As tough as Zhou Hui was, Li Hu understood deeply. Not to mention anything else, Zhang Shun plus Chu He plus herself, who had already reached the pinnacle of cultivation among demons, were nothing more than a plate of food in the Demon Lord’s hands. But against a full-powered Zhou Hui, the semi-sealed Demon Lord was just another plate of food.
At most, the Demon Lord’s dish was a bit harder to chew, with more thorns that pricked the hand, but the overall hierarchy of strength wouldn’t change. Speaking of which, besides the legitimate gods and Buddhas, who in the nine heavens and ten earths was Zhou Hui’s opponent now?
But Zhou Hui’s current appearance made him feel as if he had been punched in the face.
No, it should be said that he had casually punched someone, and that seemingly weak and submissive person had suddenly turned into a Super Ultraman and instantly kicked him hundreds of meters away—that was the feeling.
Fortunately, that dejected look of a male whose mating attempt was rejected vanished from Zhou Hui’s body within seconds. He even started to laugh and said to Chu He, “Put down the saber, I’m not coming up… You put down the saber first. If this goes on, you’ll bleed to death.”
Li Hu knew from that expression that things were not good.
Zhou Hui wasn’t really letting this go so lightly. Hidden in the corners of his eyes and brows was a more restrained, sinister, and chilling ruthlessness.
Chu He shook his head, holding the blade without moving. He ordered the Demon Lord without turning his head, “Don’t mind me, you go first.”
Fan Luo’s condition was not much better than Zhou Hui’s. “But you…”
“Zhou Hui is at his peak now, while you are half-sealed in the Hell Realm. Do you think you’re his opponent? Go, quick!”
The Demon Lord narrowed his eyes and stared at Zhou Hui, who was staring back at him with the same cold expression. In between them, Chu He was already finding it difficult to even stand. He didn’t even have the strength to breathe. The blood loss was causing his body temperature to drop rapidly, and his vision was blackening in waves.
Although his back was still extremely straight, everyone knew it was only a matter of the last few seconds.
“…Alright,” Fan Luo finally said, but Zhou Hui could see the undisguised reluctance in his eyes.
“Don’t forget what you asked of me.”
The Gate of Hell behind the Demon Lord opened wide. Ten thousand ghosts poured out, celestial demons danced wildly, and endless darkness instantly swallowed him. Finally, the Gate of Hell closed, and the blood and ghostly wails vanished in an instant, as if they had never been there, completely disappearing into the vast void.
On the empty ground, Chu He swayed. The tip of the saber clattered to the ground, and then his entire body fell straight down!
“Bro!” Zhang Shun got up and ran down. Zhou Hui then glanced at Li Hu.
Without another word, Li Hu raised her palm and brought it down, knocking Zhang Shun out with a sharp crack!
“This Buddha bone has been a thorn in my side for a long time,” Zhou Hui said as he knelt down, staring into Chu He’s blank, scattered pupils. “I don’t want to be disturbed at a time like this…”
Chu He couldn’t hear what he was saying. He only panted slightly, his gaze unfocused, staring into the air.
He was still in his human form, wearing the white pajamas he had changed into at the hospital, which were now mottled with blood. Because the blood vessels in his palm had been almost severed, a small pool of blood quickly formed beneath him, which made his haggard face a shocking, icy white.
He had always been a very calm, proper, and ascetic person. But at this moment, he was like a white flower bud that had been forcibly stripped of its layers, helplessly revealing the innermost stamen that had never been shown to anyone.
This cruel, morbid, and demonic feeling made Zhou Hui’s gaze gradually heat up.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he grabbed one of Chu He’s cold hands, their palms pressing together. Then, with a burst of strength, he lifted him horizontally into his arms.
“Boss Zhou!” Li Hu, carrying the heavy Zhang Shun, poked her head out from a gap in the hospital floor. She asked with a wry smile, “What now? Annihilate the Japanese and bring the ‘Earth Womb’ back to Beijing?”
Zhou Hui turned his head and stared at him without a word. The moonlight just happened to pass through a crack in the dark clouds and shine on half of his face. Li Hu almost immediately shivered.
