Three hours later, in Zhou Hui’s office.
Li Hu poked her head furtively around the corner of the wall and asked, “How’s your Boss Zhou’s mood right now?”
The members of Team One were all energetic young men with above-average looks, long accustomed to Li Hu’s teasing. The two team members standing guard at the door were surprised to see the Nine-Tailed Fox Team Leader acting so serious (not really) and found it quite odd. “We don’t know. He seems the same as usual.”
The other one chuckled, “Team Leader Six, did you do something to piss off our boss?”
Li Hu scoffed, “I’m working my tail off on business trips every day. What could I have possibly done to piss off your boss?” Then, she lowered her voice and asked, “Did you guys see Deputy Yu this morning?”
“Deputy Director Yu had to go out for a meeting. He didn’t look too good,” the team member on the left couldn’t help but tease. “Team Leader Six, you must have done something bad, right? Don’t tell me you slept with Deputy Yu last night? Oh man, that would explain it. Deputy Yu had the face of a man drained completely dry all day…”
“What are you talking about?” Zhou Hui suddenly threw the door open, his face frigid. “Who slept with whom, hmm?”
The two young men immediately fell silent, staring at their own noses as if they were the most interesting thing in the world, standing as still as clay statues.
Under Zhou Hui’s piercing gaze, a guilty Li Hu coughed and slowly emerged from behind the wall. She wasn’t wearing her usual high heels or miniskirt. Instead, she was properly carrying a black briefcase, her neck shrunk down as she said fawningly, “Hello, Boss Zhou.”
Zhou Hui was imposing. “Get in!”
Li Hu shuffled into the office, hugging the wall. The door slammed shut behind her, and in the next instant, Zhou Hui violently kicked her three meters across the room. “You wretched creature! I should have had you made into a fox-skin scarf! Feng Si spoiled you rotten!”
With a thud, Li Hu landed face-down on the floor. She scrambled up, aggrieved. “I only meant for him to have a sip! A little aphrodisiac to stir up a little passion. Who knew he’d drink the whole damn thing? How is that my fault?!”
Zhou Hui said, “You’re really done for. This morning, the higher-ups were holding a hearing for the little beauty to ask about the details of his journey from the esoteric sect in Tokyo to China. Deputy Yu was supposed to leave after dropping him off at the hearing, but he ended up following the guy in a daze, almost barging into the conference hall. The superiors thought Deputy Yu’s state was abnormal, so they kindly sent him to State Security, where he ran right into Feng Si…”
“So nothing happened, right? Deputy Yu wasn’t drained to death, and the little beauty wasn’t screwed to death in bed!” Li Hu felt deeply wronged, as if she had done a good deed and received no reward. “So why did you call and chew me out this morning? Don’t tell me the drug hadn’t worn off and Deputy Yu molested Feng Si?”
“Get lost!” Zhou Hui said irritably. “It’s not like you don’t know Feng Si has a natural ‘super confidante’ buff. His face just screams ‘I’m your soulmate.’ The moment Lao Yu saw him, it was like a revolutionary army reunion, like the liberated masses seeing a clear blue sky. He dragged him off for a private chat!”
Zhou Hui sat in an armchair, his expression one of extreme impatience, and slammed the files in his hand onto the desk. “Feng Si asked me for an hour of leave! Lao Yu personally guaranteed he would bring him back in one piece! Starting ten minutes ago, for a full hour, Feng Si will be outside my range of perception!” He pointed at Li Hu, heartbroken and furious. “This is all your damn fault!”
“…” Li Hu said seriously, “I think you’re the one who needs a psychologist. You should go see one, quickly.”
But Zhou Hui was genuinely agitated, constantly checking his watch. Li Hu had heard a theory that a person’s gaze contains an unknown biological energy. If that were true, in another five minutes, Zhou Hui’s Vacheron Constantin would explode from the heat.
