The Great Worm Lich

There were more than a dozen large light bulbs on the ceiling of the basement that shone a not so bright light onto the plastic baskets that were loaded with men’s and women’s clothing —　with some baskets being empty — on the ground.

The disciples, who had just returned to the earthliness from the Three Gates of Witchcraft Life, Death and Sacrifice, walked towards the plastic baskets and pulled out clothes that fit them without caring for the conditions of the clothes, and walked behind the curtain by the wall to change their long robes into normal ordinary clothing.

“It’s so simple that it’s scary…” Zhang Lisheng muttered to himself. Still, he managed to find himself a set of sturdy denim pants and shirts in the basket and went to change behind the curtain. When he had just thrown his black robe into the empty plastic basket, a magnetic voice that was neither hurried nor slow suddenly resonated in his ears. “Senior Uncles, Junior Uncles and all brothers, please come with me. We’ll be sitting in the escorting SUVs and we still have matters to decide on the road. As for all Junior Uncles and Junior Sisters, after changing into your clothes, please use the left exit to go out and get on the bus. This matter is confidential and there’s no number on the buses. Line up properly and sit anywhere you like. You can regroup into your team after we’ve reached the destination.”

“Yes, Deacon Qin!” The instant the voice finished talking, a series of respectful replies resonated from all around. It was not only the Gate of Death’s disciples but it looked like the disciples from both Gate of Sacrifice and Life appeared to be lending heartfelt support too.

Zhang Lisheng was slightly slower than the other people but he also looked in the direction of the voice after cupping his hands and said “Yes!” He could see a composed young man, who had a height of more than 180 centimeters and as handsome as an ornamental jade, smiling at everybody. He even bowed politely, appearing to be filled with ancient customs.

This was the first time Zhang Lisheng seeing him but that person vaguely gave him a familiar feeling. The young man carefully recalled and suddenly found that the manner of speech and behavior of this man was slightly similar to that of Su Deli. however, one was a natural posture while the other one was artificially labored.

Zhang Lisheng could vaguely understand now that Su Deli’s pretentious retroflex manner of speaking was actually a blind copy that made himself look like a fool instead. It was apparent that he was narrow minded but he kept pretentiously assuming a magnanimous air. Zhang Lisheng found this to be funny and suddenly, he felt a tap on his shoulder, which was closely followed by Min Lan’s whisper by his side. “Lisheng, why are you in a daze. come on now!”

“Sister Min Lan, I’m not in a daze, I just merely found out an interesting thing.” Zhang Lisheng shook his head and followed Min Lan to walk towards the basement passage’s left door along the flow of crowds as he whispered, “Don’t you think that Deacon Qin resembles Big Boss Su a little?”

“They’re cousins so of course they resemble each other. Walk properly and stop talking nonsense!” Min Lan was stunned for a while. A smile was eager to burst out of her face but out of fear, she managed to stop it as she climbed up the stairs for several steps before pushing open a heavy wooden door to walk out of the basement.

When the primary-colored wooden door opened and shut, a loud creaking noise resonated. After Zhang Lisheng followed the girl to walk out of the door, he finally noticed that the door actually led to the backstage of a theater stage.

From the sound of it, it seemed like a Northeast Chinese theater was being played on the stage. In the midst of the noisy drumming sounds, the young man followed the girl out of the backstage and saw buses that seemed to have been worn out by the long journey parked in the yard. The buses’ doors were opened and quietly awaited the arrival of passengers.

“Remember to queue up just like what Big Boss Qin said!” Min Lan turned around and whispered to Zhang Lisheng, before queueing up in a loose yet orderly manner to get on a bus and sitting on one of the empty seats in the middle of the bus.

Zhang Lisheng, who followed behind her, sat beside her. He looked out of the car window to look at the hazy night scene and suddenly asked, “Sister Min Lan, do you know where Oasis World is? Is it far away?”

“It’s said to be at Gannan Province. It’ll take more than 10 hours of driving so just relax.” After getting on the buses, the Grand Wizards and Big Bosses were seated separately from them so Min Lan had become more relaxed.

“Driving to Gannan? Don’t tell me that the Gate has never heard of a transportation mode called ‘airplane’ in this world?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned and asked with his mouth agape.

“For the Oasis World exploration this time, our Three Gates of Witchcraft of Life, Death and Sacrifice have spared no effort and have dispatched thousands of people. Do you think we could still keep it as confidential had we chartered a few planes there? Besides, it’s very hard to maintain the Mountain Gates as well as money doesn’t come easily. Our expenses are increasing day by day so of course we’d try to save up if possible!”

Since Zhang Lisheng was not in the position, he could not imagine how difficult it was to maintain the Gate of Witchcraft so he no longer said anything but just leaned his back on his seat and shut his eyes to attain mental composure.

Not long after, he felt the bus gradually start and slowly drive out of the bustling town. It slowly sped up and began to speed on the dark road at night.

Time passed by slowly. When the sky turned bright, the bus that had already entered the highway stopped at the gas to refill its fuel before speeding in the direction of Gannan. After crossing the provincial boundary, it exited the highway and began to drive on the road that was gradually becoming narrower. In the end, it actually drove on the bumpy northwestern wilderness that was filled with flying dust everywhere.

