The Great Worm Lich

The judge who was responsible for civil trials in Trial Court No.3 seemed rather experienced. Tina and Zhang Lisheng saw people walking in and out as they waited outside the door nervously.

“Looks like this judge’s strict in his judgment, I’m so dead,” Tina said hopelessly seeing everyone looking grim whenever they walked out the court. At that moment, the black marshal walked out and said immediately noticing they were still outside of the door, “Why aren’t the both of you in there? It would be your turn a moment after the hearing. It’s a civil case, don’t ever let the judge wait.”

“Thanks. I…I’ve only visited a court following my school trip. I’ve never been on one, my dad prohibited me from being a lawyer….forget about it, thank you so much, Mr. Marshal,” Tina said and pushed open the heavy wooden door and walked into the court dragging Zhang Lisheng along.

The court was small, the few rows of wooden chairs could only take less than 100 people for hearing. Fortunately, there were still some vacant seats. The judge was approximately 50. He wore a black robe, he looked cool and stiff. He was hitting the court hammer when Tina and Zhang Lisheng walked in. He said coldly to the exuberant middle-aged man who wore a suit standing in front, “Guilty, 2,000 dollars fine.”

The middle-aged man standing in front said in a surprise hearing the judgment, “Your Honor, but I…”

The judge hit the court hammer again inadmissibility, “Marshal, please bring the sentenced defendant out.”

The middle-aged man seemed to be enraged hearing that. He looked like he was going to curse but he swallowed his rage when he lifted his head and saw the expressionless judge. He held his head low and left the court following the marshal while muttering to himself.

“This is the end of my driving license,” Tina said softly feeling hopeless after witnessing that. Zhang Lisheng smiled at her for comfort and felt speechless. Both of them took a seat on the vacant seats at the hearing area. Three more cases were found guilty, finally, it was Tina’s turn after waiting for ten minutes. When Zhang Lisheng appeared with Tina, the judge frowned looking at the two people before him.

Seeing the judge’s expression, Tina decided to give it a go and said before the judge could speak, “Your Honor, I’m Tina Douglin who was accused of illegal parking. This is my witness Mr. Zhang Lisheng. The reason why I bring him here is to prove that I came with good intention when I parked my car on New York 27th street’s no-parking spot last Tuesday. Back in China, Mr. Lisheng once…”

“Ms. Tina, you’re the first defendant who brought a witness to court throughout my one week of judging civil cases. Given that you respect America’s Judicial Court, I choose to believe that you parked illegally with ‘good intention’,” The judge smiled and said all of the sudden. ‘Bang’, he picked up the court hammer and hit it once, “I pronounce the cancellation of New York Traffic Police ticket No.T9867. Bring the next defendant.”

Zhang Lisheng who knew little of America’s civil court’s discretion could not help but be stunned after hearing the judge’s casual remark just when he was ready to speak after clearing his head. ‘Huh…’ slipped out of his mouth, causing the people on hearing seats giggled softly.

Tina who looked surprised next to him grabbed his arm hard, both of them left the court following the marshall.

“That’s it?” Zhang Lisheng asked with his jaw dropped after they left the court while Tina said uncontrollably in excitement, “The judge said I’m not guilty so of course I’m free to go. You on the other hand, why did you mutter ‘huh’? If I wasn’t smart enough to pull you out of the court in time, you would definitely be sentenced contempt of court. You might not be able to go home tonight if you’re unfortunate. Speaking of being smart, I really think that I’m extremely smart right now. I got rid of my fine by getting you to be my witness and my mushroom haircut. Haha… I really want to see how disappointed my dad would be after learning about the news.”

As she was hopping around happily, she saw her two best friends Trish and Sheila rushing towards Trial Court No. 3 suddenly. She then welcomed them excitedly while shouting, “Trish, Sheila, guess who got her fine canceled?”

“Oh wow, how did you do that Tina?” Trish and Sheila shouted in surprise at the same time.

“Because I’m Tina Douglin!” Tina was screaming proudly and soon she got a warning from the marshal. They were then asked to leave the court while looking grim. Outside the New York Supreme Court, Tina who had finally calmed down from the marshall’s warning introduced Zhang Lisheng to Trish and Sheila, “Trish, Sheila, this is Lisheng. You guys already knew that he was my savior back when I was traveling in China. Lisheng, this is Trish, the prettiest, most faithful, and a young Catholic girl in New York. This is Sheila, the beautiful lady who knows fashion best apart from me. They’re my best friends.”

Compared to Tina who had never hold back when she was with Zhang Lisheng, Sheila and Trish were shy around him. They said courteously, “Hi Mr. Lisheng, my name’s Sheila. Nice meeting you.”

“Hi Mr. Lisheng, my name’s Trish. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s my pleasure meeting the both of you. My name’s Zhang Lisheng, I came from Western Sichuan China.”

