A Good-for-Nothing

306. A Marionette Master

Translator: Dragon Rider

As an old saying in the Republic of Hua went, “Sometimes you don’t need to do anything to get what you want.” Zhu Jin probably had predicted that they would come to look for her, so she had directly sent someone here to pick them up, sparing them the trouble of a search.

Fortunately Li Zong’s subordinates were all competent field agents, and none of them panicked in this situation. They just unhurriedly got in the car one after another.

There were six of them. Though Tun Shanhai had turned into a cat, the car was still overloaded. However, maybe because this marionette had stolen this car, he drove very fast, not at all afraid of being fined for speeding. Soon the car was hurtling on an expressway.

“Ms. Zhu is waiting for you. You have nothing to fear from me. I mean you no harm,” the marionette said. Surprisingly, he spoke in a normal, male voice, not a synthesized voice that He Zheng had expected to hear.

The marionette driver continued, “Master Zheng, the demonic Qi in you is very powerful now. Even my mistress might not be able to get rid of it. If things do come to that, my mistress will kill you.”

He Zheng was amused, finding this marionette pretty interesting. This guy had just confided all his mistress’s plans to them. Was he really that confident of overpowering them?

He Zheng was just about to taunt him when his head suddenly exploded with pain, and with that Dan Zhu emerged from his forehead helter-skelter. He Zheng’s face instantly blanched, cold sweat breaking out over his brow.

“What’s wrong, He Zheng?” Chen Qianlin was sitting beside He Zheng. When He Zheng’s body suddenly tensed, Chen Qianlin was the first to perceived that something was wrong.

Two voices were arguing in He Zheng’s head. One of them sounded rather bewitching and was inciting He Zheng to kill; the other one was He Zheng’s own, normal voice.

He Zheng closed his eyes tightly. The car was still progressing at a steady speed, the driver showing no inclination to pull over.

Dan Zhu, twittering, flew to Li Zong, looking quite nervous, but He Zheng’s seizure lasted only a minute or so. When he opened his eyes again, his face had returned to normal.

If it weren’t for his cold sweat and his bloodshot eyes, nobody would be able to tell that something had just happened to him.

In fact, this was not the first time that he had shown this kind of symptom. During the flight, He Zheng had had a seizure as well, which had lasted half a minute or so.

“Are you okay?” Li Zong’s eyes met He Zheng’s in the rear-view mirror. His eyes were very deep. He Zheng felt as though he could gain infinite powers by merely looking at Li Zong’s eyes.

“I’m fine. Just now that guy wanted to come out, but I didn’t let him,” He Zheng smiled. When twisting his head aside, he noticed that all the others, predictably, appeared apprehensive. “Don’t worry, guys. I’m okay.”

Chen Qianlin, affecting indifference, snorted, “Don’t flatter yourself. Nobody here is worried about you. You were wriggling and making this car even more crowded.”

Though Chen Qianlin put it this way, he was actually pressing himself against the car door to make more room for He Zheng.

He Zheng curled his lip. He couldn’t be bothered to contradict this guy who kept saying things he did not mean.

He patted his forehead, and then the troublemaking Demonic Eye on it seemed to become a lot less restless. He Zheng smiled another reassuring smile at Li Zong as the latter cast an apprehensive glance at him. Though he was able to maintain a pretense of normality, his heart was sinking. He had a foreboding feeling. It had been only five hours or so since they had got on the plane. It struck him that the Demon King could now stay in his mind longer at a time.

He hoped that the situation was not as bad as he thought it was.

The car had driven for over an hour. Outside the windows road signs moved backwards one after another so quickly that they blurred. At first He Zheng and the others did not have any particular feelings about it. But maybe because of the long flight, they all felt somewhat uncomfortable and a little groggy. How nice it would be to just drift off like this …

The marionette driver lowered the car windows. The howling wind gave all the others a nervous start. Tun Shanhai began to meow, sounding a little despairing.

“What happened just now? Why do I suddenly feel so sleepy?” Chen Kai yawned. When his eyes fell upon his fingers, for an instant he thought that he was hallucinating. His fingers were covered in blood, looking rather scary.

“This is–”

“Clear your mind. Guard your Zhonggong. Do not be distracted.” A refreshing male voice made the others wide awake. Chen Kai immediately caught on to what was going on. He concentrated his mind, looked at his fingers again and found that the blood was gone. It had been a mere hallucination.

Chen Kai, having opened his eyes, found that Zhen Ni sitting beside him seemed to have just experienced the same thing. They exchanged a glance. Chen Qianlin and He Zheng woke up in succession.

“What’s going on exactly?”

He Zheng had just had an indescribable, extremely complex dream, in which he had had yet another dream. Even at this moment, he was not sure whether he was awake or still in a dream.

“There is an Earth Vein beneath Shen City, and yin Qi here is rather thick. In addition, the weather in this city is mostly cloudy, which leads to a lack of yang Qi. Demonic Qi grows faster in this area than it does in other places.” Li Zong’s voice was bland. He put his hand on the console before him, tapped at it and added, “The demonic Qi in He Zheng is still growing. How long until we reach the destination, Mr. … Driver?”

