Edited
Li Hu understood Zhou Hui’s fearsomeness all too well. Not to mention anything else, Zhang Shun plus Chu He plus herself, who had cultivated to top-tier status among monsters, were nothing but a plate of food in the Demon Venerable’s hands—but encountering Zhou Hui at his peak, the Demon Venerable in a half-sealed state was nothing but another plate of food.
At most, the Demon Venerable’s plate had bones that were harder to gnaw and more thorns that pricked the hands. The overall power dynamic wouldn’t change. Speaking of which, in the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths today, apart from the true gods and Buddhas, who was still a match for Zhou Hui?
But Zhou Hui’s current appearance made her feel as if he had been punched in the face.
No, rather it should be said that he had casually thrown a punch at someone, and that person who seemed weak and submissive had suddenly transformed into Ultraman, kicking him several hundred meters away in an instant—that was the feeling.
Fortunately, that dejected look of a male whose courtship was rejected disappeared from Zhou Hui cleanly within a few seconds. He even smiled and said to Chu He: “Put down the blade. I’m not coming up… Put the blade down first. If this continues, you’ll bleed dry.”
Li Hu saw that expression and knew it was bad.
Zhou Hui was not truly letting this matter pass lightly and fade away like a cloud. Hidden in the corners of his brows and eyes was clearly a more restrained and sinister, hair-raising ruthlessness.
Chu He shook his head, holding the blade without moving, and without turning back instructed the Demon Venerable: “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 Path. You think you’re his match? Go quickly!”
The Demon Venerable narrowed his eyes and stared at Zhou Hui, who was staring back at him with the same cold expression. And Chu He, standing between them, was already having difficulty standing. He didn’t even have the strength to breathe. Blood loss was making his body temperature drop rapidly, and his vision went black again and again.
Although his spine was still extremely straight, everyone knew it was only a matter of these last few seconds.
“…Fine,” Fan Luo finally said, but Zhou Hui could see his undisguised unwillingness at a glance.
“Don’t forget what you requested of me.”
The gate to hell behind the Demon Venerable opened wide. Ten thousand ghosts poured out, heavenly demons danced wildly, and endless darkness instantly swallowed him. Finally the gate to hell closed, and the bloody stench and ghostly wails instantly faded into the distance, completely vanishing into the vast void as if they had never come at all.
In the open space, Chu He swayed. The blade tip clattered to the ground, and then his entire body fell straight down!
“Bro!” Zhang Shun got up and ran down, but Zhou Hui immediately shot a look at Li Hu.
Without a word, Li Hu raised her hand and brought it down with a crack, knocking Second Young Master Zhang unconscious!
“This Buddha’s Bone has been stuck in my throat like a fishbone for a long time,” Zhou Hui half-knelt down, staring into Chu He’s vacant, scattered pupils and saying slowly. “I don’t want my mood ruined by others at a time like this…”
Chu He couldn’t hear what he was saying at all. He only breathed lightly, his unfocused gaze staring into the air.
His human body was still in that white hospital sleeping robe, which was already stained mottled with blood. Because the blood vessels in his palm had nearly been severed, a small pool of blood quickly accumulated beneath him, contrasting with his haggard face in a shockingly icy white.
He had always been a composed, restrained, and ascetic person. But at this moment, it was as if a white flower bud had been forcibly peeled open layer by layer, helplessly revealing the innermost pistil never before shown to anyone.
This cruel, morbid, and demonic feeling made Zhou Hui’s gaze gradually heat up.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he grabbed one of Chu He’s cold hands, palm to palm, then exerted force to lift him horizontally.
“Boss Zhou!” Li Hu, carrying the heavy Second Young Master Zhang on her shoulder, poked her head out from the gap of the half-collapsed hospital floor and asked with a bitter smile: “What now? Eliminate the Japanese and bring the ‘earth-born fetus’ back to Beijing?”
Zhou Hui turned back and stared at her without a word. The moonlight happened to pass through a gap in the dark clouds, illuminating half of his face, and Li Hu almost immediately shivered.
—His eyeballs were scarlet red.
Identical to the Demon Venerable.
