Zhang Jian furrowed his brows tightly.
Across from him, Hu Huanyang slowly raised a page of the evening newspaper to cover his face, refusing to meet Zhang Jian’s gaze.
The mobile phone on the desk was still on video call mode. In the past five minutes, Zhang Jian had meticulously scrutinized the authenticity of the video call from Sheng Zhao’s side, making sure it wasn’t pre-recorded. He even asked questions like “take a picture of the second tree on the left outside the museum,” displaying a level of rigor comparable to catching a criminal across space.
However, precisely because of this, Zhang Jian felt like his worldview was collapsing.
He glanced at Sheng Zhao in the video call, then at the divination on his desk, beginning to doubt life itself.
Hu Huanyang hadn’t heard him speak for a long time. He carefully lowered the newspaper, glanced at Zhang Jian, and said weakly, “I can testify. Although our boss has a bad temper, he never stoops to lying.”
“Indeed,” Sheng Zhao on the other end of the phone nodded, joking, “My boss commits illegal acts openly and aboveboard.”
Zhang Jian remained silent, immersed in an eerie silence.
In his divination, it was clearly indicated that the source of the earthquake was in neighboring Suzhou. Even thirty seconds ago, his phone had displayed an earthquake alert. But now, Sheng Zhao was telling him that they were nowhere near Suzhou.
In comparison, what Sheng Zhao confessed earlier about “Xing Yingzhu stealing a suit of armor from the museum display case, replacing it with a high-quality fake, and even repairing the glass” is simply not worth mentioning.
“What kind of constitution does Xing Yingzhu have anyway?” Zhang Jian couldn’t accept it. “My divination has been wrong about him twice!”
Compared to Sheng Zhao and Xing Yingzhu on the phone, Hu Huanyang, who was sitting opposite Zhang Jian, obviously faced the collapse of their worldview head-on. He straightened his body slightly, put down the newspaper in his hand, and earnestly said, “I just said, believe in science. You shouldn’t rely on divination for everything; it’s not good.”
Zhang Jian looked at him almost resentfully.
Hu Huanyang paused for a moment, then quickly changed the subject, “So, what did you divine just now?”
“I divined whether the earthquake in Suzhou was related to him,” Zhang Jian said. “The divination indicated that it was.”
“It might not necessarily be wrong,” Hu Huanyang said. “Your divination can only tell whether something is related or not. The exact connection isn’t always clear. Maybe it’s because my boss passed by that place a few years ago and happened to leave something behind. Isn’t that also considered a connection? Just like this time, with the Shanghai underground river incident, in the end, your divination turned out to be correct.”
Hu Huanyang, having been a livestreamer for so many years, knew how to please people. Coupled with his natural racial advantage, when he smiled, his eyes and brows curved sincerely and gently, instantly increasing his credibility by a thousand percent.
Zhang Jian seemed to have been persuaded by him too, and his expression improved a bit.
“Wait a minute, what do you mean by ‘not wrong’?” Sheng Zhao on the phone was puzzled. He waved his hand in front of the camera, trying to get the attention of the two.
“Oh, speaking of that, we were just about to tell you,” Zhang Jian said, looking at Hu Huanyang before turning back to say, “The reason you were targeted wasn’t a coincidence; it was because of Xing Yingzhu.”
Sheng Zhao on the video call hesitated for a moment, subconsciously looking at Xing Yingzhu.
Actually, this statement wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Xing Yingzhu had mentioned before, during their escape from the Shanghai underground river, that the dragon targeted him perhaps because he had caught Xing Yingzhu’s scent.
But Sheng Zhao had always thought that this “connection” was limited to that. The dragon was clearly not as powerful as Xing Yingzhu, so it probably wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to eat him.
Xing Yingzhu, who had been waiting on the sidelines, was finally stirred by this statement. He turned to look at the phone screen. Sheng Zhao kindly moved the screen closer to him so that they both could see Zhang Jian on the other side.
“What do you mean?” Sheng Zhao asked.
Zhang Jian waved his hand outside the frame of the camera, seemingly asking Hu Huanyang for something.
After about five or six seconds, a hand reached into the frame and handed a small bundle wrapped in a handkerchief to Zhang Jian.
“Do you know about the binding dragon chains on the Shanghai dragon?” Zhang Jian asked.
Sheng Zhao nodded. He had seen a broken gold chain around the neck of the Shanghai dragon, and Xing Yingzhu had mentioned the term before, so it wasn’t unfamiliar.
However, the next moment, Sheng Zhao noticed that Zhang Jian opened the cloth bundle and took out the gold chain that should have been taken by Li Liangfu.
“That thing, where did you get it from?” Sheng Zhao asked.
“I got it from a local construction developer in Shanghai,” Zhang Jian said. “Fortunately, I arrived early, or else his life would have been in danger.”
“That’s… quite a coincidence,” Sheng Zhao thought. Next time he saw Zhang Jian, he would have to give him an extra five hundred yuan in disaster relief for Mrs. Zhao.
Xing Yingzhu, who had been listening indifferently, suddenly changed his expression after Zhang Jian took out the gold chain.
