Edited
According to the etiquette of the sorcerer’s arts, at this moment Chu He should have returned the greeting in the same manner—if his seniority was lower than this young onmyōji’s, he should have bowed with the same hand gesture; if his seniority was higher, he should at least have nodded in approval.
But Chu He stared at him with an innocent, bewildered expression. After a long while, he cautiously extended his hand: “My humble surname is Chu. You… hello?”
Aida immediately burst out laughing: “Lan Yu, Mr. Chu is just an ordinary person. Don’t scare him!”
Chu He cooperatively smiled, drawing several glances from the youth before he retreated with heavy misgivings, saying nothing more.
An accident had occurred at the construction site where the mayor was showing the foreign merchant around, and the entire city police bureau was in an uproar. Before long, seven or eight police cars came screaming from afar. Before the lead car had even come to a stop, the precinct captain tumbled out with his men, and upon seeing Mayor Huang, he nearly couldn’t get a complete sentence out: “M-M-M-M-Mayor Huang! Sorry, sorry, we came late. Wh-wh-wh-wh-where did it happen?!”
On the other side, the person in charge of the construction site also rushed over hurriedly. Seeing the scene, his legs immediately went soft: “This really has nothing to do with us. We comply with safety and civilized construction regulations! We don’t know anything! W-w-w-w-we will definitely cooperate with the investigation!…”
Mayor Huang’s head ached from the noisy commotion. The exhibition center director, being quite perceptive, immediately barked at the construction site person-in-charge to get back, then hastily pulled the precinct captain over to the scene to look at the large patch of splattered human remains. Several police officers quickly strung up yellow caution tape around the perimeter. For a moment, everyone stepped back, while those who had witnessed the jumping incident were shouted at by police and led away separately to be questioned.
Taking advantage of this moment when no one was paying attention, Mayor Huang furtively grabbed Chu He: “What do we do? That little Japanese guy found me out! What do we do now? Are they going to capture me and eat me?!”
Chu He asked curiously, “Is weasel meat tasty?”
“I don’t know if it’s tasty, but it can definitely be eaten!” Mayor Huang said with a mournful face. “It’s a shame, this body of mine with over three hundred jin of divine fat—if it ends up on a little Japanese dining table, what am I going to do?! And even if I sacrifice myself, the motherland won’t posthumously recognize me as a martyr, okay! CEO Chu! CEO Chu, you absolutely must hold the line this time! If anything happens, you have to cover my retreat and protect me while I run!”
“…” Chu He flicked his sleeves and walked away: “Stop embarrassing yourself!”
The yellow weasel’s massive body trembled like a delicate flower, tears streaming down its face as it was about to give chase when suddenly someone patted its shoulder: “—Mayor Huang.”
The weasel whipped around as if shocked by electricity, only to see Aida Yoshihide standing behind him at some point, asking with impeccable politeness: “Might I trouble you for a moment?”
For a moment, warning lights flashed, and alarms blared in Mayor Huang’s mind. All the fat on his body tensed up: “Wh—what is it?”
However, Aida Yoshihide did not suddenly spring up and shine a demon-revealing mirror at him, nor did he cackle wildly and pull out a Golden-Hooped Rod to beat him back to his true form. None of the thousand and one dramatic scenarios Mayor Huang had imagined came to pass. Aida Yoshihide even smiled quite politely:
“The deceased translator was our Japanese national. According to our tradition, Lan Yu would like to perform a memorial service and blessing at the place where the incident occurred. Would that be acceptable?”
The place where the translator had jumped was a half-finished floor in the construction site. Half of it had been poured with cement concrete, while the other half still had exposed rebar. It was roughly ten meters above the ground.
This should have been a fire compartment layer in the middle of the building, extremely narrow and low. After Chu He bent down to enter and looked around, he wondered how the translator had managed to step on the rebar, climb through the scaffolding, and squeeze in here to jump—anyone a bit taller would find it cramped just coming in, let alone jumping down.
