Under the bright moonlight, a sea of people walked up on the mountain road still in their lingering excitement. In groups of three to five, they entered the farming houses, bringing wealth that used to be unimaginable to those mountain people who relied on farming and picking mountain produces to survive last time.
Zhang Lisheng stayed at the village entrance till the very end. Watching Tao Lulu’s figure disappearing, the scenery of when he last met the girl a few years back appeared in his mind.
At that time, the young man had just become a Rank-1 Wizard, with a strength that was not much stronger than other ordinary people. At that time, he had no money nor ambition, he was completely an unsociable and eccentric mountain boy.
He still remembered that time, after receiving some concern from the girl, he had even asked her dumbly, “Wasn’t it your father who asked you to come see me?”
Which caused the girl to be so pissed as she argued, “Why can’t it be me? Who says that it can’t be me who just so happened to encounter you while I’m on my way to school?”
Then, he had even asked again insensibly, “But your house is even nearer to the school than mine! Don’t tell me that you actually walk in the opposite direction when you go to school?”
Finally, the girl was in so much rage that her face became completely flushed as she hissed, “It’s my freedom to use whichever path I like when I go to school! As long as I’m happy!”
Then, she immediately stomped away.
The scenery was vivid in his mind. It was at that moment when Zhang Lisheng first found out that there was actually somebody in this world who had been silently caring for him. The inexplicable sense of numbness and warmth that appeared in his heart that time was unforgettable. This was also the fundamental reason why he would become a yes-man in front of Tao Lulu.
“Sigh, this is why it’s said that going back to a person’s hometown would always elicit a complicated feeling. But actually, I feel that meeting an old flame would elicit an even more complicated feeling.” Inadvertently, only Zhang Lisheng was left alone in the vacant ground. The cold breeze brushed across his clothes as the young man sighed and muttered to himself, “But no matter what, I’m already different now…”
With his mouth starting to spout “pst shh…”, he began to cast a spell.
In an instant, the emotions in his eyes slowly vanished, with his face becoming cold and grave. His body moved forward and he began to run and leap on the mountain road soundlessly. Soon, he returned to his ancestral home.
After bolting the wooden door, the young man took out his mobile phone and began to search for a few keywords on the Internet —”Western Sichuan, Hengze City, Qu County, Heng Xiang”. Soon, he found the answer that he was satisfied with.
“Jianye Road No. 88, this is easy to find!” He put the phone back into his pocket. Then, with a blank expression, he took off his black clothes and black pants before transforming using the lizard’s power.
In an instant, transparent scales covered Zhang Lisheng’s body and then, his body began to vanish without a trace in the dark courtyard.
After concealing his body, the young man dexterously leaped onto the wall and went out of the village. He leaped and shuttled through the bushes beside the road leading to the county seat, taking only more than minutes to reach the city.
It was already midnight. Even though the county had become increasingly prosperous because of the tourism industry, it was still not the kind of business and trade strategic town that had rich nightlife. After 12 o’clock midnight, the pedestrians on the street had become visibly sparse.
Zhang Lisheng walked through the county for a while. Through the vague impression he had on the old county, he finally found his destination. It was a courtyard overlooking the street that had a facade that was not huge but was locked with an iron gate. There were even two statues of stone lions playing with balls made of colored strips of silk in front of the door.
When the young man saw the ‘Western Sichuan Heng Xiang Group’ written on the signboard beside the door, he strode and nihilated his body to cross the iron gate.
There was rockery and a fish pond in the courtyard, with a few big trees planted and a few cars parked there.
Zhang Lisheng looked around and walked into the office building briskly. His ears moved faintly as he concentrated on listening. He walked up the stairs to the third floor and came before a huge office that had a door embedded with a metal nameplate written with the letters ‘CEO’.
Through the moonlight entering from the window, he could clearly see that the room was luxuriously decorated. The office chairs, desks, sofas, coffee tables, were all made of mahogany, completely the style of a nouveau riche.
On the wall hung a roll of seven to eight meter parchment written in Chinese calligraphy “Spring in the Garden of Chin — Rain” and the several splashing landscapes depicting four seasons showed that the owner loved to pose as a cultured person.
The young man glanced around as a cold smile appeared on his face. “Not bad!” After spitting out a remark, he walked into the lounge in the office and saw a fat man, who was nearly 50 years old, with a goatee, fat head and huge ears, who was covered in a thin quilt as he snored loudly in his sleep.
