Here Lies The Wicked

Chapter 42: Instant Wealth

Previously in the SUV, Fang Zheng could already see that the entire bridge was obscured with fog.

In the beginning, Fang Zheng thought that it was just normal fog.

However, as they followed behind the cool man in the leather jacket, the line of people made it to the bridge. When he managed to get closer, Fang Zheng felt something was off.

This was no normal fog.

The entire bridge, including Jiangdi, was blanketed by a thick layer of gray fog.

The gray fog seemed to form a border, demarcating the line between two worlds. The bridge above and Jiangdi included—no sound nor light could cut through the fog.

There was only silence, unnatural and permeating.

There was a grim air of death.

At this moment, between the river banks and Jaingdi, there were a few cars parked. A few armored cars were prepared and ready to enter Jiangdi, like a pencil-straight rapier stabbing through the fog.

They followed the corridor along Qingshi Road, traveling from the riverbanks. They slowly made their way deeper and deeper in the direction of the center of Jiangdi. All along the way, the fog got thicker and thicker.

It was beginning to severely impede their vision.

When they had reached the border between the Qingshi Road corridor and the stone house building complex, the visibility due to the fog was reduced to less than five or six meters. If someone stood at the border and tried to make out those historic stone houses, they could only roughly make out a few muddy black shapes in the rolling fog.

At this moment, within the crushing silence of the fog, a voice, so soft that one had to strain their ears to catch it, could be heard.

“I thought that this mission would be dangerous and exciting. Turns out it’s just us sitting around to receive and evacuate the wounded to the river bank. Such an easy mission and we can get 100,000 Yuan and 12 hours training time at a Holy Site. If the fellows outside knew about this, they’d all turn green with envy haha.

“You came all the way to this dank, dark place. You seem very happy to be a glorified male nurse? Shouldn’t this be a great travesty for prodigies such as us? These people cannot compare to us in aptitude. Their capabilities may have been cultivated after training ten or more years earlier than us. A few days ago when the Blue Moon descended, the spirits started to slowly revive, and they could catch up to the level of the instructors. When it comes to us, we attain Deity Level 2 as soon as we awaken, and within two or three months we’ll catch up with the instructors.

“Liu Qing, what’s your future goal?”

“Before the Blue Moon descends for the second time, attain the level of Deity 9th Degree, and then when the Blue Moon does descend, to discover the heavenly mysteries of Paramanu[1], and make the rank of Night Rider. If I can’t attain the level of Deity 9th Degree before the Blue Moon descends, then I will have to wait till the third time it descends for the chance to break through to Night Rider.”

“Cocky… Ouch, Miss Liu Qing don’t hit me, I’m not insulting you. I’m expressing my deepest respect for you. Ouch, Miss Liu Qing, I’m in the wrong. I retract my statements.”

In this condition of the fog, where visibility was down to five or six meters at the border between Qingshi Road corridor and the stone house building complex, there were a few shifting silhouettes in the shifting fog standing on one side of the corridor, occasionally exchanging a few soft sentences.

It was Fang Zheng, Xue Xiucheng, Zhao Boyuan, and Liu Qing.

The cool man in the leather jacket had gone on ahead and assigned the four of them to their duties. They, therefore, remained at the corridor, waiting to receive the wounded who were rescued, and then evacuate them to the river bank.

However, the cool man in the leather jacket had specially ordered them not to leave the perimeter of the Qingshi Road corridor. The boundaries of Jiangdi were too large and visibility was extremely poor. In the event that they took the risk of ignoring his order and wound up getting lost or getting into danger, they were on their own.

At the same time, he warned them severely not to come close to the stone houses.

Currently, they were there for just a few minutes.

However, the four of them stood within a strange fog that impeded their vision. Occasionally weird noises could be heard around them. The atmosphere was rather creepy and weird. Therefore, they made conversation in order to rid themselves of the anxiety in their minds.

