Zhou Hui’s power was something Li Hu deeply understood. Beyond anything else, Zhang Shun, Chu He, and herself—a top-tier cultivator among demons—were merely a dish in the Demon Lord’s hands.
But against Zhou Hui at his peak, the half-sealed Demon Lord was just another dish.
At most, the Demon Lord would be a tougher bone to chew, with more thorns to prick, but the overall hierarchy of strength wouldn’t change. Besides, now, in the nine heavens and ten earths, who else was Zhou Hui’s match besides the legitimate gods and Buddhas?
But Zhou Hui’s current appearance made her feel as if he had been punched in the face.
No, it should be said that he had casually punched someone, and then that seemingly frail, submissive person suddenly turned into a Super Ultraman, instantly kicking him hundreds of meters away—that was the feeling.
Fortunately, the humiliation of a male being rejected in courtship vanished from Zhou Hui in a few seconds. He even laughed and said to Chu He, “Put down the knife, I won’t come up… Just put the knife down first, or you’ll bleed dry.”
Li Hu saw that expression and immediately knew something was wrong. Zhou Hui wasn’t truly letting this matter pass lightly; his brows and eyes clearly concealed a more restrained and sinister ruthlessness, chilling to the bone.
Chu He shook his head, gripping the blade without moving, and instructed the Demon Lord without turning back, “Don’t mind me, you go first.”
Fan Luo’s condition wasn’t much better than Zhou Hui’s. “But you…”
“Zhou Hui is at his peak now, and you’re half-sealed from the Underworld battle. Do you think you’re his match? Go quickly!”
The Demon Lord narrowed his eyes, staring at Zhou Hui, who was coldly staring back with the same expression.
In between them, Chu He was already struggling to stand.
He didn’t even have the strength to breathe; blood loss was rapidly lowering his body temperature, and his vision kept blurring.
Although his back was still extremely straight, everyone knew it was only a matter of seconds.
“…Alright,” Fan Luo finally said, but Zhou Hui could clearly see his unconcealed reluctance. “Don’t forget what you asked of me.”
The gates of hell behind the Demon Lord opened wide, countless ghosts emerged, celestial demons danced wildly, and endless darkness instantly swallowed him.
Finally, the gates of hell closed, and the blood and ghostly wails instantly receded, disappearing completely into the vast void as if they had never been there.
On the open ground, Chu He swayed, the tip of his blade clattered to the ground, and then his entire body fell straight down!
“Brother!” Zhang Shun got up and ran down, then Zhou Hui glanced at Li Hu.
Li Hu, without a word, brought her hand down, and with a thud, she heavily chopped Young Master Zhang unconscious!
“This Buddha relic has been a thorn in my side for a long time,” Zhou Hui knelt down, slowly stating as he stared into Chu He’s blank, unfocused pupils, “I didn’t want to be interrupted in my pleasure at a time like this…”
Chu He couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, only gasping faintly, his gaze unfocused, staring at the air.
His human form was still in the white hospital gown he had changed into upon admission, now heavily stained with blood.
Because the blood vessels in his palm were almost severed, a small pool of blood quickly accumulated beneath him, contrasting with his gaunt face, creating a startling, icy paleness.
He had always been a very calm, reserved, and ascetic person, but now it was as if a white flower bud had been forcibly peeled open layer by layer, helplessly revealing its innermost pistil, never before shown to anyone. This cruel, morbid, and eerie feeling gradually intensified Zhou Hui’s gaze.
He closed his eyes, then opened them, grabbing Chu He’s icy hand. Their palms met, and then he used force to pick him up and hold him horizontally.
“Boss Zhou!” Li Hu, carrying the heavy Young Master Zhang, poked her head out from the halfway-broken gap in the hospital floor, asking with a wry smile, “What do we do now? Eliminate the Japanese and bring the ‘Earth-Born Fetus’ back to Beijing?”
Zhou Hui turned and stared at him without a word. Moonlight shone through a gap in the clouds, illuminating half of his face, and Li Hu shivered almost immediately.