“The earth-born fetus isn’t as simple as you imagine.” Whether Zhou Hui hadn’t noticed his own change or knew but didn’t care, he only said coldly: “Restore the extradimensional space 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 acknowledging it. He turned and walked straight into the depths of the night, looking down at Chu He in his arms, a cold smile slowly appearing at the corner of his lips.
“Next… it’s time to settle the accounts between us,” he whispered, his voice exceptionally cruel in the darkness. “Don’t worry, you can’t run. I’ll take my time.”
·
Zhang Shun had many dreams between sleep and waking. In one of them, he returned to when he was very small, only about seven or eight years old, lying in bed with a high fever, his whole body burning and his consciousness muddled. He had a feeling that if he fell asleep, he probably wouldn’t wake up again.
A person in wide white robes with very long black hair sat by his bed, gently lifting him onto their lap and stroking his burning face again and again. Their fingers were very slender and cool, making Zhang Shun feel extremely comfortable. Although he couldn’t see this person’s face clearly, he could sense that this person was extraordinarily beautiful—a beauty that transcended gender perception and was indescribable, carrying a water-like tenderness that made one’s heart stir.
Who was he? Zhang Shun wondered.
“I didn’t expect they could invite you here, Team Leader Feng Si,” a low male voice sounded from the corner of the room. “I thought if my subordinates casually consumed the souls of one or two children, it shouldn’t have been enough to directly alarm you…”
“I have carried Buddha’s Bone on my person for thousands of years. Did you think I wouldn’t recognize it, Demon Venerable?” That person suddenly spoke to interrupt, but the voice was also very gentle: “To lay a finger on Buddha’s Bone is equivalent to destroying the Buddha—if it were Zhou Hui who came in person today, you wouldn’t even think of leaving.”
The Demon Venerable was silent for a moment, then suddenly said as if he found it quite interesting: “I heard that tens of thousands of years ago, Zhou Hui was nothing but a creature of the Blood Sea, captured to the Thirty-Third Heaven1 to be punished for disrespecting the Buddha, but privately released due to the Phoenix Wisdom King2‘s mercy… From this perspective, you should have been an existence that Zhou Hui couldn’t even look up to see. How did you come down from the Thirty-Third Heaven?”
Zhang Shun felt that person’s hand pause slightly.
“It’s none of your business, Fan Luo,” he said faintly after a long while.
“—I’ll let you go this time. Next time you touch Buddha’s Bone, it won’t be so simple.”
Zhang Shun was muddleheaded, not knowing how long he had slept, until daylight broke and he suddenly jolted awake from countless whirlpool-like nightmares.
“Ahh!” He abruptly sat up, only to see himself lying in a hospital bed, the sun already high outside.
—What time was it? He turned back to look at the bedside clock and realized he had unknowingly slept until the afternoon of the next day.
For some reason his head hurt as if being sawed. For several minutes he sat on the bed, unable to even remember why he was in the hospital. Only after the initial dizziness passed did his memories gradually recover: the bizarre hospital last night, the zombie servant, Demon Venerable Fan Luo, the completely blood-red nine-tailed fox… Countless strange fragments instantly struck Zhang Shun like a flood.
Had all of that been real? Or an absurd dream?
Zhang Shun looked around. Everything in the hospital was fine. Outside the window, birds sang and flowers bloomed in brilliant sunlight. There was no sign at all of the building collapsing or the ground caving in from last night.
…I-it really was a dream after all.
Zhang Shun got out of bed to wash his face. When scooping water, he unintentionally saw his hand and immediately stood frozen as if struck by lightning.
—the golden swastika Buddha seal on his palm was still there, emitting a faint light in the bathroom.
…What the fuck, it’s real?!
Where’s my brother? Damn it, where’s my brother?!
Zhang Shun rushed to the hospital room door like his ass was on fire. Just as he ran out to ask what was going on, the door was pushed open from outside. Zhou Hui walked in, gave him a baffled look, and asked: “Awake?”
“…” Zhang Shun’s brain felt as if churned into paste. After a long while he squeezed out: “Where’s my brother?”
