Cataclysm Chapter 10: A Skeleton Under Clothing 3; Du Bei

Chapter 10: A Skeleton Under Clothing 3; Du Bei

Translated by Shiya of Exiled Rebels Scanlations 

Editor: Addis

 

Ge Qing said, “The night before we were leaving, I got up and went to the kitchen to get some water and saw Lu Nan walk out of the building. I was curious, so I went to the window and saw that he was walking in the direction of the ghost house.”

Feng Yuan leaned forward and asked, “And after that?” 

“That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. I didn’t have that much curiosity, and it was late at night, so I was very sleepy. What’s more, in horror movies, the one who goes out following a weird person, dies first. I’m not stupid.” Ge Qing crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

“It’s right not to follow him.” Chen Yang nodded.

Ge Qing immediately smiled at him, “Brother Yang agrees.”

“Call people properly, don’t be rude.” Mao Xiaoli said to Ge Qing, “Even I’m not that intimate with him.”

“There’s no comparison between us.” Ge Qing combed her own hair, “I can call him whatever I like. Right, brother Yang?”

“Miss Ge, please call me by my surname.”

“Brother Yang, you are too rigid.”

“I’m married.”

Ge Qing was speechless and stared at Chen Yang, obviously not believing him. Chen Yang didn’t say anything more. It was obvious that he was trying to keep distance and refuse her. He didn’t try to prove that he was really married, and there was no need for him to do so. But it also dispelled Ge Qing’s thoughts of him. After chatting with Ge Qing for a while, she recovered her normal temperament and kept a distance from Chen Yang.

Seeing this, Chen Yang asked, “Why did you think Lu Nan was weird at that time?”

“He was not wearing shoes.”

Feng Yuan and Wei ChangPing giggled. Ge Qing said angrily, “Isn’t that strange? He walked out of the building barefoot at night time, like a wandering soul.”

It was only at this moment that they all realized that something was off. It was true that not wearing shoes sounds common, but it also depended on the situation. It’s weird enough to go out late at night alone, and without shoes to boot? Even weirder.

“Maybe he was sleepwalking?” Feng Yuan licked his dry lips and noticed that he couldn’t even convince himself with that statement.

Chen Yang asked, “Are you sure he went to the ghost house?”

“I’m not. But it seemed to be the same direction as the ghost house. To be honest, Lu Nan’s hometown was quite secluded and quite close to the ghost house. There were no houses near the ghost house, and there were a bunch of locust trees around it, which made it especially gloomy and terrifying. No one will walk on that road in the middle of the night.”

“Wait a minute, old locust trees?”

Ge Qing stared at Feng Yuan, who was in a daze for a moment. Then he got up and took out a camera from his backpack in the corner of the room. While operating it, he said, “I took a picture of the ghost house. Master, you can have a look.”

Chen Yang took the camera and looked at the photos one by one. The more he looked, the more he frowned, and the more serious his look became.

After looking through them, Mao Xiaoli was the first to give in, she took a deep breath and said, “This ghost house is too evil. How did you guys manage to come back alive from there?”

“We are not all alive though,” Feng Yuan said.

They had been targeted by some unknown thing, and one person had died.

Chen Yang said, “Xiao Li meant, normally, you wouldn’t be able to leave Laotun town alive.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what this is? They are ancient locust trees,” Chen Yang pointed at the dark shadows in the picture. It was a forest full of ancient locust trees that were covering the sky. There were even rows of black crows on the branches. “Locust trees attract wood ghosts. The place where ghosts like to live the most are ancient locust trees. I don’t even know how many ghosts would be attracted to this forest. Yin aura fills the sky there. Normally, going in for a walk means the Yin aura will stick to you, if not serious, it would at least cause a serious illness. You were there for a whole week, yet you guys are fine. There is only one reason you didn’t die.”

“What?”

“There’s something more powerful following you.”

The sudden voice interrupted Chen Yang’s speech. The people followed the voice to the person who spoke. Two people were standing against the light from outside at the door. The one speaking was one of them.

Feng Yuan exclaimed, “Tianshi Kou, Tianshi Du, you are back?”

Du? Looking behind him, Chen Yang found two handsome and tall youths. The one in front looked righteous, but a bit condescending. He had the aura of being from an effluent family. The man in front was Tianshi Kou. The youth walking in the back was half a head taller than Tianshi Kou. Calm and indifferent, that was Tianshi Du.

His surname was Du, Chen Yang wondered, but then he saw a face he had never seen before in his life. He knew full well that his Hell servitor husband wouldn’t appear under the sun, much less as a Tianshi.

Kou Xuanling walked up to Chen Yang. His eyes fell on his waist first thing, but he didn’t see Tianshi’s token. Then his gaze fell onto Mao Xiaoli and saw the token that marked her as a six grade Tianshi of Dugong. He frowned and was obviously displeased.

“Kou Xuanling. Third grade Wulei Tianshi.” He took out a sign with a black tassel hanging on it, the words ‘ShangQing SanDong WuLei Sutras’ were etched onto the token ¹.

Judging from his appearance, he was no more than thirty years old. It was not easy to be promoted in the Tianshi world. The higher one went, the more difficult it would be to get promoted. Not only did one need to earn merits and virtue related to Taoism, there was also a time requirement. According to the Tianshi community rules, it took at least three years for one to upgrade from Dugong(6th) to Mengwei(5th), to reach the next level, eight years; and the next, twelve years. After that, one could not be promoted without substantial merits. In other words, it would take at least sixteen years to reach the third grade. Kou Xuanling was still so young, which showed that he began learning Taoism from a very young age, and he must be very gifted to get promoted to Wulei in only sixteen years.

