Lie Huo Jiao Chou Volume 1 Chapter 16

____

Demon, devil, ghost, monster, which kind is as vicious as a human's mind? f.u.c.king wiped your a.s.ses. Bye bye.
____

　　"Get out of here!" Xiao Zheng firstly scowled, then slightly frowned, pondering upon something he sensed, "Slow down, what do you mean?"
　　
　　Xuan Ji said: "Have you ever thought about it, for the species of Mirage b.u.t.terflies, a 'eunuch' is normal."
　　
　　"What you mean is, this b.u.t.terfly may not reproduce s.e.xually..."

　　"What I mean is, this b.u.t.terfly does not reproduce at all." 　

　　Xuan Ji spoke while using his forefinger to rub against the sword's blade on his back. His finger was deft yet dangerous, as if playing with fire.

　　The sword could not be stuffed back to its 'sheath', so it left was hanging out. The blade appeared thick and unadorned, with the edges of the blade being the only sharp lines visible. The uncleanable bloodstain on the top was like an ancient totem, adding a little somewhat dangerous atmosphere. 　

　　Of course it's dangerous - there's currently a great devil in the sword, and he's being stroked endlessly. 　

　　As the aftermath of lingering death gradually calmed down, Sheng Lingyuan's feelings became more and more acute. At this time, he could 'see' the blood vessels on Xuan Ji's finger from the blade.

　　The great devil had a very surging patience, and he was not afraid of other people's touches. He just looked at the small blood vessels that were faintly discernible on the skin. The hunger and thirst that had been away for thousands of years suddenly surged up, making him almost unable to concentrate on guessing what the two men said. 　

　　He found himself wanting to drink blood. 　

　　Sheng Lingyuan determined to concentrate. Although his memory became a broken sack that could not be seen, but he felt that he did not seem to have such a hobby before. He couldn't tell for a moment that he was simply wanting to drink blood, or was only interested in the blood of this little demon, sensing this hurried feelings deeply, he felt a sense of novelty.　

　　At this time, Xuan Ji seemed to be aware of the danger, swiftly pulling back his finger then continued, "Do you remember the part of the Head Office's archives talking about the Mirage b.u.t.terfly?"

　　He took the sword and walked to the door, far away from that b.u.t.terfly: "'Mirage b.u.t.terfly', a parasite, first-cla.s.s danger, only parasitic in the human body. Larvae and eggs can be dormant for a long time, but once grown into adults, they no longer have the ability to parasitize new hosts. After leaving the original host, or from the death of the original host, the adult parasite often die in a short period of time, usually within an hour." 　

　　Xuan Ji pointed to the gla.s.s locked box behind him - as soon as he walked away, the small b.u.t.terfly of the size of rice grain appeared again, quietly lying on the gla.s.s wall: "You take a look at that one, how many days since you have taken it from the host? I think the old man's corpse is still fairly robust. " 　　

　　"Don't talk nonsense!" Xiao Zheng was anxious to listen to the right thing, and took out a wallet from his pocket, "From now on, if you insist on a minute of speaking in human language, I will give you a hundred yuan." 　

　　Rumors from everywhere said that Director Xiao was a rich second generation, and his family owned mines. He came to the Head Office in order to achieve self-realization - the rumors were truly not unfounded!

　　"Aye, no problem, dad!" Xuan Ji did not object, the whole person's aura was upright. "In the file of Mirage b.u.t.terfly, most of the contents are about the symptoms of the parasitic host. I read it and there isn't a word in the whole article about how it reproduces. If this b.u.t.terfly can really spread in the crowd, according to our prediction, it can almost destroy all human beings. This kind of unnatural characteristics are not counted in the files. Could the Head Office carelessly leak this much? Daddy Xiao, let's jump out of the 'gloomy sacrifice' case now and look at the problem from another angle. Do you think there is a third possibility - " 　

　　Xiao Zheng responded as fast as the spoke and immediately answered: "That parasite b.u.t.terfly on the boy's body was neither released by Bi Chunsheng nor was it related to Gong Chenggong's forgery of casualties. It was infected from other places! You want to say that Bi Chunsheng knew that the boy was infected by some way, used him to divert the attention, let us mistakenly believe that the sacrifices of the gloomy sacrifice are 'alive' in the way of walking dead. At that time, only a few hours after the success of the gloomy sacrifice, we reacted quickly and found out which problem was too late to cover up, and the stolen b.u.t.terfly eggs thing is likely to be uncovered!"

　　"The timing of the hands-on choice was also very accurate," Xuan Ji said, "The old director retired, Director Huang took office, and Director Huang is an ordinary person. He can supervise the ordinary matters, but in a sudden emergency, as long as he doesn't want to mess around, he will give you the command. You're..."

　　Just a hothead who did not understand personal matters. 　