“Could you rein in that psychotic possessiveness of yours just a little?” Li Hu couldn’t help but press her forehead. She slammed the black briefcase onto the desk. “An hour isn’t even enough time to get to the nearest gate of the Hell Path from the human world. Are you worried Feng Si is going to run off? He’s your ex-wife now, stop being so sensitive about the color of the hat on your head. A real man must face the dripping blood and confront a life of being cuckolded!”
Zhou Hui clearly didn’t want to waste any more words on the nine-tailed fox. He stared coldly at the briefcase. “What is this?”
Li Hu entered the password, and the briefcase opened with a click. A rush of icy white vapor billowed out from the opening. Because the office was warm, the surrounding desktop immediately condensed with droplets of water.
“The thing you sent me to H-City to find. It was really under that grotto. I was going to give it to you immediately after rushing back to Beijing yesterday, but you left the bar first.”
Li Hu opened the briefcase completely. White vapor surged out, and the temperature in the office dropped by five degrees.
“A casual thought from you has me running back and forth between Beijing and H-City, squatting under a grotto digging in the dirt for half a day, only to get beaten up when I get back,” Li Hu said resentfully while rubbing her head. “No wonder your kid is looking for a stepfather and your wife became your ex-wife. I now support Feng Si cheating on you to find his second spring in life.”
Zhou Hui couldn’t even be bothered to hit her. “Didn’t you already support him finding his second spring when you helped him fabricate evidence of me cheating, and helped him leave me for no reason to find the Demon Lord? Do you know how many times I was summoned and scolded by those gods in the Thirty-Three Heavens after that happened? They all said the Phoenix Wisdom King betrayed them for the Demon Lord because he was heartbroken over my infidelity. Heartbroken my ass!”
Li Hu backed down and said no more, just staring intently at the briefcase.
As the room temperature dropped, the white vapor slowly dissipated, and the contents became clear. Inside the case, a transparent glass jar was secured by a stand. Zhou Hui recognized it as the best miniature refrigeration unit available on the market. With enough power, it could maintain a temperature of minus one hundred degrees Celsius for forty-eight hours.
Inside the refrigeration jar was a small, lotus-shaped stand, delicately and securely holding a perfectly round, translucent red pearl the size of a thumb.
In the cold air, the red pearl emitted an indescribably brilliant halo, as bright as a star in the nine heavens, yet also like a highly concentrated, roaring fire. Zhou Hui’s handsome profile was indistinct in the light. After a long moment, he was heard to whisper, “So it’s true… He really went all out.”
“What is this?” Li Hu asked curiously.
Zhou Hui didn’t answer, instead asking, “How did you find this?”
“I just dug it up. The day I sent Zhang Shun from H-City to Beijing, you told me there might be something else under the grotto, so I turned around and flew back to H-City that night. The Sweepers were at the scene preparing to seal the grotto. I begged and pleaded with him for ages, I was about to get on my knees before he finally relented…”
Zhou Hui said, “If you tried to tempt him with things like ‘I’ll sleep with you if you let me in,’ I think it’s normal that he ignored you. And then?”
“I think he was a little tempted, because even though he didn’t say a single word to me the whole time, he at least stayed and dug with me for a whole night,” Li Hu said optimistically. “It wasn’t until the second day that we found this three zhang deep within the earth’s veins under the grotto. It had already half-melted into the soil and would melt upon contact with light and heat. I had no choice but to buy this freezer jar to bring it out. So, what is it? And how did you know there would be something in the grotto?”
Zhou Hui picked up the jar, his sharp eyes narrowing.
The red light cast a bloody tint in his pupils. Combined with his wickedly handsome face, it gave him the eerie look of a legendary vampire.
“I know what this is… but I don’t know what it’s for.”
He studied the red pearl and said slowly, “But I was wondering back in H-City, why was Feng Si so desperate to leave Maha in the grotto? The moment the Demon Lord took Maha, he immediately turned hostile, to the point that he later lacked support from the Demon Realm and was easily captured and brought back to Beijing by me without any resistance… So there was a reason.”
Li Hu was surprised. “It’s related to this pearl?”
