The Great Worm Lich

Sensing that he had captured the young man in front of him using a spell, the old man smiled smugly. Then, to his surprise, he saw that the skinny young man was smiling as well, before reaching out a hand to grab the old man’s hand suddenly. “So you’re also practicing witchcraft? I’ve read this before in ‘The Tale of Mt. Man’. You’re using a Mind Controlling Spell’ right?”

“What a good eye you have, young man…” The old man pointed a thumbs up calmly with a smile before his right arm trembled. Then the hand was suddenly shrunk with all his might. Unfortunately, Zhang Lisheng’s fingers were still gripping onto his arm tightly like an iron claw. “Uncle, I was born in the field, so you could call me a veteran. I can’t tolerate even a single small problem and the way you treat me like this for no reason…”

“Don’t use force, don’t use force! This is a new suit. it’s a freaking new suit that costs tens of thousands of dollars. Since we’re from the same sect of witchcraft, I was at the wrong for not recognizing that and cast a spell on you. However, I really meant no malicious intent to you. I just… I just want to find you so we could make a fortune together. You have already gone so far away from the homeland to earn money at such a young age. Isn’t it for the sake of making a fortune as well? You’ll regret it if you miss this opportunity!”

Zhang Lisheng looked at the old man, who was also a wizard, as he gripped his hand. He was astounded at how he did not fear for his own safety but worry about the suit he was wearing instead. He could not help but be astonished over this. When he looked at the old man wearing the suit once again from top to bottom, he immediately thought he looked like a monkey. He asked, “What kind of opportunity are you referring to?”

“Let go of my hand if you want to know.” Upon hearing the young man asking him, the old man’s expression changed as his spirit heightened.

It was beyond Zhang Lisheng’s imagination that the second person practicing witchcraft whom he met would actually turn out to have such a personality. In comparison, the Mountain Cat who liked to control a person’s life in his hand, toying and torturing his enemy before killing them like a cat toying with a mouse, appeared to be more like an ordinary wizard.

Prompted by his curiosity, Zhang Lisheng pondered over it for a moment before releasing the old man. “Tell me then, uncle!”

“Young people do indeed have a lack of patience. We’re all practicing witchcraft anyway, and we would soon be extinct after those reclusive purebloods killed us already. Now that I’m finally able to show myself publicly, why would I want to harm you for no reason? I don’t have any enmity with you anyway. You don’t even have the word ‘wizard’ carved on your forehead…” The old man grumbled a little, rubbing his wrist. When he saw that the skinny young man had somehow frowned thanks to his words, he quickly lowered his volume and pretended to act mysterious. “This matter about this opportunity of obtaining fortune is very serious, we cannot talk about it in public. Let’s look for a restaurant or a pub to talk about it while we eat…”

“This is South Africa and there are not many people who know Chinese here. Let’s just talk about it right here, Uncle.” Zhang Lisheng smiled and rejected the old man’s suggestion.

“Sure sure!” A person could not win against current circumstances. When the old man saw that he could not defeat nor scare the young man, he said helplessly, “The reason I came to South Africa this time was because I was hired by the China National Mining Corporation and was placed here as an environmental specialist. I should have a helper by right and actually, it should have been my son who would help me, but who could possibly know that he would suddenly suffer from dysentery at the very last minute. He couldn’t come to Africa in the end. When I saw you practicing your martial arts on the street with that good posture of yours, I couldn’t help but be moved by you instead.”

“You? An environmental specialist?” Dumbfounded, Zhang Lisheng sized the old man from top to bottom.

The old man chuckled dryly in response. “Boy, don’t look down on me. I’ve worked as an exorcist, a grave transporter, and as a feng shui master before for several decades in Gansu. Why can’t I become an environmental specialist? Not only that, this time our country even sent us thousands of miles away to Africa to become not just an ordinary environmental specialist, but to explore strange incidents. We were also sent here to exert great efforts and to make great contributions as well.”

When the old man added his last sentence suavely, a hint of joy appeared in his eyes that kept darting around in all directions. Putting up an enigmatic look, he no longer hid anything from Lisheng.

“How will you exert great efforts and make great contributions? Tell me properly, you old man!” When he could tell that the old man was trying to sing him along at the most critical part, the young man asked slowly.

“Old Man Xu, can you please not go beyond your bounds? To think that you can actually go missing early in the morning! I had to search for you and Mike for more than an hour, you know!” Suddenly, a frustrated shout that had a hint of pleasant surprise in it resonated in the distance, cutting off Zhang Lisheng’s questioning.

Then, a Chinese man who looked young, innocent, fair, and fine ran all the way from the distance before grabbing the old man’s arm. “If you continue to act without following the team and continue being undisciplined, I really will ask the leader to ground you. Come on, you’re so old already, and it’s not that nice for me to give you a lecture for too long, but you really have to be more sensible… Who is he? Old Man Xu, do you know him?”

His attention was on the old man before the young man grabbed his attention. However, after he had grabbed the old man and grumbled a little to vent out the frustration in his heart, he suddenly noticed the young man dressed as a Johannesburg local standing beside the old man. He then realized that the man was actually Chinese. Not only that, from the spirit of vigor he purposely emitted, he could thrall that this person was not an ordinary citizen. Cautiously, he asked.