　　Xuan Ji broke his beak at once and for the sake of money, changing to a suave statement: "Uh... that... an upright and outspoken person, but you should not tolerate an intolerable thing*."

*眼里不揉沙子 (yǎn lǐ bù róu shāzi) = don't rub sand in your eyes; an excerpt from Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin

　　Xiao Zheng was still immersed in the case. He did not hear this person surnamed Xuan's trick of swindling and scolding him in a roundabout way. "But there is still a problem that doesn't make sense - the boy kept drawing the gloomy sacrifice symbols on the book. How would you explain this?" 　

　　Xuan Ji thought for a moment: "Have you investigated that moustache guy? That's the last sacrifice." 　　

　　"Checked, there's nothing special. Didn't I tell you, the sacrifices are those who have been saved before by Bi Chunsheng?" Xiao Zheng said, "That little moustache is called Ji Qingchen, he made money by making videos and live broadcasting - but it's not really a decent live broadcast, and it seems like it's all sensationalist stuff: where there are accidents, too much walking at night, sometimes meeting 'real ghosts', and the incident he experienced with a man-eating beast was handled by Bi Chunsheng."
　　
　　"He is the last sacrifice, and 'nothing special' itself is fishy." Xuan Ji said, "This moustache guy has released more than forty short videos online and in addition, there are more than a dozen live videos, I rummaged through... "

　　Xiao Zheng stared blankly, he did not expect this sloppy man attentively went up to this level that he was shocked and asked: "You've seen it all? Within a few days period?"

　　"Yes." Xuan Ji inexplicably spread out one hand, "In your spare time, don't you usually watch short videos? Just like... when waiting for the bus, taking a bath, going to the toilet, and also when having a meal alone; it's not like you are going to do an 'eating broadcast' either, so what do you have with your dinner?" 　

　　Xiao Zheng: " ...A book."

　　Xuan Ji was shocked: "Are you sick?" 　　

　　An internet addicted youth and iron-blooded veteran officer looked at each other in dismay, mutually feeling that the other side was being unreasonable and was living their lives worse than dogs or pigs. 　

　　Director Xiao would have to use him for something, he had to put the differences aside and powerlessly waved his hand: "What happened in his video?" 　　

　　"In most of the forty short videos, most of the content is that he solves the problem of 'supernatural problems', speaking in tongues, and even at first glance, these are the methods of swindlers," Xuan Ji said. "But there is a group of people who keeps following him regularly. If nothing happens, they will tell others how the 'master' can save lives."　

　　"Isn't that a s.h.i.+ll?"

　　"But the stories they told are very interesting, the content are similar - they meet the master by chance, the master would figure out that there was a disaster. After a few days, it would be true that 'the lost soul of the wild ghost' rose up, the symptom was 'the mind is very clear but the body is uncontrollable', desperately sending out a distress signal, but the family couldn't understand, and finally the master would arrive and save the life - how, doesn't this sound familiar to you?" Xuan Ji narrowed his eyes and smiled, looking like a dead, improper playboy. Then he raised his sword and looked at his face. He winked as he struck and stirred his sleeping bird's nest hairstyle, trying to suppress down his messy hair with a great effort.

　　Sheng Lingyuan in the heavy sword 'admired' this jaw-dropping face in a close range. As suspicious as he was, for a moment, he doubted that this goods was stupid.

　　Xiao Zheng pondered for a moment: "You mean that this Ji Qingchen might know something, or is playing some kind of role in this case."

　　"Yes," Xuan Ji said. He took a glance at the watch, impolitely drawing out five hundred yuan from Director Xiao's wallet, "Five minutes and twenty seconds, all are friends, the extra has been removed out for you. Prepare the plane, I will take some people to investigate all eight generations of Ji Qingchen's ancestors." 　

　　As he spoke, he walked to the door.

　　Sheng Lingyuan was still combining the before and after words to guess the sentence that he didn't understand, and wondered: "Prepare what chicken?*"

*Chinese for plane is 飞机 (fēi jī), for chicken it's 鸡 (jī). Sheng Lingyuan thought plane is a type of chicken

　　At this moment, he heard Xiao Zheng suddenly reacting to something: "No, wait a minute, don't move! I have been going around in circles because of you - I told you to come, to let you check the internal underreporting of casualties of the Head Office. How did it become a mixture of all investigations? You and I are talking about these inferences, but putting it in plain language, you still don't want to take responsibility, do you?"

　　Xuan Ji who was carrying the sword and Sheng Lingyuan who was in the sword sighed at the same time.

　　Sheng Lingyuan said in his mind: "It's been long-known that the beast of Lei Ze is incapable of pursuing a new course. As expected, it is true." [Note]

　　"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, picking easy jobs and s.h.i.+rking the heavy ones, can't f.u.c.king change it!" Xiao Zheng was on fire, "It's hard for you to make up such a realistic story, and 'nonreproductive b.u.t.terflies', only you can come up with an idea like that! Is there any animal in this f.u.c.king world that can't breed? You..." 　

