Ch12 - Then what’s the fucking use of targeting him?!

Small snowflakes began to drift down sporadically once again. Bits of snow fell onto the old lady’s stooped shoulders and back yet didn’t appear to melt at all. 

After all, no matter how cold the spring snow may be, it couldn’t be colder than someone that’d walked out of the Yellow Springs. 

After she finished expressing her earnest hopes, even Qi Chen, the victim who’d been forcefully flushed full of drugs ten minutes ago and still couldn’t move anything but his neck, felt somewhat sorry for this situation. 

The old lady was originally thin and small. Right now, she was kneeling without getting up with her head pressed against the icy sludge and dirty snow on the ground. She seemed to curl into an even tighter mass of grey. Her previous frightening appearance couldn’t be seen at all. She seemed like a normal elderly person, only her low and sincere posture was quite heart-rending. 

Even Long Ya seemed to have been subdued and didn’t speak, never mind the one big and one small in the car.

If it weren’t for Qi Chen’s paralysed body, perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to resist getting out of the car.  

For a moment, the inside and outside of the car sunk into silence. 

But as long as there was silence, there would be someone to break it. 

Long Ya froze for a moment before his spirit returned to him. He picked at his ear as if he hadn’t heard clearly, bending over and grabbing the old lady’s emaciated arm and lifting her into a sitting position: “Wait, hold on! Don’t be in a hurry to kneel. I’m a little confused. What are you asking for? Asking for your son’s bones to return to his homeland?” 

The mistiness in the old lady’s turbid eyes cleared up somewhat, her tear stains dried a little. She’d probably planned on kneeling for three to five hours and didn’t expect to be lifted up so quickly, blankly making an “ah” sound. Then as if to relieve her nerves, she licked her dry lips and nodded earnestly: “Yes. This old one only has one wish. I have no other requests.” 

Long Ya pointed at Qi Chen’s nose without even turning around and asked the old lady: “Is he your son?” 

Qi Chen: “……” 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Ktf biv ijvs rtbbx tfg tfjv gfqfjafvis.

Obcu Tj: “Ktfc tf rfcrfifrris kfca jcv veu eq j wbecajlc, ajxlcu jkjs sbeg rbc’r ybcfr?”  

Hl Jtfc: “……” 

Ktf biv ijvs ralii rtbbx tfg tfjv.

Obcu Tj mbeivc’a tfiq rfcvlcu tfg j uijgf: “Ktfc ktja’r atf oemxlcu erf bo ajgufalcu tlw?!” 

Ktf biv ijvs: “……..”  

He gave a laugh, patted the old lady’s back, lifted his hand, and pointed at the worn-out dirt slope without a plan: “Ai ——— I’ll point out a clear road for you. Look, why don’t you follow that road straight and cross two mountains. After entering the city, turn left down the first branch road, walk past two crooked trees and you’ll see a damaged temple. In the temple, there’s a master called Hui Jia who looks like a dog. That monk is good at nothing else but is efficient at calling back the spirit. Casually opening his throat, he can summon the wild and wandering ghosts from within eight villages to receive his slap. If you set off now, perhaps you can make it before dark tomorrow.” 

Qi Chen: “…….” His brain had probably been chewed by dogs for him to believe this bastard Long Ya would earnestly offer advice. 

When Long Ya had first opened his mouth, the old lady had lifted her head to look at him, listening to him earnestly with bated breath. But after hearing these last words, even an idiot would be able to tell that it was talking big and messing with her. It definitely couldn’t be taken seriously. Thus the old lady’s face wrinkled as she frowned, waving frantically and attempted to explain hoarsely: “This old one was not speaking nonsense ———–“

“Um…… this elderly one.” Qi Chen couldn’t help opening up. When it came to holding a favorable impression of this old lady, he really didn’t have a bit of it. After all, being tricked to this place birds won’t even shit on and forcefully fed some drugs definitely wasn’t some happy experience. But being beseeched by such a wizened and trembling old lady on her knees, he still felt undeserving of it so naturally, his tone couldn’t be harsh, “It’s better to be cautious about things like summoning and pacifying spirits. Regardless, you can’t just randomly pull someone off the streets to ask for help. There are people that specialize in this skill, but I don’t specialize in it!” 