—His eyes were crimson. Just like the Demon Lord’s.
“The Earth-Born Fetus isn’t as simple as you imagine,” Zhou Hui said coldly, seemingly unaware of his own change, or perhaps indifferent to it. “Restore the anomaly space set up here. I have something to take care of.”
Li Hu opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Zhou Hui knew what the nine-tailed fox wanted to say but had no intention of responding. He turned and walked directly into the deep night, staring down at Chu He in his arms, a cold smile slowly appearing at the corner of his mouth.
“Now… it’s time to settle our accounts,” he whispered, his voice especially cruel in the darkness. “Don’t worry, you can’t run. I’ll take my time.”
—
Zhang Shun had many dreams in his semi-conscious state. In one of them, he was very young, perhaps only seven or eight, lying in bed with a high fever, his body burning, his mind clouded. He felt that if he fell asleep, he might never wake up again.
A person in wide white robes, with very long black hair, sat by his bed, gently cradling him on their lap, stroking his burning face. Their fingers were very long and cool, making Zhang Shun feel incredibly comfortable.
Although he couldn’t see the person’s face clearly, he could feel that this person was incredibly beautiful—a beauty that transcended gender and was indescribable, and they possessed a gentle, water-like quality that deeply moved him.
Who was he? Zhang Shun wondered.
“I didn’t expect them to be able to invite you, Group Leader Feng Si,” a deep male voice echoed from the corner of the room. “I thought my subordinates casually eating one or two children’s souls wouldn’t be enough to directly alarm you…”
“I’ve carried the Buddha relic on my person for thousands of years. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize it, Demon Lord?” The person suddenly interrupted, but their voice was very gentle. “To defile the Buddha relic is akin to destroying the Buddha—today it’s me. If Zhou Hui had come personally, you wouldn’t even think of leaving.”
The Demon Lord was silent for a moment, then suddenly found it interesting. “I heard that tens of thousands of years ago, Zhou Hui was merely a demonic creature in a sea of blood, who was captured and sent to the thirty-three heavens for punishment because he disrespected the Buddha, but was then secretly released by the compassionate Phoenix King Ming Wang… From this, it seems you should have been an existence Zhou Hui couldn’t even look up to. How did you come down from the thirty-three heavens?”
Zhang Shun felt the person’s hand pause slightly.
“None of your business, Fan Luo,” he said faintly after a long moment. “—You may leave this time. If you touch the Buddha relic again, it won won’t be so simple.”
—
Zhang Shun was hazy, not knowing how long he had slept, until the morning light jolted him awake from countless swirling nightmares.
“Ah!” He sat up abruptly, finding himself lying on the hospital bed, with the sun already high outside.
What time is it? He looked at the bedside clock and realized he had unconsciously slept until the afternoon of the next day. For some reason, his head throbbed like a saw, and for several minutes, sitting on the bed, he couldn’t even remember why he was in the hospital.
Only after the initial dizziness passed did his memory slowly return: the eerie hospital last night, the zombie servant, Demon Lord Fan Luo, the all-blood-red nine-tailed fox… Countless bizarre fragments flooded Zhang Shun’s mind, instantly overwhelming him.
Was it all real? Or just an absurd dream?
Zhang Shun looked around. Everything in the hospital was fine. Outside the window, birds chirped, flowers bloomed, and the sun shone brightly, with no sign of the building collapse or ground subsidence from last night.
…It… it must have been a dream, right?
Zhang Shun got out of bed to wash his face. As he scooped water, he inadvertently saw his hand and immediately froze as if struck by lightning.
—The golden swastika Buddhist seal on his palm was still there, faintly glowing in the bathroom.
…Holy crap, it was real?!
Where’s my brother? Damn it, where’s my brother?!
Zhang Shun rushed to the hospital room door as if his pants were on fire. Just as he ran out to ask about the situation, the door was pushed open from outside. Zhou Hui walked in, looked at him inexplicably, and asked, “Awake?”
“…” Zhang Shun’s mind felt like it was stirred into a mess. After a moment, he managed to blurt out, “Where’s my brother?”