“Back then, the Phoenix bore the heavenly retribution for Maha. At the final moment before his true form was incinerated, I pulled him out, but he desperately transformed back into human form and rushed back into the fire.” Zhou Hui gently placed the freezer jar back on the desk. “This is what he brought out—dug out from his own remains. The Phoenix’s eyeball.”
At the same time, Deputy Yu sat cross-legged on a sofa in a tea room, silently chain-smoking.
The young waiter stood to the side, holding a teapot, at a loss. He was clearly new and didn’t know whether to remind the customer that smoking was not allowed indoors for environmental reasons, or to endure it, given the boss’s exceptionally warm smile and the generous tip the customer had given upon entering.
“What is it?” Yu Jingzhong finally looked up, gesturing to the empty teacup in front of him. “Pour.”
It would have been better if he hadn’t spoken. The moment he looked up, he scared the young waiter. Deputy Yu’s eyes were bloodshot, his chin was stubbled, and there were scratch marks on his neck. His designer shirt was wrinkled like something from a street stall. He looked like a living history of suffering, with half a century of hardship written on his face.
The waiter stammered, “S-Sir, smoking is not allowed in our private rooms…”
“I’ll do it.” Chu He stood up and took the teapot from his hand with a gentle but firm motion. “You can leave us.”
The waiter hesitated for a moment, then quietly retreated outside, leaving the door ajar. Chu He didn’t mind. He personally poured a cup of Tieguanyin for Deputy Yu and asked, “Why did you think to ask me? Shouldn’t you go to Zhou Hui for something like this?”
Yu Jingzhong held the cigarette between his fingers and rubbed his temples in frustration. “I already asked Zhou Hui. He disagreed. That bastard is even egging me on to go for it. Does he think my funeral won’t be lively enough?”
“Go for what?”
“Yan Lanyu!”
Chu He poured himself a cup of tea. “While I don’t recommend you do that, I also don’t approve of your request to erase Yan Lanyu’s memory of last night. Speaking of which, why do you want to tamper with Yan Lanyu’s memory but keep your own?”
Yu Jingzhong stubbed out his cigarette, his face grim as he lit another and took a deep drag.
“If I hadn’t known you for so long, I’d almost think you were a scumbag who sleeps with someone and then denies it… though you’re not far off now.” Chu He seemed rather amused. “Do you have a special reason? If you can convince me, this isn’t entirely non-negotiable.”
Deputy Yu finally looked up through the curling white smoke—being a man who looked older than his age was also a tragedy; his forehead wrinkles were immediately visible. “I don’t want him to die for me a third time. Is that reason enough?”
Chu He was intrigued. “Oh?”
“The first time he met me, he nearly lost his life. The second time he met me, he nearly lost his damn life again. Fourth Brother, you and Zhou Hui have lived for thousands, tens of thousands of years. Do you know what it feels like to face death? Especially when you offer yourself up to that fate, like a sacrifice. Do you know what that feels like?”
“Actually, I do,” Chu He laughed, looking down at the steam rising from his teacup. “But only for my own child… That’s not the point. Continue.”
“Let me tell you, that kid has lived in a place like an esoteric sect for too long. He’ll cling to the slightest bit of normal human warmth like it’s a lifeline. I’m not nearly as good as he imagines. I’m just an ordinary person, but he never met an ordinary person in the first ten-plus years of his life. So when he chanced upon one, he found it so rare that he threw caution to the wind and thought he’d fallen in love. It’s all an illusion.”
“Are you feeling insecure?” Chu He asked with a smile.
“I just have a realistic understanding of myself,” Yu Jingzhong said, pointing to himself. “If I were a bit more despicable, I’d just string him along. I have Minmin anyway, and I’m not planning on finding anyone else. I could mess around for a few years, a decade, and see what happens. But Yan Lanyu has no idea what he’s doing right now. In the future, when he’s grown up, matured, and met more people, he’ll look back at me and think he wasted all those years on a dog. The best years of his life, all wasted on me.”
Chu He was still smiling. “Then why not erase your own memory as well?”
