A Good-for-Nothing

315. Spin-Off (3): Indefinite Absence

Translator: Dragon Rider

Most things in this world are not perfect. People of the Republic of Hua seemed to have long since developed a liking for happy endings. However, people in the Lion Kingdom, the Tiger Kingdom and the more faraway countries, had a taste for the beauty in incompleteness and regret. They did not always make great efforts to pursue perfection.

They adopted such an attitude towards artwork, life and love.

Zhao Fei, after Zhou Yize’s death, had visited a lot of places and seen a lot of people and things. On one occasion, he had attended a church wedding in a coastal city in the Republic of Hua. The newly-weds had been two females, and there had been very few attendees, all of whom were the couple’s close friends. Naturally, they had welcomed Zhao Fei. He had taken off his hat but not his shades. The two women, immersed in bliss, had not found the only uninvited visitor’s behavior impertinent.

Zhao Fei had watched them exchange rings and kiss in front of an idol. The slightly shorter girl had walked up to him and said, “Mister, would you be so kind as to help take a photo of us?”

Apart from Zhao Fei, there had been only six other people present at the wedding.

Zhao Fei had helped take a photograph of them and given them his best wishes. The two girls had been very happy and shed tears of joy when exchanging rings.

There had been nobody standing behind them, but their figures had seemed very strong. They had not struck the others as lonely at all.

Zhao Fei had suddenly felt a little upset. In order not to appear disrespectful, he had waited until after they exchanged rings before taking his leave, and he had signed his name on the guest registration board which bore only a couple of names.

He had walked alone in sunlight for a few moments before he opened his backpack and pulled a casket from it. Inside the casket had been a broken jade Cong (a long hollow piece of jade with rectangular sides). If an archaeologist saw it, they would definitely feel that it was a pity such a previous artifact had cracked.

Zhao Fei had stroked it, his movements so gentle as though he were caressing his lover. It had been a short while before Zhao Fei put the jade ware back into the casket, hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder, put on his hat and resumed progressing.

He never had a destination. Whenever he reached somewhere, he stopped to observe the stream of people, to hear stories he had never heard before. He felt that Zhou Yize had suffered an extremely miserable fate, that the happiest time in Zhou Yize’s life must be the days before he had developed sentience, because at that time, the two of them, as two pieces of jade ware, though insentient, had at least been together.

Afterwards, they had developed sentience through cultivation. Zhao Fei had succeeded later than his companion, who had joined the Department of Counter-Demon Operations. It had been after his companion’s death that Zhao Fei had become sentient. After numerous incarnations, they had finally been reunited, but it had never crossed his mind that the reunion would be such a transient one.

Thinking about this, Zhao Fei felt that Zhou Yize was not the only one deserving sympathy, that he himself was a poor guy as well.

Gazing at the stream of pedestrians, Zhao Fei mumbled to himself, “You will come back when I finish this journey, right?”

There was no response. Zhao Fei smiled a self-deprecating smile and resumed proceeding.

Amid the sunlight, he cast a long thin shadow onto the sidewalk. People passing by trod on his shadow, making him look a little solitary.

He felt as though he were surrounded by invisible clouds of mist, and he was trudging along through them.

…

Spring came and went cyclically, and the passing of time seemed to have left no trace except for the crow’s feet at the corners of the beauty’s eyes. Ever since the last exorcism championship, the Department of Homeland Security had adjusted its strategies. In order to meet the growing needs, SMB had added anti-Yōkai, anti-cacodemon operations to its core duty. He Zheng and the other exorcists that had joined SMB with him, even the previous few batches of exorcists, specialized in only exorcism and had little knowledge of Yōkai or spirits of artifacts, so they had all been sent to large sects to receive training.

He Zheng had been sent back to Qingwei Sect, the place where he used to serve as a disciple.

Since he had been an apprentice to Xuanqing, his seniority in the sect was very high. In addition, He Zheng was now quite powerful, all the newly recruited disciples respectfully addressed him as sect-uncle.

On this day, He Zheng was sitting with his back against the trunk of an old banyan tree, attentively working on the questions on the Five Years of Exorcism & Three Years of Mock Examinations, his pen clamped between his teeth. Distantly, he heard many people repeatedly calling “Supt. Li!”

He looked up and saw that the visitor was none other than Li Zong.

Beaming, He Zheng tossed his pen and book aside, rose from his chair and asked him in wonderment, “What brings you here?”

“Private matters.” The corners of Li Zong’s mouth turned up at the sight of He Zheng’s reaction. Then he noticed the exercise book that He Zheng had just tossed aside, picked it up, glanced at it and saw that the handwriting was so terrible he could barely keep his eyes on it.

He Zheng also had a sense of shame. When Li Zong had run an eye over two pages, He Zheng, feeling a little embarrassed, quickly snatched the book from Li Zong’s hand, put it onto the desk face down and said, “Hasn’t there been a lot of things going on in the bureau? Why did you come here?”

“Zhang Jingqiu is handling it,” Li Zong replied concisely.

However, He Zheng detected manifest schadenfreude in Li Zong’s tone. After the Demon King had been eliminated and Li Zong and He Zheng had been hospitalized, all the work had fallen to Zhang Jingqiu, who later had sworn that he would never stand in for Li Zong again.

“Oh, it surprises me Lao Zhang compromised so easily this time.”

Li Zong smiled but did not expound.

A disciple walked in with a tray of sliced fruit and asked, “Sect-uncle, the sect leader said these fruits are from our own mountains. They taste pretty good. Supt. Li, please have a try.”

The disciple was well-featured and He Zheng had never seen him before.

“All right,” He Zheng smiled with a head bob. As he noticed that Li Zong was gazing at that person, his eyebrows contracted slightly.