Zhou Hui gave him a smile that wasn’t quite a smile and said: “If I were you, I’d shut my mouth and sit obediently over there right now. You walked through the gates of death and don’t even know fear? It’s because your brother protected you too well.”
Zhang Shun blurted out: “Everything last night was real? Who are you people?”
Zhou Hui’s expression was somewhat strange, but he quickly returned to that lazy, rascally posture and said: “Brother-in-law, big brother needs to shower and change clothes first… do you have a dress shirt? Lend me one, anything works.”
Zhang Shun looked closely and only then discovered that his shirt was wrinkled, with bloodstains on the collar and cuffs. From memory, he hadn’t been injured last night. He didn’t know how blood had gotten on even the collar.
Zhang Shun didn’t think much of it. Based on last night’s memory, this charlatan-like Zhou Hui was at least friendlier than the Demon Venerable. If his brother were really in mortal danger, Zhou Hui wouldn’t be acting like this—he relaxed half a breath, warily watching Zhou Hui enter the bathroom attached to the ward. He discovered that Zhou Hui was actually humming a song while showering. What was even more unbearable was that not a single note was on key!
After a while Zhou Hui came out, wearing Zhang Shun’s clothes. When this man wore outerwear it wasn’t obvious, but in a single layer of clothing you could clearly see his defined muscles. Especially with his hair wet and arrogantly standing on end, standing there he gave off a strong sense of ferocity.
Zhang Shun suddenly felt a surge of hostility—he didn’t yet know that this was the natural aversion beasts felt when seeing an older, stronger male—and asked: “Can you tell me now?”
Zhou Hui didn’t speak. Just then there was a knock at the door: “Hello, hotel delivery service.”
Zhou Hui opened the door, handed over a few bills, and took the plastic bag of lunchboxes from the hotel delivery person outside. Then he pulled over a chair on his own, sat down, and started eating.
Zhang Shun couldn’t hold back anymore: “Hey! Do you plan on talking or not?!”
Zhou Hui looked up at him strangely: “I never planned to. Want some? Come, brother-in-law, this meal is on big brother.”
“…” Zhang Shun said weakly: “You… at least tell me, how is my brother? Being hospitalized shouldn’t turn out like this. If what happened last night happens again, I can’t fucking take it! Also, what’s going on with my hand? Why do you all call me Buddha’s Bone?”
Zhou Hui smiled.
Zhang Shun had always hated this expression of his, but had never looked closely at why—Second Young Master Zhang was never a delicate-minded person who pursued things to the root. 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 somewhat helpless, somewhat pitying expression of a person who had experienced much vicissitude and held many secrets, looking at a newborn calf who feared no tiger.
Second Young Master Zhang’s brain instantly exploded.
Under normal circumstances he would have immediately rushed up to teach this person why flowers are so red, but the drastic changes of the past few days had been enough to teach him things beyond fists and wealth. He closed his eyes and forcibly suppressed the urge to rage. When he opened them again, he had quickly returned to normal: “It doesn’t matter if you don’t tell me. I can investigate on my own. But by now I’ve already been dragged into this, right? You also know I’m completely ignorant. Investigating blindly will definitely be reckless. If in the process I mess up something you don’t want me to mess up, my own little life aside, you’ll at least have to spend some effort covering it up.”
“Why don’t you selectively tell me part of the truth,” Second Young Master Zhang’s thinking grew clearer, his tone more persuasive. “How much to say, how to say it—that’s your business. You can choose the way most advantageous to yourself. In exchange, I won’t recklessly interfere in the parts you don’t want me to interfere in. How about it?”
These words were truly reasonable and well-founded. Although still somewhat green, for someone of Second Young Master Zhang’s age it was already quite rare.
Zhou Hui seemed to find it quite interesting. He smiled, lit a cigarette, and after taking several deep puffs asked: “Then 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 this answer didn’t satisfy him much. “Then who are you people, and what relationship do you have with my brother?”
“—Oh, us.” Zhou Hui said unhurriedly, “Currently we represent the First and Sixth Teams of the Special Office, Unit 574, subordinate to the National Security Ministry of the People’s Republic of China…”
The door was suddenly pushed open with a bang. The two of them turned back simultaneously, only to see Li Hu standing in the doorway with great momentum, enunciating word by word: “Zhou. Hui.”