Yu Jingzhong stubbornly waved his hand. “Anyway, just make him forget about it. I’ll send him to a good school, let him meet more people his own age. In the future, whether he finds a girl and has kids or finds a man to spend his life with, as long as I’m alive to see him happy, I can die with my eyes closed. As for my assets, he and Minmin can split them. Luckily, the mortgage is paid off, so selling the place will be easy…”
“I can grudgingly accept that reason,” Chu He said. “But I still think you’re robbing him of the power to choose for himself right now. A choice made instinctively in a state of confusion and ignorance is not necessarily the wrong one.”
Yu Jingzhong gave him a complicated look that said, “You could never understand,” and lowered his head to sip his tea.
His cigarette case was on the table. Chu He reached out, took one, but didn’t light it, instead twirling it in his hand. This was one good thing about being a poor civil servant: the cigarettes were all special government-supply. If he sold them online, they’d probably fetch a nice sum—a pity he smoked them all himself.
“When I chose Zhou Hui…” Chu He said slowly, “I chose him under similar circumstances.”
Yu Jingzhong said, “Zhou Hui told me that because he was so devastatingly handsome, you stopped fighting the moment you saw him, and when he proposed, you immediately agreed. From then on, you both retired from the world to live as a loving couple… Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have believed him.”
“It’s true that I agreed as soon as he asked,” Chu He laughed. “And his human form was indeed… the Sea of Blood might not produce someone like him in a thousand years. Even their leader, the Demon Lord… but that’s not the point.”
He lit the cigarette with a click, taking a drag under Yu Jingzhong’s utterly surprised gaze.
Back when he was Team Leader Feng Si, the Phoenix Wisdom King’s lofty status isolated him from all worldly habits. Forget about smoking; even burping or coughing were unimaginable. But now, with a seemingly ordinary and cold face, his long fingers held a cigarette, the curling smoke obscuring the gaze beneath his lashes. The slight turn of his profile gave off a strangely different feeling.
“The day he proposed, I was kneeling before the Buddha, chanting sutras…” Chu He said leisurely. “Just then, a Wisdom King from an esoteric sect came over again, insisting on persuading me to marry his sister. This person had been pestering me for a long time. I was getting impatient, but he was one of the five orthodox Great Wisdom Kings, so it was difficult to refuse him to his face… Just then, news came from the Luminous Heaven that the demons from the Sea of Blood were attacking our gates again, so I took the opportunity to go out and observe the battle.”
“Zhou Hui was one of the demon generals in that war. He charged right up to the Heavenly Gate on the battlefield and asked me if I was willing to go with him. Everyone, including that Wisdom King and his sister, was there. A rebellious streak suddenly came over me, and I agreed to Zhou Hui.”
Chu He gently blew out a smoke ring, saying calmly, “But that was just one of the triggers. At the time, due to certain events, I had already developed great doubts about the Heavenly Dao. Suspicion, anger, and resentment tormented me constantly. So agreeing to Zhou Hui was less about love at first sight and more a rebellious act of revenge against the Heavenly Dao, driven by my inner demons.”
“…” Yu Jingzhong trembled. “So you…”
“In the beginning, we were just friends with benefits for many years. Sometimes I would seal my six senses, so it didn’t matter.” Chu He said, “Sorry to have destroyed the last of your good impressions of Buddhism. My apologies.”
Yu Jingzhong’s hand holding the cigarette trembled slightly. He took a sip of tea to hide his face.
“However, even the worst beginnings can have their scripts changed midway, becoming a story that, while not perfect, is the only one suitable for you.” Chu He paused, then said, “The choices people make when they are at their lowest and most confused are not necessarily incorrect. Based on my own experiences and views, I don’t think you should forcibly suppress yourself to send someone else down a so-called ‘correct path’.”
Yu Jingzhong kept his head down, his sharp features blurred by the smoke and steam.
“This is someone’s whole life…” he said slowly after a long pause. “I can’t gamble with the life of a teenager. It’s too selfish.”
Chu He’s expression looked a little helpless. “Since you believe so, I’ll have Zhou Hui talk to young Yan about it then. And you should smoke less, don’t be like Zhou Hui. If he gets lung cancer, he can just get a new one. Can you?”