Halfway through his words, the old lady began to gesticulate as if she wanted to deny something but didn’t know where to start. She muttered “it’s not like that” multiple times, then tried explaining her previous actions. Only her muttering at the start was extremely vague and couldn’t be understood, just the latter part was a little more clear. 

Qi Chen listened for a while before he could glean some information from her incoherent speech. 

The old lady listened to some unknown person’s nonsense and wholeheartedly wanted to use crooked ways to recruit someone that could help her. 

She, herself was attached to the jade bracelet. Being able to remain for so many years was already difficult. It was even more difficult to search for people during the day and night. She could only target someone within the museum with weak Eight Characters and was easiest to control, Qin-jie. The old lady’s cultivation was lacking. Therefore her control of Qin-jie fluctuated in degrees of effectiveness. So several times when she was controlling her to find someone, if she didn’t dash onto the road, she would then run into the bus. The old lady was even terrible at luring people. Hence some bored person decided to help her for some unknown reason. 

Originally, they borrowed Qin-jie’s hands to remove the jade bracelet the old lady was attached to, from the museum exhibition shelf. Never mind throwing Qin-jie down a miserable pit, they also used Xu Liang to trick the targeted Qi Chen into the desolate wilderness. Unfortunately, just as they were about to succeed, Long Ya killed his way here, ruining the whole plan. 

Although the reasons were outlined, Qi Chen became more and more gloomy as he listened. 

At first, he thought the old lady randomly snatched anyone she fancied off the streets. He just happened to be the unlucky one. After appearing before Qin-jie two times, he was targeted by the old lady probably because his own Eight Characters wasn’t strong and he was easy to use. Trying to lure him that night in his dreams didn’t work so they used Xu Liang to lure him.

But upon further thought, since Xu Liang could be possessed, then his Eight Characters couldn’t be much stronger. It would be easier to just use Xu Liang. Why would they go through the extra trouble to find him?  

So…….

Qi Chen narrowed his eyes and settled his gaze on Long Ya. 

So the one that gave the old lady this rotten idea likely knew there was this extraordinary existence called Long Ya, and wanted Long Ya to help her. But they also didn’t know what Long Ya looked like. So when they came to Guang He to search, they blindly mistook Qi Chen for Long Ya. That was why Qi Chen became targeted. 

Only the old lady who’d been egged on wasn’t aware of the intricacies at all. So even if Long Ya was here in person, the old lady still thought the one that could help her was Qi Chen. So she still begged him.  

Of course….. it could also be because he looked much more approachable than Long Ya. 

Thinking like this, it was actually very logical and reasonable. Only Qi Chen, who took the shot unjustly, suddenly felt particularly wronged. 

The old lady was somewhat anxious to explain. She originally hoped that Long Ya and the rest wouldn’t be so fiendish after hearing it. Who knew that somehow, she saw Qi Chen’s face become even stiffer the more he listened. Long Ya’s expression also became darker somehow. She was suddenly so scared she didn’t dare continue, deeply afraid that Long Ya would slaughter her at the slightest displeasure. 

Therefore in order to preserve her life and suppress their displeasure, the old lady resolutely summarised her words. Then she speedily whipped out the request token in front of Long Ya like a conditioned reflex, signaling that she’d shut up now.  

As soon as Long Ya saw the “request token”, he exploded: “Fuck, it’s this shitty thing again!” 

His voice had barely lowered when muffled thunder rolled in from the horizon. It clapped above their heads like a warning, scaring the old lady so much she shook and almost dropped the token out of her hands. 

Qi Chen: “……” TF thunder from the Ninth Heavens will really come down to scratch an itch?! 

“…….” Long Ya rolled his eyes towards the sky with a green face. Then his gaze lowered back onto the request token and he said impatiently: “Alright, alright I’ll help you! Don’t blabber on, you just want to find a skeleton and summon the spirit right? Easy as lifting a hand. Go, go, go! But I’m warning you, as soon as we find these bones, take it back to where you came from. Don’t jump around in front of me, it’s annoying to look at! Is it so amazing to obtain this stupid token after crawling across a mountain of knives and a sea of fire?! Where did you find such a bored and crazy helper to trade this stupid thing? Just causing people trouble! Laozi will challenge them when we return!”  

He spoke while opening the car door violently, roughly picking up the old lady and throwing her onto the back seat unceremoniously. Then he slammed the door shut and returned to the driver’s seat, stepping on the gas like he was rushing to reincarnate and speeding off.