Ch14 - Like hell you fool, find it yourself

Judging by how things progressed in these last ten minutes, Qi Chen thought that the matter would go smoothly once they reached Qian Yang. But obviously, he still thought too lightly. 

As soon as they entered the boundary of Qian Yang, Long Ya found a convenient place to park. He made the old lady point out a general direction, hoping to expend less effort once they started searching.  

But the last time the old lady came out of the jade bracelet must’ve been decades ago. Of all times, these few decades saw the fastest development and had already developed into a county-level city. Previously, even if she couldn’t recognize it, she could at least feel out a general direction when she came. This time, as she faced the tall buildings in the same big city, she couldn’t find North at all. 

She was like a broken pointer, turning around cluelessly. Her small wizened body flickered among the tall buildings, so frail she was somewhat pitiable. 

“Its, it’s that forest, based on that barren hill. That hill is short, collapsing year after year. There’s no road on one side and it is somewhat steep. It’s easy to roll down it. The forest is just under it…….” She looked towards the shadow of the tall buildings at a loss, explaining in a mumble. As she finished speaking, she turned back to look at Long Ya’s expression and understood that her explanation was likely of no use. 

Qi Chen’s limbs had just regained some feeling but there was still no strength in them so he didn’t follow them out of the car. Rather he sat in the passenger seat, holding the knife child like a cushion, peering outside.  

He couldn’t hear the old lady’s words yet he saw her shoulders suddenly collapse, becoming dispirited after gesticulating for two seconds. It was like candlelight being extinguished with a puff after being lit with great difficulty. 

The corners of Long Ya’s mouth twitched and he no longer hoped to get more information out of the old lady. 

“Come on, get in the car.” This time, he didn’t unceremoniously throw the old lady into the car but bit his tongue and waited patiently for her to tremble and shrink into the car before slamming the door.

As soon as he got into the driver’s seat, he jerked his chin, motioning for Qi Chen to dial Director Dong’s number for him. 

“You’re shaking like you have Parkinson’s.” He put on his seatbelt while looking at Qi Chen’s trembling fingers like he had a sore tooth. He punched in the wrong number several times before dialing the correct number. 

As soon as Director Dong picked up the phone, he asked weakly: “Zuzong, what is it now?” 

“Hey.” Long Ya shamelessly responded: “Help me find someone.” 

Upon hearing this request, Director Dong seemed to heave a sigh of relief. His voice was no longer so weak and said evenly: “Oh, finding someone? Finding someone is easy. Wait, let me connect to the system — — alright, tell me, who do you want to find?”  

Long Ya: “A skeleton more than four hundred years ago in a forest on some barren hill at Yao Zhou Mansion in Qian Yang County.” 

Director Dong: “…….” 

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.

Qi Chen silently closed his eyes, feeling crushed for Director Dong. 

Obcu jvvfv joafg rbwf atbeuta: “Yt atja’r gluta. Ktja yjggfc tlii lrc’a ajii. Ktfgf’r cb gbjv bc bcf rlvf, qgbyjyis mbiijqrfv yfmjerf bo atf gjlc bg rbwfatlcu.”  

Lbk mbwf remt j reybgvlcjaf kjrc’a raeoofv lcab j rjmx jcv yfjafc ab vfjat……. Hl Jtfc atbeuta.

Qtb xcfk atf rlifca Glgfmabg Gbcu kbeiv revvfcis bqfc tlr wbeat: “Mbeg tecvgfv sfjgr jub….. Hljc Tjcu Jbecas tjv olnf remt obgfrar jcv yjggfc tliir. Ycf lr lc atf cbgat, bcf lr cbgat-fjra, akb jgf vef kfra jcv jcbatfg lr cfjg atf rbeat. Cr obg ktfgf la mbggfrqbcvr ab cbk —— tw, ifa wf rff…… Pa mbggfrqbcvr ab Lbe Djl, Obcu Lej, Hljc Wl jcv Xeb Itejcu atfrf ofk qijmfr cbk.” 

The corners of Qi Chen’s lips twitched: “This can even be found? What kind of godlike system is this?” 

