, the golden Buddha seal overcame the demonic markings, and the skin on the Demon Venerable’s entire arm burst open!
—To be fair, this blow was not a fatal injury to someone of the Demon Venerable’s Asura King level. But it truly caught everyone off guard, including Zhang Shun himself. He saw blood mist erupt like a fountain, instantly dyeing the Demon Venerable completely red, as if he had just emerged from hell!
“…Truly worthy of…” Demon Venerable Fan Luo said slowly, his narrow eyes turning toward Zhang Shun: “Truly worthy of Buddha’s Bone…”
He raised his foot and walked toward Zhang Shun, saying as if he found it quite interesting: “Little brat, I really should start taking you seriously as a man.”
Only then did Zhang Shun discover that at some point, a door had appeared in the void behind him. Black mist swirled on the door, white bones gleamed, and as the Demon Venerable approached, the door gradually opened in midair, emitting incomparably sharp and mournful ghostly wails.
Li Hu, coughing blood, grabbed Zhang Shun: “Run… run, run fast!”
“My brother! My brother is still with him!”
Li Hu was so anxious her eyes turned red: “Your brother brought this on himself, let him die! The Demon Venerable is going to manifest his Asura King Dharma Body—!”
At that very instant, the Demon Venerable reached toward the void. A bolt of lightning bright enough to scorch one’s retinas transformed into a long sword, carrying world-destroying electric light and surging toward Zhang Shun’s back—
At the same moment, Chu He opened his eyes.
He reached out and pressed down on the Demon Venerable’s powerful wrist, looking up with a face as pale as paper, but every word he spoke seemed forged from ice:
“Who gave you permission to lay a hand on my brother?”
With a thunderous crash, a wild wind rose from flat ground. Zhang Shun turned back in shock!
He saw that centered on Chu He’s foot, wind blades wildly swept like a towering vortex. And his figure within the eye of the storm rapidly transformed—white robes trailing on the ground, long hair dancing wildly, like a phoenix soaring through the Nine Heavens. His sleeve swept back to reveal slender arms, his left hand grasping a string of cyan Buddhist prayer beads, his right hand wielding a long spear, bringing down a thunderous strike upon the Demon Venerable from the air!
—Boom!
Zhang Shun was swept horizontally away by the shockwave of clashing weapons, his back slamming against the wall with a crash, nearly vomiting blood on the spot!
He barely managed to climb up, only to see Li Hu lying beside him, struggling to pull out her phone from her pocket and start recording.
Zhang Shun: “???”
“Aren’t you going to record?” Li Hu said while coughing blood. “Your brother’s Dharma Body is known as one of the Ten Great Beauties of the Heavenly Dao. It’s quite rare.” Saying this, she laboriously opened WeChat and started posting to her Moments.
Zhang Shun: “………………”
Li Hu opened a group chat, trembling as she typed a few words. After a moment, a notification sound chimed with replies.
Zhang Shun glanced over from the corner of his eye. The angle was too skewed to clearly read the screen, but he seemed to see several different people replying one after another. The light from the phone screen made Li Hu’s face look somewhat strange. She looked up and gave Zhang Shun a faint, eerie glance.
Second Young Master Zhang felt his heart turn hairy under that look. Fortunately, after that one glance, Li Hu ignored him, speaking hoarsely into her phone: “Stop joking around. Feng Si is gambling his life up front. What do we do if Boss Zhou is still on the way?”
A voice message came through. Li Hu didn’t have the strength to hold the phone to her ear, so she tapped speakerphone. A voice with a Cantonese accent said: “You’re the one joking, Fox Six. I just got off the phone with Beijing. Zhou Hui has been guarding the Qiankun Formation under the Great Hall of the People for three days now, okay?”
Zhang Shun saw Li Hu’s face instantly turn deathly pale, trembling: “What did you say?!”
On the other side, spear and sword edge clashed, producing a hair-raising grinding sound.
The Demon Venerable narrowed his long eyes. This movement made him appear even more cold and ruthless. In a flash, he flipped his wrist and suddenly forced Chu He back several steps!
Zhang Shun cried out in shock: “Bro!”
Zhang Shun stumbled forward, even unable to feel the pain from his dislocated elbow. But then he was blocked by his brother’s raised hand. Chu He still had his back to him, the side of his cheek visible beneath his temple hair so white it was almost blue, gasping as if he were about to stop breathing.