—His pupils were scarlet.
Exactly like the Demon Lord’s.
“The Earth Womb is not as simple as you think.” Zhou Hui, either not noticing his own change or knowing but not caring, only said coldly, “Restore the alternate dimension set up here. I have some business to attend to.”
Li Hu opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound.
Zhou Hui knew what this nine-tailed fox wanted to say but had no intention of paying attention. He turned and walked straight into the depths of the night, looking down at Chu He in his arms, a cold smile slowly appearing on his lips.
“Next… it’s time to settle the score between us,” he said softly, his voice exceptionally cruel in the darkness. “Don’t worry, you can’t run. I’ll take my time.”
·
In his half-asleep, half-awake state, Zhang Shun had many dreams. One of them was that he had returned to when he was very young, about seven or eight years old, lying in bed with a high fever, his whole body burning, his mind delirious. He even had the feeling that if he fell asleep, he probably wouldn’t wake up again.
A person in a white, wide-sleeved robe with very long black hair sat by his bed. He gently lifted him onto his lap and stroked his burning face. His fingers were very long, slender, and cool, which made Zhang Shun feel very comfortable. Although he couldn’t see the person’s face clearly, he could feel that this person was very beautiful, a beauty that transcended gender and was indescribable, and had a tenderness like water that was very moving.
Who is he? Zhang Shun wondered.
“I didn’t expect them to be able to invite you, Team Leader Feng Si,” a low male voice sounded from the corner of the room. “I thought my subordinates casually eating the souls of one or two children wouldn’t be enough to directly alarm you…”
“The Buddha bone has been carried by me for thousands of years. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize it, Demon Lord?” that person suddenly interrupted, but his voice was very soft. “To touch the Buddha bone is equivalent to destroying a Buddha—today it’s me who came. If it were Zhou Hui himself, you wouldn’t be thinking of leaving.”
The Demon Lord was silent for a while, then suddenly found it very interesting. “I heard that tens of thousands of years ago, Zhou Hui was just a demon in the sea of blood. He was captured and taken to the Thirty-Third Heaven for punishment for disrespecting the Buddha, but was secretly released due to the compassion of the Phoenix Wisdom King… In that case, you should have been an existence that Zhou Hui couldn’t even see if he looked up. Why did you come down from the Thirty-Third Heaven?”
Zhang Shun felt the person’s hand pause slightly.
“It’s none of your business, Fan Luo,” he said flatly after a long moment.
“—You can go this time. The next time you touch the Buddha bone, it won’t be this simple.”
·
Zhang Shun was in a daze. He didn’t know how long he had slept until the sky was bright, and he suddenly woke up from countless whirlpool-like nightmares.
“Ah!” He suddenly sat up and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. The sun was already high outside.
—What time is it? He looked at the clock on the bedside table and realized he had unknowingly slept until the next afternoon.
For some reason, his head ached as if being sawed. He sat on the bed for several minutes, unable to even remember why he was in the hospital. It wasn’t until the initial dizziness passed that his memory slowly returned. The strange hospital last night, the zombie child, the Demon Lord Fan Luo, the blood-red nine-tailed fox… Countless bizarre fragments instantly overwhelmed Zhang Shun like a flood.
Was all that real? Or was it an absurd dream?
Zhang Shun looked around. Everything in the hospital was fine. Outside the window, birds were singing, flowers were fragrant, and the sun was shining brightly. There was no sign of the building collapsing or the ground caving in last night.
…It-it must have been a dream.
Zhang Shun got out of bed to wash his face. As he scooped up water, he inadvertently saw his hand and immediately froze as if struck by lightning.
—The golden “卍” character Buddha seal on his palm was still there, glowing faintly in the bathroom.
…Damn it, for real?!
Where’s my brother? Damn it, where’s my brother?!
Zhang Shun, as if his butt was on fire, rushed to the door of the hospital room. Just as he ran out to ask about the situation, the door was pushed open from the outside. Zhou Hui walked in, gave him a strange look, and asked, “Awake?”
“…” Zhang Shun’s brain was like a mess of paste. After a long moment, he squeezed out a sentence: “Where’s my brother?”