He Zheng picked up an apple and took a bite with a very loud crunch. Li Zong, naturally, could tell that He Zheng did that on purpose. He looked back at He Zheng, who snorted, “What is it, Supt. Li? You made some interesting discovery?”

“That kid is a spirit of jade ware, right?”

“Yeah. Nobody knows where he’s from. My sect-uncle found him and brought him back.”

Li Zong inclined his head.

He Zheng, having lived with Li Zong for so many years, could divine what Li Zong was thinking just by looking at Li Zong’s eyes and countenance, even if Li Zong remained silent.

“What’s the matter?”

Li Zong twisted his head back and said, “This time around, apart from checking on you, I came here also to help Zhao Fei deal with something.”

At the mention of Zhao Fei, He Zheng was momentarily surprised. He stopped eating fruit, tossed the apple back into the tray and asked, “How’s Zhao Fei been doing?”

In fact, technically speaking, He Zheng had not had many dealings with Zhao Fei, and they did not know much about each other, but He Zheng had got a pretty good impression of Zhao Fei and was well disposed towards him. He and the others, to a greater or lesser degree, knew about the matter of Zhao Fei, and he had great sympathy for him.

So after hearing Li Zong suddenly bring up the matter of Zhao Fei, He Zheng naturally was concerned.

“He’s been trying to figure out a way to resurrect Zhou Yize. I and some others have been helping him collect related information. Not long ago, Mrs. Zhao finally found in an ancient book some methods worth a shot, and one of the required materials is in Qingwei Sect.”

He Zheng was really very happy to learn about it. He promptly rose from his chair and said, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go and see my sect-uncle.”

Li Zong was thinking about the same thing. They were just about to set off when Sect Leader Zu, probably having received a message, showed up.

What Li Zong had come to request Sect Leader Zu for was Jade Essence, which could only be found on Qingwei Mountain. Qingwei Mountain was famous for its abundant resources of jade, and there was also Jade Essence on it. Jade Essence was very rare. It took hundreds of years for a single droplet of it to come into being. Qingwei Sect, after so many years, had collected only half a phial of it. According to Zhao Yidi, this kind of rare substance was required to restore the broken jade ware.

“Great. So this thing could restore the jade Cong?”

“Not necessarily. The jade Cong is an ancient artifice. Maybe this could only piece it together. I’m afraid it’d be very difficult to restore it to completion.”

If truth be told, this thing was like a kind of premium glue. However, a lot of records had been referred to before this method, which nobody knew for sure would work or not, had been found.

The twinkle in He Zheng’s eyes ebbed slightly, but he felt that it was better than none. “Give it to Zhao Fei. There’s no other way, and the situation cannot be any worse.”

Li Zong inclined his head.

Zhao Fei returned home from overseas in haste shortly after receiving the message. He looked a trifle thinner and appeared somewhat lean. Wearing a black windbreaker, he looked as though he were about to merge into it.

As a man who had been looking for hope all along, he had never let any chance slip away, however slim it was. Unfortunately for him, the providence did not seem to have heard Zhao Fei’s prayers. With the help of Jade Essence, the jade Cong was restored and looked no different from what it had been. However, although its body had been restored, its spirit had not. The jade Cong did not turn into a human.

He Zheng was very upset. He wanted to offer Zhao Fei some words of comfort only to find himself at a loss for words. Zhao Fei, however, appeared fairly composed.

He said, “As it is often the case, the greater the anticipation, the more bitter the disappointment, but if there are better results to come, I’m willing to accept the disappointment.”

It struck He Zheng that he would never be able to accept such facts like Zhao Fei did.

Afterward, He Zheng and Zhao Fei saw less and less of each other. Zhao Fei hardly showed his face in front of them except for when SMB or Li Zong, capitalizing on their personal relationship, figured something out to get Zhao Fei to show up.

Many, literally many, years later, Zhang Jingqiu’s daughter got married. It was said that she married a fox Yōkai living outside Shanhaiguan Pass. Zhang Jingqiu was infuriated and almost committed suicide.

He Zheng and the others attended the wedding. On a long rampart near a precipice, they saw a man progressing alone, who was wearing a black windbreaker and looked quite lean. The sight of the man’s back instantly reminded He Zheng of Zhao Fei.

After yet another period of many years, Zhang Jingqiu’s grandson attended the recruitment examination of SMB, along with a man whose background was unknown, and who went by the name Zhao Fei. He claimed to be with Zhang Jingqiu’s grandson.

Li Zong and the others, after being informed of it, hastened to the bureau and saw that Zhao Fei was standing under a tree with a gray-pupiled man. Zhao Fei, languidly leaning against the tree trunk, complained, “Zhang Jingqiu must have saved the whole galaxy from destruction in his last incarnation to have become your grandfather. He’s such a lucky dog. I’ll have to change my form of address for him.”

The other man, who looked rather unsophisticated, resignedly smiled, “Who could’ve foreseen things would come to this?”

He was none other than Zhou Yize.

He Zheng thought of Zhang Jingqiu who was now a geriatric and lying in a hospital, and then recalled how Zhang Jingqiu had looked when young. It struck him that Zhang Jingqiu, having got himself such a good “big grandson”, was indeed a lucky dog as Zhao Fei had put it.

Then he heard Zhao Fei say, “When do you think you could change your name? Why did Zhang Jingqiu name you Zhang Dabao? Is he brainless?”

Li Zong exchanged a glance with He Zheng who then burst into laughter.

They had laughed so loud that the man under the tree looked in their direction. He Zheng glanced from the gray-pupiled man to Zhao Fei before they all lapsed into chuckle.

Predestination, so amazing.