The Great Worm Lich

To a front desk waitress in a famous restaurant in the cosmopolitan city of New York, it was a basic skill to recognize a personage. The owner of the largest meat supplier, LS Group, and Tina, Trish and Sheila, the three famous Manhattan women would of course be among the people who must be memorized.

For this reason, when the young man entered the door, the OP-07 restaurant’s waitress, who usually had a stoic expression, immediately put on a sweet smile as she greeted euphemistically, “Good afternoon, Mr. Zhang. Miss Tina is also in the restaurant. You are…”

“Yeah, we’re still a couple. I’m here to see her.” Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a reason before catching what was implied by the waitress. Blurting out into a chuckle, he answered.

“Of course, you’re the most outstanding couple in New York. Please follow me,” the waitress replied and led the young man to the three girls sitting on the sofa by the window, looking at the rain outside the window, passing time by having some coffee and dessert.

“Hey baby, you’re here!” When Zhang Lisheng approached them, as though she had some sort of premonition, Tina suddenly turned her head. A pleasant smile appeared on her face as she stood up to hug the young man and kissed him on his lips.

After a long while, the girl released her arms and pulled her boyfriend to sit down with her. Sheila, sitting opposite, ridiculed them right away. “Hey, dear Lisheng! Long time no see! Can you still talk? Your saliva didn’t get sucked up dried by our vampire queen right?”

“Hi Sheila.” As though not hearing Sheila’s bout of ridicule, he shrugged at her and shifted his eyes towards Trish, repeating his words dryly. “Hi Trish. Long time no see.”

“Hello, Lisheng. How have you been recently?” Trish, on the other hand, smiled naturally. “Is there anything interesting?”

“There was nothing interesting in these past three months, but many cruel things have happened instead,” Zhang Lisheng shrugged and casually replied before picking up the menu. He then said to the waiter beside him, “Please give me a French roast goose, a slightly scorched Wagyu beef sirloin set meal, a grilled lobster set and half a dozen of iced Coke. Thank you very much.”

“Please wait for a while, Mr. Zhang!” The young waiter, who wore a white shirt, black trousers, and a bow tie, did not seem to notice the young man’s shocking appetite and his strange taste. He merely bowed slightly and turned away.

“What cruel things have you done, Lisheng?” When Sheila saw that the waiter had left, he immediately lowered her voice and asked excitedly.

“What I did is not important to you girls. What’s more important is how are your mental states. So, how is it girls?” Zhang Lisheng opened his hand and asked instead. “Just now, Tina has mentioned in the phone that the three of you often have nightmares.”

“What’s so great about having nightmares? I’ve had a whole month of nightmares when I twisted the head of a barbie doll for the first time ever in my life. I was only eight at that time,” Sheila answered, in a tone seemingly unconcerned.

“Well when I heard you say so, I can tell that your mental state is really not that good, Sheila,” Zhang Lisheng looked at the sexy, beautiful, and plump girl in front of her. The instant his words left his mouth, Trish suddenly chimed in, “Lisheng, after you left Boston, the Harvard Stadium’s incident did slowly ferment and brought many troubles to us, but we can overcome it ourselves. Don’t try to be our psychiatrist. I admit that you are very good, or heck, very outstanding, but when it comes to psychological maturity, you’re still a boy.”

“Me…a boy…” Zhang Lisheng had a disbelieving expression on his face. “Trish, I have millions of believers. I’ve forced the foreign world’s God that invaded Earth to retreat… Even if I don’t mention all these, I’m still a factory owner who has earned billions of dollars in a few years from scratch. I’m also a biologist who has achieved great scientific research results. Ha! I dare say, except for you, no second person in the world will say such ridiculous words.”

“Lisheng, I’m not trying to laugh at you. George Washington formed the United States of America, but the nightgown that he slept in before he died was still embroidered with small brown bears; Winston Churchill defeated Germany in World War II and saved more than half of the world but when he had a cold and his housekeeper secretly took away his cigarette, he was so mad that he took off his shoes at the negotiating table and hit it on the wooden bench. A true man with great results would tend to be a bit less mature in private. As for whether you’re this type of man or not, well…you can get the answer yourself from Tina and Sheila’s expressions,” Trish said with a smile.

The young man was stunned. He quickly turned to look at the girlfriend beside him. Tina, who was wearing an agreeing expression, did not realize what was going on at first. Immediately, he evaded her boyfriend’s gaze subconsciously and Sheila, who was sitting opposite him, burst out laughing without restraint right away.

Zhang Lisheng opened his mouth amidst the laughter but no words came out. At this time, several waiters in the restaurant sent the meals Lisheng ordered. Seizing the opportunity while they were setting the table, Tina quietly sent a glance at Trish. After the waiters left, she said, “Trish is just joking, baby. We all know that you’re a mature and wise man.”

