Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 621: Chapter 7: The Torrent Chapter 621: Chapter 7: The Torrent The double-decker bus was eerily quiet as the glare of the street lamps shone through the windows, illuminating Qian Wu’s face.

The sound of the brakes and the tires rubbing against the ground was particularly harsh in the dead of night.

“Old man, it’s so late, are you working the night shift?”

The driver, seeing he was the only one on board, casually asked.

Mr. Wu didn’t say anything, just smiled kindly at him, and then got off the bus all alone.

As the bus departed again, only Mr. Wu was left standing under the bus stop sign. Before him stood a circular warehouse with two rows of roller doors in front and behind, and seven black dragon columns standing in the middle. Without realizing it, he furrowed his brow. Whether intentionally or not, this architecture was very much in line with the Feng Shui concept of “Seven Stars Anchoring the Soul,” an undeniable method of suppressing corpses.

Based on this alone, Mr. Wu made a mental note of this logistics company called “Hanlin Cold Chain.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked to the corner, looking up at the window around four meters high. Mr. Wu estimated for a moment, then took a few steps back to run up and suddenly leaped up high, grabbed the handle, and flipped himself up with the strength of his arms, climbing up with ease—an unthinkable feat for a hunched old man whose hair was almost entirely white.

What was more astonishing was that Qian Wu barely gasped for air as he reached out with his withered arm and forcibly tore open the locked window.

…

Bang!

The security door collapsed to the ground, and behind it, a cloud of dust filled the air as Li Yan stepped into the room, looking around.

This was a partition in Chen Zhengcong’s apartment, used for storing some unsightly items. There were no electric lights, just coarse candles covered with red shades, creating an eerie atmosphere. A black shrine was set up on the altar table, with a mix of lasting sandalwood scent and the smell of charring, which was a bit nauseating to smell. The room was in disorder, but it was empty.

Li Yan twitched his nose, then turned around and left.

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Mr. Wu entered the elevator and pressed the button for -2, with the bright red numbers on the screen starting to change from 3.

The cold storage of Hanlin Cold Chain was two levels underground, but the number on the elevator stopped at 1…

Mr. Wu felt his heart sink, and sure enough, the elevator doors to his left and right slowly opened.

Chen Zhengcong and Qian Wu locked eyes, both their pupils constricting sharply.

Taking advantage of the doors not yet fully open, Chen Zhengcong bolted towards the direction of the stairs. Mr. Wu rushed out of the elevator, relentlessly pursuing him.

The two of them were locked in a chase, and in the blink of an eye, a surge of cold air hit them—the door to the underground cold storage was wide open! The dampness had already spread to the outside of the cold room.

Chen Zhengcong shivered.

“Wutouzi! Wenle!”

He shouted loudly.

Mr. Wu inched closer, his eyes fixed intently on Chen Zhengcong’s face, “The tips of your eyebrows lack the slightest hint of crimson, indicating your time is near. Your lips are pale, your pupils lack vitality, and you’ve done something guilty, yet you haven’t killed anyone. Who were you just calling? Where are they? Speak!”

A golden Compass emerged underneath Mr. Wu’s feet, unlike the Mahogany Fiend, this golden Compass was brilliantly dazzling. The black and white energies surged out from around Mr. Wu, biting each other’s tails, forming a Taiji pattern.

This was an exceedingly rare auspicious deity among the Four Pillars Divine Fiend, the Taiji Noble. It is said, “Ren Gui Si Shen favor beauty, such times should usher in a blessing, even more, a noble status to lend support, and so await promotions to the highest of ranks.” The Taiji Noble is not only a prestigious life pattern but also has the ability to turn misfortune into fortune and to alter fate.

Chen Zhengcong’s eyes darted around, suddenly his face brightened with delight, “Wutouzi! Someone has found this place!”

Mr. Wu instinctively turned his head, seeing no one behind him he realized he was tricked, but when he turned back, a dark package was already crashing towards him. For some reason, Chen Zhengcong’s aim was off, and the package hit the cabinet beside Mr. Wu, causing a shower of shining Hong Kong dollars to scatter on the floor.