Zhou Hui gave him a half-smile and said, “If I were you, I would shut up and sit over there乖乖 (guāiguāi) – obediently. You’ve walked through the gates of life and death and you’re still not scared? It’s all because your brother protected you too well.”
Zhang Shun blurted out, “Was everything last night real? Who are you people?”
The expression on Zhou Hui’s face was a little strange, but it quickly returned to that lazy, roguish demeanor. “Brother-in-law, let me take a shower and change clothes first… Do you have a shirt? Lend me one.”
Zhang Shun looked closely and only then realized that the shirt he was wearing was wrinkled and had bloodstains on the collar and cuffs. From his memory, he hadn’t been injured last night. He didn’t know how he had gotten blood on his collar.
Zhang Shun didn’t think much of it. From his memory of last night, this god-stick-like Zhou Hui was at least friendlier than the Demon Lord. If his brother was really in mortal danger, Zhou Hui shouldn’t be acting like this. He relaxed a little and warily watched Zhou Hui enter the bathroom attached to the hospital room. He found that he was even humming a song while showering, and what was even more unbearable was that not a single note was in tune!
After a while, Zhou Hui came out, wearing Zhang Shun’s clothes. This person didn’t seem muscular when wearing a jacket, but with just a single layer of clothing, his muscles were obvious. Especially with his wet hair standing up defiantly, he had a strong, fierce presence just by standing there.
A sense of hostility suddenly rose in Zhang Shun—he didn’t know yet that this was the natural aversion of a beast when seeing a male older and stronger than itself. He asked, “Can you tell me now?”
Zhou Hui didn’t speak. At that moment, there was a knock on the door. “Hello, hotel food delivery service.”
Zhou Hui opened the door, handed out a few bills, and took a plastic bag of food containers from the hotel delivery person outside. Then he pulled up a chair for himself, sat down, and started to eat.
Zhang Shun couldn’t hold back any longer. “Hey! Are you going to tell me or not?!”
Zhou Hui looked up at him strangely. “I wasn’t planning to. Do you want some? Come on, brother-in-law. It’s my treat.”
“…” Zhang Shun said weakly, “You… you at least have to tell me, how is my brother? This hospitalization has turned into this. If last night’s events happen again, I can’t f—ing take it! And what’s with my hand? Why do you all call me a Buddha bone?”
Zhou Hui started to laugh.
Zhang Shun had always hated this expression of his but had never delved into why. The Second Young Master Zhang was not a person with a delicate mind who got to the bottom of things. But now, looking at this familiar smile, in a flash of lightning, he suddenly realized why he had this reaction.
—There was pity in that smile.
It was the expression of someone who had experienced many vicissitudes and held many secrets, looking at a newborn calf that wasn’t afraid of the tiger—a somewhat helpless, somewhat pitying expression.
The Second Young Master Zhang’s mind instantly exploded.
Normally, he would have definitely rushed up and let this person know why the flowers were so red. But the dramatic changes of the past few days were enough to teach him something beyond fists and wealth. He closed his eyes and forcefully suppressed the urge to get angry. When he opened them again, he had quickly returned to normal. “It’s fine if you don’t tell me. I can investigate it myself. But things have come to this point, I’m already involved, right? You also know I’m clueless. My investigation will definitely be reckless. If I mess up something of yours in the process, my own little life is one thing, but you’ll at least have to spend some effort to cover it up.”
“Why don’t you selectively tell me a part of the truth?” The Second Young Master Zhang’s thoughts became clearer and clearer, and his tone more and more persuasive. “How much to say, how to say it, that’s all up to you. You can choose the way that’s most beneficial to you. In exchange, I won’t recklessly meddle in the parts you don’t want me to meddle in. How about it?”
This was said with great reason and evidence. Although it was still a bit naive, for someone of the Second Young Master Zhang’s age, it was already very impressive.
Zhou Hui seemed to find it very interesting. He smiled, lit a cigarette, took a few deep drags, and then asked, “So what do you want to know?”
Zhang Shun immediately asked, “Where is my brother now, and how is he?”