Zhou Hui looked at him with a half-smile and said, “If I were you, I’d shut up and sit over there obediently. You’ve been through a life-and-death situation and you still don’t know fear? Your brother protected you too well.”
Zhang Shun blurted out, “Everything last night was real? Who are you people?”
Zhou Hui’s expression was a little odd, but it quickly returned to his lazy, devil-may-care demeanor. He said, “Brother-in-law, I’m going to take a shower and change… Do you have a shirt? Just lend me one.”
Zhang Shun looked closely and realized that Zhou Hui’s shirt was indeed wrinkled, with bloodstains on the collar and cuffs.
From his memory, Zhou Hui hadn’t been injured last night, so he didn’t know how the blood got on his collar.
Zhang Shun didn’t think too much of it. From last night’s memories, this charlatan-like Zhou Hui was at least friendlier than the Demon Lord. If his brother was truly in mortal danger, Zhou Hui shouldn’t be acting like this—he slightly relaxed, warily watching Zhou Hui enter the hospital room’s en-suite bathroom, and found that he was even humming a tune while showering.
What was even more unbearable was that not a single note was in tune!
After a while, Zhou Hui came out, wearing Zhang Shun’s clothes.
When he wore a jacket, it wasn’t obvious, but wearing just a single shirt, his prominent muscles were clear. Especially with his wet hair arrogantly standing up, he exuded a strong, powerful aura just by standing there.
A sense of hostility suddenly arose in Zhang Shun’s heart—he didn’t yet know that this was the natural aversion an animal feels when seeing an older, stronger male of its own kind. He asked, “Can you tell me now?”
Zhou Hui didn’t speak. Just then, there was a knock at the door. “Hello, hotel room service.”
Zhou Hui opened the door, handed out some cash, and took a plastic bag full of meal boxes from the hotel delivery person. Then he pulled up a chair for himself, sat down, and began to eat.
Zhang Shun could no longer contain himself. “Hey! Are you going to talk or not?!”
Zhou Hui looked up at him oddly. “I wasn’t planning to. Want some? Come on, brother-in-law, this one’s on me.”
“…” Zhang Shun said weakly, “You… at least tell me, how is my brother? If staying in the hospital turns out like this, I can’t take another night like last night! And what’s going on with my hand? Why does everyone call me the Buddha relic?”
Zhou Hui smiled.
Zhang Shun always disliked that expression of his, but he hadn’t delved into why—Young Master Zhang was never a delicate or inquisitive person. But now, looking at that familiar smile, in a flash of lightning, he suddenly realized why he reacted that way.
—There was pity in that smile. It was the expression of someone who had experienced much hardship and held many secrets, looking at a naive, fearless child—a mix of helplessness and pity.
Young Master Zhang’s mind instantly exploded.
If it were normal, he would have immediately rushed over to teach this person a lesson, but the dramatic changes of the past few days had been enough to teach him something beyond brute force and wealth.
He closed his eyes, forcing down the urge to flare up. When he opened his eyes again, he had quickly returned to normal. “It’s okay if you don’t tell me, I can find out myself. But now I’ve been drawn into this, haven’t I? You also know I’m completely ignorant, and I’ll definitely be reckless when investigating. If I accidentally mess things up for you during the process, my own small life is one thing, but you’ll at least have to put in some effort to cover it up.”
“Why don’t you selectively tell me part of the truth,” Young Master Zhang’s thoughts became clearer and his tone more persuasive. “
How much to tell, how to tell it, that’s up to you. You can choose the most advantageous way for yourself. In exchange, I won’t recklessly interfere with the parts you don’t want me to. How does that sound?”
These words were very reasonable and well-reasoned. Although still a bit immature, it was quite remarkable for someone of Young Master Zhang’s age.
After taking a few deep breaths, he finally asked, “So, what do you want to know?”
Zhang Shun immediately asked, “Where is my brother now, and how is he doing?”
“He’s in a completely safe place. He won’t die.”
Zhang Shun frowned, clearly dissatisfied with that answer. “Then who are you people, and what’s your relationship with my brother?”