　　"Yes." Xuan Ji said, "Have you ever seen a mule?"

　　Xiao Zheng felt his stomach ache. 　　

　　"Director Xiao, I am asking you," Xuan Ji sighed. "Even if we have to face the risk of being a.s.sa.s.sinated by a gang of fieldworkers, we will still investigate this case upside down, and then what do you want to do? Would you gather the people parasitized by the b.u.t.terflies, then dig a hole and bury them?"　

　　"They are already dead!" 　

　　"You think they're really dead, but in the eyes of their friends and family, they're living people," Xuan Ji interrupted him. "Do you think everyone wants you to get the bottom of it, investigate 'clean and clearly', then take away their loved ones around them? Does everyone want to know the so-called 'truth'?"

　　"These so-called 'nonreproductive b.u.t.terflies' are just like mules, which are the wisdom of the ancestors - I said there is nothing new in this world, my upright comrade Xiao*, do you really think that this mirage b.u.t.terfly, can this thing naturally grow? If so, there isn't any difference between the human brain and the pig brain, why is this thing only parasitic on humans?" Xuan Ji unintentionally more than intentionally swept a glance at his sword while putting an e-cigarette on his mouth. He smiled vaguely as he pointed at Xiao Zheng's chest with it, "Demon, devil, ghost, monster, which kind is as vicious as a human's mind? f.u.c.king wiped your a.s.ses. Bye bye."

*there was a wordplay here, Xuan Ji said 肖正直 (Xiāo zhèng zhí). The Xiao being the surname and zhèng zhí meaning 'upright', but also the zhèng sounds like Xiao Zheng's 征 zhēng

　　The people in Deviant Control Office were anxious; the Reparations Department was even more wishful that they did not exist, as they all heard rumors that the internal of Head Office demanded a 'self-examination' and it would let the Reparations Department take the lead.

　　Xuan Ji stepped into the office of the Reparations Department for the second time and felt that he had mistakenly rushed into the botanical garden - it was full of freshly cut green leaves, and a row of bottled mineral water was hanging in the corner of the wall. 　

　　Old Luo explained as he trembled with fear: "Leader, when I am nervous, my fingers and toes would insanely grow, it can't be controlled, it can't be cut... that ... isn't that the order from above?"
　
　　Xuan Ji's eyes, which were full of complicated looks, were fixed on the row of toes above his head. Feeling disappointed by his own expectations*, he quickly pulled back his legs that have already entered the room: "This won't do, even the Embroidered Uniform Guards* can't do this - Luo Cuicui, Ping Qianru, and... that... forget about it, you two find another one to go on a business trip with me."

* 恨铁不成钢 (hèn tiě bù chéng gāng) = hating iron for not becoming steel
*锦衣卫 (Jǐnyīwèi) = Ming Dynasty secret police

　　Thirty minutes later, Xuan Ji got on the plane with Luo Cuicui, Ping Qianru, and a young man in a hoodie.

　　The young man in a hoodie was dragged by Ping Qianru and Luo Cuicui. He was called Yang Chao, with a pair of slanted eyebrows and a miserable face, reportedly a normal person born in a family of Special Ability.

　　"This is the great encyclopedia of our department." Luo Cuicui said, "Especially able to learn by heart, knows everything. You can ask him a lot of things, it's faster than to transfer files from the Head Office."

　　"Oh, okay." Xuan Ji felt that this man looked unreliable, but it's better to be unreliable than to summon a powerful great devil. "How come you took along a book on a business trip?" 　

　　Yang Chao peeped at his sword and alertly avoided it some distance away, answering from that distance: "Revising for postgraduate exam, I can quit my job if I pa.s.s the exam."

　　Xuan Ji: "..." 　

　　"Qianyang*," Sheng Lingyuan thought, he 'looked' from the sword, just in time as Yang Chao sneaked a peek at his side. Feeling as if he met the sword's gaze, he quivered at once, not daring to make a sound and thus made the great devil feel very interested, "The bloodline is thin, but he is still actually sharp."

*Qiányáng (羬羊) is a beast that lives in *Qiánlái (錢來) Mountain. It is as big as a donkey. It has a horse tail and its shape looks like a goat.

　　At this moment, the plane announced take off.

　　Sheng Lingyuan was still wondering whether 'take off' had an implicit meaning when the plane accelerated along with a roaring buzz on the runway, pulling up from the ground to the sky.

　　The heavy sword fell down and Xuan Ji unconsciously reached out, but the sword that was pulled out from his back unusually cut off his palm, and the blood flowed down along the blood groove of the sword -

The author has something to say:

Note: It's not true, I made it up.