Jia Louluo stood before the mirror above the sink, staring at the two toothbrushes in the rinse cup—one blue, one pink. After a moment of deliberation, he chose the pink one.
If he absolutely had to share a toothbrush with someone, his first choice would be Phoenix. After all, the Phoenix Bright King was his own mother, which was more psychologically acceptable. His second choice would be Maha. Although Maha’s personal hygiene was questionable, the two brothers had shared a bed when they were little and had seen each other naked more than once or twice.
The last on the list was Zhou Hui. Although his father’s teeth were so brilliantly white they could make a TV star feel inadequate, the immense psychological discomfort was more terrifying than dental bacteria, enough to make one’s very soul break out in goosebumps.
After Jia Louluo finished brushing his teeth and washing his face, Zhou Hui pushed the door open, yawning. His muscular upper body was bare, and he gave his son a cold glance. “Morning.”
Jia Louluo said, “Morning.”
The next second, he saw his father walk to the sink and casually pick up the pink toothbrush, squeezing toothpaste onto it.
“…” Jia Louluo’s expression was indescribable. He turned and stormed out of the bathroom without another word.
·
To transport a large amount of death qi from the Four Evil Paths to the human realm all at once, the only passage was through the Sea of Blood in Hell, which had nine landing points in the human realm. Four of these were in deep mountains, two in the deep sea, and one was in Japan, which was not under the jurisdiction of Unit 6 of State Security.
Only the remaining two were within Unit 6’s jurisdiction—Beijing and H City.
The exit point in Beijing had been tightly sealed by Zhou Hui after the incident with Snow Mountain Goddess, making it nearly impossible for a large amount of death qi to leak out. This left only H City. Located in the central plains, it was sparsely populated. After the Earth-Born Fetus incident, the entire city’s foundation had been shaken to pieces. It didn’t take a genius to know that the Demon Lord would choose this as his breakthrough point.
Zhou Hui, as usual, divided his forces into two. One team was led by Yu Jingzhong, who could not leave his post under any circumstances, and included Yan Lanyu, Situ Yingzhi, and the ever-present but never-seen-in-daylight “cleaner” who tirelessly cleaned up everyone’s messes, Dragon Nine.
He led the other team to H City, which included Wu Bei, the Nine-Tailed Fox, and Shenwan Tiansi.
Before they left, Yu Jingzhong, worried about insufficient combat power, asked Zhou Hui if he should bring the cleaner along—after all, the cleaner had been to H City and was responsible for sealing and cleaning up the large-scale collapse of the grottoes during the Earth-Born Fetus incident.
“Better not,” Zhou Hui said. “Our younger son has an exotic appetite, likes to eat live snakes, and that clashes a bit with Dragon Nine’s attributes…”
Jia Louluo’s ears twitched sensitively. Snakes?
“No!” Zhou Hui immediately guessed what he was thinking and said sternly, “Your mother already forbids you from eating poisonous snakes, and besides, he’s a proper dragon! Be careful or I’ll tattle on you to your mom when I get back!”
Jia Louluo walked away with a blank expression.
·
The group took a flight from Beijing to H City, taking off in the morning and arriving in the afternoon.
It was Jia Louluo’s first time on a plane, and he was very interested in the big iron bird that could soar in the sky. From the moment he boarded, he kept looking around and even tried to sneak into the cockpit. Fortunately, Wu Bei, coming out of the bathroom, saw him peeking and promptly asked, “Young fella? Young fella, what are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Jia Louluo turned his head, his face a mask of indifference.
Wu Bei looked Jia Louluo up and down with confusion. The latter’s placid gaze was reminiscent of Phoenix’s, an air of desirelessness like that of a glacial snowfield. Paired with his deeply sculpted, handsome, and calm face, he looked like a Zhou Hui v.2.0, improved and upgraded.
“…I never got the chance to thank you. Thank you for what you did on the train.” After several seconds of awkward silence, Wu Bei broke the stalemate. “If you hadn’t stopped him, the Peacock Wisdom King would have…”
“It was nothing.”
“So… did your injuries heal later?”
“They healed.”
The two stood facing each other in the narrow aisle. After a long moment, Wu Bei opened his mouth, finally unable to resist asking the question that had been buried deep in his heart for a long time. “I’m sorry, I really want to know, why did you and your brother go to the trouble of taking a train instead of just turning into your original forms and flying directly from Tibet to Beijing?”
Jia Louluo clearly hadn’t expected this question. He looked back with a slightly surprised expression for a moment, then said, “But we don’t know the way.”
Wu Bei: “…”
A flight attendant pushing a meal cart passed by, curiously eyeing the unusual pair: a tall man in a long black trench coat with a gold watch strap peeking out from his wrist, wearing sunglasses and looking like a mafia boss, forcefully putting his arm around a sturdy young man whose face was half-covered in bandages. As they walked towards their seats, he waved his hand and vigorously patted the young man’s shoulder, saying passionately, “Let me give you something to show my gratitude!”
