Beijing, Great Hall.
The elevator to Basement Level 4 lit up. A tall, well-groomed young man in a D&G shirt and slacks stepped out, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, both hands in his pockets.
He walked the corridors with practiced ease and stopped at an office at the far end. A young man in a black suit with a rifle stood guard at the post nearby. When he saw the newcomer, he immediately smiled.
“Team Leader Situ, here to see our boss?”
“Yeah. He’s still inside?”
“Still guarding the array. It’s been a whole week. Got something urgent?”
Situ Yingzhi waved him off.
“Just need to grab something, I’ll be out quick.”
Although Zhou Hui’s office was in a rather strange location, it didn’t look any different from a typical government bureaucrat’s: redwood furniture, landscape paintings, and thick gray carpet. The only oddity was the web of threads hanging in the room, each thread suspended with glimmering, red pearls no bigger than a fingertip, all gliding back and forth. Despite the density of the strings, the beads never collided—like stars following their orbital paths.
Zhou Hui sat motionless at the center of the web, his back to Situ.
“Yo, why’s it so quiet in here? Old Two said you were hiding out in your office watching football with beer and fried chicken.”
Situ ducked under the web, patted Zhou’s shoulder casually, and said, “Boss, hurry and write me a talisman for safety. I’m heading back to Guangdong this afternoon. Some old rich fools in Hong Kong are crying for one… Shit—what happened to you?!”
Zhou Hui’s head lolled to the side, and a deep, bone-deep gash ran down his forearm, blood dripping steadily into a small puddle on the carpet.
“Fck! Boss! Did you slit your wrists?!” Situ grabbed Zhou’s head to straighten it—and that’s when he noticed a few long silver needles embedded in his scalp. As Situ moved him, one needle near the temple slid out silently.
“…” Situ’s face twitched. He inspected the needle and cautiously said, “Boss? Zhou Hui?”
No response.
“Leader Zhou? Boss Zhou? Zhou the Dumbass?”
Still nothing.
“…Really passed out.” He confirmed and, after grimacing for a moment, decided to reinsert the needle. But the original spot was too small to find again. Clumsily holding the needle, he was trying to guess the placement when the needle, seemingly drawn in by flesh, slipped straight into the temple.
Situ breathed a sigh of relief, took two steps back, and was just about to call someone for help when Zhou Hui suddenly opened his mouth and—
“PFFT!” —spurted out a mouthful of blood.
Situ: “…”
“WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?!”
He pulled out his phone, opened the WeChat group, and typed furiously:
[Boss just tried wrist-slitting suicide, I reinserted one of the soul-locking needles in his head and now he’s coughing blood—WTF? Emergency! Online now!]
Underground, H City – In the stone cave.
Zhou Hui coughed blood and dropped his short sword with a clang, stumbling back a few steps.
A notification dinged. The Nine-tailed Fox pulled a phone out from under her fluffy tail and, seeing the WeChat message, freaked out.
“You put it in the wrong place, dumbass!” the fox screamed. “Old Three, you don’t know how to insert it? Then don’t do it! Aren’t you ashamed of being this old and still not knowing how to stick it in properly?!”
“How was I supposed to know he’d be that easy to penetrate?! It just slid in! Now what? Should I call an ambulance?!”
“He’s projecting his spirit body here in H City! His phoenix side is about to commit patricide! You’re screwed—wait for Phoenix Four to skin you alive when we get back!”
The other side of the phone was silent for a second. Then, Situ replied very politely:
“Sori, me no speak Mandarin, I Cantonese guy. Bye bye yo!”
【Hou San has left the chat】
The fox threw the phone in rage: “You wanna act human, Guangdong boy? Since when were you even human?!”
Zhou Hui fell to the ground, his vision blacking out, losing all sense of his body for a second. In the haze, he saw Maha clutching his bleeding chest, sword in hand. But the next moment, Chu He grabbed him and flung him toward the fox.
The Nine-tailed Fox leapt into the air and caught Zhou Hui in his jaws, landing smoothly. “Phoenix Four, heads up!”
Maha ignored Chu He and lunged for Zhou Hui. But the moment they passed each other, Chu He pressed a palm to Maha’s chest—instantly burning a deep black seal into his skin, which began to ooze silver blood.