“Really?” Zhang Lisheng opened the can of Coke with a ‘pop’ and said with a cold face, “You didn’t seem to think that just now.”

“Of course it’s true,” Tina leaned her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder and said softly. “The reason I had such an expression on just now was because I was touched by your thoughtfulness. Baby, Trish, Sheila and I are mature women so we hope that it’ll be enough for you to let us know that you care about us. As for psychological problems, we know how to settle this ourselves.”

“Oh Tina, is this ‘we hope that it’ll be enough for you to let us know that you care about us’ sentence a riddle? I never knew that you actually have such talent in eloquent talking,” Zhang Lisheng sipped his iced Coke and ate his delicious steak before shrugging his shoulders. “But it doesn’t matter. Since the three of you want to solve your psychological problems yourselves, I will of course respect your opinions. All I wanna tell you guys is that I really care about the three of you.”

“Oh baby, I love you!” Tina had a touched expression on and extended her head to kiss Zhang Lisheng’s greasy lips, not finding it disgusting.

Between the two girls sitting in front, Trish imperceptibly clenched her fists to calm her turmoiled feelings down before putting on a calm pretense and saying, “You’re really a heartwarming and good friend, Lisheng.”

Sheila, on the other hand, stood up and kissed the young man’s cheek and said loudly, “Be careful, you cool little fella. If you continue to be so nice next time, I’m gonna kiss you on the lips, you know!”

Zhang Lisheng frowned awkwardly but did not say anything. At this time, Sheila added again, “You haven’t told us what kind of cruel things you have done these past few months, Lisheng! I believe it must be very exciting.”

“You’re already provoked that you’re going crazy soon! Isn’t that enough?” The young man looked at Sheila and grinned. He forked two pieces of slightly scorched prawn and placed it into his mouth as he said, “I have to start from the very beginning. After I returned to Shrimp B1 Island three months ago, the native headman who helps me manage the tribe has caught a group of mainlanders who have encountered a shipwreck…”

Just like that, Zhang Lisheng proceeded to tell the detailed story of how he pretended to blend in together with the shipwreck victims; how he made a sneak attack on the mainland’s rich merchant fleet; how he got into Venis City; how he became a merchant in the city and secretly kidnapped several senior navigators and their families back to Wizard Li Island. In the end, he added proudly, “Because of the threats on their family, those navigators could only choose to obey me and after more than a month, I’ll be able to travel to other islands in the Hellfire Archipelago.”

Upon hearing the various means used by Zhang Lisheng to obtain his purpose, even though the three girls already knew that he was always cruel, they still could not help but feel chills run down their spines as they were rendered speechless for a while.

After a long moment of silence, Trish whispered, “God bless you. It’s indeed good that you can start conquering the Hellfire Archipelago…b-but don’t you think it’s a little overboard telling those natives to eat those shipwreck victims just to make them break down m-mentally…”

“Overboard? Trish, well, I was indeed a little overboard.” Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a while before putting down the table knife, lowering his head and saying indifferently, “But when the Colossal World, the Colossal World… When 1000 worlds open up on Earth, we don’t know how many brutal, terrifying, bloodcurdling existences will appear before us. In order to always become the person who gives orders to other people to eat humans, rather than the pitiful person who has to watch myself or those who I care about being eaten by others; In order to always become the person who force other people to obey me, rather than the unlucky bastard who is forced to obey other people, I’m willing to do anything!”

The instant the young man’s words left his mouth, Trish was rendered speechless. After a while, she suddenly apologized, “I’m sorry, Lisheng. Other people can say that you’ve crossed the line but me, who has been saved many times by you with you risking your life out there…I don’t have the right to blame you. I know you’re doing this not for yourself…”

“It’s alright, Trish. You don’t have to apologize. I’m already used to taking responsibility for my own actions anyway so I rarely take the blame I get from other people to heart,” Zhang Lisheng raised his head and smiled, interrupting the girl’s words. “Alright, I’ve already told you guys what have I done in these over 90 days so it’s your turn to tell me anything special that has happened on this planet during the same period of time.”

“Baby, the Earth could be said as very calm in these past three months. The only thing that can be called as special is the ‘Noah Project’,” Tina pondered and replied.

“The Noah Project?” Zhang Lisheng was surprised. “This is really f*cked up. Aren’t they afraid of causing panic, giving the plan a name like this?”

“Baby, the Noah Project is a plan to attract the US citizens to move to the Noah World. I think the government wants to elicit a suitable amount of fear and panic so that more people will join this large-scale immigration plan.”

“The immigration plan organized by the government?” Zhang Lisheng’s eyes went wide. “Didn’t these politicians suffer enough losses from Shrimp World No. 2? Not mentioning Shrimp World No. 1 too! The invasion carried out by the US troops right there has already caused the gods to take their revenge so I believe they must have occupied a huge area there. And now they actually want to carry out a large-scale immigration to ‘Noah World’? Are they crazy?”