Yet Long Ya complained as if asking to be beat: “So many?! Narrow the scope down.”  

Director Dong probably rarely had such an opportunity to choke him and said all smiles: “Like hell, you fool, do it yourself.” Then proceeded to hang up without hesitation.

Long Ya: “……” 

Qi Chen found his humiliated appearance amusing and didn’t mind watching him for two more seconds. However, he’d been running on an empty stomach. If they continued to dawdle it might start to protest soon. Thus he raised his somewhat disobedient hand, opening the map on the phone with shaking fingers and pointing out the four places Director Dong mentioned to Long Ya. 

Long Ya glanced at it with a frown. He originally wanted to tell Qi Chen to show it to the old lady in the back seat for her to identify but then he also felt the old lady probably wasn’t even as reliable as a soft-shelled turtle. Thus he said to Qi Chen: “Can’t avoid making a trip. You randomly pick a place. Just close your eyes and pick based on intuition.” 

Qi Chen looked at him with an expression of disbelief: “Executive Leader Long, you can’t find it and want me to play the fool?” 

Long Ya sneered: “Your awareness is pretty good ah.” 

“…..” Qi Chen really wanted to glare at him but resisted again. With the mindset of ‘probably going to go hungry the whole night’, he stretched out his finger despairingly, wanting to randomly poke a spot on the map.

But just as the finger was about to land on “Hou Bai” these two words, he hesitated and ultimately moved his finger to “Guo Zhuang”.  

As soon as Qi Chen’s finger touched the screen, Long Ya glanced at it and simply stepped on the gas without another word, making a beeline for Guo Zhuang. It was as if the destination wasn’t chosen randomly and he knew with certainty that was where the skeleton was. 

Qian Yang was only a county-level city so its boundaries weren’t large. Long Ya drove the car in the same manner as flying an airplane. They arrived at Guo Zhuang after only half an hour of driving. 

It was located towards Qian Yang’s west. Compared to the center, it appeared a bit more desolate, the tall buildings weren’t as crowded together. The roads were also clean. You could hear the sound of construction at some faraway construction site. 

It was obvious that Guo Zhuang was a tiny place. It was somewhat inconvenient to find a forest in the whole of Qian Yang County yet in Guo Zhuang, just plowing through it once would be enough. It was even easier to find a forest near a hill.  

Qi Chen thought that according to Long Ya’s character, he would definitely be bound straight for Guo Zhuang’s outskirts. Who know that when he entered Guo Zhuang, he jerked his chin at Qi Chen again: “Come on, feel around.” 

Caught by surprise and once again forced to play the fool, Qi Chen was too lazy to even glare. He straightforwardly pointed towards the direction of the clanging sounds with dark eyes: “Let’s start searching from there.” 

Before he finished speaking, Long Ya simply turned the car in the direction that was pointed at. 

After driving for a little while, they saw undeveloped land by the road surrounded by work sheds. From the entrance, you could see they’d built some simple scaffolding. Under bright beacons of light, construction machinery was messily parked everywhere. A dozen or so workers were either squatting or standing and were currently surrounding a section. It was unknown what they were discussing.  

They were obviously rushing towards barren hills and forests yet the instant Qi Chen saw this construction site, he subconsciously patted Long Ya. 

And Long Ya actually didn’t explode due to being disturbed which was rare. He slowed the car down with a relatively good temper, looking outside the window while asking Qi Chen: “What are you patting me for?”

In actuality, Qi Chen himself didn’t know why he suddenly patted Long Ya. He was stupefied by the question, laughing dryly and simply pulling out a reason: “Uh….. I just thought there was alot of people on the construction site. Maybe they know if there’s the kind of barren hill you mentioned around here. Let’s go in and ask. It’ll save us wandering around randomly.”

Long Ya looked at him with a raised brow, obediently parking the car by the road. Then he knocked on Qi Chen’s kneecap as if bored, making his right kneecap flinch reflexively.  

Qi Chen: “……” How old are you Executive Leader Long!