Mayor Huang pressed against the wall corner, panting: “Did you find anything at all?”
The precinct captain held several evidence bags, wiping sweat as he shook his head: “The ground was covered in dust. There were only the footprints of one person entering, and we can also rule out the possibility of climbing or being pulled up. Combined with the testimony of seven or eight eyewitnesses, we can basically make a preliminary determination that it was suicide.”
Mayor Huang let out a breath and said: “Suicide is good, suicide is good.”
These words were truly in poor taste. Under normal circumstances, the precinct captain would probably have laughed, but at this moment, in this place, the thought that rose unbidden in everyone’s mind was: Suicide is good, suicide is good indeed!
From the moment they entered, Lan Yu, who had not uttered a sound, drew a Five Elements Yin-Yang talisman on the ground in a circular, radiating pattern. Then he had all living persons, including the police, withdraw. He himself sat in the center of the formation. At this point, only four people remained in the fire compartment layer: Mayor Huang, Chu He, Aida Yoshihide, and himself. Lan Yu murmured a few words, and suddenly the circular array rose from the dust, emitting a faint multicolored glow.
The light swirled like a solar halo. At first glance, it was quite gorgeous and magnificent, but after looking at it for a while, it made one feel as if their heart and spirit were both seized. Mayor Huang rubbed his eyes uncomfortably and asked Chu He in a low voice: “Can you tell what kind of technique this is?”
Chu He didn’t answer. He only saw ghostly wailing faintly emanating from within the circular array. Before long, a male ghost with a bloody, smashed head struggled to emerge, its blood-soaked hand reaching straight for Aida!
Lan Yu’s brow didn’t even twitch. He raised his hand and, with a snap, pressed a spirit talisman onto the vengeful ghost’s forehead. Instantly, the ghostly wailing stopped. The spirit talisman emitted invisible flames, and within a few seconds it burned the vengeful ghost’s soul into flying ash!
“AHHHHHH—”
The final thread of miserable screams dissipated into the air along with the ashes. In that instant, the multicolored light surged violently, nearly swallowing the onmyōji within the formation whole!
“This isn’t a memorial service, is it?” Mayor Huang said in shock: “Scattering the soul to nourish the formation’s core—this is a fucking demon-subduing formation!”
Right as he spoke, the circular array suddenly distorted, transforming into a giant hand radiating white light! The hand was withered, with long, curling nails, as if it could see. It prowled around this cramped space in a circle, then like a venomous snake locking onto its target, it suddenly fixed itself before Mayor Huang!
In that split second, Chu He grabbed the weasel and lightning-fast yanked him behind himself—
In that instant, he moved so fast it didn’t seem like he was dragging a fat man of over three hundred jin. At the same moment, the giant hand descended from the air, coming to a hard stop right before Chu He!
The sharp nails formed from light were less than five centimeters from Chu He’s brow. One step further, and they would have pierced straight into his eye sockets.
Yet Chu He didn’t even bat an eyelash.
A few seconds later, the giant hand slowly withdrew bit by bit. The light faded and dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye. After roughly another dozen or so seconds, it gradually vanished into the dust-dancing air.
“I am terribly sorry!” Aida Yoshihide scrambled up, looking quite regretful: “I forgot that this formation is only harmless to sorcerers and ordinary people. It might cause some damage to a monster’s inner core—Mayor Huang, are you alright? Were you frightened? Lan Yu, go check on Mayor Huang!”
Chu He raised a hand, blocking him.
Mayor Huang had already disappeared. In his place was a round, plump yellow weasel, its entire body pressed against the ground, shivering from extreme terror. From this posture, it looked as if it were prostrating in worship before the Japanese. But because all four limbs had gone soft, it took a good while before it barely managed to stand up trembling, and with shivers transformed back into human form.