“N-no, thank you.”
“Let me give you something!”
“No need.”
“Let me give you a smuggled Russian military-grade GPS!!!”
“…”
Jia Louluo suddenly stopped, turned to Wu Bei, his expression seeming pained and hesitant.
Wu Bei: “…?”
The next second, without any warning, Jia Louluo let out a “wah” and thoroughly vomited all over Wu Bei.
Two hours later, the plane landed. Wu Bei, under the gaze of many strange eyes, walked across the tarmac to the terminal building, calmly took off his Burberry leather-trimmed black trench coat, and threw it into the trash can.
·
H City hadn’t changed at all compared to a year ago. Mayor Huang showed no signs of having lost weight; on the contrary, when Zhou Hui and Li Hu saw him at the airport entrance, they both thought he had gotten fatter. What was different from a year ago was that his face was wreathed in smiles, looking extremely proud, and he was holding a chubby, crying baby in his arms.
Li Hu asked in surprise, “You found a partner?!”
“A relative introduced us. It’s a weasel family that moved here from out of town. Five hundred years ago, our families were even related. Must be fate, right?” Mayor Huang showed off the weasel baby’s red, crying face as if it were a treasure. “Looks like me, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he? Just as sturdy and easy to raise as I was when I was little, hahaha—!”
Li Hu said sympathetically, “It’s a son, you’re finished. Whatever you do, don’t have a second one. If the second one is also a son, your life is over…”
Jia Louluo frowned, seemingly not understanding why this group was so familiar with a low-level weasel demon. Seeing this, Zhou Hui said flatly, “He’s a friend of your mother’s in H City… Be careful what you say. This is a friend officially recognized and stamped by Phoenix.”
Jia Louluo nodded and walked over to look at the wailing infant in the swaddling clothes. Mayor Huang had been terrified by the Great Demon King Maha during the Earth-Born Fetus incident and was a little scared of his younger brother, but he couldn’t just dodge away. He watched as Jia Louluo studied the infant for a moment, then suddenly reached out and pointed a finger at the center of the baby’s brow.
A golden light flashed, revealing an incredibly complex Sanskrit character that sank into the baby’s brow and disappeared.
“Th-this is…”
“This is my exclusive Sanskrit seal, the Golden-Winged Great Roc’s Blessing. It can ward off disaster and extend the life of the recipient.” Jia Louluo said politely, “My elder brother caused you trouble here before. This humble gift is not enough of an apology.”
Mayor Huang was dumbfounded. He watched as Jia Louluo turned and walked away, then couldn’t help but poke Zhou Hui. “…Is he, is he really from your Lao Zhou family?”
Zhou Hui said angrily, “This kid is just showing off. You really think it works? Come, come, I’ll draw you a few peace talismans. Original price 8.88 million, now at a 99% discount, credit card payments have a 2% processing fee…”
Zhou Hui rolled up his sleeves to look for a pen and paper. The weasel scurried away with the baby.
Mayor Huang announced to the public that they were from the National Bureau of Surveying and Mapping, in H City on official business, and arranged for them to stay in the best five-star hotel in the city. Normally, it was in Zhou Hui’s nature to live well, eat well, and even find time to inspect entertainment venues to check on the local spiritual and cultural development when on a business trip. But this time in H City was completely different. He dropped his luggage at the hotel, announced a half-hour break for everyone, and then they would immediately set off for their destination.
Wu Bei wanted to buy a jacket first, and Shenwan Tiansi was hungry and wanted to eat. Fortunately, they didn’t voice their requests. Li Hu covered her mouth and advised them not to. “You two weren’t in the last battle to encircle the Hell Path. Every time this happens, Lao Zhou is like a woman with PMS. If you dare to slack off, he’ll really whip you with his belt buckle…”
Shenwan Tiansi said, dissatisfied, “Is it that serious? When he went to exorcise a ghost at the home of the number one boss in the military commission, didn’t he lie on their sofa and play Candy Crush for half an hour first?”
Li Hu said, “Are you stupid? Last time, he was fighting with Phoenix No. 4 and deliberately delayed going home to cook. This time, his runaway wife might be coming back to visit her family with her adulterous lover. How can the situation be the same?!”
The two had a sudden realization. They turned to see Zhou Hui standing by the hotel corridor window, smoking. The light from behind cast a gloomy shadow. Half his face was shrouded in the white smoke of the cigarette, with only a small red glow flickering in the shadow.
Jia Louluo walked up with his hands in his jeans pockets. Zhou Hui took the cigarette pack out of his pocket and tossed it to him. Soon, the father and son were standing face to face, smoking, without saying a word to each other. The atmosphere was terrifyingly grim.