It was midsummer, the direct sun of the wilderness caused the bus’s air-conditioning to seemingly lose its spirit, as though it was unable to stop the bus from getting hot and sultry. Adding on to the fact that the bus had become a bumper car trip, and that the yellow sand dust had managed to infiltrate the bus through the bus vents and land on the passengers’ clothes, hands, and faces, everybody could be said as getting agitated now.

However, Zhang Lisheng, who could fly a Michelin star chef to his home anytime to cook a meal for him when he was in a good mood, and who would feed the wizard gus with his blood in the jungle till his blood essence was completely dried up but still could grit down on his teeth with his veins twitching to stimulate the wizard power in his body to fight till the very end, was an exception.

When he saw that the electronic clock in front of the bus showed that it was already 4 o’clock in the afternoon, he fanned the fine sand in front of him away with his hands and casually asked Min Lan, “Sister, what if the bus suddenly breaks down in this Gannan wasteland?”

“Lisheng, why can’t you think of any other better thing? Break down? If it breaks down, then we’ll have to go by foot!” Min Lan, who was covered in dust, covered her mouth and shut her eyes as she replied weakly.

“It’s not that far even if we walk anyway.” After being silent for a while, Zhang Lisheng said as he suddenly reveled in excitement. “Sister, look! We seem to be approaching the entrance of Oasis World. So the foreign world’s gate on the land actually looks so beautiful! ”

“We’re approaching soon!” Upon hearing the young man’s words, Min Lan’s eyes widened at once as she stood up to look in front. The piece of green in the middle of the stretch of yellow in the distance entered her sight.

There was already no oasis in the Gannan desert since hundreds of years ago. The piece of oasis was getting bigger so the greenness showing the spirited vitality could only be the color shown through from the spatial gate leading to Oasis World.

As the Gate of Witchcraft’s bus convoy was getting nearer to it, the temporary military campsite covered by something resembling yellow sand had also appeared in front of the wizards.

The distance was farther away than it seemed. After more than an hour, the bus Zhang Lisheng was on went through three checkpoints and finally drove into the huge military campsite.

If you were to look at the gate of the foreign world that had a height reaching the sky and a width of several dozens of kilometers from here, you would be able to see bark grains on the towering gigantic trees that a height of more than 100 meters clearly if you had good eyesight.

After getting down from the car, thousands of wizards stood on the spacious open space in the campsite in a daze. Many officers and soldiers were walking around them but they never even glanced at their ways, as though they were all invisible.

Some of the people wearing casual clothes walking around in the various camps could see the wizards but nobody came up to talk to them. It was only until more than ten SUVs at the frontline of the motorcade arrived at the open space and the Grand Wizards and Deacons got off the cars did a fair and fat bald middle-aged man of medium height walk up to greet them with a few soldiers around him.

“Inspector Li, Inspector Wang… Chief Chen, I can see that all of you have brought your students with you. It must be a tedious journey, thanks for coming all the way. Let me introduce all of you first.” The bald middle-aged man enthusiastically shook hands with the Grand Wizards one by one and pointed at the officer beside him. “This is the campsite’s Logistic Director, Colonel Song Nanxing. Colonel Song here knows that everyone must be tired because of the long travel so he insisted on coming to greet all of you personally. The accommodations for all of you have been prepared already. Inspector Li, what do you think of this? Why don’t we let the students go rest first while the leaders of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences will continue to work for a while and meet General Wang to discuss about our next step…”

When the bald middle-aged man was talking with eloquence, without warning, an earth-shattering roar was heard coming from the other end of the foreign world’s gate, overpowering all of the voices in the military campsite.

Upon hearing this terrifying sound, even Zhang Lisheng could not help but feel his heart clench. Unknowingly, he clenched his fist but most of the ordinary people in the campsite appeared to be very calm. They did not even show any sign of slowing their footsteps.

After the roaring of the unknown monster from the foreign world stopped, the bald man smiled and comforted the panicked wizards with a chuckle. “Don’t be nervous, everybody. If you stay in the campsite, you’d have to listen to the sounds of these beasts for at least more than ten times a day. You’ll get used to it! You’ll get used to it! Speaking of it, these beasts are very smart. Most of them would just stay obediently in the huge jungle and would not enter our Earth’s desert that has an abominable environment. Well, it doesn’t matter even if they come, for the passage’s entrance is equipped with a mobile defense troop that has true high-tech weapons that are even more powerful than those Steel Warriors from the US…”

“Director Guo, let’s not continue our chat anymore. The General is still waiting.” Upon hearing the bald man going on with his chattering, the officer, who had two bars of three stars on his uniform, frowned and said. “Wang Dong, Fu Wei. Bring the guests to settle down and make sure there’s hot water supply.”

“Yes, Sir!” Several young military officers answered in a shouting manner.

When they were responding loudly to the sergeant, a tent that was 300 to 400 meters away was opened by somebody. A lanky short-haired woman wearing a pair of lightweight black-rimmed glasses on her cold face who looked as though she was in her thirties, muttered under her breath in a slightly heaving tone as she walked out of the tent, “Caiying, this is not about what you can do but about whether you’re joining or not. It’s not like you don’t understand the word ‘experience’ anyway. With the experience of carrying a field research in the Oasis World, in the future, no matter whether it’s in politics or research work, you’d be justifiably ahead of your peers. Uncle has spent a lot of time to arrange for you and your little friend to come over, and it’s not so that you can contribute a great contribution but just because it’s within his jurisdiction!”