“In an absolutely safe place. He won’t die.”
Zhang Shun frowned, clearly not satisfied with this answer. “Then who are you people, and what is your relationship with my brother?”
“—Oh, us.” Zhou Hui said unhurriedly. “We currently represent the first and sixth teams of the Special Office of Unit 574 under the Ministry of State Security of the People’s Republic of China…”
The door was suddenly pushed open with a bang. They both turned their heads at the same time and saw Li Hu standing fiercely in the doorway, saying word by word, “Zhou, Hui.”
Zhou Hui asked, surprised, “What’s wrong now?”
“Situ Yingzhi sent me a video conference screenshot, confirming that the leader of the first team in the capital, Zhou Hui, has been guarding the Qiankun Array under the Great Hall of the People for the past few days and hasn’t left Beijing at all.” Li Hu slapped the phone with the screenshot on the table and said coldly, “Boss Zhou, are you hiding something from me?!”
Zhou Hui slowly put away his smile, stared at her, and after a long moment, asked, “And are you and Feng Si not hiding anything from me, Hu Qing?”
Li Hu probably didn’t expect Zhou Hui to counterattack. Her face almost instantly contorted.
But before she could think of a word to slap him back even harder, the phone on the bedside table rang. Zhang Shun looked over and was surprised to find it was his brother’s phone ringing. The call was from Mayor Huang.
“You… you two go ahead and argue, don’t stop.” Zhang Shun went to answer the phone. As he turned to the corner of the room to say hello, he was still straining his ears to listen to the commotion between Zhou Hui and Li Hu.
But Mayor Huang’s loud voice immediately drowned out all other sounds. “Hello, President Chu! Come quick! Something big has happened at the construction site!”
“Hello, Uncle Huang. My brother is in the hospital. If you have something—”
“I don’t care what your brother is doing! As long as he has one breath left, bring him over here!” Mayor Huang’s terrified panting was exceptionally clear over the phone. “They dug up something big at the construction site! Only your brother can handle it! Tell him to come quick!”
Zhang Shun frowned and glanced at Zhou Hui. He was about to say he would try when Zhou Hui suddenly turned his head. “What’s the big deal, making such a fuss?”
“Mayor Huang is asking my brother to go over there. My brother is…”
Zhou Hui interrupted impatiently, “—Just ask him, how many coffins did they dig up today?”
·
Zhou Hui sat in the back seat, wearing a leather jacket. His long, strong legs were propped up and shaking. He was smoking in the enclosed car. Zhang Shun could see from the rearview mirror that his expression was quite unrestrained.
Li Hu was squeezed against the car door, rolling her eyes at the window.
Zhang Shun finally couldn’t take it anymore and asked, “There’s a lady present. Can’t you put out your cigarette?”
“Brother-in-law, let me teach you two things for your brother’s sake,” Zhou Hui said. “First, when a man smokes, it usually indicates two situations: one is satisfaction, the other is dissatisfaction. My current state is very dissatisfied, so you’d better not provoke my real fire. Your brother is already in a miserable state. Don’t make it worse for him. Second, from what point can you tell this guy is a woman?”
Zhang Shun was completely confused, but he could feel the driver giving him a pleading look. That expression clearly said, Please don’t really piss off this big shot…
The corner of Zhang Shun’s mouth twitched.
“How is she not a woman? And, how is my brother doing?”
“He’s probably not feeling too good right now, but he won’t die,” Zhou Hui said lazily. “In my hands, even dying is difficult.”
Zhang Shun almost stood up on the spot to hit him, but was desperately held back by Li Hu. “He’s joking! He’s really joking!”
The car didn’t stop until it reached the construction site in the suburbs. The area was already cordoned off with three layers of yellow tape. Police were everywhere. Mayor Huang was squatting outside, smoking, his face a picture of gloom. Zhang Shun was the first to pull open the car door and jump out. Before getting out, Li Hu first rummaged through a suitcase in the back of the car and then turned back to curse, “Boss, you’re really not human.”
Zhou Hui asked, surprised, “I wasn’t human to begin with, was I?!”