Wu Bei blinked a couple of times, turned, and tiptoed away.
·
It was a cloudy day in H City, but the air wasn’t humid, and there were no signs of rain. In the morning, there was a light breeze in the city, but by the afternoon, the wind speed suddenly increased. On the drive from the city to the suburbs, the wind grew stronger and stronger, even making a whistling sound against the car windows.
Zhou Hui sat in the driver’s seat, driving in silence. Jia Louluo, in the passenger seat, asked, “Where are we going?”
“To the upwind side of the city’s outskirts, the border of the area where the Sea of Blood connects to the human realm.”
“…Why upwind?”
Zhou Hui didn’t answer, only saying, “This is the method Wu Bei researched to deal with the invasion of death qi. You’ll know when we get there.”
When they reached the designated location, Jia Louluo got out of the car, rubbing his temples hard. He saw that they were on a highland. Not far away on the hillside stood high-voltage power lines. From the top of the mound, one could see half of H City’s buildings. Wu Bei opened the back door of the car, hoisted out a huge travel bag that was over two meters tall, and placed it on the ground with a thud. He unzipped it and began to move out Buddha statues.
Jia Louluo was completely stunned. He watched as Wu Bei knelt on the ground and took out more than a dozen camphorwood Buddha statues of various sizes and forms, placing them all on a four-meter-square golden cloth spread on the ground. Then he stood up and called to Shenwan Tiansi, “This is about all I could get. Use them sparingly.”
Shenwan Tiansi looked at the Buddha statues before him. “You made several trips to Nepal and only got this many?”
“I went to more than twenty temples and donated several million in incense money, okay? I was so afraid of being caught when leaving the country that I took a train all the way through Tibet. So stop your nagging.”
“Why didn’t you just order custom ones from Mount Tiantai?” Li Hu interjected from the side.
“That won’t work. They must have received incense offerings to have magical power. The more incense and the older they are, the stronger the power.” Shenwan Tiansi knelt down, picked up the nearest Buddha statue, sniffed it, and said, “Hmm, this one is okay.”
Jia Louluo pulled up the hood of his jacket and narrowed his eyes in confusion. The next moment, the corner of his eye twitched suddenly.
He saw Shenwan Tiansi use a burst of force and break the entire Buddha statue to pieces!
Jia Louluo rushed forward. “What are you doing!”
“Don’t go over there!” Zhou Hui grabbed Jia Louluo and said in a low voice from behind him, “No one but Shenwan Tiansi can touch it. Buddha ash damages divinity. You stay away too!”
“Buddha ash?!”
Zhou Hui nodded. He watched as Wu Bei dragged another incredibly heavy black cloth bag from the back of the car. He opened it to reveal a single-person rocket launcher. The body of the launcher gleamed, engraved with countless, dense Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures. Even the shoulder strap was painted with thousands of golden swastika Buddhist seals.
Jia Louluo seemed to understand something, but as a child of the gods who had cultivated Buddhism for thousands of years, he still found it difficult to accept the scene before him. “You’re trying to—”
“After Snow Mountain Goddess released death qi on a large scale in Beijing, I realized this stuff would pose a huge threat to the human realm and started researching ways to quickly neutralize it. The most effective thing for neutralizing death qi, according to records, is the blood of divine beings, like divine beasts with true flame fire, such as the Phoenix or Qilin. Their blood burns death qi very quickly. But if Fan Luo loses his mind and comes to the human realm to release death qi every day, I can’t have your mother go and slit her wrist every time.”
Zhou Hui’s eyes were somewhat gloomy, as if he had recalled some bad memories, but he had no intention of telling his son.
“Later, I went through your mother’s diary.” He continued the topic. “Phoenix started writing a diary a long time ago. He even gave it a name, Bao Shi Zi. It contains many anecdotes and folk remedies. I found some content about Buddhas and discovered a record that the ashes left after burning a Buddha statue can resist demonic invasions. So I had Shenwan Tiansi find a statue to try, and sure enough, it worked.”
Jia Louluo said, stunned, “But this is destroying Buddhas! You’ll be reincarnated into the animal realm in your next life!”
Zhou Hui said, “That’s why I had Wu Bei go specifically to Tibet and Nepal to acquire Buddha statues. Do you know why only Shenwan Tiansi can do it?”
Jia Louluo turned his head. He saw Shenwan Tiansi break all the Buddha statues, piling the dirt and wood chips on the golden cloth. Then he took out a lighter and lit it. The flame flared up instantly, crackling, and within minutes, it had burned the pile of statue fragments into black ash, forming a peak on the undamaged golden cloth.
“Those are my statues,” Shenwan Tiansi said, clapping his hands in satisfaction. “At any rate, I’m a Living Buddha. Some local temples enshrined statues of my past lives and my child incarnation, so I just borrowed them for use.”