Fatty Huang’s face was completely red. Although he kept shrinking backward, a faint smell of urine still came through quite clearly—he had pissed his pants.
“I-I’m fine,” the weasel retreated in utter shame, “I’m going to change—change my pants. You—you all chat first…”
He staggered outward. Because his mind was in a daze, at the construction lift entrance he nearly tripped over his own left foot with his right, flailing to grab the wall before steadying himself.
That sight was actually a bit comical, and Aida let out an obvious pfft—Mayor Huang didn’t know whether he heard it or not, but he kept his head down and shoulders hunched, hurrying away in quick steps.
Lan Yu breathed slightly heavily, then suddenly bowed deeply to Chu He: “I am sorry, it was my negligence…”
“Because he looked too much like a human being,” Aida interjected with a smile: “I simply forgot. Actually, this formation can sometimes completely destroy a monster’s inner core—speaking of which, Mr. Huang’s luck is actually quite good! Hahahaha!”
Chu He turned back and looked at Aida with a very calm gaze.
“Well, Mr. Chu, please don’t take offense. Sometimes we do play little jokes on monsters, but times have changed now. We wouldn’t lightly harm a monster’s life…”
Before Aida Yoshihide could finish speaking, Chu He had already turned and walked out.
Aida Yoshihide’s laughter came to an abrupt halt. A moment later, he let out a soft snort: “This lowly monster creature, yet it also has the fortune to guard over such an excellent feng shui location.”
Lan Yu sighed: “Uncle Aida…”
“What?”
“The sect leader ordered me to assist you,” Lan Yu hesitated, then said slowly: “But he did not say you could freely order me to kill people. So for the matters of the coming week, you should still try to handle them yourself as much as possible.”
Aida strode over and grabbed the young onmyōji by the hair: “What do you mean by this?!”
The youth did not retreat. Aida glared at him for a long time before finally gritting his teeth and softening his tone: “You know full well that the earth-born fetus requires seven living beings as sacrifices. We’ve already come all this way—how can we retreat? Moreover, the first to die was one of our own people. With such heaven-sent leverage over someone surnamed Huang, he won’t have the guts to defy us!”
“But…”
“Are you afraid of that surnamed Chu fellow? He’s nothing but an ordinary person!”
“An ordinary person on the verge of falling into demonhood.” The onmyōji shook his head heavily: “It’s already difficult for a monster to become a demon, let alone a living person falling into demonhood? I worry that he has powerful demon kin protecting him behind the scenes. It will be very troublesome then.”
Aida was completely unconcerned, retorting: “Even if it’s troublesome, are you and I afraid we can’t escape? The Way of Onmyōdō had already declined by the Han and Tang dynasties. In present-day Shina1, apart from that Zhou Hui who cannot easily leave the capital, who else is a match for our Esoteric Sect?”
The young onmyōji hesitated for a moment, then finally let out a sigh.
“You don’t know,” his voice was nearly inaudible: “In this vast world, there are still many people we cannot afford to provoke…”
Chu He walked out of the construction site and saw that Mayor Huang had already changed his pants and was sitting alone on the steps.
By now the sky had grown late. The evening sun was setting, twilight gathering from all sides. Flocks of birds rarely seen in the city cut across the heavens, flapping noisily as they flew into the distance. The yellow weasel propped its fat head on one hand, ears drooping, staring blankly at the distant flock of birds, lost in thought, not knowing what it was thinking.
Chu He walked to his side and sat down with him on the curb.
“Tell me,” the yellow weasel’s muffled voice came: “Have I not been good enough at being human?”
Chu He said: “You have already been very good.”
“Then why does no one treat me as human?”
This was a question even Chu He found difficult to answer. He thought for a long time, so long that even Mayor Huang felt he would say nothing more, when he suddenly heard him say: “Perhaps because you haven’t done enough yet.”
“Huh?”
“Do a little more. Do it a little better. That should be about enough.”