Without making any unnecessary movement, Zhang Lisheng strode forward and reached out a scaly claw to grab the neck of the fat man, before asking in a whisper, “Is your surname Guo?”
Still in the midst of confusion for being awakened in his sleep, the fat man realized that his neck was being tightly gripped. Unable to breathe and not hearing Zhang Lisheng’s questioning, he immediately casted his wizard power to emit long brown hair from his pores and opened his mouth to spit a mouthful of black smog.
That thick black fog exuded a faint green light that soon shrouded the young man’s entire head.
Unbearable stench fully filled his nose, and a sharp fiery pain hit his eyes that were not protected by his scales. Even so, Zhang Lisheng was not angered but flashed a smile instead.
“As I’ve thought, you’re rather like me!” Then, four of the nine scorpion tails behind him abruptly extended and pierced into the four limbs of that fat-faced, big-eared man, before starting to enter the man’s blood vessels and stirring havoc in it.
At once, the entire body of the fat man became bulged with vessels. The long brown hair on his body gradually retrieved as his face became entirely flushed. He bit his lips in pain and caused his mouth to be full of blood.
“If you want to endure the pain until you die like this, I’ll fulfill your wish. If you don’t, answer my question properly! What is your answer then?” Upon seeing his prey had completely lost its resistance, Zhang Lisheng asked in a low voice.
The fat-headed man immediately nodded using all his might.
Zhang Lisheng relaxed his hand. “Is your surname Guo and are you the boss of Heng Xiang Group?”
“Yes, I’m Guo Zhongxiang from Heng Xiang. Friend, since you came to look for me in the middle of the night, I believe you must also know about Heng Xiang’s background and who is standing behind me. Since we’re all wizards, we share the same sentiments even though we’re not from the same gate. Now, the three gates of Life, Death and Sacrifice have already cooperated with each other and the elders have already issued a rule. Whoever fights unscrupulously will be punished severely. Brother, if I’ve offended you before this, just tell me right away, I’ll definitely…” When the fat man obtained the chance to breathe, he immediately gasped deeply for air and began to utter a string of words, with a mixture of threats and temptations, as though he planned to bury the hatchet.
However, Zhang Lisheng shook his head with a cold gaze and interrupted his words. “I’m not from the three gates of Life, Death or Sacrifice. The reason I came to find you is because I want to ask you, why did you take such an arduous effort to get your hand on the Zhang Family’s old house in Guawo Village in Damu Town?”
“Zhang Family’s old house?” Guo Zhongxiang became stunned for a while before turning silent. As his face turned glum, an unyielding expression appeared. “Oh I see. So it’s because of that matter! I suppose it must be you who sent Mayor Song from Damu Town to his death, right? Let me be honest with you, that ‘dark land’ has great use for me. I’ll never give in. Friend, don’t think that I, Guo Zhongxiang, am powerless to fight back now that you’ve restrained me. The ultimate tactic of the Gate of Sacrifice…”
The prey’s attitude suddenly changed to become adamant, causing Zhang Lisheng to not help but frown. Intuitively, he thought Guo Zhongxiang had a strong back-up coming over so he raised his vigilance to prepare. However, no movement was seen for a long time so in the end, he could not help but reveal a ferocious expression and said coldly, “Boss Guo, it has already come to this stage and yet you’re so arrogant and noisy!”
“It’s not arrogance but confidence, friend. Why don’t you think about it? I have a net worth of tens of millions of Yuan and I actually befriended those country bumpkins. How is it possible that I don’t get anything in return? To tell you the truth, I have an ultimate life-saving technique. Well, it’s just that if I use it, I’d have to rest for at least two to three months so…”
When the young man saw how Guo Zhongxiang still had a look as though he still had a trump card in his hand despite being placed in an absolute disadvantage under his pinning, his heart gave a jolt and suddenly, he was hit by a pang of realization as he suddenly realized a possibility.
He pondered over it and slowly moved his free hand his forehead, interrupting the prey’s string of words. “Boss Guo, since you have so much confidence, I’d like to see just how amazing that life-saving technique of yours can be!”
Then, he gradually peeled off the clown portrait stuck on his forehead.
At that instant, the fierce murderous bearing of his that had accumulated for a few days that had lost its cover by the ‘mask’, instantly exploded. It was so bloodcurdling that even the bright moon had seemingly turned chilling and eerie.
Under the emotionless gaze of Zhang Lisheng’s ferocious eyes, Guo Zhongxiang seemed to have turned from a burly man who was pinned down by a wolf to a broken-limbed lamb that was facing a male lion. At once, his eyes turned so wide that they began to rupture, his mouth was opened so wide that his jaw began to dislocate. A strange “heeee…” sound escaped his throat as his eyes started to lose focus and his spirit broke down completely.