Chen Zhengcong was evidently very familiar with the layout here, he quickly disappeared without a trace, leaving Mr. Wu unable to follow. With no other option, Mr. Wu wandered around the several thousand-meter cold storage, where the metal shelves were piled with all sorts of cardboard boxes and white ice blocks large and small. Suddenly, a ghostly pale hand swept past Mr. Wu’s eyes. Fearing his eyes were playing tricks on him, he turned back to look closely and indeed, there was a hand protruding from the ice.

“This…”
Mr. Wu looked around and was horrified to discover that the ice blocks around him were filled with naked corpses. Faint shapes and shadows suggested there were at least a hundred bodies. What horrified him even more was that under the stimulation of the auspicious deity “Taiji Noble,” dark compass lines were faintly discernible beneath these corpses’ feet.

The characters of the earthly branches and celestial stems overlapped with each other, as if the malevolence was about to burst through the ground.

“Hanging Sword, Yin Yang, Gou Dragon…”

When people die, their destiny ends, but the owner of this cold storage used the technique of Seven Stars Life Fixing to hold these corpses’ malevolent spirits in place, preserving them in ice for his own use, an act of utter insanity.

…

The rolling clouds covered the moon, and Li Yan raised his head to see the “Hanlin Cold Chain” sign dim and indiscernible.

…

Chen Zhengcong was leaning against the wall; he had found a hammer from somewhere and was peering uneasily at Qian Wu.

“Old man, I don’t know who you are, but in the end, we’re all in the same line of work. There’s no reason for us to slaughter each other. Let’s sit down and talk this over slowly,” he said.

Mr. Wu shook his head, “Just because of the bodies in the cold storage, once it gets out, it would be an earth-shattering case. You and your accomplices will not let me go.”

He took a step forward and Chen Zhengcong instinctively raised the hammer. Mr. Wu let out a light laugh, “You say you and I are in the same line of work, so why don’t you use your own birth data and the time you left to calculate, can you escape this disaster?”

Chen Zhengcong swallowed hard, mumbling something under his breath, his face growing whiter as he spoke.

Mr. Wu sighed, “It is said that gold decays, wood perishes, earth fears nourishment, water afllicts, and fire dies prematurely. You are a Geng Metal Day Master, facing calamity in Xu. It’s almost nine o’clock, Xu hour is about to end, I think it will be difficult for you to get through this.”

“Go to hell,” Chen Zhengcong cursed and suddenly swung the hammer down onto an ice block at his feet. The ice was not very hard, and it shattered instantly to reveal a black stone statue of indeterminate name, two heads, four arms, standing on a human head, terrifying and sinister.

Chen Zhengcong lifted the grotesque stone statue overhead and suddenly the entire cold storage’s malevolent energies spun like a vortex, converging onto the statue. In just a few seconds, the statue, which had been rigid and lifeless, suddenly took on a flesh-and-blood texture.

“This! You’re with Jiang Sihai?!”

Qian Wu displayed a look of disbelief, but his reaction was anything but slow, as a golden compass had already formed beneath his feet.

Li Yan’s footsteps splashed into the cold storage’s water, creating a slapping sound that alerted the two tense men. Mr. Wu and Chen Zhengcong turned their heads at the same time.

Li Yan’s nose twitched for a moment, his sharp gaze piercing Chen Zhengcong.

Mr. Wu’s vision blurred as a thick, pasty stench of blood rushed up his nostrils. An endless spurt of blood from the headless corpse’s neck painted the ceiling as it spun in place holding up the stone statue. Liberally sprinkled blood rain, crushed bone, and flesh littered the floor, and blood slid off Li Yan’s hand, leaving no trace.

The headless corpse fell to the floor, and Li Yan walked straight out of the cold storage, disappearing within two steps.

“Wait!”

Qian Wu wanted to follow, but once he reached the staircase, he could no longer find any sign of Li Yan.

Mr. Wu had a few specks of blood on him. He turned back in disbelief; Chen Zhengcong’s headless body lay in a pool of blood, everything so surreal.

A drop of blood slid from the ceiling, landing on his chest.

“…”
Having spent half his life accustomed to the ways of the world, Qian Wu still felt dizzy and disoriented. The bloody, icy, and fierce events of just moments ago, like raging waves in a vast sea, continued to churn endlessly in his mind.