“—Oh, us,” Zhou Hui said unhurriedly. “Currently, we represent the first and sixth special office units of Department 574, under the Ministry of State Security of the People’s Republic of China…”
The door suddenly burst open with a bang. Both of them turned simultaneously to see Li Hu standing furiously at the doorway, enunciating each word: “Zhou, Hui.”
Zhou Hui asked in surprise, “What’s wrong now?”
“Situ Yingzhi sent me a screenshot of a video conference, confirming that Zhou Hui, team leader of the Capital’s First Group, has been guarding the Qiankun formation under the Great Hall for the past few days, not leaving Beijing for even an inch.” Li Hu slapped her phone, with the screenshot displayed, onto the table and said coldly, “Boss Zhou, are you hiding something from me?!”
Zhou Hui slowly dropped his smile, staring at her. After a long moment, he asked, “Are you and Feng Si not hiding something from me, Hu Qing?”
Li Hu probably didn’t expect Zhou Hui to retaliate. Her face almost immediately contorted. But before she could come up with a scathing retort, the phone on the bedside table rang—Zhang Shun looked at it and was astonished to find it was his brother’s phone ringing, with Mayor Huang calling.
“You… you two keep arguing, don’t stop.” Zhang Shun went to answer the phone, stepping to the corner of the room to say hello, while also keeping an ear on Zhou Hui and Li Hu’s commotion. Unexpectedly, Mayor Huang’s booming voice instantly drowned out all other sounds: “Hello, CEO Chu, come quickly! Something big happened at the construction site!”
“Hello, Uncle Huang, my brother is hospitalized. Do you have something—”
“I don’t care what your brother is doing, just drag him over here if he still has a breath left!” Mayor Huang’s terrified gasps were unusually clear over the phone. “They dug up something huge at the construction site, only your brother can handle it. Tell him to come quickly!”
Zhang Shun frowned, glancing at Zhou Hui. Just as he was about to say, then I’ll try, Zhou Hui suddenly turned his head. “What’s such a big deal that you’re yelling like that?”
“Mayor Huang is asking my brother to come over, but my brother is…”
Zhou Hui interrupted impatiently, “—Just ask him, how many coffins did they dig up today?”
Zhou Hui sat in the back seat, wearing a leather jacket, his long, strong legs propped up and shaking. He was still smoking in the enclosed car. Zhang Shun could see his completely unrestrained expression in the rearview mirror. Li Hu was squeezed against the car door, rolling her eyes and looking out the window.
Zhang Shun finally couldn’t help it and asked, “There’s a lady present, can’t you put out your cigarette?”
“Brother-in-law, for your brother’s sake, let me teach you two things,” Zhou Hui said. “First, a man smoking usually indicates one of two situations: either he’s satisfied, or he’s unsatisfied. My current state is one of extreme dissatisfaction, so you’d best not provoke my true anger. Your brother is already quite miserable; don’t make him more so. Second, from what point can you tell this fellow is a woman?”
Zhang Shun was utterly confused, but he could feel the driver giving him a pleading look. That expression clearly said, Please, don’t really provoke this big shot… Zhang Shun’s mouth twitched.
“How is she not a woman? Also, how is my brother doing?”
“He’s probably not feeling great right now, but he won’t die,” Zhou Hui said lazily. “In my hands, dying is quite difficult.”
Zhang Shun nearly stood up to punch him on the spot, but Li Hu desperately stopped him. “He’s joking! He’s really joking!”
The car drove all the way to a construction site in the suburbs before stopping. Yellow police tape was wrapped three layers deep around the area, police officers were everywhere, and Mayor Huang was squatting on the outermost perimeter, smoking, his face clouded with worry. Zhang Shun was the first to open the car door and jump out. Before Li Hu got out, she rummaged through a briefcase in the back of the car, then turned back and cursed, “Boss, you’re really not human.”
Zhou Hui asked in surprise, “I’m not human to begin with, am I?!”