Team Leader Feng Si rarely tried to persuade people like this. A normal Wisdom King would always ask if you would convert before vanquishing a demon. Only those who refused would be killed. He was the only one who skipped that step and attacked directly. In his early years, a great demon from the Sea of Blood had questioned why he executed without teaching first. He had replied, “What does your conversion have to do with me? I respect your freedom to choose your own faith.”
So for him to offer this piece of advice was as rare as Zhou Hui nagging for three straight days.
Yu Jingzhong cupped his hands and was about to say something when his phone suddenly rang.
“Yo,” he glanced at the number, surprised. “Level one emergency. How strange.”
He made an apologetic gesture and took his phone to the door. As he was leaving, he hesitated for a moment, remembering that before he came out, Zhou Hui had said not to leave Chu He alone, not even for a minute. He turned his head and saw Chu He playing on his phone while holding a cigarette, looking up at him innocently. “What’s wrong?”
The phone rang loudly. Yu Jingzhong gave a hurried wave and walked out.
The private room door slammed shut. Chu He sat in the same position for a while before gently putting down his phone.
Just then, there were two knocks on the door. The waiter asked from outside, “Sir, are you paying the bill?”
“No,” Chu He said lightly. “I’ve been paying my own bill for so many years. For once, I’d like someone else to pay.”
The waiter walked in, closed the door behind him, and went straight to the back of Chu He’s chair. His ordinary face was still smiling slightly, but the skin behind his ears and below his neck was beginning to peel, like a layer of cheap adhesive tape, slowly curling and falling away as his smile widened.
He reached out—the muscles of his hand were unimaginably taut, the bones prominent and powerful, giving off an almost ferocious feeling.
The next second, the “waiter” effortlessly took the cigarette from Chu He’s hand, took a drag, and leaned down to whisper in his ear with a light laugh, “Then let me pay it for you.”
“Fan Luo,” Chu He said without expression. “You are too bold.”
The skin on the “waiter’s” face finally tore completely, revealing the Demon Lord’s true face with its black markings. He pressed one hand on Chu He’s shoulder, the force so great that his bones protruded. With the other hand, he returned the cigarette, but Chu He immediately stubbed it out on the table.
“So the Trailokyavijaya Wisdom King once wanted to marry the Snow Mountain Goddess to you.” Fan Luo seemed unconcerned by this action, showing great interest in the story he had just heard. “Such a twisted mind is truly worth exploring… What happened to the Snow Mountain Goddess later?”
“Zhou Hui seduced her, and they broke up soon after. She came to assassinate me out of resentment, and after failing, she fell into the six realms of reincarnation. I don’t know where she went… Don’t look at me like that,” Chu He said lazily. “In those years, I had all my five senses and six consciousnesses sealed. I was no different from a breathing corpse.”
“It must have been a very beautiful and alluring corpse,” Fan Luo said, stroking his chin. “You didn’t even care to know what was happening to your own body?”
Chu He waved his hand, seeming a bit listless. “Why are you here?”
Yu Jingzhong was still on the phone outside. It was unclear what emergency had occurred, but there was no sign of him returning.
Fan Luo showed no fear of being discovered. He leisurely pulled out a chair—from this, it was clear he had recovered most of the power Zhou Hui had sealed. The moment he sat down, the strong demonic aura he emitted forced Chu He to turn his face away.
As his power recovered, his fear of Zhou Hui diminished, and the last shred of subtle apprehension he had for Chu He was also about to vanish.
“I came to apologize to you,” the Demon Lord said with a polite smile. “I did not order the Asuras to capture you and take you to the Four Evil Paths. That was their own doing. And your ex-husband was right to criticize me. If I want you in the Demon Realm, I must come and do it myself to show my respect for you.”
The demonic aura he emanated was truly too strong. Chu He leaned his upper body back slightly, narrowing his eyes. “Do you want to fight me, Fan Luo?”
