Nightmare’s Call

The Red Weasels, who robbed and killed fourteen people in succession, were once the most notorious robbers and serial killers in Huaisha.

The lack of substantial evidence on the part of the prosecution and with someone greasing the wheel behind the scene, the brothers were eventually only sentenced to four and six years in prison respectively.

At one time, it became headline news in Huaisha when the duo was released from prison later. Back then, Lin Sheng was still small and felt it interesting when his dad, Lin Zhounian, was babbling all the time about the Red Weasel brothers.

But at his moment, he was standing on the road leading to the abandoned industrial zone, seeing for the first time the gang that he had heard since childhood.

Two men, thin and bald, wearing maroon leather jackets, looking alike except for one was tall, and the other was short, was riding a motorcycle zooming past Lin Sheng. They were not in Dongwu Tower when the killing happened, apparently. They immediately rushed back to the scene upon receiving the news, but it was a little too late.

Standing at the empty street in the middle of the night, Lin Sheng glanced around and saw only a few drunkards sitting by the roadside. Those who were sober like him would be either drug addicts or thieves. The two brothers, face hideous, sped past him at high speed and quickly disappeared from his field of vision. He retracted his gaze and hurried to the location where he buried the money.

He would never forget that he was ambushed and put on the bounty-hunting list online. That was why after Ironfist Aid Society grew stronger, he began quietly tracing the perpetrator behind the swordsmanship tournament with the help of his peer network.

Soon, the truth finally surfaced. Chen Tan, the son of the head of the gangster group in Huaisha, Chen Hang, was the man Lin Sheng was looking for. Chen Hang was also one of the bosses of the White Tarots.

Chen Tan did not even bother to hide his hands when he made the secretly move against Chen Huan’s opponents. He had done it more than once, and it happened that this time, Lin Sheng was his target.

“The head of the gangsters? This will be a little complicated. I’d better not use the money for now. At least, not locally.” Lin Sheng quickly returned to the bushes where the money was hidden and used his sword to dig up the cash wrapped in a large plastic bag and then buried the sword.

He went straight to the factory where he had held the ceremony before with the money. In the warehouse, two black backpacks were piled in a corner under a few dirty planks, looking inconspicuous and like a pile of garbage in the dark at first glance.

Lin Sheng went in, closed the door behind him before walking to the corner, and opened one of the backpacks, taking out a complete set of material for the Beckoning Ceremony. From the other backpack, he then took out a semi-transparent bottle that contained a fat silkworm-like insect. At the length of almost two knuckles, the bug was creeping in the gravel in the bottle. This was the second covenant creature that Lin Sheng had thought of. If the crow was just an experiment, then this bug was the beginning of his formal covenant.

“The queen of the flying ants. It took me some effort to order this thing.” Lin Sheng lifted the bottle looking at the queen in satisfaction. He had pondered about it for a long time before deciding on the flying ants as his second pet. He had no idea if there was anyone in Blackfeather City using insects as a covenant object. But he thought it was a good idea.

Flying ants were better than crows in that once they had formed a swarm, they would become his pervasive guards in the air as well as in the ground. The flying ants that he specifically ordered from the pet store owner were also poisonous.

He had spent well over ¥5,000, which was a significant part of his fund, to get his hand on this awesome thing. The other material was leftovers from the previous ceremony.

There was almost no loss of anything after making a covenant with the crow. So, Lin Sheng planned to reuse them for the second ceremony.

Lin Sheng skillfully arranged a ritual circle, placed the sticky paste that he had prepared in several fixed positions before taking out the queen ant and put it in the center of the array.

“Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.”

He took a few steps backward, took out a knife and disinfected it before standing solemnly in front of the ritual array. When the knife cooled down, he pointed the blade at his other hand and swiftly slit across his palm. As blood dripped down onto the Blackbloom flower in the center, Lin began to sing a strange, tongue-twister-like activation incantation. After chanting for five rounds, he stopped and dressed his wound on his palm. Then, he stepped forward and went on his knees. Only then, he discovered that the sticker paste in the array seemed to have been oxidized and look dull. It was unlike the mixture of crystal and silver powders. The gold blocks on the side were covered in a thick layer of gray as if it had turned into a different kind of bullion.

Lin Sheng looked at the queen ant in the center of the array and reach to touch it. An electric shock-like numb quickly spread from his finger and entered his body. Unlike the last time, the numbness only lasted for a brief moment before it went away.

Lin Sheng quickly settled his eyesight and stared at the queen ant on the ground.

“Move.” He commanded with his mind. But the queen ant did not move a muscle. He frowned. Using his finger, he gently poked the queen ant. Yet, it was still not moving. He decided to flip the queen ant belly up.

“Is she dead?”

While doing so, the queen did not show the slightest movement, and even her body seemed to be somewhat stiff. The same sense of body extension as he experienced with the crow did not materialize. By now, he knew that the ceremony had failed.

Getting up to his feet, Lin Sheng quickly wrapped up the plastic sheet and stuffed it into his bag. After making sure that he did not leave behind anything, he found a nearby place, wrapped all the money and buried it underground. He specifically looked for a relatively dry spot near a stone pile to avoid mold built-up. He was only hiding it temporarily. After a while, he would have to find a way to transfer it to another location.

After cleaning up the site, Lin Sheng headed out to the road nearby, hoping to get a taxi. Perhaps it was late at night, for a long time, he did not manage to stop one. He made up his mind and walked back to his house. After all, it was only a dozen kilometers, and he did not even need to walk all the way. When he reached some relatively urbanized area, he could wave down a taxi anytime.

Lin Sheng left the crow at the site where he kept his money, leaving behind some eggs and fruits as food in a basket hung high at the warehouse.

While on his way home, Lin Sheng analyzed that the cause of his failure was probably because of one of the taboos of the ceremony. He should not make a covenant with creatures whose body size were too far apart from him. In the case of ants, he was too large, and it was only natural that the ceremony failed. Now, he had wasted a lot of material. ¥100,000 worth of material could only be used twice.

Lin Sheng was frustrated. When he arrived back in the Huilian neighborhood, it was five in the morning. He told his parents that he was staying at a friend’s house; going home at this hour would seem odd. So, he decided to hang out around the area.

He bought a newspaper at a newsstand, came to a bun shop that had just opened and ordered an oversized meat bun.

I bought a newspaper in the newsstand, sat in the bun shop that opened the door, and ordered a big meat bun. The bun-soy milk combination was heavenly as one was oil and the other refreshing. Lin Sheng wolfed down four buns in total.

Xilin Daily was a national publication. Its headline for the day was ” War Breaks Out: Protracted or Infiltration? ”