Maha gritted his teeth: “…Ming Wang’s True Flame?”
Chu He said nothing. He picked up the short sword Zhou Hui had dropped and gave it a swing—flames burst along the blade’s edge, extending to nearly a meter.
“You can’t leave. Not now.”
“Because I’ll draw heavenly lightning if I do?”
“That’s part of it. But I can’t tell you the rest yet. If you leave now, you’ll find out—but by then, it’ll be too late.”
Maha took a deep breath, sword in hand. Oddly, aside from his inherently sinister aura, standing there with sword drawn, he looked just like the Phoenix King of old.
But standing opposite him, face ordinary and expression calm, Chu He looked even more like the high and mighty Phoenix King from the 33rd heaven.
“Has anyone ever told you,” Maha said coldly, “that your whole ‘I-know-everything-but-won’t-say-a-word’ attitude is extremely punchable?”
Chu He raised a brow slightly, but in the next instant, Maha came down like thunder, swinging his blade in a strike meant to split the earth.
“Get Zhou Hui out! Seal the cave ceiling!” Chu He shouted as their weapons clashed. “Evacuate the people above!”
Without hesitation, the fox gathered the group and ran. Zhang Shun tried to stay behind but got swatted away by the fox.
“Kid, stop dawdling! Up you go!”
Zhang Shun shouted back: “I still don’t get it! What the hell is going on?!”
The fox roared in his ear: “Life is already hard enough! Some things you’re better off not understanding!”
The escape tunnel had formed from a quake, slick and muddy from flooding groundwater. They could only run single-file, with the fox and the weasel bringing up the rear. Despite being injured, Zhou Hui led the way, carving sealing spells into the walls in blood.
Even as just a puppet projection, this was some hardcore strength.
The fox yelled as they ran: “Hey, Boss—were all those 90 million seals in the cave carved by you?!”
Zhou Hui panted: “Of course, who else—”
“You?!”
“Hey, Boss—! How long did you carve for?”
“Over a hundred years!”
“Boss—! Are you truly a loving father to your Da Mao, or do you genuinely wish he’d die?!”
Zhou Hui turned and grabbed the Nine-Tailed Fox by the scruff of her neck, roaring, “I don’t know either!—If you have time to chat, why aren’t you clearing the path?!”
The Nine-Tailed Fox scrambled backward to escape. Just then, a thunderous “Boom!” echoed from the cave entrance behind them, immediately followed by Chu He flying out horizontally amidst collapsing rocks and dirt!
Maha followed closely.
The moment he emerged, his entire body seemed to be covered by a glowing red net. Upon closer inspection, the net was composed of countless circulating Sanskrit incantations.
In the brief instant he was restrained by this net, Chu He twisted in mid-air, stepped on the stone wall, and like a master of martial arts, dashed back, piercing Maha’s chest straight through with a single strike!
Blood gushed out, overflowing from Maha’s teeth, but the next second, his hand passed through the cursed net and grabbed Chu He’s wrist.
His sharp nails, like blades, instantly pierced Chu He’s radial artery.
As the blood vessel completely severed, blood spurted out, rapidly vaporizing in the surrounding intense heat—then, just as the phoenix blood had melted the sword into molten iron, the Sanskrit curse net was burned through layer by layer in the blink of an eye!
Chu He’s pupils constricted, but it was too late to pull his hand back.
The cracks in the curse net rapidly expanded. The next second, Maha broke free, bursting out amidst the earth-shattering explosions of ninety million layers of grand forbidden incantations!
Chu He roared, “Zhou Hui—”
The cooperation in this thousandth of a second was exquisite. Zhou Hui’s figure shot up from the ground, transforming into his Dharma form in mid-air. With a “Roar—”, he slammed Maha back in mid-air!
The entire rock shattered with cracks, but Maha seemed completely oblivious to the bone-piercing pain, not even pausing. The moment he rebounded from the force of gravity, he shot out like a cannonball.
If one looked closely, his figure streaking across the sky rained blood, but at this moment, no one could match the speed of the Peacock King’s true Dharma form. He zipped past Zhou Hui like a hurricane, and the next second, he had surged towards everyone.
