A Good-for-Nothing

139. A Demonized Kang Ba? (1)

Translator: Dragon Rider

Although He Zheng had heard from Lin Zhuo that this year’s admission criteria were cruelly strict, it was not until he met other passers in a classroom that he involuntarily gave a start – the acceptance rate was alarmingly low.

There were only forty desks in this classroom in total, which meant of all those applicants who had been so great in number that they’d had to be divided into three batches to be interviewed concurrently to make sure the interview could be finished in one day, merely forty of them had passed.

While the number of applicants this year was a record high, the rejection rate this year must be a record high as well.

Apart from Wei Cheng, there was also another young man that had been waiting in the classroom, who was a stranger to He Zheng. Lin Zhuo greeted Wei Cheng, but Wei Cheng seemed to have no intention of coming over to sit beside him.

Lin Zhuo and He Zheng had arrived almost at the same time. The two of them were sitting next to each other. Lin Zhuo, having a lingering fear, exhaled deeply. “This year’s rejection rate is so scary. It’s almost as low as that of the recruitment examination held in September.”

He Zheng clucked. It seemed that having a backer capable of pulling strings for him was indeed very important. Then his eyes rested on Lin Zhuo and he asked somewhat curiously, “What kind of questions did the interviewers ask you?”

“My strong point is making magic tools, so the interviewers’ questions were all related to this skill.”

“Magic tools?”

“Yeah.” Lin Zhuo, seeing the confused look on his face, thought for a moment and then took a little mirror from his pocket. It was the kind of cheap retro mirrors that people could buy from a street vendor in a Yiwu Trading Center for five yuan. The shape of it was pleasant to the eyes, though.

“Check this out.” Lin Zhuo cast him a mild smile, gave the mirror a poke and with that the somewhat blurry mirror rippled like water surface and He Zheng’s face appeared in it. Oddly enough, in the mirror held by Lin Zhuo, He Zheng’s face was covered in a golden glow.

“Does this magic tool automatically add special effects to the contours of people’s images reflected in it?” hazarded He Zheng after a few moments’ stupefaction.

Lin Zhuo burst into hearty laughter. “Haha… You’re so funny. This suggests that your cultivation method is of fire properties.”

Greatly amused, he chuckled for quite a while and then, still smiling, said, “I made this in imitation of Director Zhen’s Qiankun Mirror. With the Qiankun Mirror, Director Zhen could see anything he want. This mirror of mine, however, could only show whether people have demonic Qi in them, for the material it’s made of is not very good, and I’ve refashioned it to make it more suitable for my brother to use. He does field work very often, you know.”

Lin Zhuo flicked a glance at He Zheng and his lips clamped. “But it only works on ordinary demons. It’s not powerful enough to show the Qi of high-level ones.”

A man sitting on the side, after hearing its amazing functions, said, “May I have a try?”

Lin Zhuo bobbed his head and hurriedly handed the mirror to him. The man looked into the mirror and a faint bluish veil of light appeared on it.

“It’s blue. Your cultivation method is of water properties?”

“Yes, because I’m a fish,” said the man.

Hardly any Yōkai would tell others about their primary forms so easily. Both of them were astonished.

The man, who didn’t seem to have perceived that his conduct was unusual, said in a very natural tone, “Nice to meet you. I’m Tianyi.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m He Zheng, and this is Lin Zhuo.”

Just like this, they greeted each other and made each other’s acquaintance.

Tianyi was very interested in Lin Zhuo’s magic tool. “It’s said that there are magic tool developers in the Supernaturalism Management Bureau (SMB), but they’ve always been few in number. Are you going to apply to become a magic tool developer, Lin Zhuo?”

“I don’t know.” Lin Zhuo sounded somewhat fretful. “I think I should focus on passing the examination first. I feel the odds are against me.”

“That’s not true. In the normal course of events, people with special talents like you seldom get rejected.”

It’d never occurred to He Zheng that Lin Zhuo possessed this kind of skills. ‘It is true what they say, ‘You cannot judge a tree by its bark,” he thought.

Tianyi sat down beside them and the three of them gradually got more acquainted with each other.

They were conversing when suddenly a thickset figure rushed inside, bruised and battered. He quickly closed the door of the classroom behind him in a fairly flustered manner.

It was Kang Ba.

He Zheng’s face instantly grew grave and he subconsciously held the hilt of the Shadow Sword, gazing at Kang Ba whose clothes were blood-stained. “What’s the matter, Kang Ba?”

Kang Ba looked as if he had just narrowly escaped death. At the sight of He Zheng and some other acquaintances, he let out a deep sigh of relief and heavily wiped the sweat from his face. “I have no idea. I arrived at SMB a moment ago only to find that the office hall was utterly deserted. When I set off to come to this classroom, someone attacked me. Something bad definitely has happened out there…”

Kang Ba had barely finished his sentence when an almighty bang came from the doorway.

It was the sound of something heavy impacting upon the door.

Wei Cheng, who had been sitting in a corner silently all along, rose from his seat, his eyes staring fixedly at Kang Ba. Right at this moment, Lin Zhuo let out an exclamation of alarm in a low voice.

“What’s wrong, Lin Zhuo?”

“Look at this.” The surface of the mirror that Lin Zhuo had just put down on his desk was cloaked in a shroud of black gas, and in the mirror was a vague image of Kang Ba’s face.

Tianyi and He Zheng exchanged glances, instantly seeing vigilance in each other’s eyes.

Kang Ba was perplexed. “What’s going on? Why are you guys all looking at me?”

He Zheng took a step backward, his countenance unchanged. “Kang Ba, where are Lan Bai and the others?” he asked calmly.

“I don’t know. She wasn’t with me on my way here. It was from the living quarters that I departed for this place.”

“Oh?” He Zheng raised his eyebrows. Holding the hilt of the Shadow Sword with his right hand, he took an Anti-spirit Fu from his pocket with his left hand. “A moment ago you told us that you went into the office hall from SMB, and now you’re saying that you came here from the living quarters. Don’t you think that these statements of yours are contradictory?”