Such a result was greatly beyond Zhang Lisheng’s expectations. Even though he had only recently broken through to Rank-9 Wizard and his strength had increased greatly, it was still impossible for his strength to be so powerful that he could scare a living wizard of the Gate of Sacrifice, who was at least a Rank-9 Wizard too, to death.
The young man froze out of bafflement. Before he could contemplate over it, he suddenly felt a jolt in his heart. Immediately, he waved his hand and decapitated the useless Guo Zhongxiang’s head and nihilated before jumping out of the room.
When the young man had just left, a burly man who was at least 190 centimeters tall punched the door down with two dull ‘thuds and rushed into the lounge.
Relying on the moonlight, he saw the bed covered in blood and the fat corpse of Guo Zhongxiang’s decapitated body and head. Clenching his fists, the burly man gritted his teeth tightly, causing the vessels and veins on his head to bulge out clearly like earthworms, as though he was going to shout at the sky to swear to hunt the enemy down.
However, when he recalled how the enemy had intentionally, or maybe unintentionally, exposed his ferocious aura that attracted his attention, the burly man quietened down right away, as though he was put out by a bucket of cold water.
He began to mumble some incantations that caused the skin and skeleton on his body to sink in, his pores to shrink as he began to shine smoothly like rubber. Carefully, he walked over to the bed, rolled up the leather mat on the bed and wrapped Guo Zhongxiang’s body properly. Then, he brought the two ends of the mat together before lifting it up with force, twisting it and turning it into a bag.
He looked at the blood stains at his feet. Frowning, when he was about to carry the bag on his back, he suddenly felt a chill envelop his body. The house in front of him shattered, as if it was a paper box shattered by the typhoon.
Then, a gush of spiralling air that seemed to be able to distort space swept him up together with the cowhide bag beside him.
At this time, with a sharp whistling that resonated in delay, the bag made of cowhide mat and the corpse inside turned into slimy pieces while the big man howled in futile effort, putting up a last-ditch struggle for more than ten seconds in the cyclone before finally turning into a pile of meat in the air.
Under the bright moonlight, a sea of people walked up on the mountain road still in their lingering excitement. In groups of three to five, they entered the farming houses, bringing wealth that used to be unimaginable to those mountain people who relied on farming and picking mountain produces to survive last time.
Zhang Lisheng stayed at the village entrance till the very end. Watching Tao Lulu’s figure disappearing, the scenery of when he last met the girl a few years back appeared in his mind.
At that time, the young man had just become a Rank-1 Wizard, with a strength that was not much stronger than other ordinary people. At that time, he had no money nor ambition, he was completely an unsociable and eccentric mountain boy.
He still remembered that time, after receiving some concern from the girl, he had even asked her dumbly, “Wasn’t it your father who asked you to come see me?”
Which caused the girl to be so pissed as she argued, “Why can’t it be me? Who says that it can’t be me who just so happened to encounter you while I’m on my way to school?”
Then, he had even asked again insensibly, “But your house is even nearer to the school than mine! Don’t tell me that you actually walk in the opposite direction when you go to school?”
Finally, the girl was in so much rage that her face became completely flushed as she hissed, “It’s my freedom to use whichever path I like when I go to school! As long as I’m happy!”
Then, she immediately stomped away.
The scenery was vivid in his mind. It was at that moment when Zhang Lisheng first found out that there was actually somebody in this world who had been silently caring for him. The inexplicable sense of numbness and warmth that appeared in his heart that time was unforgettable. This was also the fundamental reason why he would become a yes-man in front of Tao Lulu.
“Sigh, this is why it’s said that going back to a person’s hometown would always elicit a complicated feeling. But actually, I feel that meeting an old flame would elicit an even more complicated feeling.” Inadvertently, only Zhang Lisheng was left alone in the vacant ground. The cold breeze brushed across his clothes as the young man sighed and muttered to himself, “But no matter what, I’m already different now…”
With his mouth starting to spout “pst shh…”, he began to cast a spell.
In an instant, the emotions in his eyes slowly vanished, with his face becoming cold and grave. His body moved forward and he began to run and leap on the mountain road soundlessly. Soon, he returned to his ancestral home.
After bolting the wooden door, the young man took out his mobile phone and began to search for a few keywords on the Internet —”Western Sichuan, Hengze City, Qu County, Heng Xiang”. Soon, he found the answer that he was satisfied with.