Later, after hearing from Mao Xiaoli, Chen Yang realized that Kou Xuanling was a descendant of the northern Tianshi Taoism faction. During the Weijin Dynasties, Tianshi factions had developed into two main streams: the northern and southern Tianshi faction. The ancestor of the northern Tianshi Dao faction was surnamed Kou.

“Chen Yang.” He introduced himself.

Mao Xiaoli followed and said, “Mao Xiaoli, the 23rd generation disciple of the Maoshan faction.”

Hearing her introduction, Kou Xuanling lifted his lips and gave a silent disdainful smile. He paid Mao Xiaoli no more attention after that. Chen Yang grabbed the angry Mao Xiaoli and whispered in her ear, “Ten million!”

Mao Xiaoli took a deep breath. “Yes, ten million. No matter how angry I am with someone that is not human, I can’t be angry with ten million.”

“What are you guys muttering about?” Kou Xuanling asked.

Mao Xiaoli smiled, “Nothing much, we are just discussing how to communicate with poultry?”

Kou Xuanling, “Who are you calling poultry?”

“Whoever answered of course…”

“Xiaoli!”

Before Chen Yang started reprimanding her, he heard the other Tianshi speak, “We went out to investigate and discovered something. Since you have found something as well, we may as well discuss it together.”

Before Chen Yang responded, he found that Du Tianshi walked up to him. He stared straight at him, his gaze was calm and cold. Chen Yang stared back at him as well, and he felt his hand, that was grabbing Mao Xiaoli’s, burning; he quickly retracted his hand.

After Du Tianshi walked past Chen Yang, he and Mao Xiaoli got separated from each other and did not get any closer afterwards. Because right after Du Tianshi sat down, he said to Chen Yang, “Du Bei.”

Chen Yang pursed his lips and sat beside him. There was not much room on his side, so after two men sat down, there was no more room. Kou Xuanling had to go on the opposite side. As Mao Xiaoli hated him, she sat in a far away chair.

Ge Qing said, “So you don’t know each other.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Ge. We are all professional Tianshi.” Chen Yang finished and looked at Du Bei beside him.

Du Bei, “Yeah.”

“Well, what did you mean when you said something more powerful is targeting us?”

Chen Yang looked at Du Bei, and the latter was looking down at the floor. Seemed like he wasn’t going to take the initiative to explain. So Chen Yang said, “The literal meaning, those things didn’t kill you during that time. Meaning they must be plotting something with you guys.”

Feng Yuan was stunned for a moment, “Plotting? Do you mean they want to use us for something?”

“Yes.”

“What can we be used for?”

“Your identity.”

“What do you mean?”

“If those things put on your skin, pretend to be you, and use your family background and contacts, after killing people, they can easily hide their identities from the state and from Tianshi.”

If evil spirits do harm to people, they would surely leave clues. The identity of Feng Yuan and co. would be the perfect camouflage for the demons to hide themselves.

Wei Changping, who never spoke before, asked, “Why did Lu Nan die so horrifically?”

Ge Qing and Feng Yuan agreed, if the evil spirit just wanted to use their identities, why did they kill Lu Nan in such a cruel way?

“His skin is gone.” Chen Yang calmly and indifferently stated a key point they had forgotten.

In front of them, the three people shivered at the same time. If they want to use their identity, they must take off their human skins and put them on themselves. The evil being likely wanted to pretend to be Lu Nan to approach them. It was a pity that his corpse was identified before they could deal with Lu Nan’s body. If Lu Nan’s body was not found, wouldn’t they have gone out with an unknown evil being for god knows how long?

“Then, did those things follow us back and move from Miyun Ghost House to the Haoyuan Villa district? Did they put on human skin as well, can they be detected?”

“In the past two weeks, there have been four murders in the villa area.”

In other words, there were at least four evil spirits that had snuck into the villa area, coveting them.

“Who are they disguised as?”

“I don’t know.” Chen Yang said frankly, “the bodies were so badly destroyed to recognize anything. Even if they check DNA, it is difficult to get a match before those things make a move because those things have lived for many years. At least longer than all of us. They have killed loads of people. Some of them have not been discovered at all, and you can’t recognize their evil aura when they put on human skin. Human skin can hide evil aura.”

They can even switch clothing at will? ²

“The evil spirit is too invincible.” Ge Qing complained

Feng Yuan, “How can we catch these things then?”

“We need to find it first,” Kou Xuanling suddenly interrupted.

“How do we find it?”

Kou Xuanling, “Lure it out.”

Feng Yuan and the others were just about to ask how, but seeing the four Tianshi’s gazes fixed on them, they understood, they were startled and jumped up, “No way, you want us to lure it out?”

Kou Xuanling shrugged, “The evil being’s target is you. It’s up to you to lure them out and get twice the result with half the effort.”

“Why aren’t you guys luring them out?”

“If we can lure them out, we wouldn’t need you guys to show up.” Kou Xuanling said coldly, “Let’s make this quick. If you don’t want to, we can’t do anything about it. We will just wait here. When the commission time is up, we’ll leave.”

Of course, the ten million deposit would not be refunded. Who asked the customer to not cooperate? This was the service attitude of their headquarters; tough and indifferent. You want them to work for you? Sure, but the employers have to cooperate. If they don’t, they would just not do anything and still take the money.

Even so, there were still a large number of people giving money to the headquarters, begging them to take their requests.

Chen Yang and Mao Xiaoli were oozing with envy.

 

 

 

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