He furrowed his brows slightly, staring at the thin chain in Zhang Jian’s hand with a puzzled expression. There was a hint of confusion on his face, but the pixelation of the front-facing camera was limited, and he could only see a blurry chain. Trying to discern the details was like a fool’s errand.
Fortunately, Zhang Jian didn’t keep them in suspense. He extended his arm and waved the chain in front of the camera.
“This chain has some seals on it. I’ve checked it, and they’re similar to those of heavenly thunder and dragon-locking spells,” Zhang Jian said. “But what’s strange is that I can smell your scent on this chain.”
Zhang Jian directed the latter part of his sentence at Xing Yingzhu.
Immediately, Xing Yingzhu’s expression changed completely.
“I tried it myself; even I can draw the symbols on it, so it shouldn’t be so easy to lock a dragon for over a thousand years,” Zhang Jian said. “So I guess there must have been something else attached to this chain at some point, which allowed it to be used as a seal. Therefore, I guess the dragon might have intentionally wanted to lure you over, Xing Yingzhu. You—”
Zhang Jian hadn’t finished speaking when Xing Yingzhu snatched Sheng Zhao’s phone and said, “Give me the thing.”
“No way,” Zhang Jian flatly refused. “I still need to take this to see if it can lock the dragon again—”
Listening on the side, Sheng Zhao had almost understood the whole story by now. He suddenly realized what Xing Yingzhu was concerned about, so he quickly squeezed next to him and tried to persuade Zhang Jian together.
“Listen, if this thing might be related to my boss, then either give it back to my boss to have a look,” Sheng Zhao negotiated with him. “If the thing on top is really related to my boss, maybe my boss can help you attach some magic or give it a buff, which would make it more useful for you.”
Zhang Jian seemed to be wavering.
“Anyway, we can’t forcefully take it from you,” Sheng Zhao lied with his eyes wide open. “Just think about it; you won’t lose anything by letting us take a look.”
“Even if you say that, I can’t rush over there right now,” Zhang Jian said. “Why don’t you do me a favor, and we’ll help each other out.”
Xing Yingzhu was not the kind of person who would “exchange” with others on equal terms. This bandit-like leader of monsters impatiently furrowed his brow, about to say something unpleasant, but was promptly stopped by Sheng Zhao, who acted quickly.
He squeezed himself agilely into Xing Yingzhu’s arms, using his close-up shot to block Zhang Jian’s line of sight.
“Okay,” Sheng Zhao said, “go ahead.”
“You guys go to Suzhou for me,” Zhang Jian said. “I still need to investigate the situation of Zhang Kaisheng over here. I can’t free up my hands temporarily. After you check the earthquake in Suzhou, you can come and meet me.”
“Sure,” Sheng Zhao promised very crisply. “No problem, leave it to us, see you then!”
After he finished speaking, he hung up the phone decisively, giving Zhang Jian no time to react.
“You agreed on my behalf quite nicely,” Xing Yingzhu’s voice sounded coolly from behind Sheng Zhao’s neck.
In the past few months, Sheng Zhao had not learned any other job skills from Xing Yingzhu, but he was best at slipping away from danger and pleasing his boss. Upon hearing this, he first put on a brilliant smile, then turned slowly and sincerely said, “Isn’t it for your own good?”
Xing Yingzhu looked at him with a cold gaze, saying nothing.
Humans indeed were skilled in sophistry, twisting black and white.
But undoubtedly, Xing Boss felt much better after those two sentences. He snorted lightly, turned around, and walked towards the roadside.
Sheng Zhao breathed a sigh of relief—when Xing Yingzhuo started mocking or expressing disdain, he usually wasn’t angry.
He hurried a few steps to catch up with Xing Yingzhu, while booking tickets to Suzhou, he remembered something else.
“Boss,” he asked, “I forgot to ask earlier, whose armor did you take from the museum?”
The reason Sheng Zhao was sure it was definitely not Xing Yingzhu’s thing was because it looked like a woman’s clothing.
When Xing Yingzhu took out the armor, the tattered armor suddenly began to peel off, as if shedding a layer of broken “cocoon” from the outside, slowly falling off in Xing Yingzhu’s hands.
After seeing Midnight Terror, Sheng Zhao’s acceptance of this kind of scene had obviously improved a lot. He watched helplessly as the armor, which had no discernible appearance, in Xing Yingzhu’s hands seemed to be reborn, gradually showing the appearance of a “divine artifact”.
It was a suit of armor with extremely obvious curves, with a texture resembling silver but not silver. The chest of the entire upper body was carved with complex and unfamiliar patterns. Sheng Zhao looked at it for a long time but couldn’t figure out what it was.
“It’s a phoenix,” Xing Yingzhu explained to him at the time.
This had nothing to do with Xing Yingzhu’s race, so Sheng Zhao guessed that it could only belong to someone else. Perhaps it was Xing Yingzhu’s old friend, or someone he knew, or maybe it was an old monster’s former lover or something.
As it turned out, Sheng Zhao’s guess was quite accurate… just with a slight deviation.
“An old enemy’s,” Xing Yingzhu said coldly.
So, are you taking this to blackmail or extort them?
