The next morning when Zhang Shun woke up, his brother was shirtless, his back to him, facing the bathroom mirror.
At first, Zhang Shun thought his brother was shaving and was momentarily shocked: My brother grows a beard! How down-to-earth!
Then he realized he was putting in contact lenses and breathed a sigh of relief. He felt his brother was still his familiar self, not suddenly tainted by the mortal world just because they had shared a bed for one night.
“Bro!” Zhang Shun yawned. “Which girl were you lucky with last night? She’s got some spicy mouth skills, huh?”
Chu He picked up his shirt and put it on, buttoning it up with a deadpan expression. “Sooner or later, you’ll die because of that big mouth of yours.”
Zhang Shun had a good quality: he didn’t get angry easily. He would just laugh things off. Everyone around him knew this. Although Second Young Master Zhang was a good-for-nothing playboy, he had the virtue of a good temper. He never bullied people, and even if someone defied him to his face, he would curse a bit and forget about it five minutes later.
With his own brother, who had long held an intimidating presence, there was even less to say. Zhang Shun scratched his head and lazily climbed out of bed. “I’m going to find a master to exorcise the house today. What are you up to, bro? Wanna come?”
Chu He’s expression changed. “Don’t mess with that superstitious stuff at home for no reason!”
“Hey—Master Fang on Xinglong Street is famous all over the northeast. Our house was haunted last night…”
“For a business family, can feng shui be messed with casually?” Chu He reprimanded him mercilessly. “Go pick up girls and get into fights all you want, but don’t bring those monks and Taoist priests home!”
Zhang Shun pouted. “Alright, I get it.”
Only then did his brother’s expression soften. He picked a thin black tie from the wardrobe and, while tying it, said, “A Japanese conglomerate is coming to the city to invest under the guise of a religious visit. They’re said to be building a five-star hotel in the Sanlitun development zone. Mayor Huang has specifically asked our company to accompany and host them. I might not be back for dinner tonight.”
That last sentence tugged at Zhang Shun’s heartstrings. He thought with some emotion that it had been a long time since the two brothers had dinner together. He was about to say, Then I won’t go out tomorrow night, let’s have dinner at home, but he saw his brother pick up his jacket and walk out the door, his steps steady and dashing, without even a goodbye.
“…” Zhang Shun said, “I really shouldn’t have been so cheap.”
The Second Young Master yawned and went downstairs for breakfast. He joked around with the old butler, flirted with the new young maid, then tossed his chopsticks aside and drove his newly bought Ferrari out the door.
Although he had promised his brother not to engage in feudal superstitions at home, the Second Young Master was just saying it. In reality, he was determined to invite a “master” to take a good look at the house’s feng shui. He had been feeling that the house wasn’t peaceful lately. Several of the expensive goldfish in the front yard pond had died, and rumors were spreading among the servants about seeing white shadows in the corridors. Not to mention the perennially gloomy warehouse in the backyard; even the old butler had secretly told him he heard ghostly wails from inside at night, so scared that even the German shepherd guard dogs stopped barking.
In this day and age, two types of people are the most superstitious: rich businessmen and intellectuals. Although the Second Young Master was a playboy, he hadn’t slacked off in his studies. He had been coddled by countless top-tier teachers and private tutors all the way to a national key university. After graduation, he went to his grandparents abroad and got a master’s degree—not one bought with money, but a hard-earned degree from a top foreign university that he got into on his own merit and for which he had pulled many all-nighters writing his thesis. If his father hadn’t fallen gravely ill back then, forcing him to abandon his studies and return to the country, the Second Young Master could have at least come back with a doctorate from a prestigious university.
Therefore, the Second Young Master, fitting both categories, was particularly superstitious.
On the way, Zhang Shun called one of his die-hard friends, Huang Pian, the nephew of the city’s mayor. He opened with a bold question, “Hey, Huang Pian, which little starlet’s bed are you holed up in? Get out here, I’ve got serious business for you!”