Jia Louluo: “…”
That’s also possible… Jia Louluo’s mood could only be described as surreal.
Wu Bei took out several blank shells from his bag. The casings were also densely covered with countless scriptures. He pried open the blank shells with a dagger, grabbed the Buddha ash, mixed it with powdered gunpowder, and filled them. He didn’t close the warheads until all the blanks were filled. He loaded one into the rocket launcher and lined the rest up at his feet.
Then he shouldered the rocket launcher, aiming the muzzle at the densely packed buildings of downtown H City in the distance.
—The wandering poet, the dreamer, the comrade Wu Bei who stood at the end of the world calling for love, was indeed worthy of being a famous amateur mafia boss from China’s Northeast. His series of actions were swift and proficient, fully demonstrating the professional quality of a modern arms smuggler.
“Death qi invasions usually erupt from the earth’s acupoints, forming a hurricane. When the concentration reaches a certain level, it condenses into a sea of death qi covering the ground.” Zhou Hui said in a low voice, “Watch carefully. Whichever direction the black wind comes from, Wu Bei will fire the rocket launcher there and dissipate it in its gaseous state… We can’t give the death qi any chance to condense into liquid. Otherwise, where would we find an ancient divine beast to slaughter on the spot?”
Jia Louluo looked at the row of Buddha ash shells on the ground, his brow tightly furrowed. He looked up towards the city.
Zhou Hui’s plan was actually very thorough. Once the rocket launcher fired and exploded, it could cover a large area in Buddha ash, giving the death qi no chance to form a hurricane. Although people in close proximity would still be in some danger, it was better than a large area of the city’s population being turned into living corpses by high-concentration death qi.
The group waited quietly on the hillside for a while. They only felt the wind growing more and more violent. Dark clouds swirled high in the sky, forming huge whirlpools.
A faint, salty vapor filled the air. A few minutes later, a single drop of water hit the ground in front of them.
Li Hu touched her nose and whispered in surprise, “This rain…”
At that moment, no one had yet realized anything was wrong. But then Zhou Hui’s pupils suddenly contracted, and he looked up at the sky.
—Raindrops fell one after another, transparent at first, then turning light gray, dark gray, and then mixed with small black droplets, sweeping down.
“A sea of death qi—!” Li Hu exclaimed suddenly. “What’s going on? How is the Sea of Death qi falling directly down?!”
Zhou Hui wiped the water from his face and shouted, “Shenwan and Fox, get back in the car! Wu Bei! Fire all the Buddha ash shells into the city center, don’t aim!”
Death qi appearing directly in liquid form was something that had never happened in human history. The only explanation was that it had already condensed into liquid due to high concentration on its way from Hell to the human realm. If that was the case, a small amount of Buddha ash would be useless. All the Buddha ash shells had to be fired at once, covering the entire city center in thick dust and smoke, to have any chance of dissipating the sea of death qi to the greatest extent.
However, this was very dangerous. No one knew what kind of violent reaction would occur when such a high concentration of Buddha ash collided with the sea of death qi. It might even trigger a series of explosions in an instant.
Wu Bei’s brow furrowed tightly. He pulled the trigger hard. With a “BANG!” he was pushed back half a step as the shell fired.
The Buddha ash shell crossed the sky in a trail of white smoke, flew over the city, and exploded with a boom!
In an instant, the Buddha ash scattered, turning into a gray mist that shrouded the city, falling down with the rain. Then, the death qi carried in the rain reacted with the Buddha ash, creating countless dazzling electrical sparks, like hundreds of thousands of bright little snakes hissing through the air.
The scene was spectacular. Many people in the city center must have been looking up from the streets and windows, their expressions dumbfounded.
Wu Bei quickly reloaded the single-person rocket launcher, but Jia Louluo grabbed his hand. “Wait!”
He looked up sharply at Zhou Hui and said sternly, “Buddha ash vanquishes demons and damages divinity. Mother restored the Demon Lord at the cost of her heart’s blood to take his divinity and save Maha’s life! If the Buddha ash spreads over a large area, what if the Demon Lord’s divinity is damaged by the fire when he descends? And even the Phoenix Bright King could be severely burned by such a high concentration of Buddha ash!”
But Zhou Hui stood in the rain, watching him quietly.
Jia Louluo held Wu Bei’s hand tightly, not letting go, and said angrily, “Father!”
“…Last time you asked me if I would stop Phoenix from giving the Asura King’s divinity to Maha if he killed the Demon Lord. I said at the time that it was Phoenix’s own business.”
Zhou Hui paused, a cold light flickering in his eyes. He said leisurely, “I indeed have no intention of stopping him, on the premise that the Demon Lord truly dies by his hand… and not by mine.”