Li Hu: “…”
“Don’t worry, my temper has gotten much better compared to when I was young.” Zhou Hui smiled and pointed to his watch. “We’d better finish up here as soon as possible so I can go back early. Otherwise, Feng Si will really hate me… If he marinates a little longer, it won’t just be flavorful, he’ll have a complete breakdown.”
·
Everyone on the construction site was hiding in the makeshift sheds as much as possible. In the middle was a large pit. Around the pit were scattered shovels, crowbars, and other tools. An excavator was parked not far away. The driver was hiding behind the vehicle, trembling, and had clearly wet his pants.
In the middle of the pit, six coffins were neatly arranged.
Mayor Huang personally rolled up his pant legs and went down into the pit. He pointed at the coffins with a mournful face and said, “I’ve heard of ancient coffins being dug up at construction sites before, but these are all f—ing modern. I don’t know which heartless person killed someone and didn’t send them to the crematorium. Even if you dismembered them and flushed them down the toilet, it would be better than this! To specifically find a coffin to bury them, are they crazy?!…”
Zhang Shun looked back and saw that the city’s criminal investigation team was standing outside the pit. Several leaders were pacing around nervously, as if facing a great enemy.
Li Hu asked, “No one has opened the coffins, right?”
Mayor Huang said, “Too late. The person in charge of the construction site here called the police right away. When the police came, they immediately opened the coffins… If I had known, I would never have let them touch them! These unlucky kids! What do we do now?!”
Li Hu gave the criminal police captain a half-smile and asked, “Who touched the coffins?”
The captain, trembling, pointed to a few young police officers behind him. “I-we all touched them…” He then held out his hand, the skin of which had turned completely blue, and his mouth twisted as if he was about to cry. “What do we do now? Are we poisoned? I have an eighty-year-old mother at home and an eight-year-old child. If I die in the line of duty, what will happen to my wife?…”
Li Hu almost laughed. She twisted the corner of her mouth and held it back, then took out her ID and official documents from her pocket and slapped them into Mayor Huang’s chest. “Who told you to touch important evidence? To be honest, this comrade Zhou and I are specialists sent down by the higher authorities to investigate this major serial murder case. We’ve been looking for these coffins for several days! We were about to rush over when we heard the news, but the scene was destroyed by your local police team first. You tell me what we should do now?!”
The criminal police captain’s first reaction was, Are you f—ing kidding me? Do you think I’m a three-year-old?! But when Mayor Huang opened the documents, they were both stunned.
“Mi-Ministry of State Security?!” Mayor Huang and the criminal police captain looked at each other, and they could both see the muscles on each other’s faces twitching.
Although these two were influential in their own little corner of H-City, this was the first time they had met a section chief from a department directly under the Ministry of State Security. Mayor Huang looked Li Hu up and down with new eyes and asked with a tremor, “Then… that comrade Zhou over there…”
“Comrade Zhou is our department-level director. He came with us this time to guide the investigation. You can check on the internal network and you’ll know.” Li Hu said sternly, “We disguised ourselves as staff from the provincial protocol office to ensure the secrecy of the operation. Who knew you would… sigh! Mayor Huang, I won’t say more. Have the comrades who touched the coffins pack up and stand over there.”
The criminal police captain almost cried. “But we were just performing our official duties in investigating the case! We didn’t violate any discipline!”
The young police officers behind him nodded in unison, which made Li Hu couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “You think you’re going to be disciplined? In your dreams! Do you know what you have on your hands? The original formulation of a new hallucinogenic drug patch recently discovered in the country! In a little while, the drug will be absorbed through your skin, and you’ll be addicted!”
This was so absurd that not only Mayor Huang, but even Zhou Hui, who was squatting by the coffin smoking, raised an eyebrow.
“There’s… there’s such a thing?!” the captain was half-believing, half-doubting.
“You guys pack up and stand to the side for now. Don’t touch anyone else with your blue skin, and don’t touch other parts of your own bodies. You’re lucky. In order to outwit the criminals, we’ve specially brought the latest developed neurological antidote. We’ll give each of you an injection later and you’ll be fine.”