“I’ve heard that one must personally welcome the bride to show sufficient importance, otherwise the other party might refuse or play games with you. You’ve been playing games with me for several years, and after Maha came out of the grotto, you looked like you were about to refuse me outright. Perhaps it’s because my sincerity was lacking.”
The Demon Lord reached out and grabbed Chu He’s wrist. Black mist slithered into his flesh like a snake, settling under the skin as a spiderweb of black veins. Chu He’s expression changed slightly.
“So I am here to get you now, Phoenix Wisdom King.” The Demon Lord even stood up and gave a gentlemanly bow. “You can consider it a wedding procession if you wish.”
Before his words had faded, Chu He shot backward, but the Demon Lord was faster. He pressed forward, matching Chu He’s retreat step for step, keeping the distance between them at no more than half a meter. In an instant, with overwhelming force, he pinned him hard against the wall!
With a thud, the back of Chu He’s head hit the wall. He snapped, “Let go!”
But the Demon Lord didn’t release him, staring at him coldly. “Have you underestimated my power, Your Highness?”
The floor tiles where he stood cracked with a pop, and the cracks spread rapidly outwards—this was the result of his demonic aura being so powerful that it materialized, instantly corroding all surrounding objects.
Chu He’s expression finally changed. “You don’t have my heart’s blood. How is this… could it be Maha?!”
To see such an expression on this face was actually a very pleasing sight. The Demon Lord admired it from above for a moment before saying leisurely, “Rest assured, your little cub is safe and sound in the Sea of Blood, and he’s close to making himself its overlord. As for me, why would I appear so easily in the human realm without being fully confident of handling you?”
Chu He’s breathing paused for a moment as he held the Demon Lord’s gaze in the confined space.
Outside the door came the sounds of people coming and going in the teahouse, but muffled by the door, it only made the air inside feel terrifyingly tense. After a long moment, Chu He’s posture finally softened. He said coldly, “You can’t handle me. Zhou Hui is much quicker than you.”
With his free hand, he unbuttoned his shirt, one by one from top to bottom, until his shoulder and chest were exposed.
A trace of surprise appeared on the Demon Lord’s face. From the end of Chu He’s collarbone down to his heart were nine characters for “prohibition” written in ink. Each character was sharp and fierce, and together they formed the image of a ferocious beast crouching, ready to pounce.
“All nine gates on my body are sealed, my three souls and seven spirits are suppressed, and a ring lock runs through my waist bone. The moment I step out of the human realm, the seals will explode at the realm boundary stele, and this human body will be blown to bits on the spot…”
A hint of mixed sarcasm and self-mockery appeared in Chu He’s eyes. “Do you see the difference now? Sometimes I also wonder how you became the master of the Four Evil Paths and not Zhou Hui. His ability to be absolutely thorough is far greater than yours.”
The Demon Lord reached out to touch the seals on his skin. He narrowed his eyes and was about to say something when suddenly, Yu Jingzhong’s footsteps were heard behind the door.
Confronting Zhou Hui at this moment was definitely not a good idea. The Demon Lord released his hand and took half a step back.
“The bone lock is a problem, but the nine sealed gates can be broken… I was originally going to get you away before the next thing happened, but it should be too late now.”
The doorknob turned. The corners of the Demon Lord’s lips curled into a mocking smile. “This time, I’ll let you be thoroughly screwed over by Zhou Hui’s old lover.”
The Demon Lord’s figure vanished into thin air as Yu Jingzhong pushed the door open.
The room was a mess, with tea spilled all over the table. Chu He stood with his back against the wall, buttoning his shirt one by one.
Deputy Yu was stunned. “What happened to you?”
“I tripped.” Chu He finished buttoning his shirt, clearly unwilling to explain further. “What is it? Is there a problem on your end?”
Yu Jingzhong sensed something was wrong, but the situation didn’t allow him to waste time, so he had to let the question go for now.
“Yes, a high-ranking military official’s family member died. The death was extremely bizarre.” He shook his phone, seeming a bit helpless. “Zhou Hui is already on his way… he’s demanding I bring you back to him immediately.”
