A Good-for-Nothing

278. A Weird Dream

Translator: Dragon Rider

In the departure lounge of an airport.

Li Zong ended his phone conversation with Zhen Daoyuan.

He Zheng, bored stiff, was sitting beside him, playing with his cellphone. On hearing Li Zong hang up the phone, he asked casually, “What did Zhen Daoyuan say?”

“Nothing you should concern yourself about.” Li Zong did not expound. He Zheng frowned and stared at Li Zong for a few moments. Li Zong, who did not seem to have sensed He Zheng’s gaze, asked, “Are you hungry? You want to go and grab a bite?”

“No. I don’t feel like eating,” said He Zheng, pocketing his smartphone.

Li Zong handed him a bottle of water. Before he could say anything, his cellphone rang again.

He Zheng, watching Li Zong’s back, uncorked the bottled water and took a sip.

Though Li Zong had not told him anything, He Zheng had a vague sense of foreboding. It had been yesterday that he had been hospitalized, and early this morning, Li Zong, without even going to SMB first, had signed the discharge papers and then directly brought him to this airport, saying that they were going to the Tigers and Dragons Mountain.

As a result, He Zheng believed that maybe Li Zong was not as composed as he appeared, that his loss of one of his souls was not as trivial as Li Zong had said it was.

He Zheng was somewhat upset. Nobody could really stay collected in the face of life-threatening danger. He took another gulp of water which ran down his throat with a muffled sound like that of a pump. One of those in the vicinity slid him a sidelong glance, wondering why he was drinking as though this were his first time drinking water.

Like last time, it was Zu Zhichong who booked the flight tickets for them. There were many domestic flights, so after only a short wait, they boarded the plane bound for the Tigers and Dragons Mountain.

Everybody has three souls and seven sub-souls, and every one of them is indispensable. One of He Zheng’s souls had been taken away. At first, with the help of the Primeval Gu of the head Gu-master, there had not been any obvious negative effects, but powerful as the Primeval Gu was, it could not fix the loss of a soul. He Zheng had just entered the cabin and sat down when he felt so dizzy as though he could faint at any moment. Also, he was feeling hot and shivery. He wondered whether he was suffering these symptoms because the one having his soul was going through hell.

He Zheng’s forehead was covered in cold sweat. Li Zong had a stewardess bring him a blanket and wrapped it around He Zheng who then felt rather hot. The stewardess came several times and asked if they needed a doctor, but Li Zong declined all her offers. If it weren’t for the fact that the flight was not long, there might really be an incident, given He Zheng’s evidently unusual symptoms.

He Zheng had not suffered long before he drifted into sleep. He had a dream.

In it, his souls seemed to be flying with his thoughts. He went to a lot of places that he had never been to before. He saw the snow-capped Kunlun Mountains, where he crouched down and grabbed a handful of snow. The cold sensation made him shudder. The next second, he was in a pitch-dark place, where he could hear the sound of water gurgling by, and where he saw shoals of abyssal fish swimming around him. He also caught sight of the violent undercurrents in the depths of the Nanhai Sea. He reached out a hand and stroked the wet, soft, slippery tail of one of the fish. The touch was so real he almost forgot he was in a dream.

He found it an interesting experience and would like to stay there for a little while longer when the surroundings changed again. He did not know where he was exactly, but he could tell that he was probably underground, presumably in a tomb. Positioned on the side were a couple of altar lamps with fat of mermen as fuel. The air in this place was foul. He Zheng wrinkled his nose in disgust and gave a “Faugh”. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in yet another different place.

It was a vast canyon flanked by cliffs. He Zheng squinted around and found that from the precipices hung a lot of black things. He wanted to get a closer look and, as this thought crossed his mind, his “body” flew to that escarpment. It turned out that those black things hanging there were coffins.

It struck He Zheng as amazing. He had only seen this kind of things on TV before. His eyes widened with astonishment. Like a curious child, he stretched out a hand with the intention to touch it, but the sound of something heavy hitting a wooden board came from inside the coffin without warning. Taken aback, He Zheng took a step backward with a nervous start.

“My goodness. Is the corpse coming back to life?!” He Zheng felt his voice trembling. He was no match for a zombie.

Then the surroundings changed yet again. He Zheng’s thoughts brought him to many strange places. Eventually, he showed up in a large villa.

“This is weird. Where is this place?” He Zheng mumbled. He was now in a spot of an entirely different style. The owner had done a good job greening the residence. He Zheng raised his head and found that the surroundings of this villa seemed familiar.

As a native of Coastal City, He Zheng had been born and grown up here and was very familiar with the landmarks in this city. He looked into the distance and caught sight of a skyscraper which seemed to be a certain International Financial Center he knew of.

“Why am I in Coastal City?” He Zheng frowned, feeling a little confused.

He heard people talking.

“Master, Li Zong has left SMB. We don’t have to be that cautious any more.”

There was probably another person in the room, whose voice was tinged with amusement and sounded so pleasant to the ear as though it could bewitch people. “You really think now that Li Zong has left, we have nothing to worry about?”

Li Zong? What did this have to do with Li Zong?