Huang Pian roared back, “You’re the one holed up in a starlet’s bed! I was drinking with that bunch of bastards from the Environmental Bureau all night! What do you want? Speak or hang up!”
“Hey, hey, hey—don’t hang up, don’t hang up. I’m asking you, last time you said you’d introduce me to that Master Fang when you had time. Is it too late to find him today?”
“What for?”
“Serious business,” Zhang Shun said solemnly. “My house is haunted. I need to hire a master to catch the demon.”
Huang Pian had been about to hang up and go back to sleep, but his interest was suddenly piqued. “What demon catching? What kind of demon?”
So Zhang Shun, with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the phone, briefly recounted the terrifying scene from last night. Huang Pian listened with clicks of his tongue. After repeatedly confirming that Zhang Shun wasn’t having a nightmare or just joking around, he declared that he had to be in on this excitement and would go pick up Master Fang to meet up with Zhang Shun.
“But doesn’t your brother hate monks and Taoist priests the most?” Huang Pian asked. “Are you sure your brother has a social engagement tonight? What if he suddenly comes back and embarrasses Master Fang? I can’t afford to lose face like that.”
Zhang Shun said, “Don’t worry, Huang Pian. My brother is dealing with the Japanese investors with your uncle tonight—he won’t be back until after midnight. We’ll make it quick. Otherwise, I won’t even dare to sleep at home tonight.”
Huang Pian bristled. “Don’t call me by that nickname!”
Chu He’s eyelid twitched all afternoon, but he couldn’t figure out what was happening.
He didn’t know that his brother, who was more of a hindrance than a help, had already thrown his morning warning to the wind.
He was led by an assistant to a sofa in the mayor’s secretariat. The secretary personally served him a fruit platter, good cigarettes, and a pot of specially supplied Tieguanyin tea, asking with a smile, “Mayor Huang knew you were coming, but unfortunately, he’s still in a conference call—why don’t you sit and rest for a bit? I’ll go check how much longer it will be.”
Chu He nodded without a word. A moment later, the secretary hurried back, a look of undisguised confusion on his face. “Mayor Huang said to have you come in quickly.”
Chu He had a good idea of what had happened but didn’t say much. He nodded and walked into the office, pushing open the heavy wooden door directly.
The mayor’s office was a standard government-style two-room suite, with a small reception room outside and the study inside. Chu He closed the door behind him, blocking the secretary’s curious gaze, and walked around the large desk. He saw a fat, glossy-furred weasel writhing on the ground in pain, its two paws clutching its neck.
“A chick-chicken bone is stuck in my throat,” Mayor Huang gasped, his eyes rolling back. “Quick, quick, help me get it out—”
Chu He: “…”
Chu He deftly picked up the weasel, turned it around, straddled its back, grabbed the scruff of its furry neck, and gave a sharp jab with his elbow. With a crisp crack, the chicken bone shot out of the weasel’s mouth.
“Cough, cough, cough! Cough, cough, cough, cough!” The weasel coughed repeatedly as it transformed back into human form. He lay on the ground, clutching his fat belly, and asked pitifully with tears in his eyes, “Do… do you have to be so rough with me every time?”
“…” Chu He said, “Stay away from me, fatty.”
Mayor Huang, with a speed unbelievable for a fat man, scrambled up from the floor. While stuffing his tail into his pants, he said righteously, “Don’t call me by that nickname! —Besides, this mayor isn’t fat, this mayor is plump!”
·
There were many benefits to having a weasel as a local official. In Mayor Huang’s words, if a human were in his position, who knows how corrupt they would be, but he was satisfied with just two chickens a day.
Of course, there were downsides too. For example, the secretary often smelled a strange fried chicken aroma in the mayor’s office, and sometimes there were unidentified, blood-stained chicken feathers on the floor.
