Shizun - 003 - Reunion

Lu Yunzhen was horrified to realize it was standing in the river itself. It had a thin and long body, like a man who was stretched to the length of a power pole. Every component of its body was combined strangely, with only its head at the proportions to look somewhat human.

The street lights on Haiyue bridge were rather dark. This “person” stared at him with white eyes without pupils, then cracked a terrifying cheshire grin while showing his spittle and two rows of sharp teeth.

Now that Lu Yunzhen had finally seen the monster clearly, he was frozen with fright. What little rational thought had remained in his head had evaporated. He finally admitted that maybe science had nothing to do with xuanxue, that maybe his fortune really had some issues...

Haiyue bridge was too remote. There was nothing in the surroundings other than factories and fields. Once a taxi driver had murdered a passenger and dumped the body in the darkness. The victim had screamed til their throat went hoarse and no one heard a thing.

Lu Yunzhen hurriedly grasped the talisman on his neck, only to realize that it had burned to ashes....

What shit quality!

He patted his body again, and found that other than his phone, wallet, and the leftover bbq, he simply had nothing. The boulevard was also empty, there was nothing he could use as a weapon.

His only option was to leave the bicycle behind and start running.

What regular human could out run a monster?

After only a few steps, he was grabbed by a long hand like tree branches by the calf. He fell and was forcibly dragged backwards. He lifted his head in terror, gazing at the huge, hideous face of the monster. He could smell the stench, could see the blood and viscera remaining on its fangs....

The monster sniffed at him with satisfaction, drooling more and more until it almost dribbled onto Lu Yunzhen.

“Get away!” Lu Yunzhen was both terrified and disgusted. He used his other foot to kick at the monster as hard as he could, but its skin was slippery yet hard. He couldn’t do any damage no matter how hard he kicked.

The monster stuck out its long tongue and let out a creepy laugh, “Hee hee, my new bride...”

Lu Yunzhen said, “What?”

He heard it clearly, but was suspicious of his own ears, and even more suspicious of this monster’s eyes and IQ. If it was going around bride snatching in the middle of the night why would it grab at a big ol’ man like him?

Bro! You caught the wrong thing!

Lu Yunzhen kept on kicking as he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. The even scarier part was that this monster didn’t seem to care if he was a man or a woman, and wanted to force itself on him even though he was a man. That icy tongue licked across his calf and he could feel goosebumps forming.

Panicking, he opened the takeout box without thinking and shoved the leftover wings into the monster’s mouth.

The chicken wings from Xiaowang bbq were also Luo Xiaopang’s beloved hell raiser wings.

Each mouthful demanded half a bottle of beer to wash it down.

The monster had lived in water for a long time and was sensitive to the spicy flavour it had never tasted before. After it swallowed the wings it froze for half a moment, until it finally caught on and held its mouth and stomach in pain. It madly rolled around and scrubbed its tongue on the concrete road while dry heaving, desperate to get rid of the spicy taste.

The grip on Lu Yunzhen’s leg loosened, he took the chance to scramble up and made a dash for his life.

The monster realized it had been played and became furious. It put aside the burning fire in its gut and pounced at Lu Yunzhen like a snake. Once more harshly pushing him to the ground by his neck. It roared while opening its bloody maw, “I- I’m going to eat you...”

It was going to wring its prey, rip the fresh meat into pulp, then swallow it all.

As Lu Yunzhen hung in the air, with the pain of suffocation in his throat, his short life flashed before his eyes like a traffic signal. His vision waned as tears slowly dripped down his face. In his struffles, his phone fell out and cracked on the ground, lighting up the lock screen.

23:59

October 14, Thursday.

Year of Bingyin, September 19. (TN: the former date is the Gregorian calendar while the latter seems to be Nongli)

He suddenly remembered the words of the Cibei Master.

“Short life, won’t live past 20...“

He would be able to see Grandpa soon.

...

The monster saw that he was about to faint, and opened its mouth in satisfaction, wanting to get at the delicious flesh.

Suddenly, a thick, black chain flew out of nowhere, wound around its mouth suddenly, broke several teeth, and jerked it backwards furiously.

The monster let go and let out a shrill scream.

Lu Yunzhen slid limply onto the ground. Fresh air flooded into his nearly dead lungs and brought life back into him. He held his pained throat and gasped for quite a while while his blurred vision cleared up and his thoughts recovered...

He saw that man-eating monster being restrained by heavy chains. And a tall man in rags was using steel-like fists and pummelling the monster like raindrops.

The man was dirty all over. He couldn’t see his face clearly but his clothes were strange, he was barefoot, his long hair was loose, his eyes were red, and he was covered in hostility like a mad beast that had been taunted.

Everywhere his fist landed, blood splattered like flowers, skin split, bones were shattered, and the flesh was turned into mincemeat. With the monster’s screams as background music it was a beautiful scene of violence.

The monster’s tongue was forcibly pulled off, its body was shattered, its bones were broken off inch by inch, and in the end it became a blurry mess of viscera.

What deep hatred, to inflict such harsh blows....

Did this monster kill his dad or steal his wife?

Lu Yunzhen zoned out on the ground and almost got splattered with the blood. He only came to after quite some time, and then grabbed his phone in a panic to look at the time.

00:01

October 19, Friday.

Year of Bingyin, September 20

He... lived past his 20th year?

...