Li Hu: “…”
“Don’t worry, my temper is much better now compared to when I was young,” Zhou Hui chuckled, pointing at his watch. “We’d best finish things up here quickly so I can go back early, otherwise Feng Si will truly hate me… If he’s marinated for much longer, he won’t just be seasoned; he’ll completely break down.”
Everyone on the construction site was hiding in the temporary shelters as much as possible. In the center, there was a large pit, surrounded by scattered shovels, crowbars, and similar items. An excavator was parked not far away, its driver trembling and hiding behind the vehicle, clearly having soiled himself. In the middle of the large pit, six coffins were neatly arranged.
Mayor Huang personally rolled up his pant legs and entered the pit, pointing at the coffins with a mournful face. “I’ve heard of ancient coffins being dug up at construction sites, but these are all modern! I don’t know which heartless murderer killed people and didn’t send them to the crematorium. Even dismembering them and flushing them down the toilet would be better than this! Is it a mental illness to specially find a coffin to bury them in?!…”
Zhang Shun looked back and saw that the municipal criminal police detachment was standing outside the pit, several leaders pacing nervously as if facing a formidable enemy.
Li Hu asked, “No one opened the coffins, right?”
Mayor Huang said, “Too late. The site manager called the police immediately, and the police opened them right away… If I had known, I wouldn’t have let them touch them! These unlucky kids! What do we do now?!”
Li Hu looked at the criminal police captain with a half-smile and asked, “Who touched the coffins?”
The captain stammered, pointing to several young police officers behind him. “I… we all touched them…”
As he spoke, he stretched out a hand whose skin had already turned completely blue, and almost cried with a twisted mouth.
“What do we do now? Is it poisoning? I have an eighty-year-old mother and an eight-year-old child. What will my wife do if I become a hero…?”
Li Hu almost laughed, her mouth twitched, then she straightened her face, pulling out her identification and documents and slapping them into Mayor Huang’s arms.
“Who told you to mess with important evidence? Honestly, Mr. Zhou and I are special commissioners sent by higher authorities to investigate this major serial murder case. We’ve been looking for these coffins for days! We were about to rush over when we heard the news, but then your local police department destroyed the scene first. Now tell me, what do we do?!”
The criminal police captain’s first reaction was, Are you messing with me? Do you take me for a three-year-old?! But when Mayor Huang opened the documents, both of them froze.
“The Ministry of State… State Security?!” Mayor Huang and the criminal police captain exchanged glances, each seeing the other’s facial muscles twitching. Although these two were well-connected in their small corner of H City, this was the first time they had met a section chief directly under the Ministry of State Security. Mayor Huang scrutinized Li Hu with new eyes for a long time, then tremblingly asked, “Then… then Comrade Zhou over there…”
“Comrade Zhou is our section chief. He’s here to guide our investigation this time. You can check the intranet for verification,” Li Hu said sternly.
“We disguised ourselves as provincial protocol office staff to ensure the secrecy of our operation, but who knew you would… sigh! Mayor Huang, I won’t say more. Tell the comrades who touched the coffins to clean up and stand over there.”
The criminal police captain almost cried out, “We were investigating and handling a case, which is official duty! We didn’t violate any discipline!”
The young police officers behind him nodded in unison, making Li Hu roll her eyes.
“Do you think you’re going to be disciplined? You wish! Do you know what’s on your hands? It’s the original preparation of a newly discovered hallucinogenic drug patch in the country! Soon, the drug will be absorbed through the skin, and you’ll become addicted!”
This was so absurd that not only Mayor Huang but even Zhou Hui, who was squatting by the coffin smoking, raised an eyebrow.
“There… there’s such a thing?!” The captain was half-skeptical.
“You all go stand aside first, don’t touch anyone else with your blue skin, and don’t touch other parts of your own body. Consider yourselves lucky, in order to outwit criminals, we specially brought the latest developed neurotoxin antidote. We’ll give each of you an injection later, and you’ll be fine.”
The small-town police officers from this eighteenth-tier city exchanged glances. A few seconds later, they were all convinced by Comrade Li Hu, the special envoy from the Ministry of State Security. They all moved in unison to stand by the pit’s edge, a few of the younger ones still trembling.