He Zheng furrowed his brows. He listened carefully. The voice was from one of the rooms beside the corridor, which had panes of glass as walls. He Zheng tiptoed over, looked through the window and saw three men.

One of them was middle-aged, and the other two young. The middle-aged men was facing He Zheng’s direction. He Zheng instantly recognized him as Zhou Congzhi, the patriarch of the Zhou family!

Someone on the side said, “Master, your powers will be unequalled when you get the Demonic Seed!”

The voice struck He Zheng as very familiar. The young man turned his face aside slightly when speaking. He Zheng remembered this face vividly – this was none other than the man who had abducted him previously!

How come these people were in the same room? Did Zhou Congzhi have some kind of relations with this man, by any chance? But it did not make any sense. This man had attempted to harm Zhou Yihao. Wasn’t Zhou Yihao Zhou Congzhi’s son?

He Zheng did not know what had happened in SMB, so for the moment he was unaware that his abductor was Zhou Congzhi’s third son, Zhou Qi.

He Zheng shook his head, dismissed those thoughts from his mind and decided to find out who that man was … Seeing as Zhou Congzhi and the others were so respectful to that man and addressed him as Master, this man must be someone to be reckoned with!

Thinking about this, He Zheng was just about to walk out to sneak a glance at the man’s face when suddenly a pair of eyes closed in on him without warning. Those eyes were … He Zheng did not know how to describe them. There seemed to be numerous emotions in them. A mere brief eye contact with that man made He Zheng feel so cold as though he were stuck fast in thick, sticky mud, and he began to have difficulty breathing.

“Not bad. You’ve actually found this place.” The man gave a chuckle which seemed to cause an explosion in He Zheng’s head. His eyes widened and he let out a cry.

“AAAARGH!”

He Zheng, clutching his heart, abruptly sat up from his seat. Everybody in the vicinity was startled. He Zheng was trembling all over. A big, warm palm stroked his forehead as a voice said, “What’s wrong?”

“Li–Li Zong.” He Zheng swallowed hard and subconsciously gripped Li Zong’s hand. “Just now I … I … ” He was so nervous he could not finish his sentence.

It was only then that He Zheng came to realize he was still in the cabin.

He Zheng’s sudden yell had startled everybody in the vicinity who had been napping or reading. A stewardess hurried over to ask if he needed any help.

“I’m sorry. He had a horrible experience a couple of days ago. Just now he had a bad dream and got scared.”

The passengers, though somewhat disgruntled, found it understandable. Some of them muttered something, and then the cabin became quiet again.

Li Zong uncorked his Thermos bottle and let He Zheng take a couple of sips of the tea in it. Smelling the familiar aroma of Chinese wolfberries and chrysanthemum, He Zheng gradually relaxed. Holding Li Zong’s hand, he still could not help trembling as he recalled those sinister eyes.

“I don’t know why, but just now my soul seemed to be disembodied, and I went to a lot of places … ” He Zheng recounted to Li Zong what had happened in his dream.

When He Zheng talked about seeing the tomb and the meteorite crater in the north-west, Li Zong’s countenance changed slightly. “You mean you went to six places?”

He Zheng inclined his head and licked his dry lips. “Yeah. Eventually I saw Zhou Congzhi, the man who kidnapped me, as well as another strange man. The former two addressed him as Master.”

When mentioning that man, He Zheng gave another involuntary shudder.

“That’s the Demon King.” Li Zong felt a faint plummeting in his stomach.

He Zheng was still afraid of recalling those sinister eyes. After hearing Li Zong’s words, he was stunned momentarily, somewhat incredulous. “You mean the man I saw in my dream was the Demon King? But why did I see the Demon King and those strange things?”

Li Zong stroked He Zheng’s head, the look in his eyes becoming more inscrutable, making it difficult for He Zheng to gauge his mood. He considered several possibilities, then collected his thoughts and asked, “Do you remember the location of that villa?”

“Yeah.” He Zheng tried very hard to think back to the buildings in the vicinity of the villa he had seen in the dream. Soon he deduced where that villa might be. It should be on the outskirts of Coastal City.

In the villa.

Zhou Congzhi and Zhou Qi were taken aback by Xiangshan’s unexpected action. Zhou Congzhi, who was relatively poised, asked Xiangshan who had suddenly walked up to the window, “What happened, Master?”

Xiangshan stood there for a while before his lips slightly curled in a watery smile. “Just now someone was in here.”

“Someone was in here?” Zhou Qi’s forehead corrugated in a frown of bemusement. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, Master.”

“My words mean literally.” Xiangshan swiveled his head around to look at Zhou Congzhi, his eyes gleaming with excitement. Xiangshan was walking very slowly, and it was unmistakable he was emanating an air of contentment and pleasure.

“There’s no longer any necessity of taking immediate action. Just stay put and wait.”

“What do you mean, Master?”

“The Seed will soon present itself.” Xiangshan made a reply that struck the other two as quite bewildering.

The Demonic Seed?

The look in Zhou Qi’s eyes became faintly impenetrable. Everything else was ready, and this was all that was missing.

‘Demonic Seed, don’t keep me waiting.’