Of course, compared to these minor drawbacks, the benefits Mayor Huang brought were too numerous for the city’s residents to list. For instance, when avian flu broke out in the north, Mayor Huang slammed his desk and, in a rage, ordered the health commission to conduct a thorough investigation, quickly ensuring the safety and hygiene standards of the city’s poultry industry. Another example was when gutter oil was rampant, Mayor Huang acted decisively, investigating to the very end. To prevent the possibility of cover-ups by related departments, he even risked his own health, personally squatting by the roadside every day to taste-test the fried chicken from street vendors.
Perhaps because of his good official reputation, the Central Demon Management Committee turned a blind eye to Mayor Huang. Although he wasn’t promoted, he hadn’t been transferred or demoted in several years.
Mayor Huang was still quite smug about this, feeling that as a demon, being accepted by humans was a matter of great honor for his ancestors.
Chu He’s way of bursting his bubble was this:
“Stop dreaming. In the Heavenly Kingdom, you can line up a whole troop of those from Maoshan, and in National Security’s special office, nine out of ten are zombies. Who has time for a seventh- or eighth-tier little mayor like you?”
Mayor Huang: “…I’m a local official, at least. Can you leave me some face!”
The huffing local official, Mayor Huang, moved his enormous body into the Red Flag sedan. He took up so much space that Chu He almost couldn’t fasten his seatbelt. After much effort, he finally fished the buckle out from under Mayor Huang’s large backside. “…Lao Huang, you really need to lose weight.”
“I’ve lost five pounds this week, you know!” Mayor Huang said with a pained expression. “Ever since I heard that Japan’s Aida Conglomerate was coming to invest in our seventh- or eighth-tier little city, the province has been sending people down to hijack the deal. It’s messed up my eating and sleeping. My old problems of qi and blood deficiency and neurasthenia have all f—ing come back!”
Chu He held his breath, fumbled to buckle his seatbelt, and then sighed in relief.
“You said the Central Demon Committee has no problem with me, so why does the province always have it in for me? Do they know I’m a weasel? They can’t! —Could it still be because I snatched that bastard Lao Wu’s mayorship back then? But that was his own doing! Although the collapse of the city center overpass had something to do with an earth dragon, the main reason was that Lao Wu and his cronies took too many kickbacks from the developers. If I hadn’t acted decisively and invited you from the Jin Mao Tower to hold down the fort, when the concrete foundation collapsed, the several hundred people on that road at the time would have all been dead…”
Mayor Huang skillfully pulled out a grease-paper package from the side of his seat and started crunching on chicken bones from it.
“You know how hard it was for our city to develop from a small county to what it is today. We finally attract some foreign investment, and I, the dignified mayor, was so excited I couldn’t sleep for three days. It brings tears to my eyes just talking about it! Instead of giving strong support and praise, the province actually sends people down to hijack the deal. Their consciences have been eaten by dogs! It’s just because that Lao Wu I took down was one of the province’s own guys! —They even tried to secretly contact the foreign investors behind my back. Luckily, I found out early. If they piss me off, I’ll fart them to death!”
The corner of Chu He’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
“Who did the province send?”
“Supposedly the foreign guest reception office,” Mayor Huang said. “A female director with the surname Li, with a pretty boy named Zhou, and a few other staff. Hmph, they even wanted to meet the foreign investors together today. I specifically had someone get them drunk at noon and had them packed off and thrown back in their hotel…”
The Japanese investor had arrived yesterday, and a welcome banquet had already been held last night. Mayor Huang’s original intention was to arrange a tour today to showcase the city’s vigorous development, and then a sauna in the evening to further cultivate their relationship. But the Japanese side was very efficient and directly proposed to go see the site in the suburban development zone, hoping to finalize the construction site selection in the next two days.
Mayor Huang had nothing to say to this—settling the deal with one strike was better, so this fat piece of meat that had fallen from the sky wouldn’t be coveted by others.
“A 3.5 billion foreign investment. Maybe after the hotel is built, they’ll build a large leisure and entertainment center nearby.” After finishing the chicken bones, Fatty Huang wiped his greasy mouth and patted Chu He’s shoulder self-importantly. “Don’t say I don’t look out for you, President Chu. If we can secure this project, I, the great immortal Huang, will treat you like my own grandfather!”