This group of small-town police officers from an eighteenth-tier city looked at each other. A few seconds later, they were all convinced by Comrade Li Hu, the special agent from the Ministry of State Security. They all retreated to the edge of the pit and stood there, a few of the greenhorns still trembling.
As a fox spirit who had cultivated for thousands of years, Li Hu’s greatest joy in life was bluffing people, and his greatest satisfaction was when people were actually bluffed. He beckoned his trusted driver from Yunnan and whispered, “Get those few reagents from the freezer in our car and give each of them an injection… Yes, the one with my handprint on it.”
The driver said with a trembling voice, “That’s not good, Team Leader Six. Isn’t that your private collection of that aphro… aphrodisiac? You even said last time that if you met a handsome guy on the road who wouldn’t comply, you’d use one…”
“What do you know,” Li Hu said resentfully. “Someone else got to him first. It’s all f—ing been replaced with saline.”
·
Zhou Hui, as if completely oblivious to the prying eyes around him, finished his cigarette, casually dropped the butt on the ground and crushed it with his foot. He took out a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket, put them on, and began to move the coffin lid.
The coffin lid weighed at least two hundred pounds. Zhang Shun wanted to go over and help, but he was stopped by him. “Don’t move. It’s really poisonous.”
Zhang Shun asked, surprised, “The hands of those police officers…”
“A corpse curse. Li Hu will handle it.” Zhou Hui exerted his strength, his shoulder muscles bulging, and with a loud boom, he flipped the entire coffin lid over.
Zhang Shun was standing closest and was the first to see the scene inside the coffin. He almost threw up on the spot. A half-rotted corpse lay facing up inside. There were at least a dozen stab wounds on its chest, the pale flesh crisscrossed, emitting an indescribable stench. What was terrifying was that this unlucky person’s face showed no pain at all. On the contrary, he was staring straight at the sky, his mouth stretched into a wide grin—the corners of his mouth almost reaching his ears, forming a strange and terrifying arc.
The surrounding police officers were in an uproar. Even the criminal police captain shivered several times. “This, how could this be?!”
Zhou Hui sighed and went to the next coffin to do the same, until all the coffins were opened. All the bodies had died quite tragically, some beheaded, some drowned, and without exception, they were all grinning strangely and staring straight at the sky—except for one body that had died from a fall from a height. Even its skull was shattered, so its facial features were unclear.
Zhou Hui took off his black leather gloves and took out a small bronze wine cup from his pocket. The driver trotted over from the car with a leather suitcase (Zhang Shun noticed that the suitcase was actually a Louis Vuitton). Zhou Hui took out three incense sticks and a bottle of wine from the suitcase and bowed to the six coffins.
“I know you were all innocently involved and died unjustly, so it’s inevitable that you have some resentment. But please rest assured, I will definitely catch the real culprit and send them down to you. Then you can steam them or have them with wine as you please. If you don’t have wine down there, you can go to the small courtyard at No. 9, Third Fork Lane, Yellow Springs Road. I’ve left a few bottles of fifteen-year-old Flying Moutai there. After you drink it, you can go and reincarnate in peace.” As he spoke, Zhou Hui poured a small cup of wine into the bronze cup and poured it on the ground.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the strange grins on the faces of the several corpses instantly disappeared.
Everyone was dumbfounded.
Zhang Shun was unprepared when Zhou Hui suddenly grabbed his hand, took out a Swiss army knife from his keychain, and cleanly pricked his middle finger.
“Ah! What are you doing?!”
“Lending me your virgin’s blood to break the evil.” Zhou Hui squeezed his blood into the bronze cup, but Zhang Shun immediately winced and pulled his hand back. “Who told you I was a virgin?!”
“…” For the first time, a look of astonishment appeared on Zhou Hui’s face. “How old are you, and you’re already not a virgin?!”
The two stared at each other. A cold wind carrying leaves drifted by, and a line of crows flew overhead, cawing. Li Hu, on the side, held his forehead, unable to bear watching.
“Humans are truly decadent,” Zhou Hui said, shocked. “When I was your age, I only dared to fantasize about your brother, at most mas-turbate, and even then, I had to do it secretly so no one would find out…”