The man casually made a seal with his hands. The monster’s remains were lit up with black flames and quickly burned into dust. He kicked at the dust, summoned a gust of wind out with experience, and blew the whole thing into the river. The entire thing was taken care of, clean as a whistle.

Lu Yunzhen realized this man wasn’t a regular human either. He rubbed at his still hurting neck. He was scared but in the face of a life saving act he needed to express his gratitude.

What should he say?

While he was wavering, the man finished taking care of the corpse, and walked towards him while dragging the long black chains. Beneath his long, messy hair, there were two tattoos on his left cheek like coiled snakes. The hostility had yet to fade from his blood-red eyes. He stared at the young man on the ground while breathing unsteadily.

Lu Yunzhen shuddered at the stare.

This man’s gaze was even scarier than that of the monster. There was a bone-deep greed in it, as if his clothes were going to be peeled off inch by inch and he was going to be swallowed down from his flesh down to his soul.

Did he jump out of the wolf’s den and into the tiger’s den?

Lu Yunzhen uttered while shaking, “Th-Thank you...”

The night wind was cold. His face was scratched up and bloody, his clothes were ripped in the struggle, and large blue-purple bruises were visible.

The man stared for a long time, then loosened his tightly wound fist, and gently reached towards Lu Yunzhen. As if he wanted to touch the warmth of his skin and make sure he was real.

Lu Yunzhen backed up in fear.

The man noticed the younger man’s nervousness and unease, along with the fact that mortal bodies couldn’t bear his hostile aura. He immediately withdrew his hand and didn’t dare to be presumptuous anymore. The bloody light in his eyes slowly faded, returning to a dark brown, and his entire atmosphere became gentle and harmless.

He wrapped the chain up his arms, slowly lowered himself onto one knee, and bowed his head like an ancient knight loyal to his master. Forcing down his emotions, he gently called out, “Shizun”.

A thousand longings, ten thousand years of waiting, endlessly entwined love and hate, pain and suffering. He could not voice any of it, and only sunk it all into this one single word.

There was a long silence.

In the quiet night, there was only the sound of their breaths which became disordered.

Lu Yunzhen looked at the suddenly tamed beast in front of him, heard the anachronistic title, checked that there was no one else around, and was completely dumbfounded.

He was absolutely, definitely, without a shadow of a doubt sure that he didn’t know this inhuman man! He was just a third year software student, a future code monkey. He hadn’t even had an internship yet, it was impossible for him to have some kind of disciple!

The man knelt in front of him, as tall and unmoving as a mountain.

Lu Yunzhen quietly, quietly crawled backwards...

Even though his entire world view had been shattered to pieces so tiny he’d never be able to pick it up again, but if humans could have mental illness then inhumans could probably have mental illness too...

This man was clearly abnormal.

Even though Grandpa had taught him, to be a good person one had to have a good heart, that he couldn’t just take advantage of someone’s kindness and pretend he had not...... This man behaved bizarrely, stared at him bizarrely, and seeped unspeakable horrors from every pore like some kind of cursed object in a ghost story....

Too dangerous.

Lu Yunzhen’s scalp felt numb.

For the first time in his life he went against his conscience, ignored the life saving favour, and sneaked away while the other person “wasn’t paying attention”...

The man knelt in the same spot motionlessly. Only after Lu Yunzhen ran away did he lift his head, look at the direction he ran into, sniffed at the remaining scent in the air, and suddenly vanished.

...

Lu Yunzhen jogged with the speed of 100 meter dash testing day at school. Luckily he saw some other rent-a-bike services, unlocked one, and pedaled like mad until he finally got home.

His home was an urban village in the city center. It was an old house with a yard near a market. The house was several decades old and very small, with only 30 square meters divided into a living room and a bedroom.

The house was beside the old historical district with no fear of forced displacement. But previously when the government was doing an urban improvement program they provided a lot of upgrades to old homes, and added kitchens and bathrooms to every household.

Back when Grandpa Lu was still alive, there had been all kinds of junk that was piled up in the yard. These days all the junk was gone and replaced with Lu Yunzhen’s gardens. He filled it with all kinds of vegetables and flowers, and even an old grape vine. The grapes were plentiful every summer and even now there were some late grapes left.

Lu Yunzhen was still in shocked, but there was no one around to comfort him in the empty house.

He sat in the corner by himself for a bit, then took a shower in the bathroom. He then took out the first aid kit, treated his scrapes and bruises, then called his phone provider to cancel the service. Now that his brain was no longer running at a mile a minute, his brain was finally clearing up. Thinking back at everything that had happened that evening, he felt strange, as if he had simply drank too much and had a bad dream.

He didn’t know why, but that kneeling man, that pained “Shizun”.... it went round and round in his head and came back as soon as he closed his eyes. It was very painful.

Lu Yunzhen wondered if he felt that bad because he had made the wrong judgment call and was ungrateful.

Next time, he would ask that man what kind of person he was.

If there’s a next time....

Lu Yunzhen packed up the first aid kit, shook his soggy hair, and put on a large t shirt, flower print joggers, and worn out slippers. He thought he should pick a bunch of grapes and try to soothe the shock from his heart.

As soon as he opened the door...

He saw that tall man kneeling obediently beneath the grapes, calling out again, “Shizun”.

Lu Yunzhen immediately took back the leg that stepped into the yard, closed the door, rubbed his eyes, then opened the door once more. There was no change to the scene in front of him.

His entire being froze over...