“Relax, Team Leader Cui, relax! It’s really a fateful day today! I was strolling around on the street, and I just so happen to come across my junior nephew who has wandered to Africa to work here. I was just trying to persuade him to work harder for our country…” Upon hearing his companion’s question, to Zhang Lisheng’s surprise, the old man secretly winked at him and showed an expression of “Just follow my lead!” before replying slowly.

“Old Man Xu, y-you really are crazy! Going to the supernatural realm is the nation’s top secret, so how can you simply go around recruiting people like this? What right do you have?” Just one sentence of reply from the old man was enough to make the young man erupt like a gun that had been lit. His face flushed right away as he snapped in a low whisper while gritting his teeth.

He could no longer suppress the anger boiling in his body, and the skin on the surface of his body began to turn from yellow to silverfish grey.

“Team Leader Cui, w-what are you doing? Hurry up and retrieve your Golden Bull Gu! If somebody saw you having evil intentions, you’d ruin our plan!” When the old man saw the young man display the strange phenomenon, a hint of intense jealousy and envy appeared in his eyes. However, his mouth interrupted innocently in a small tone instead. “I was merely telling my junior nephew that I’ve encountered a stroke of good luck in my old age and was hired by the China National Mining Corporation to become a specialist in South Africa. I told him to not work for those charcoal monkeys anymore and just help me do some chores so he can become labor for our country too. I was intending to persuade him to bring him into our group and tell Captain Hu about the situation. As for whether we should recruit or dismiss him, it would be up to the Captain to decide for it. Now, you suddenly spilled the story out indiscriminately like that so look, he originally did not know anything at all. Now that you’ve meddled in…”

No matter how capable the young man was, he was still no match to the sly and slick old man who had had many years of experience. Just a few sentences and the situation was reversed, making him speechless. His face turned from silverish grey to red out of embarrassment, before turning grave again. “E-Er? I-It has become my fault now?”

“Team Leader Cui, actually, if I think about it carefully, I can’t blame this on you. I’m also partly to be blamed for since I really shouldn’t have carelessly recruited anybody into the team for such an important mission. However, I’m a spellcaster and when I’m casting a spell, I’d become weak and prone to danger, so I need special protection from a bodyguard. As a result, you guys did give me a bodyguard and even said he’s a martial arts coach of the Provincial Armed Police Corps, but the thing is, he can’t even defeat an old man like me! He only knows how to smash bricks! Is smashing bricks useful when it comes to dealing with a dangerous scenario? I have no choice but to find an alternative myself…”

“Stop, I understand it already, Old Man Xu. Since things have already developed to such a stage, we have no choice but to allow your junior nephew to enter the team.” The young man saw that as bygones, fewer people were left in the park and the gathering of the three Chinese people right there became more and more conspicuous instead. Holding back his anger, he whispered, “Let me talk to the Captain about this but if you leave the team and wander all by yourself again in the future, I’ll… I’ll definitely…”

“Don’t worry, Team Leader Cui. As long as you can let my junior nephew in the same team with me and allow him to give me some protection over my feeble life, I promise I’ll strictly abide by the law of the team and never wander about for no reason to look at those African landscapes in the future.”

“It better be so. Let’s go back to the hotel first.” When the young man heard the old man’s assurance, his expression returned to normal, and his eyes became less grave. However, when he took a stride forward, he noticed that Zhang Lisheng was deep in his thoughts and was rooted in the same place like a statue.

In the face of this teenager who looked much younger than himself, the young Chinese man who was still angry was not as polite as he was when he was facing with the old man as he pointed out, “I said that we’ll go back to the hotel first, didn’t you hear me?”

“This elder brother, you have been talking to Uncle Xu all by yourselves, but none of you have ever asked whether I agree or not, whether I’m willing to enter your team or not!”

The young man was stunned. Carefully studying Zhang Lisheng, he put on a false smile. “You came out working before you’ve even graduated from your high school degree, right? You’re a Chinese descendant but judging from the ugly clothes you’re wearing right now, you must be a marginalized rebel who thinks you have already known a lot of things so you look down on everybody, right?”

“Team Leader Cui, please don’t say so. I don’t know how he is with the mainstream things, but he’s indeed good in martial arts. His temper is quite violent, so please let me talk some sense into him.” Secretly taking pleasure in other people’s misfortune, the old man muttered by the side.

“Even if his martial art skill is good, how can he possibly win against omniscient powers?” The young man smiled and reached out a hand to grab Zhang Lisheng’s shoulder. “Follow me obediently and let’s not destroy this relationship we have. You still have to…”

In the face of the attack, Zhang Lisheng merely took a small step backward with a blank expression, before stamping on the ground and leaped up seven to eight centimeters from the ground. Accumulating a small amount of strength in his right arm, he threw out a punch.

It did not make any whistling wind sound nor an oppressive strong feeling, but the old man in the vicinity suddenly had a change of expression. Hastily stepping forward, his palm stretched out towards Zhang Lisheng’s punch as though it was boneless. “Boy! Why would you act so merciless when it’s merely a clash of opinion?”

Seeing the old man helping to stop it, the young man with the surname Cui also vigilantly cast a strange spell, and the surface of his skin gleamed with silverish grey.

When Zhang Lisheng saw that the timing of his attack had already passed, with no intention of transforming on the streets nor getting on the news for turning into a monster that attacked the city, he waved his arm and retrieved his fist. Right now, a sharp burst of exploding air suddenly resonated in the surrounding air.

Then, the teenager smiled. “Elder brother, you won’t be able to stop me if I want to leave. It’s better to not destroy this harmonious relationship of ours.”