Zhou Hui asked in surprise: “What’s this now?”
“Situ Yingzhi sent me a screenshot of a video conference, confirming that Zhou Hui, Team Leader of Capital Branch One, has been guarding the Qiankun Formation beneath the Great Hall of the People these past few days, not leaving Beijing for a single step.” Li Hu slapped her phone with the screenshot open onto the table and said coldly: “Boss Zhou, are you hiding something from me?!”
Zhou Hui slowly put away his smile and stared at her. After a long while he asked: “Could it be that you and Feng Si have nothing hidden from me either, Hu Qing?”
Li Hu probably hadn’t expected Zhou Hui to counterattack. Her face almost immediately twisted.
But before she could think of words to slap back harder, the phone on the bedside table rang—Zhang Shun looked and was shocked to discover it was his brother’s phone ringing. The caller was Mayor Huang.
“You… you two keep arguing, don’t stop.” Zhang Shun went over to answer the phone, turning to the corner while saying “Hello,” while still pricking his ears to listen to the commotion between Zhou Hui and Li Hu.
Who knew that Mayor Huang’s booming voice would instantly drown out all other sounds: “CEO Chu, get over here quick! Something huge happened at the construction site!”
“Uncle Huang, it’s me. My brother is hospitalized, if you have something—”
“I don’t care what your brother is doing! As long as he still has one breath, drag him over here!” Mayor Huang’s fearful breathing was exceptionally clear on the other end of the phone: “They dug up something huge at the site. Only your brother can handle it. Tell him to come quickly!”
Zhang Shun frowned and glanced at Zhou Hui, about to say he’d try, when Zhou Hui suddenly turned his head: “What’s all the fuss about?”
“Mayor Huang wants my brother to come over, my brother he…”
Zhou Hui impatiently interrupted: “—Then ask him, how many coffins were dug up today?”
Zhou Hui sat in the back seat wearing a leather jacket, his long, sturdy legs crossed and jiggling, still smoking in the enclosed car compartment. 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 as she looked out the window.
Zhang Shun finally couldn’t help it and asked: “There’s a lady present. Can’t you put out the cigarette?”
“Brother-in-law, I’ll teach you two things for your brother’s sake.” Zhou Hui said: “First, when a man smokes, it generally indicates two situations: one is satisfaction, the other is dissatisfaction. My current state is extreme dissatisfaction, so you’d best not force my true fire out. Your brother is already miserable enough; don’t make him more miserable. Second, from what point do you see this guy as a woman?”
Zhang Shun listened in a fog, but he could feel the driver looking at him with a pleading gaze. That expression clearly said: Please, don’t really provoke this master…
The corner of Zhang Shun’s mouth twitched.
“How is she not a woman? Also, how is my brother’s condition?”
“He should be pretty uncomfortable right now, but he won’t die.” Zhou Hui said lazily: “In my hands, dying is also difficult.”
Zhang Shun nearly stood up to punch him on the spot, but was desperately held back by Li Hu: “He’s joking! He’s really joking!”
The car drove all the way to the suburban construction site before stopping. They saw that the surroundings were already cordoned off with three layers of yellow police tape inside and out. Police were everywhere. Mayor Huang was squatting on the outermost edge smoking, his face full of gloom. Zhang Shun was the first to pull open the car door and jump out. Before getting out of the car, Li Hu first found a briefcase in the trunk and rummaged through it, then turned back and cursed: “Boss, you’re really not human.”
Zhou Hui asked in surprise: “I was never human to begin with?!”
Li Hu: “…”
“Don’t worry, compared to when I was young, my temper is already much better.” Zhou Hui smiled, pointed at his watch and said: “We’d best wrap things up here as soon as possible, so I can go back earlier. Otherwise Feng Si will really hate me… If I marinate him any longer, not only will he be thoroughly seasoned, his entire person will collapse.”
Everyone at the construction site was hiding in the work sheds as much as possible. In the middle was a large pit, with scattered shovels, crowbars, and the like around it. An excavator was parked not far away, the driver trembling as he hid behind the vehicle, clearly having pissed his pants.