In truth, it was Xue Xiucheng who spoke the most.

Fang Zheng had already decided to take the road of cold aloofness, and he had decided to take it to the very end. He had coldly turned away any attempts at conversation.

Excessive words would just lead to tears, and he was worried that the more he said the more insult he would cause.

Even though he really wanted to know more gossip from the other three, it was clear that Xue Xiucheng knew the most out of the three. What was especially surprising was that the Blue Moon would descend a second time? A third time?

It seemed that it was not so simple as just three times!

Even Xue Xiucheng and Zhao Boyuan, who had not opposed Liu Qing’s words, did not seem to fully believe it.

Furthermore, what was this revival of the spirits?

Could it be that everything that was happening in front of him, all these paranormal incidents, the phenomenon of awakening… was this all because of the revival of the spirits? It seemed that the training of the awakened fully relied on spiritual energies.

Compared to the route of practice that he took, it was strikingly different.

Listening to Xue Xiucheng’s conversations, those ordinary people who were not awakened, unable to absorb the spiritual energies in the air, and unable to rely on spiritual energies to train, would remain ordinary people for the rest of their lives.

“I’m not awakened and don’t have the power in my veins as described by the awakened. The powers I had trained so far, did not rely on spiritual energy… this human skin-made scripture was getting weirder and weirder…” Fang Zheng was getting a headache.

Furthermore, the government seemed to have a few special people. Before the Blue Moon descended, even a decade ago, they could already start training?

It seemed that ten or more years ago, there was already a phenomenon of a minute revival of the spirits.

The revival truly exploded when the Blue Moon descended a few days ago.

This explained why he met so many gifted and strong individuals… to the point that he had developed the misconception that awakened people were naturally strong from the beginning.

Xue Xiucheng and the others were still chatting quietly. However, due to his training, Fang Zheng’s augmented sense of hearing easily picked up what they were saying.

Fang Zheng was focused on listening in, planning to better understand the world he found himself in.

A minute later, suddenly!

Boom!

The wounded did not arrive, but the sound of a colossal explosion did.

The ground beneath their feet trembled, and even the fog around them was disturbed by the shockwave.

“What’s going on?”

“What just happened? Where did that explosion come from?”

There was panic in their eyes.

Fang Zheng had been caught off guard as well, and the hairs on his back stood on end.

However, they were surrounded by the fog and were unable to make out anything of the outside world.

They were also unable to contact the outside world at the moment. Ever since they entered Jiangdi, the fog seemed to carry some kind of electromagnetic interference, and they were in a complete telecommunications dead zone.

At that moment, Fang Zheng could feel minute tremors beneath his feet, and they seemed to be increasing in occurrence. The tremors were becoming more and more pronounced, and the tremors were growing into shaking.

Suddenly, Fang Zheng’s face changed!

He turned his head hard towards the direction upstream of the river…’Sh*t! The explosion just now, it could not be the dam upstream being blown apart?’

Fang Zheng was so frightened that all his hairs stood on end, and the tremors under his feet was clearly the water held back by the dam rushing towards them!

At the same moment, suddenly, Xue Xiucheng abandoned Fang Zheng and the others and ran by himself toward the riverbank in a panic.

Zhao Boyuan stood where he was, his eyes clearly showing that he was in a dilemma. Looking at both Fang Zheng and Liu Qing, he seemed to be making a very difficult choice.

Fang Zheng was not the only one who figured out that there was a large chance that the dam was destroyed. The rest of them had already thought about it. That was why Xue Xiucheng had taken off on his own.

‘Hm?’

Fang Zheng’s facial expression changed, and he stared deep into the fog. One second, two seconds… Suddenly, there were humanoid shapes in the fog approaching them.

The group froze instantly.

Shady human silhouettes were suddenly closing in on them, and fast!

A strand of Gray Qi which was emanating from these silhouettes was flying towards Fang Zheng like a moth towards the flame.