It was after hearing Li Zong’s words that the others noticed that the surroundings had changed. They were no longer on the expressway but in an area totally unfamiliar to them.

They seemed to be on the mountainside. Oddly enough, in the vast flat ground ahead stood a separate house. He Zheng’s eyes slightly widened in astonishment. The house looked exactly the same as the one on Four Sides Hill!

Was this the place that Zhu Jin lived, by any chance?

No matter how many times he imagined what it was like, getting out of the car to look at it with his own eyes would give him a more vivid image of the house. He Zheng wondered how the marionette driver had managed to get the car to this godforsaken place. The car gradually slowed down and eventually came to a halt. They got out of the car. Before long, the car started again, drove off and soon disappeared from view.

He Zheng, standing side by side with Li Zong, felt that there was something fishy going on.

“Chief, there’s very thick yin Qi in this place. I don’t think any living people are in there.” Tun Shanhai jumped out of Li Zong’s arms and, with a couple of flying leaps, climbed to a branch of the tallest tree, observing the terrain.

“This place is near a lake and some hills. Although the water in the lake doesn’t stink, it’s stagnant. Evil creatures grow fast in it. On top of that, this location is quite inauspicious. Considering the position of this hill relative to that one, this location is like a dragon’s mouth with an orb between its teeth, but the nearby round lake has been halved. The orb has cracked, the good omen broken.”

Tun Shanhai leaped off the tree and landed sweetly in Li Zong’s arms. As though making a summary, he added, “Places like this are usually haunted. Bodies buried in this place will turned into zombies. If anybody wants to build a house in a place like this, they’ll have to have very strong yang Qi, or else they’ll sure as hell come to grief, considering the usually cloudy weather.”

Chen Kai and Chen Qianlin knew nothing about feng shui. Tun Shanhai’s words gave them the willies.

In fact, previously when they had been on missions, they had occasionally encountered some ghosts and other supernatural beings. They were all exorcists, and evil spirits, ghost Qi, demonic Qi were all evil things. Chen Qianlin was actually a little afraid of ghosts, which was why his legs buckled.

“Y–You’re being a little dramatic, aren’t you? I think this house looks fine.” Chen Qianlin swallowed hard, edging closer to Chen Kai.

Chen Kai gave a little cough.

He Zheng disbelieved. “We’ve gone this far. Let’s go inside and take a look. The marionette took us here to see his mistress. We’ve got to get in even if it’s the lion’s den.”

“Yeah. I agree with He Zheng.” Zhen Ni uncharacteristically took He Zheng’s side this time. Li Zong naturally had the same thought as He Zheng’s.

Chen Qianlin and Chen Kai both buckled at the knees, but they knew they still had to enter with the others.

They had just reached the doorway when the front door opened.

This was a shadowy area. Although it was daytime, sunlight only brightened a small part of this place. The open door looked like a giant beast’s mouth. As they progressed, chill breezes blew past them, making their scalp prickle.

Chen Qianlin and Chen Kai, the two fellow sufferers, were standing shoulder to shoulder. “S–Supt. Li, why do I get the feeling that there’s something queer going on?”

“T–T–Tell me about it. The air temperature here is unnaturally low.” Chen Kai tossed a sideways glance at something and was scared out of his wits. “AAAAARGH! A GHOOOOST!” he screamed.

Zhen Ni jabbed him with her elbow and reprimanded, “Stop screaming. That’s not a ghost. It’s just a marionette!”

It was only then that those who had been talking saw that on the lawn on either side of the front door stood a row of marionettes. They looked like real people but were expressionless and quite scary.

The marionette driver was nowhere to be seen.

All those marionettes raised their right arms and pointed straight in front of them simultaneously.

“Ms. Zhu is right in her room waiting for you guys.”

He Zheng thought, ‘What a pretentious woman. We’ve come such a long way, but she doesn’t even have the courtesy to come out to welcome us.’

He took a dislike to this woman, but since they had already gone this far, he naturally had to steel himself and keep going.

Tun Shanhai nimbly leaped out of the crook of Li Zong’s arm, sniffed at the ground and then said, “It doesn’t smell evil.”

“We’ll know whether she’s a ghost or a human being when we find her.”

All the others agreed.

The marionettes moved with them. Having got used to this kind of things, He Zheng found the marionettes less spooky.

The closer He Zheng was to the main house, the stronger the curious, inexpressible feeling in him became. It was as though destiny was calling out to him, inviting him to see someone he must meet. Every step of his felt quite reassuring.

They reached the doorway of a room. Chen Kai raised his hand and was just about to push the door open when a marionette swiftly walked over, opened the door for them and made a clumsy bow.

He Zheng and the others looked at the marionettes. The longer they looked at them, the less afraid they were. Eventually they even found the marionettes fairly amusing.

“Ms. Zhu is right inside. You may go in,” said a marionette, pushing the door of the largest bedroom open for them. After that, the marionette stepped aside, not daring to enter the bedroom.

Li Zong was walking in front of the others. At the sight of the person lying in bed, he was momentarily surprised. “Zhu Jin?”

Nobody replied to him.

He Zheng looked where Li Zong was gazing and froze.