The Demon Venerable stared directly into Chu He’s face, word by word: “Your true form is destroyed, your primordial spirit exhausted, your heart’s blood nearly gone. And you still dare to fight me with your Dharma Body—do you want to die that badly?”
—the Demon Venerable was clearly truly enraged. Chu He panted for a long while before barely managing to stop, straightening up to look at him, exhausted: “Then come kill me.”
Even Zhang Shun could hear the utter despair in those words. He reflexively wanted to say no, but then he saw the Demon Venerable turn toward him, a very clear cold smile on his face: “Why would I kill you? But the life of Buddha’s Bone in this lifetime—today I will claim it.”
Zhang Shun instantly sensed something wrong. In a thousandth of a second he was thinking whether to turn and run or face the danger head-on, when he saw ten thousand bolts of lightning crash down from above, instantly arriving before his eyes!
All of this happened too fast. Zhang Shun didn’t even have time to react before being pushed flying by a massive force. Immediately after, someone flew in from behind and caught him midair, landing heavily on the ground, pressing his head down to the floor!
The next second, a torrent of fire like a dragon’s breath swept past the back of his head with a thunderous roar, instantly charring the broken bricks and rubble behind him black!
The hair at the back of Zhang Shun’s head was completely singed off. He knew that if he had been a tenth of a second slower, his entire head would have been burned away. He spat out a mouthful of scorching, charred blood, feeling his ribs hurt so badly he couldn’t move. He turned back to see that the person who had caught him midair was Li Hu, and the one who had pushed him away was his brother.
—Chu He had blocked this final blow at the last moment, his back crashing heavily into the wall, the force so strong that his thin body actually bounced back, then with a pfft he spat out a straight jet of blood!
With a thud, Chu He fell to the ground, his cheek pressed against the floor. He tried several times to climb up but failed.
The Demon Venerable walked forward, looking down at him from above.
“How pathetic…” he said softly, seemingly with a smile. He bent down and grabbed Chu He’s chin.
From Zhang Shun’s angle, the Demon Venerable’s powerful back blocked his brother’s face. All he could see was the collapsed white robes on the ground tangled with long hair, the angle tilting slightly upward—he was probably being held up by the chin.
Although by this point Zhang Shun would be an idiot to still think this man was his brother’s “boyfriend,” this posture and angle still gave him a strange, ambiguous feeling.
“I know you don’t want to die. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come to find me, borrowing my power to avoid heavenly tribulation.”
The Demon Venerable leaned against his ear, whispering softly: “I’ll give you two choices now. First, come with me. Although I cannot help you resurrect Maha, I can at least keep you alive. As long as you live, everything is still possible. Second, kill your brother.”
Chu He’s face was blue-white, completely bloodless, his eyelashes lowered, breathing painfully and lightly.
It was truly too rare for this face that was cold as an ice sculpture all year round to show such an expression. The Demon Venerable almost admired it for a moment before saying with a smile against his ear: “I suggest you decide quickly… If I watch you pant like this any longer, I’ll get hard.”
Chu He stiffened slightly and held his breath. Doing this was truly too difficult. His throat was choked by blood several times in succession before he barely managed to swallow a mouthful of bloodied saliva and said: “I…”
“He’ll definitely choose the first one,” a lazy voice came from the doorway. “But I’ll choose the third one for him.”
Chu He suddenly closed his eyes heavily, and after a moment of surprise, the Demon Venerable laughed, turning back to ask: “What’s the third one, Zhou Hui?”
Zhang Shun, enduring the pain of his broken ribs, turned his head sharply. At the same moment, he felt Li Hu let out a long breath of relief, her entire body nearly collapsing.
Standing in the doorway was a young man in a biker jacket, tall and lean, removing his sunglasses to reveal an extraordinarily handsome face. That face wore his usual slightly rascally, nothing-in-the-world-matters smile. Zhang Shun had always found this smile irritating, but at this moment it was so reassuring, making that handsome face look countless times more agreeable.
“The third one is that he stays, his brother lives too, and you go back to the Asura Path yourself. Don’t think I can’t kill you just because I came alone today. I only expended too much energy on that pretty little onmyōji earlier, and I’m not really in the mood to play with you today.”