Fatty Huang blinked his small eyes. After mulling it over for a long while, he reluctantly accepted this explanation, then let out a long “Oh—” and said: “Well then, I can work a little harder…”
Chu He nodded in approval, then was suddenly poked by Fatty Huang with a finger: “—Hey, CEO Chu.”
“Mm?”
“We’ve known each other for so long, and I still don’t know why you, a perfectly fine human, insist on becoming a demon?”
Chu He turned his head and stared at him. The yellow weasel tilted its head in an innocent manner. Although the fat man tried his utmost to hide it, the envy and inferiority in the depths of his eyes were still impossible to conceal.
“…As for me,” Chu He felt complicated emotions, pausing for a good several seconds before reluctantly saying: “This… I once had two sons.”
Fatty Huang was instantly shocked: “What, when did you get married and even have sons?!”
“However, my eldest son was killed by someone, and my second son was also abducted. I exhausted my primordial spirit trying to save my eldest son but failed. From that day on, I fell into demonhood.”
Mayor Huang was dumbstruck. After a long while, he rolled up his sleeves: “Who, who harmed your entire family?! Tell your brother who it is, this lord will fucking destroy them!”
“Can you save it, Fatty?” Chu He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “First lose some weight, then cultivate for five hundred years. Only then might you barely qualify as cannon fodder before that person!”
“What the fuck kind of joke is that! No one should do this kind of wicked, heaven-cursed thing! Come, tell me the name. Who did it? Brother will set up this goal to strive for right now!”
Fatty Huang jumped up from the ground and was about to start shouting loudly when suddenly from afar came the sound of a car approaching with a whoosh. Under the setting sun, a black sedan came from afar, its body gleaming with oil, the iconic round headlights and round grille reflecting a dazzling string of light.
Fatty Huang was immediately distracted: “Holy shit, they actually found us?!”
Chu He asked: “Who is it?”
At this moment, from within the construction site behind them, Aida Yoshihide and the onmyōji called Lan Yu were also walking out. The moment they saw the car, they both took half a step back in unison. Immediately after, that dazzling Bentley Mulsanne pulled to a stop before everyone. The door opened, and several people came pouring out.
Leading them was a woman in her thirties with a slender figure, full chest, narrow waist, and high heels, her wavy curls quite charming. She must have been even more devastatingly beautiful in her youth.
Behind her was a young handsome man, well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, long-legged. His deeply sculpted, extraordinarily handsome face wore a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, and he was dressed in a biker leather jacket. No matter where he stood, he looked like he was filming a Hollywood movie.
Fatty Huang: “………………”
Compared to this group, Fatty Huang and Boss Chu instantly became rural farmer entrepreneurs.
“Hello, everyone! Oh, Mayor Huang is here too!” The woman swept back her curls with infinite charm, extending her hand to Aida Yoshihide with a smile: “My humble surname is Li. I’m the director of the Provincial Foreign Guest Reception Office who came down from the province. Just call me Li Hu—Mr. Aida, I’m so sorry I couldn’t come to welcome you yesterday!”
Aida shook her hand, but his gaze uncontrollably passed over her, landing on the young man behind her.
In that moment, Aida’s expression was extremely strange, as if he were concealing extreme curiosity and shock, yet unable to conceal it, making his facial muscles seem a bit stiff:
“Might I ask, this gentleman is…”
The young man casually removed his sunglasses and extended his hand—however, before Aida could grasp it, his hand turned in mid-air and reached toward the young onmyōji:
“Little beauty, what’s your name?”
“…” Lan Yu said: “My humble surname is Yan, given name Lan Yu. Might I ask who you—”
“My name is Zhou Yi. Zhou, as in King Zhou Wuling. Yi, as in number one under heaven.” The corner of the young man’s mouth carried a breezy smile: “The one and only.”
- A derogatory historical Japanese term for China, used here to reflect his villainy. ↩︎