The Nine-Tailed Fox let out a sharp cry: “Get out of the way—”
If time were to stop here, it would be a chaotic scene, like boiling mud.
Maha’s face was chillingly cold, his sword held horizontally before him, his robes and long hair entangled like a fluttering white giant bird, his face and body covered in crisscrossing bloodstains. Li Hu’s nine enormous snow-white fox tails were fully extended, her fox body pressing down, firmly shielding everyone beneath her.
Chu He, entangled by the torn Sanskrit curse net, grabbed a string of azure Buddhist beads from the void at the last moment and threw them with all his might to Zhou Hui. Zhou Hui caught them in mid-air without looking back, and the moment they landed in his hand, they transformed into a pure azure longbow. He nocked an arrow, drew the string, and aimed at Maha’s back.
The change happened at this moment.
—The instant Maha swept past, the weasel suddenly looked up, extended its claw, and with all its might, tugged at his robe sleeve.
This tug, for a powerful being like Maha, was actually no force at all; ordinarily, he might not even feel it. But at this point, he was at the end of his tether, unable to maintain balance after being wounded. In his haste, he stumbled, exposing his undefended back.
Maha abruptly shook his sleeve, flinging the weasel heavily through the air.
—The next second, the long arrow arrived, carrying light. With a “Thud!”, it pinned Maha to the stone wall!
The Nine-Tailed Fox suddenly turned, her voice distorted: “Hey! Fatty!”
Everyone else hadn’t reacted, but Chu He had already gritted his teeth and brutally tore through the curse net entangling his wrist, charging straight over.
The weasel was slammed onto the ground, littered with sharp shattered stones. Its plump body twitched a few times, and a large puddle of blood slowly seeped from the back of its head.
He struggled to breathe, beginning to gasp for air. Blood filled his lungs, producing a hoarse, grating sound like a bellows. Chu He’s hands trembled as he picked him up, cradling his head on his lap, desperately wiping away the large gushes of blood flowing from his mouth. Yet, foamy blood continued to well up from his mouth, nostrils, and even his ears.
“Chu, CEO Chu,” he asked intermittently, “Did… did I do well enough?…”
For an instant, Chu He seemed to return to that day when this round weasel, after being mocked by the Japanese, would only retreat in shame, sitting on the desolate construction site, sadly asking: “Did I not do well enough?”
“You’ve done very well.”
“Then why does no one still treat me like a person?”
“Because you didn’t do well enough yet.”
“Just… do a little more; just a little more will be enough.”
Chu He closed his eyes, gasping for air, but tears quickly soaked his entire face.
“You’re already very good,” his voice trembled violently, sounding incredibly hoarse and strange: “Those who mocked you… those high and mighty people are actually far… far inferior to you. All of them deserve only to look up to you from a very, very low place…”
This weasel, who had been cautious and fearful his entire life, seemed to want to force out a smile with his last ounce of strength, but ultimately failed. His face was frozen in a somewhat comical expression, as if wanting to crack a smile, yet his face was wet with blood and tears, stained with so much dirt and dust, looking very absurd and extremely disheveled.
Chu He bent down and gently laid the weasel on the ground.
His shoulders and indeed his entire body began to tremble with his violent gasps. The trembling grew increasingly severe, becoming exceptionally violent within seconds. The veins on the hand gripping the stone wall bulged, and all five fingernails simultaneously changed from the pale white of overexertion to a terrifying blood red.
“Ma… hā…” he uttered syllable by syllable.
The voice seemed to come from between his teeth, unlike his usual voice; instead, it sounded unusually cold and chilling.
Something seemed to be rapidly moving beneath his clothes. Then, the golden-red phoenix tattoo emerged from his collar, extending as if alive from his arm, across his shoulder, and all the way to half of his side face.
The next second, the Phoenix King’s Dharma form materialized. A sea of fire blossomed like a lotus in the void, causing the surrounding rock to explode with a bang!
Just as the Nine-Tailed Fox noticed the abnormality and tried to move forward, she was abruptly pulled back by Zhou Hui—
That was not a normal phoenix Dharma form.
That was the Vajra of Commandment, Vajrasattva, the ancient phoenix’s extremely evil manifestation, never before seen in a thousand years of scriptures!