As Zhou Hui spoke, he even waved at Zhang Shun, asking with particular sincerity: “So, now that you’ve seen your brother’s boyfriend, have you realized I’m still the better option?”
“…” Zhang Shun asked: “Can you maintain your pretentious act for two more minutes?”
The Demon Venerable laughed. Using only one hand, he effortlessly lifted Chu He. Beneath his black robes adorned with bone chains, his other hand raised his sword, its dripping blade pointing at Zhou Hui as he said mockingly: “Your wife is excellent in every way, except his taste in men is truly… There aren’t many people who could watch their own flesh and blood struck by divine retribution until their soul scattered without batting an eye. Even among the Six Paths, you’re one of a kind.”
Whether it was Zhang Shun’s imagination or not, he felt Zhou Hui’s spine stiffen.
But Zhou Hui’s expression control was excellent. Not a trace of abnormality showed, only his gaze shifting to Chu He.
From the moment he entered, Chu He had made no movement at all, neither speaking nor acting, his face buried in the Demon Venerable’s chest so his expression couldn’t be seen. But judging from the blood clotted on his robes and the hand from which all five fingertips were dripping blood, he had truly reached the end of his rope.
Zhou Hui’s breathing deepened.
Demon Venerable Fan Luo smiled: “I’ll choose the first one. Would you like to try and see if you can stop me?”
The moment the words fell, Zhou Hui stepped forward, and without warning, a wild wind rose beside him!
This wind was not like the tightly spiraling vortex when the Phoenix Dharma Body was manifested earlier. It was wildly arrogant, collapsing the entire ward within seconds! Zhang Shun, mustering his last breath, grabbed the dying Li Hu and rapidly retreated to the corner. He saw the ground where he had just been standing instantly crumble into dust. Zhou Hui manifested a massive golden body out of thin air, wielding two sinister blades, bringing them down upon the Demon Venerable like the sky itself collapsing!
—Rumble!
Half the hospital building collapsed as easily as toppling dominoes. Amid the rain of massive bricks, Zhou Hui’s Dharma Body stood like a primordial divine beast connecting heaven and earth, opening a blood basin large enough to swallow the sky and devouring the Demon Venerable—
And behind the Demon Venerable, the gate to the Hell Path suddenly rose ten zhang2 high, countless vengeful souls wrapped in a sea of blood surging straight into the sky!
Zhang Shun tightly gripped the edge of the broken walls, his pupils dilating from extreme shock: “This… this is Zhou Yi…”
“This is Boss Zhou’s Heavenly Dharma Body,” Li Hu said weakly. “Doesn’t it seem utterly terrifying, completely different from Feng Si?”
Zhang Shun didn’t know what to say. He nodded.
—Chu He’s Dharma Body was completely human. The Demon Venerable was still half human. But Zhou Hui, although called a Heavenly Dharma Body, was completely a terrifying primordial monster from ancient mythology that occupied heaven and earth.
Its ferocity and cruelty were such that even tens of thousands of people before its eyes would be nothing but a plate of flesh and blood on the vast earth.
“Heavenly Dharma Bodies change according to the heart, taking infinite forms. The complete Dharma Body is a thousand times larger than this.” Li Hu said tiredly: “I took too much of a loss running into the Demon Venerable today. When I have the energy someday, I’ll show you my true form. My true form is… wait, what’s this?”
Li Hu suddenly got up and staggered toward the exposed rebar, walking to the floor that had broken into two halves facing the air.
Zhang Shun turned in shock, only to see Zhou Hui’s massive Dharma Body suddenly freeze in midair, as if pinned in place, then rapidly shrinking back into human form.
The wind and rain instantly ceased, the ghostly wails stopped. Zhou Hui stood in the devastated open space, his expression indescribable, only his body trembling strangely.
Chu He stood before him.
Chu He had already withdrawn his Dharma Body, returning to the form Zhang Shun was familiar with. With one hand, he grabbed Zhou Hui’s blade.
Blood flowed down his arm like a severed water pipe, covering his entire body, but he didn’t move at all, looking at Zhou Hui with a face completely devoid of expression.
—He stood in front of Demon Venerable Fan Luo.
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Translation notes:
- Shichen (時辰) — Traditional Chinese time unit; roughly two hours. ↩︎
- Zhang (丈) — Unit of length (~3.3 meters) ↩︎