“…” Chu He said, “Please don’t.”
As they spoke, the Red Flag sedan had already stopped at the entrance of the suburban development center. This place was some distance from the main road, surrounded by large, empty plots of land. Besides the temporary exhibition center built during the initial architectural planning, there were only a few hospitals and middle schools far away. Not far off was a real estate development area contracted by a construction company, where the scaffolding had just gone up, the ground still pitted and uneven.
The Japanese investors had already arrived. Surrounded by a group of people, they stood by the wire mesh fence around the empty land, looking at something. No one even noticed when the Red Flag sedan pulled up.
Mayor Huang puffed out his chest and stomach and got out of the car, waving his hand with a resonant voice. “Hey—”
Everyone turned around at once.
Then, the director of the exhibition center, taking advantage of his thin and agile figure, pushed through the crowd and rushed over first. “Mayor Huang! Mayor Huang! Something bad has happened, we have a situation here!”
He grabbed Fatty Huang, his whole body trembling. “Some-some-someone jumped off a building!”
Mayor Huang: “Huh?!”
Chu He immediately got out of the car. The director was clearly terrified, shivering in the hot weather, beads of sweat as big as beans rolling down his eyebrows, too panicked to even wipe them away. “That—that construction site over there, someone just jumped from the top. I-I-I-I saw it with my own eyes, he splattered into such a big patch! We just called the police. Mayor, you’re finally here, what-what-what-what do we do…”
Mayor Huang: “What did you say?!”
“The person who jumped was my translator,” a man in a well-tailored gray suit said as he walked out from the crowd. He shook Mayor Huang’s hand and said politely in stiff Chinese, “Just now, my translator said he was going to the restroom. In the blink of an eye, he jumped from up there. It just so happened that everyone saw it with their own eyes.”
The scene was chaotic. Mayor Huang, while wiping his sweat and forcing a smile to shake the man’s hand, turned his head to explain to Chu He in a low voice, “This is Mr. Aida Yoshihide, the current head of the Aida Conglomerate…” He also had to forcefully maintain his composure and address the crowd, “Calm down! Everyone calm down! The police will be here soon. No one is to touch the scene!”
Chu He’s gaze went past the crowd toward the construction site. After a moment, he retracted it and it fell upon a young man in a white robe on the Japanese side.
The young man was only seventeen or eighteen years old, with a handsome face. He wore wide robes and broad sleeves, and followed Aida Yoshihide with his head lowered, as silent and unnoticed as an invisible person.
However, to Chu He, his presence was very distinct—he was wearing a kariginu.
The young man was an onmyoji.
Perhaps noticing Chu He’s gaze, Aida Yoshihide nodded politely and pointed to the young man to introduce him. “This is my humble nephew. Because he knows a little something about catching demons and subduing monsters, I brought him along to survey the project’s feng shui and assist in site selection.”
As he spoke, he patted Mayor Huang’s thick shoulder with deep meaning and smiled. “—My humble nephew is good-tempered and won’t act arbitrarily just because he has some skills, so the mayor really has no need to be afraid, hahahaha!”
The others in the chaos didn’t understand, but Mayor Huang’s face changed almost instantly.
“Mr…. Mr. Aida is joking,” beads of sweat as big as soybeans rolled down the weasel’s fat face, and he could barely maintain his smile. “Hehe—your nephew is clearly a handsome and promising young man, hehehehe—”
The young onmyoji stepped forward and, under Mayor Huang’s almost terrified gaze, bowed respectfully. His voice was naturally soft. “Hello, Mr. Huang. My name is Lanyu.”
Then he turned to Chu He. In that instant, he seemed to sense some kind of dangerous aura. His pupils dilated slightly and then constricted.
“…” The young onmyoji placed the thumb of his left hand on the palm of his right, clasped his hands with the backs facing outward, and bowed in a formal greeting specific to sorcerers. “It is a pleasure to meet you for the first time. I ask for your kind consideration.”