In the middle of the pit, six coffins were neatly arranged.
Mayor Huang personally rolled up his pant legs and climbed down into the pit, crying as he pointed at the coffins: “I’ve heard of ancient coffins being dug up at construction sites before, but these are all fucking modern ones. Who knows which conscienceless bastard killed people 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! The fuck, specifically finding coffins to bury them in—is that brain damage or what!…”
Zhang Shun turned back and saw that the city criminal police detachment were all standing outside the pit, several leaders walking back and forth nervously as if facing a great enemy.
Li Hu asked: “No one opened the coffins, right?”
Mayor Huang said: “Too late. The person in charge here called the police immediately, and the police opened them right away… If I had known, I definitely wouldn’t have let them touch them! These unlucky kids! What do we do now?!”
Li Hu looked at the criminal police captain with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile and asked: “Which people touched the coffins?”
The captain trembled as he pointed to several young officers behind him: “W-we all moved them…” Saying this, he stretched out a hand whose skin had turned completely blue, his mouth almost crying: “What do we do now? Is it poison? I have an eighty-year-old mother above and an eight-year-old child below. If I die a glorious death, what will happen to my wife…”
Li Hu almost laughed out loud, the corners of her mouth twisting before she forced them straight. She pulled out credentials and documents from her pocket and stuffed them into Mayor Huang’s arms: “Who told you to randomly touch important evidence? To be honest, Comrade Zhou and I are specialists sent down by the superior department to investigate this major serial murder case. We’ve been looking for these coffins for days! We were supposed to rush over as soon as we heard the news, but who knew your local police would destroy the scene first. Tell me, what do we do now?!”
The criminal police captain’s first reaction was: Are you fucking kidding me? Do I look like a three-year-old?! But when Mayor Huang opened the credentials, both of them froze.
“N-National Security Ministry?!” Mayor Huang and the police captain looked at each other, both seeing the muscles on the other’s face twitching.
Although these two had influence in H City’s little territory, they had never seen a principal division-level director from a directly subordinate unit of the National Security Ministry. Mayor Huang sized up Li Hu with entirely new eyes for a long while, then asked tremblingly: “Then… that Comrade Zhou over there…”
“Comrade Zhou is our principal division-level director. He came with us to guide the investigation. You can look it up on the internal network.” Li Hu said seriously: “We disguised ourselves as provincial foreign guest reception office staff to ensure the secrecy of the operation. Who knew you would… Aiya! Mayor Huang, I won’t say more. Have the comrades who touched the coffins tidy up and stand over there.”
The police captain almost cried: “We were performing official duties in our investigation! We didn’t violate any regulations!”
The young officers behind him nodded in unison, making Li Hu unable to resist rolling her eyes: “You think you’re going to be disciplined? Dream on! Do you know what that thing on your hands is? The raw formulation of a newly discovered domestic hallucinogenic drug patch! In a little while the drugs will be absorbed through the skin, and you’ll be addicted!”
This was such utter bullshit that not only Mayor Huang, but even Zhou Hui, who was squatting by the coffin smoking, had his eyebrows jump.
“Th-there’s such a thing?!” The captain half-believed, half-doubted.
“You all go tidy up and stand to the side. Don’t use your blue-skinned hands to touch other people, and don’t touch other parts of your own bodies either. Count yourselves lucky. To fight wits and courage with criminals, we specially brought the latest developed neural antidote. We’ll give you each a shot in a moment and you’ll be fine.”
These small-town cops from a backwater city looked at each other. A few seconds later, they were all convinced by Special Commissioner Li Hu of the National Security Ministry and retreated to stand by the edge of the pit in unison. Several greenhorns were still trembling nonstop.
Li Hu, as a fox spirit who had cultivated for thousands of years, found the greatest joy in life to be talking bullshit and bluffing people, and the greatest satisfaction to be when people actually fell for it. She waved over the trusted driver she had brought from Yunnan and whispered: “Take out those few reagents from the cooler in our car and give them each a shot… Yes, the ones with my handprint on them.”