“Jianye Road No. 88, this is easy to find!” He put the phone back into his pocket. Then, with a blank expression, he took off his black clothes and black pants before transforming using the lizard’s power.
In an instant, transparent scales covered Zhang Lisheng’s body and then, his body began to vanish without a trace in the dark courtyard.
After concealing his body, the young man dexterously leaped onto the wall and went out of the village. He leaped and shuttled through the bushes beside the road leading to the county seat, taking only more than minutes to reach the city.
It was already midnight. Even though the county had become increasingly prosperous because of the tourism industry, it was still not the kind of business and trade strategic town that had rich nightlife. After 12 o’clock midnight, the pedestrians on the street had become visibly sparse.
Zhang Lisheng walked through the county for a while. Through the vague impression he had on the old county, he finally found his destination. It was a courtyard overlooking the street that had a facade that was not huge but was locked with an iron gate. There were even two statues of stone lions playing with balls made of colored strips of silk in front of the door.
When the young man saw the ‘Western Sichuan Heng Xiang Group’ written on the signboard beside the door, he strode and nihilated his body to cross the iron gate.
There was rockery and a fish pond in the courtyard, with a few big trees planted and a few cars parked there.
Zhang Lisheng looked around and walked into the office building briskly. His ears moved faintly as he concentrated on listening. He walked up the stairs to the third floor and came before a huge office that had a door embedded with a metal nameplate written with the letters ‘CEO’.
Through the moonlight entering from the window, he could clearly see that the room was luxuriously decorated. The office chairs, desks, sofas, coffee tables, were all made of mahogany, completely the style of a nouveau riche.
On the wall hung a roll of seven to eight meter parchment written in Chinese calligraphy “Spring in the Garden of Chin — Rain” and the several splashing landscapes depicting four seasons showed that the owner loved to pose as a cultured person.
The young man glanced around as a cold smile appeared on his face. “Not bad!” After spitting out a remark, he walked into the lounge in the office and saw a fat man, who was nearly 50 years old, with a goatee, fat head and huge ears, who was covered in a thin quilt as he snored loudly in his sleep.
Without making any unnecessary movement, Zhang Lisheng strode forward and reached out a scaly claw to grab the neck of the fat man, before asking in a whisper, “Is your surname Guo?”
Still in the midst of confusion for being awakened in his sleep, the fat man realized that his neck was being tightly gripped. Unable to breathe and not hearing Zhang Lisheng’s questioning, he immediately casted his wizard power to emit long brown hair from his pores and opened his mouth to spit a mouthful of black smog.
That thick black fog exuded a faint green light that soon shrouded the young man’s entire head.
Unbearable stench fully filled his nose, and a sharp fiery pain hit his eyes that were not protected by his scales. Even so, Zhang Lisheng was not angered but flashed a smile instead.
“As I’ve thought, you’re rather like me!” Then, four of the nine scorpion tails behind him abruptly extended and pierced into the four limbs of that fat-faced, big-eared man, before starting to enter the man’s blood vessels and stirring havoc in it.
At once, the entire body of the fat man became bulged with vessels. The long brown hair on his body gradually retrieved as his face became entirely flushed. He bit his lips in pain and caused his mouth to be full of blood.
“If you want to endure the pain until you die like this, I’ll fulfill your wish. If you don’t, answer my question properly! What is your answer then?” Upon seeing his prey had completely lost its resistance, Zhang Lisheng asked in a low voice.
The fat-headed man immediately nodded using all his might.
Zhang Lisheng relaxed his hand. “Is your surname Guo and are you the boss of Heng Xiang Group?”
“Yes, I’m Guo Zhongxiang from Heng Xiang. Friend, since you came to look for me in the middle of the night, I believe you must also know about Heng Xiang’s background and who is standing behind me. Since we’re all wizards, we share the same sentiments even though we’re not from the same gate. Now, the three gates of Life, Death and Sacrifice have already cooperated with each other and the elders have already issued a rule. Whoever fights unscrupulously will be punished severely. Brother, if I’ve offended you before this, just tell me right away, I’ll definitely…” When the fat man obtained the chance to breathe, he immediately gasped deeply for air and began to utter a string of words, with a mixture of threats and temptations, as though he planned to bury the hatchet.
However, Zhang Lisheng shook his head with a cold gaze and interrupted his words. “I’m not from the three gates of Life, Death or Sacrifice. The reason I came to find you is because I want to ask you, why did you take such an arduous effort to get your hand on the Zhang Family’s old house in Guawo Village in Damu Town?”