Long Ya said self-assuredly: “I’m just testing if you can move. If you continue to tremble like a paraplegic here, it might be easier to report a work injury for you when we return.” As he spoke, he knocked on Qi Chen’s other leg. Only then did he retract his hand and exit the car.

After being annoyed by him, he didn’t know if it was because of a psychological effect or what but he actually felt a lot of strength had returned to his limbs. Standing and walking around also wasn’t a problem. Thus he opened the door, got out of the car, and followed behind Long Ya while carrying the soft knife child.

The old lady didn’t know how to open the car door and on top of that, her whole body had already lost its corporeal form. She simply directly passed through the car door and hurriedly caught up. 

Just as Qi Chen was about to go through the entrance to the construction site, his footsteps paused. He stretched out his hand and tugged on Long Ya’s sleeve. He lowered his head to look at the knife child acting dead in his embrace, then glanced at the currently floating old lady and said: “I almost forgot. It’s not quite appropriate for us to go in like this…..” 

Long Ya was originally walking in front with large strides. Being tugged like this, his footsteps stopped and he turned to glare at him: “What’s inappropriate about it? It’s not like they can see. Don’t drag your feet, are you going in or not?” 

Ah? 

Hearing this, Qi Chen felt that something didn’t seem right. But he didn’t have time to react before Long Ya dragged him forward by the wrist.  

As soon as they entered the work shed, the old lady that was originally following them with her head lowered, suddenly lifted her head as if struck by lightning. 

Her originally drooping shoulders and back suddenly stretched taut, standing stiffly in the middle of the road. 

“What ——–” Qi Chen lowered his voice and was about to ask her before he heard the group of people a short distance away. Someone threw down a metal tool with a crash and yelled: “Fuck! Isn’t this the pile of bones that was dug up yesterday?! It was obviously put away. Why is it still here?! Which idiot buried this thing back here to scare people?! Too fucking bored?!” 

With this uproar, everyone involved began to curse all at once, conveniently claiming their innocence: “It wasn’t me! I certainly don’t have the guts to mess with the bones of a dead person!”  

The clamor had not subsided when another somewhat sharp voice interrupted: “That’s not right! You guys dug it up yesterday? I didn’t work yesterday. I was here the day before yesterday. I remember the day before yesterday, Old Zhao’s group said they dug out a pile of shattered bones. They bundled it up and buried it in a hole they dug at the top of the mountain! And also didn’t they say the bones were abnormal? It couldn’t be completely gathered no matter what. You pick up one pile and another pile drops?”

“WTF don’t scare people ah. The night is quite chilly…..” 

“Who’s scaring you huh. Not to mention I also didn’t really believe it when I heard it. Now, looking at this pile of bones I’m also a little scared….. didn’t Old Zhao fall ill yesterday and didn’t come?” 

“Like hell! Luckily you brought the handle. What’s there to be afraid of with so many people? Get a cloth to gather it, each person will carry a bit. I don’t believe carrying a few bones with our large hands will cause them to drop! Come come come, pile it on top with this cloth. We’ll gather it later and find a place to bury it. Tomorrow we’ll ask someone to come deal with it….. don’t shake your hands! Is this your first time digging up bones? This was originally a barren hill. Digging up this kind of thing isn’t rare. Hurry up!” 

As soon as this mixture of dialogue entered his ears, Qi Chen felt that they probably found the right place by accident! 

He was about to speak when he felt a gust of wind whoosh past his ear. Under the glow of the sunset, the old lady that always seemed to lack vitality as if she might disappear the next second suddenly threw herself at that group of people with what seemed like a final burst of energy, yelling hoarsely: “Don’t touch him!” 

What little strength was accumulated in that small figure exploded in that instant. The speed was so fast Qi Chen couldn’t react. He could only watch, dumbstruck as she dove into the group of people with a body surrounded by thick dark resentment as if she was about to go insane.

Translator’s Corner 

Fisho says: Let us light candles for Qi Chen and Director Dong’s suffering at the hands of Long Ya 

Lazy Panda says: Poor Qi Chen he is literally flying by the seat of his pants and no one has really explained things to him and he literally just found out about ghosts, knives becoming human, and little knife baby.