A Good-for-Nothing

149. Karma Flame (1)

 

Translator: Dragon Rider

 

He Zheng took off his coat, revealing a slit in his waist. It was just a superficial injury caused by fingernail and wasn’t very noticeable. After the others realized what had just happened, they were more concerned about what Luo Yan — no, that demon — had done before his death.

Why had he wounded He Zheng to get his blood at the cost of his own life?

Was this a chance attack or a premeditated one?

Lan Bai the grass-ghost witch quickly examined He Zheng’s body to see if there was anything suspicious in the knowledge that some people could use human blood to make Gu (a legendary venomous insect, or a poison made with poisonous insect, worm or beetle).

“You’re not under the influence of any Gu, but I fear there might be Jiangtou (a kind of dark witchcraft) or something like that involved.”

“There’s no need to worry about that. This demon has been killed. Even if he cast a Jiangtou, it would never produce the desired effect.” The speaker was a young female trainee. Though deep down a trifle scared, on the surface she appeared collected. Her name was Chi Li. She was a Jiangtou-caster.

He Zheng grimly flicked a glance at Luo Yan lying on the ground, whose body had been slowly changing ever since they’d killed him. On the naked skin of his arms on his sides were indistinct patches of post-mortem stains.

Chen Qianlin had also noticed this. His eyes met He Zheng’s in mid-air and with that both of them were sent into a brief trance of surprise.

He Zheng remembered that Chen Qianlin had come to his help just now.

Zhen Daoyuan walked inside, followed by a couple of others.

Zhen Daoyuan’s countenance was unaffected by the sight of the confusion in the classroom. He instructed staff members standing beside him, “Take these trainees to Lin Di for an examination. Luo Yan’s body is to be kept in the basement of the Ministry of Supervision.”

“Sorry for the dangerous situation you’ve just been through. We should’ve taken security more seriously. I’ll give you a plausible explanation later, but now I need your cooperation. All trainees are to go to the designated area to be examined. Our staff members will handle the rest of this matter.”

Since Zhen Daoyuan whom people could tell at a glance was a high-ranking official had intervened, nobody dared raise any objections. All of them followed the staff members away. Zhen Daoyuan and the others had just been informed of He Zheng and Chen Qianlin’s fight with Luo Yan. He walked up to He Zhen and queried in a bland voice, “Are you okay, He Zheng?”

He Zheng shook his head at this question.

His countenance unchanged, Zhen Daoyuan glanced at the wound in He Zheng’s waist and gently swept his fingers across the bare side of He Zheng’s waist without touching it, a faint greenish gleam at his fingertips. With that the slit in He Zheng’s waist was gone, and that patch of skin was now as smooth as before.

“This is the Force of Rejuvenation! It’s awesome!” exclaimed someone in astonishment.

Zhen Daoyuan withdrew his hand. “Have another examination later.”

He Zheng nodded.

A staff member clapped his hands for attention. “All right, let’s not waste any time. Everybody line up for examination.”

Zhen Daoyuan, after saying that, walked away, leaving the other staff members handling the aftermath of this incident.

Distantly, He Zheng gazed in the direction Zhen Daoyuan left. After a few moments, he shifted his gaze to Lin Di who was standing at the center of a Yang Circle (in Chinese philosophy and medicine, yin and yang are the two opposing principles in nature, the former feminine and negative, the latter masculine and positive). He remembered this exorcism circle. Previously, when He Jin had been caught, He Changchun had also walked into something like this to be examined. They used this circle to find out whether someone had come into contact with demonic Qi.

Eventually, the results showed that all three examinees in the same group as Luo Yan’s had demonic Qi residue inside them, and so did He Zheng who had fought Luo Yan a while ago.

The residual demonic Qi wouldn’t linger in them for long, and it wouldn’t do them any harm either. He Zheng followed a staff member to undergo another examination to see if he was under any Gu or Jiangtou.

Luo Yan’s body was carried away, but He Zheng still felt that the circumstances of this attack had been rather suspicious, that this matter was not as simple as it seemed.

A black cat swiftly leapt onto a parterre. It was not very steady on its feet as if it was injured.

The shadow-demon possessing the black cat was now very feeble, so of course the black cat was not sure-footed.

Even for this shadow-demon who excelled at spirit possession, the demonic Qi was his sole source of energy. He had left half of his demonic Qi inside Luo Yan’s body, cutting his powers in half, and with Luo Yan’s death, he’d suffered yet another considerable reduction in his strength.

However, his sufferings had not been all for nothing. It’d never occurred to him that there was indeed some kind of connection between people of He family and the Demonic Seed… He must report this to his master as soon as possible.

The shadow-demon’s attention wandered for a while.

“How dare you steal my thunder, bitch!” snapped a voice in his ears. The black cat gave an alarmed start. A white figure gracefully curved through the air and landed onto the parterre.

It was a little white cat with yin-yang pupils.

Never had the shadow-demon been a sorry sight like this. Ever since he’d accidentally messed with these people of SMB, trouble had been coming to him one after another. First he’d failed in several tasks assigned to him by his master consecutively, and then his vessel had been destroyed, and now he’d lost more than half of his powers!

In the shadow-demon’s eyes, a little cat was nothing, and he decided to use it as his punching bag. Right at the moment when the black cat arched its back with its hackles rising, poised to attack, the sound of footsteps was heard.

They were very light.

But all the hairs on the black cat’s back prickled.

He sensed danger.

“You possessed an examinee to get in here. It took a lot of balls to do that.” Li Zong’s voice was flat, giving little away.

The shadow-demon would never forget these footsteps, and neither would he forget this voice! The owner of them had once jumped into a demon seal and burned all demonic Qi that was about to come into shape!

Li Zong!

He had quickly reacted. Now was not the right time to get into a fight. He had to figure out a way to send the message out.