Li Hu, as a fox spirit who had cultivated for thousands of years, found the greatest joy in bluffing people and the most satisfaction when others were actually fooled. He waved to his trusted driver, whom he had brought from Yunnan, and whispered, “Take out those few reagents from our car’s freezer and give each of them an injection… Yes, the ones with my handprint on them.”
The driver said tremblingly, “Isn’t that a bad idea, Group Leader Six? Isn’t that your private collection of that aphr… aphrodisiac? You even said last time that if you met a handsome guy on the way who wouldn’t cooperate, you’d give him a shot…”
“What do you know?” Li Hu said resentfully. “Someone got ahead of us, they’ve all been replaced with saline solution.”
Zhou Hui seemed completely oblivious to the furtive glances of those around him. After finishing his cigarette, he casually dropped the butt on the ground and extinguished it with his foot. He pulled out a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket, put them on, and began to lift the coffin lids. The coffin lids weighed at least 200 jin (100 kg). Zhang Shun went to help, but Zhou Hui stopped him instantly. “Don’t move, it’s really poisonous.”
Zhang Shun asked in surprise, “Then the hands of those police officers…”
“Corpse curse, Li Hu will handle it.” Zhou Hui exerted force, his shoulder muscles bulging, and with a rumble, he flipped the entire coffin lid over.
Zhang Shun, standing closest, was the first to see the scene inside the coffin and nearly vomited.
A semi-rotted corpse lay inside, facing upwards, its chest pierced at least a dozen times. The pale flesh was crisscrossed with cuts, emitting an indescribable stench.
What was terrifying was that this unlucky fellow’s face showed no sign of pain; instead, he stared straight up at the sky, his mouth stretched into a wide smile—both corners of his mouth almost reaching his ears, forming an eerie and terrifying arc.
The surrounding police officers gasped, and even the criminal police captain shivered several times. “This, how could this happen?!”
Zhou Hui sighed, walked to the next coffin, and repeated the process, until all the coffins were open. All the bodies had died quite horribly; some were beheaded, some drowned, and without exception, they all stared strangely upward with wide smiles—except for one body that died from a high-altitude fall, its head even shattered, making it impossible to discern its facial features.
Zhou Hui took off his black leather gloves and pulled out a small bronze wine cup from his pocket. The driver trotted over from the car with a leather case (Zhang Shun noticed the case was actually a Louis Vuitton). Zhou Hui took out three sticks of incense and a bottle of wine from the case and bowed to the six coffins.
“I know you were all innocently caught up and died unjustly, so it’s understandable to have some resentment. But rest assured, I will catch the real killer and send them down. Then you can steam them, or enjoy them with wine, whatever you like. If there’s no wine down there, you can go to Courtyard No. 9 at Sansha Lane on the Yellow Springs Road. I’ve left a few bottles of 15-year-old Feitian Maotai there. Drink it, and then reincarnate in peace.”
As he spoke, Zhou Hui poured a small cup of wine into the bronze cup and poured it onto the ground.
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, the eerie smiles on the faces of the corpses instantly disappeared. Everyone was dumbfounded. Zhang Shun was unprepared when Zhou Hui suddenly pulled his hand, took out a Swiss Army knife from his keychain, and cleanly pricked his middle finger.
“Ah! What are you doing?!”
“I’m borrowing virgin’s blood to break the evil.” Zhou Hui squeezed his blood into the bronze wine cup, but Zhang Shun immediately winced and pulled his hand back. “Who told you I was a virgin?!”
“…” Zhou Hui’s face showed a surprised expression for the first time. “You’re how old, and you’re not a virgin anymore?!”
The two looked at each other, only to feel a cold wind carrying leaves drift by, and a line of crows cawed overhead. Li Hu held her forehead, unable to watch.
“Humans are truly depraved,” Zhou Hui said in shock. “When I was your age, I only dared to fantasize about your brother and maybe ma-sturbate at most, and I had to do it secretly, afraid of being discovered…”