“Zhang Family’s old house?” Guo Zhongxiang became stunned for a while before turning silent. As his face turned glum, an unyielding expression appeared. “Oh I see. So it’s because of that matter! I suppose it must be you who sent Mayor Song from Damu Town to his death, right? Let me be honest with you, that ‘dark land’ has great use for me. I’ll never give in. Friend, don’t think that I, Guo Zhongxiang, am powerless to fight back now that you’ve restrained me. The ultimate tactic of the Gate of Sacrifice…”
The prey’s attitude suddenly changed to become adamant, causing Zhang Lisheng to not help but frown. Intuitively, he thought Guo Zhongxiang had a strong back-up coming over so he raised his vigilance to prepare. However, no movement was seen for a long time so in the end, he could not help but reveal a ferocious expression and said coldly, “Boss Guo, it has already come to this stage and yet you’re so arrogant and noisy!”
“It’s not arrogance but confidence, friend. Why don’t you think about it? I have a net worth of tens of millions of Yuan and I actually befriended those country bumpkins. How is it possible that I don’t get anything in return? To tell you the truth, I have an ultimate life-saving technique. Well, it’s just that if I use it, I’d have to rest for at least two to three months so…”
When the young man saw how Guo Zhongxiang still had a look as though he still had a trump card in his hand despite being placed in an absolute disadvantage under his pinning, his heart gave a jolt and suddenly, he was hit by a pang of realization as he suddenly realized a possibility.
He pondered over it and slowly moved his free hand his forehead, interrupting the prey’s string of words. “Boss Guo, since you have so much confidence, I’d like to see just how amazing that life-saving technique of yours can be!”
Then, he gradually peeled off the clown portrait stuck on his forehead.
At that instant, the fierce murderous bearing of his that had accumulated for a few days that had lost its cover by the ‘mask’, instantly exploded. It was so bloodcurdling that even the bright moon had seemingly turned chilling and eerie.
Under the emotionless gaze of Zhang Lisheng’s ferocious eyes, Guo Zhongxiang seemed to have turned from a burly man who was pinned down by a wolf to a broken-limbed lamb that was facing a male lion. At once, his eyes turned so wide that they began to rupture, his mouth was opened so wide that his jaw began to dislocate. A strange “heeee…” sound escaped his throat as his eyes started to lose focus and his spirit broke down completely.
Such a result was greatly beyond Zhang Lisheng’s expectations. Even though he had only recently broken through to Rank-9 Wizard and his strength had increased greatly, it was still impossible for his strength to be so powerful that he could scare a living wizard of the Gate of Sacrifice, who was at least a Rank-9 Wizard too, to death.
The young man froze out of bafflement. Before he could contemplate over it, he suddenly felt a jolt in his heart. Immediately, he waved his hand and decapitated the useless Guo Zhongxiang’s head and nihilated before jumping out of the room.
When the young man had just left, a burly man who was at least 190 centimeters tall punched the door down with two dull ‘thuds and rushed into the lounge.
Relying on the moonlight, he saw the bed covered in blood and the fat corpse of Guo Zhongxiang’s decapitated body and head. Clenching his fists, the burly man gritted his teeth tightly, causing the vessels and veins on his head to bulge out clearly like earthworms, as though he was going to shout at the sky to swear to hunt the enemy down.
However, when he recalled how the enemy had intentionally, or maybe unintentionally, exposed his ferocious aura that attracted his attention, the burly man quietened down right away, as though he was put out by a bucket of cold water.
He began to mumble some incantations that caused the skin and skeleton on his body to sink in, his pores to shrink as he began to shine smoothly like rubber. Carefully, he walked over to the bed, rolled up the leather mat on the bed and wrapped Guo Zhongxiang’s body properly. Then, he brought the two ends of the mat together before lifting it up with force, twisting it and turning it into a bag.
He looked at the blood stains at his feet. Frowning, when he was about to carry the bag on his back, he suddenly felt a chill envelop his body. The house in front of him shattered, as if it was a paper box shattered by the typhoon.
Then, a gush of spiralling air that seemed to be able to distort space swept him up together with the cowhide bag beside him.
At this time, with a sharp whistling that resonated in delay, the bag made of cowhide mat and the corpse inside turned into slimy pieces while the big man howled in futile effort, putting up a last-ditch struggle for more than ten seconds in the cyclone before finally turning into a pile of meat in the air.