“Oh wow, you guys are so polite. Alright, I’ve settled the trouble. So…”

“So I’ll make a move first. I need to work at Dan Souza Butcher Shop at 4 p.m. so I need to get back to Lowbige to get my bicycle.”

“Didn’t we agree on getting you a small slaughterhouse? Why are you still working at the butcher shop?”

“Tina, it’s impossible that you could bring me to talk business with that person directly even if you have a plan in your head, “He took out the Golden Wheat credit card he always had with him from his pocket and handed over to Tina, “There’s an old saying in China that goes ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’. It’s better to be earnest throughout life, take everything one step at a time. My credit card’s password has 6 digits, it’s three 10s. Thanks again for helping me.”

“You trust me like that just because I have a luxurious car and treated you to breakfast at the Goose Pond restaurant?” Tina asked in surprise after taking over the credit card.

“Of course not, it’s because nobody in this world can fool me easily. Goodbye Tina, goodbye Ms. Trish and Ms. Sheila.”

“Oh right Lisheng, let me send you to Lowbige,” Tina seemed like she had just realized that she drove there.

“It’s okay, go celebrate. I don’t want to be a killjoy. There are cabs everywhere, it’s very convenient,” Zhang Lisheng waved and walked away.

Watching him leave, Sheila said while pouting, “Tina, I’ve never thought your Mr. Worm would be this chivalrous. Too bad he’s too skinny, and surprisingly he loves The Godfather too. ‘It’s because nobody in this world can fool me easily’. I really can’t understand why do men love all these childish quotes. But what’s with the slaughterhouse he mentioned earlier?”

“It’s super interesting, my dear Sheila. Do you remember the giant centipede that I told you guys about…” Tina began to tell her two best friends how the slaughterhouse idea came about without stopping.

Meanwhile, Zhang Lisheng had gotten into a cab and headed towards Lowbige Junior High. He had his mind occupied on starting the small slaughterhouse, he was not at peace which was rare. It happened to be Lowbige Junior High’s school let out when he arrived there. As Zhang Lisheng picked up his bicycle under the shade absentmindedly, he heard a familiar voice coming from behind, “Buddy, you’re slacking too huh.”

“I really had something to deal with today, George. Oh ya, since you’ve been working at Dan Souza Butcher Shop for so long, I guess you should know how much it would cost to purchase a small slaughterhouse?” Zhang Lisheng asked without even turning his head to look.

“What?”

“I’m asking you how much would it cost to purchase a slaughterhouse in the satellite town near New York.”

“One million dollars I guess,” George said simply.

“So expensive?”

“Maybe. You’ll need land for the slaughterhouse, a factory, machines for electric stunning, hair and skin removing as well as a splitting saw and conveyor belt. Those cost at least hundreds of thousands. Why, why are you asking all these?”

“I would like to start a small slaughterhouse but hearing what you said, it seems like the chance of making it happen is slim,” Zhang Lisheng sighed and spoke while getting on his bicycle.

George caught up to Zhang Lisheng on his bicycle and said in disbelief, “You want to start a slaughterhouse? Lisheng, you’ve only been to New York for less than three months, why don’t you just run for President of America instead?”

“Okay George, just pretend I never said anything,” Since then, Zhang Lisheng stopped answering his black friend’s questions until they finished work. He headed home alone.”

He had dinner after he got home, Zhang Lisheng then returned to his room. It was his first time not cultivating witchcraft secret method directly. Instead, he turned on the dusty computer at his bedhead and began browsing around the internet with the keyword ‘small slaughterhouse’.

There was countless information on the internet. Zhang Lisheng was surprised and came to the conclusion that the biggest hurdle to start a slaughterhouse in America was to handle the waste including animal organs, blood, and bones that Americans hardly consume. The slaughterhouses of bigger scale would process those waste into animal food to feed the animals. However, ever since mad cow disease broke out, such corpse feed was abandoned by many farms. They become something useless, an ecological waste that caused environmental pollution.

To handle these ecological waste, the slaughterhouses nowadays could only perform paid processing. They would pay a professional waste disposal company to bring them away. The companies would freeze the waste and smuggled them to China for Chinese people who usually cook pigs, cows, and lambs. Some even processed them into fake cat food and dog food, nobody cared about that. Such extra fee made small slaughterhouse’s business profit to drop, causing many of them to sell the slaughterhouses away.

Zhang Lisheng was elated to find that, he mumbled while looking at the screen, “There are so many of them selling their slaughterhouse, it seems like I might really be able to purchase an old slaughterhouse with 100,000 dollars.”

However, it seemed like the business was not as simple as Zhang Lisheng imagined. He did not receive any calls from Tina until Friday night. It seemed like the New York Upper East Side socialite had forgotten about their deal of purchasing a slaughterhouse. There was no progress on it.

However, Zhang Lisheng saw Tina parked her car at the side of the road on Saturday morning. She was walking towards him as he opened the door and was ready to ride on his bicycle after breakfast.