A Good-for-Nothing

119. My Heart Aches (1)

Translator: Dragon Rider

Information stored in Li Zong’s entry card was quickly read by the machine. He Zheng walked out of the elevator and entered the training ground.

He Zheng shook his wrist and with that the blade of the Shadow Sword, which had been as faint and intangible as a shadow, gradually materialized itself. With a Fu between two of his fingers, lips moving quickly, He Zheng incanted a spell under his breath. The Fu ignited spontaneously and turned into a puff of white smoke which slowly wafted up into the sky; with that He Zheng conveniently thrust the Shadow Sword upwards.

As the saying goes, ‘Knowledge changes life.’ Two days ago, he used an Elementary Lightning Fu and nearly got himself killed, but now, as the Shadow Sword and the sky echoed each other, a pretty thundercloud appeared above He Zheng. He pointed the sword at a target and a flash of lightning instantly struck it with a clap of thunder.

Originally He Zheng’s constitution had been too weak to perform such task as using an Elementary Lightning Fu, but since he had been cultivating diligently during these days, his physical qualities had been improved significantly. As a result, though using an Elementary Lightning Fu would still consume his energy, the days when he had to rest for several hours after using a lightning Fu had come to an end.

He Zheng was very satisfied and smugly reached out his hand to stroke the Shadow Sword. “Good boy. You’re so obedient. From now on, you belong to me, Childe He.”

The Shadow Sword was one of the ten most famous swords, and even its air was quite sharp. He Zheng, who was bold enough to stroke it, paid the price.

Before his fingers could touch the blade, a stabbing pain was felt. He lowered his head and saw that his finger was slit by the air about the sword, and beads of blood were dropping onto the blade.

A strange, baking hotness suddenly came from the hilt. Caught off guard, He Zheng was scalded. And then an extremely gorgeous light flashed across the blade of the Shadow Sword, as if confronting the hotness. He Zheng felt an uncommonly powerful force surge out of him and with that the Shadow Sword, without any warning, freed itself from his hand, shot sideways and stuck into a rock on the side.

‘Just now, did the Shadow Sword repel the small portion of Li Zong’s primordial spirit inside my body?’

He Zheng was stunned for quite a while. He lowered his head and looked at his palm. The burning pain gradually faded and he hurried up to the rock and pulled out the Shadow Sword. The blade disappeared, leaving only a faint, intangible shadow, as if what had happened just now had merely been his hallucinations.

He Zheng was quite puzzled. ‘Why did the Shadow Sword repel Li Zong’s primordial spirit?’ Mind filled with questions, He Zheng practiced for a while longer and then found that it was almost lunchtime. Instead of continuing, he went into the elevator, planning to return and ask Li Zong about it.

The notification alert from his cellphone sounded somewhat sharp in the quiet elevator. He Zheng casually tapped at the screen and took a look at the news feed. Gradually, his face grew serious. It was a news report on the death of that student of the First High School of Coastal City.

He Zheng read it carefully. The conclusion was that Liu Lanxue’s conduct was indeed the direct cause of Xu Tianhao’s death. But all those things that Xu Tianhao, a student, had done to his teacher had also been brought to light; Xu Tianhao’s parents, along with the principal who had provided shelter for Xu Tianhao, had now become targets for a lot of denunciation. It was rumored that Mrs. Xu had attempted to exploit Zhou family’s connection to hush up the scandalous facts but eventually ended up being sent to a sanatorium by Zhou family, which had struck a lot of people as a rather poignant outcome.

The principal had been punitively reappointed to another school, his good career prospects reduced to ruin.

He Zheng was slightly saddened. Xu Tianhao’s deeds had indeed been monstrous, but even He Zheng, whose ability to differ good from evil was relatively weak, felt that Liu Lanxue shouldn’t have taken another person’s life like that.

As a result, all wrongdoers will get their just deserts in the end. Heavenly principles are clear and transparent, and no wickedness goes altogether unpunished. The divine law rules over everything. Anything going against it will be destroyed by it. As the saying goes, ‘Vice will have an evil recompense.’

Soon the elevator reached the fifth floor. He Zheng collected his thoughts and exhaled deeply.

Li Zong’s office was in the innermost area of this floor. He Zheng walked in that direction but found a man, who was not really a stranger to him, exiting Li Zong’s office. With his back to He Zheng, that man didn’t notice him, walked to the other side and descended the stairs.

He Zheng watching Chen Qianlin’s receding figure knitted his brows. ‘What business did he have in Li Zong’s office?”

In perplexed suspicion, He Zheng pushed open the door of Li Zong’s office. Li Zong was talking with someone on the phone. Seeing He Zheng walk inside, he raised his hand motioning for him to keep quiet, and then resumed speaking into his cellphone. “…Yeah, from the contents of the video filmed before Liu Lanxue’s death that Zu Zhichong found last night, Demon’s Attendants were definitely at play.”

‘Demon’s Attendants.’

He Zheng repeated this name in his head, which he had once accidentally overheard Zu Zhichong mention to others. Anyone could tell from the mere name that there was some kind of collusion between these people and demons.

While He Zheng was lost in thought, Li Zong soon hung up the phone.

“How did your practice go?”

“Pretty well.” He Zheng gave a bob of his head and added, “By the way, I want you to take a look at this.”

He showed Li Zong his palm. There was a scabbed slit across the pulp of his finger, which hadn’t been dressed yet.

It had never crossed Li Zong’s mind that this guy would hurt himself during the practice of such a simple skill as using a lightning Fu. He gave a displeased frown, stopped what he was doing, and put He Zheng onto the desk, scrutinizing his finger which had a small cut on it, the look on his face quite serious, as though He Zheng had broken his arm.

The string of acts of Li Zong amazed He Zheng. He was not here to get his wound dressed! He came here to talk about the Shadow Sword!

But Li Zong seemed to be slightly unhappy. Somehow He Zheng had become savvier and learned to gauge Li Zong’s mood. He obediently sat still on the desk, his bent legs right against the sides of Li Zong’s waist.

Li Zong seldom kept any salve in his office, and there was certainly no Band-Aid here. Watching He Zheng’s scabbed finger, Li Zong felt somewhat stuck, which was a feeling he didn’t have often.

Eventually, he found a bottle of disinfectant in Zu Zhichong’s desk, disinfected the cut as a simple precaution against infection and then brushed his finger across He Zheng’s finger pulp. He Zheng felt a current of hotness run through his injured finger pulp. When his eye fell on it again, the small wound in the pulp of his finger had almost healed.

He Zheng slightly widened his eyes in astonishment. To his knowledge, only members of Zhen family who possessed the Force of Rejuvenation could heal a wound instantaneously.

However, before he could ask any questions about it, Li Zong admonished him in a low and deep voice, “Don’t be so careless once again, He Zheng. My heart aches when you get hurt.”

He Zheng, seeing Li Zong’s earnest face, almost forgot what he wanted to say, but the feeling of being cared by someone struck him as pretty good. He Zheng, somewhat embarrassedly, turned his face aside and replied with a guilty conscience, “I didn’t mean to hurt myself. Besides, it’s not really a big…” He Zheng, sensibly, shut his mouth as he sensed the air of deepening displeasure about Li Zong.