The driver trembled: “Isn’t that a bad idea, Team Leader Six? Isn’t that your private collection of that spring… that spring whatsit medicine3? You said last time that if you met a handsome guy on the road who wouldn’t cooperate, you’d use one…”
“What do you know,” Li Hu said resentfully. “Someone beat me to it. It’s all been switched out for saline solution.”
Zhou Hui seemed completely oblivious to the sidelong glances of everyone around him. After finishing his cigarette, he casually flicked the butt to the ground and stubbed it out, then pulled out a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket and began moving the coffin lids.
The coffin lids weighed at least nearly two hundred jin. Zhang Shun wanted to go help, but Zhou Hui stopped him at once: “Don’t move. It’s really poisonous.”
Zhang Shun asked curiously: “Then those policemen’s hands…”
“Corpse curse. Li Hu will handle it.” Zhou Hui exerted force, his shoulder muscles bulging, and with a rumble flipped the entire coffin lid over.
Zhang Shun stood the closest and was the first to see the scene inside the coffin. He nearly vomited on the spot. A half-rotted corpse lay facing upward inside, its chest stabbed at least a dozen times, the pale flesh crisscrossed with wounds, emitting an indescribable stench. What was terrifying was that this unlucky fellow’s face showed no sign of pain at all. On the contrary, he stared straight up at the sky, the corners of his mouth stretched into a wide grin—almost reaching his ears, forming a bizarre and horrifying arc.
The surrounding police erupted in commotion. Even the criminal police captain shivered several times: “H-how is this possible?!”
Zhou Hui sighed, walked to the next coffin and did the same, until he had opened all of them. All the corpses had died quite tragically—some beheaded, some drowned—and without exception they were grinning strangely as they stared straight at the sky. Except for one corpse that had died from a high fall, its skull completely shattered, making it impossible to see the facial features.
Zhou Hui took off his black leather gloves and pulled out a small bronze wine cup from his pocket. The driver jogged over from the car carrying a leather suitcase (Zhang Shun noticed that the suitcase was actually LV). Zhou Hui took out three incense sticks and a bottle of liquor from the suitcase, and bowed to the six coffins.
“I know you all were innocently caught up in this, died wrongfully, and inevitably have resentment. But rest assured, I will definitely catch the true culprit and send them down to you. Then you can steam or braise them as you like, or use them as drinking snacks. If by chance there’s no alcohol down there, you can go to Courtyard No. 9, Three-Fork Alley, Yellow Springs Road4. I left a few bottles of fifteen-year-old Feitian Moutai5 there. Drink up and then go be reincarnated in peace.” Saying this, Zhou Hui poured a small cup of liquor into the bronze cup and sprinkled it on the ground.
Under the watchful eyes of all, the bizarre grins on the faces of the corpses instantly vanished.
Everyone was dumbstruck.
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.
“Ahh! What are you doing?!”
“Lend me some virgin blood to break the evil.” Zhou Hui squeezed Zhang Shun’s blood into the bronze cup, but Zhang Shun immediately bared his teeth and yanked his hand back: “Who told you I’m a virgin?!”
“…” For the first time, an expression of shock appeared on Zhou Hui’s face: “How old are you, and you’re not a virgin anymore?!”
The two of them stared at each other, only feeling a gust of cold wind roll leaves past, a row of crows cawing as they flew overhead. Li Hu held her forehead beside them, unable to bear watching.
“Humans are truly decadent,” Zhou Hui said in shock. “When I was your age, I only dared to fantasize about your brother, at most jerking off, and I still had to fucking hide it so no one would find out…”
TL notes:
- Thirty-Third Heaven (三十三重天) — The highest heaven in Buddhist cosmology. ↩︎
- Phoenix Wisdom King (鳳凰明王) — Mingwang (明王) is the Chinese translation of Vidyaraja, a class of wrathful Buddhist deities. ↩︎
- Spring medicine — Aphrodisiac/date-r*pe drug. ↩︎
- Yellow Springs Road (黃泉路) — The road to the underworld in Chinese mythology. ↩︎
- Feitian Moutai (飛天茅台) — A premium brand of Chinese liquor. ↩︎