In the next moment, it was swallowed up by the human skin-made scripture, and the ninth symbol lit up.

Fang Zheng’s face lit up.

It was a human!

The people sent into Jiangdi were coming out!

However, what happened next was unexpected. The Gray Qi increased by one, two, three…

Then it increased, four, five…

‘Oh f*ck!’

Fang Zheng’s scalp was about to blow off his head, as goosebumps formed all over it. Purely based on the influx now, it would far exceed his prior record of four symbols.

It was at this moment that Fang Zheng finally could make out the blurred silhouettes. It was a good 10 or 20 people who were running toward them with wild abandon.

They all seemed to be bearing some injury or another, and some of them were even carrying two or three of their comrades with them as they fell back. Some of them had passed out from the heavy injuries they had sustained or were incapacitated. Others were the lifeless corpses… of their comrades.

Looking at the cold, dead bodies, Fang Zheng’s heart sank. He sighed to himself, these men were all heroes!

Following that, he had a thought. ‘There are so many people, why were there only five strands of Gray Qi?’

Could it be that his assumption that these negative energies like grievances, death, and dark energies which formed the Gray Qi, had a specific time limit?

And it wasn’t that they lasted for a lifetime once they coalesced around someone?

Before Fang Zheng could think about it, he saw the cool man in the leather jacket among the crowd. The cool man saw him and the other rookies as well and seemed to look surprised that Fang Zheng and his compatriots did not run away on their own. He was usually a very cold and distant man with no visible expressions, but now in his eyes, there was a flash of surprise.

However, he rapidly found that Xue Xiucheng was gone, and there were only three of four people present, and his eyes grew cold again.

“Run!”

“Get moving!”

“The dam has been destroyed by the Undead King which went berserk. The floodwaters will be here soon!”

The cool man in the leather jacket roared in panic at the three of them.

However, it was only when the group had run into the Qingshi Road corridor, did Fang Zheng and the others begin to follow the rest of the group, and retreated in quick succession.

In the process of the retreat, Fang Zheng finally understood the situation.

It turned out that when the two undead had reached the base of the dam and saw that they were about to be killed by the Descended Demon, the Undead King suddenly went berserk. The lower half of its body suddenly rushed toward the dam with wild abandon, leaving behind its bodyguards. It was so ferocious that it abandoned its lower half, and the upper half took the opportunity to escape from the dam. This preserved the Undead King’s more powerful upper half.

The Undead King already had an aura and was gradually evolving into a Drought Demon. The members of the Supernatural Investigation Bureau had exhumed the grave with the intention of destroying the undead within but had instead given the Undead King the chance to escape the floodwaters from cutting him in half. Now, there was an elite kill squad being sent to hunt down to destroy the Undead King.

Hearing that the Undead King had escaped.

And the escaped part was also the most fearsome upper part, Fang Zheng gasped in shock.

Even he felt his testicles throb in pain for the people at the Supernatural Investigation Bureau.

This was no ordinary Undead King.

This Undead King had died with a great grievance, having been cut in twain at the waist, and after death had become a demon.

Boom!

Rumble!

The waters rushed forwards in a rolling tide. The power of man in the face of the power of nature was minuscule in comparison. The river banks outside the border had already turned into a slurry mess.

Every person’s face took on a terrible demeanor as they saw the wall of water rushing towards them.

These people in Jiangdi, the fear was… At that moment, there was a shout of joy, “Look! There are people coming out of Jiangdi!”

“It’s them! They made it!”

Every person’s face lit up, and they could make out a group of ten or so people in the distance.

In the end, despite the extreme danger, those ten or so who went into Jiangdi made it through and reached the river bank safely. A moment later, the entire group let out a roaring cheer of jubilation.

However… while everyone was caught up in their cheers, nobody noticed that in a dark corner, a single person suddenly ran away…

[1] A Buddhist concept that refers to the most minute particles of matter in the universe. From the Translator’s understanding, it is comparable to the quark.