Tuesday 16 December 2014

UL: Volume 5 Chapter 1


This chapter was brought to you by AnmesicCat, and Yeenie.



Client


Location: Atlantis
Time: 8:20 am

On the first Saturday after preliminary of senior and the others, I was hugging my pillow and sleeping on my bed while having a non-life-threatening beautiful dream. When suddenly, a phone call interrupted my beautiful dream.

Who's so ignorant! Still hugging my pillow, I absolutely refuse to pick up a phone call that interrupted someone else's beautiful dream. However, it kept on ringing and the sound seemed to be getting louder and louder. I could only reluctantly lift my hand and pick up the disturbing phone.

As soon as I picked it up, there were lots of noisy sounds coming from the other end; it sounded like it was a pretty lively place, "Yang Yang, come out and play!" Miao Miao's voice came from the other side of the phone.

You phoned me, dragged me out of my bed so early in the morning just to call me to go out and play!?

"Hurry, hurry, today's weather is really nice."

Nice weather is the best time for sleeping, don't you know that?

"Oh..." I glanced at the clock, it was so early...

When I was about to ask her where she was planning to go and play, someone outside the door suddenly knocking on it a few times, and the sound traveled into the room. "Wait a moment, someone is looking for me. I'll call you back later." I hurriedly hung up the phone and jumped down from the bed. To be honest, in the dorm, there were only a few people who would look for me so early in the morning. Coincidentally, these few people were someone who couldn't be left waiting, or else they were the type of people who would demolish the door to the room, and allow your room to become more ventilated.

I abruptly ended the phone call and ran out of the room, and I didn't even have the time to organize my clothes and appearance.

Sure enough, after opening the door, it really was senior who was standing outside. He was wearing casual clothing and jeans. It looked like he didn't have work today.

"Are you free today?" Senior immediately asked me.

"Uh?"

"I have some matters and will be going to your original world for a trip, do you want to tag along and go home as well?" Senior lifted his hand a little, and a small backpack was hanging there, "The school still needs to make preparation for a meeting place, so there wouldn't be any classes on Monday. From today onwards, there will be three days of holidays, so you can go back home and return in time for classes by yourself."

The method of going to school is pretty simple; I just have to get hit by a train. In fact, I was troubled if I should go back home or not, since riding on the kitty bus with internal organs was no better than a torture, but I didn't dare to use teleportation charm either. If I didn't use it properly, I don't even need to go back home anymore, I can directly go down to hell.

"Okay, wait just a moment." I immediately rushed back to my room and sent a message to Miao Miao saying I'll be going home, so I wouldn't be able to go out with them. Then, I took the Charm Incantation book I was currently reading, some paper, and pen. I picked up and opened the backpack I threw on the floor after the gathering the other day.

A pair of golden eyes glared at me.

"Whoa!" I threw the bag away. It hit the wall with a thud and fell on the floor.

The black bowknot I had been completely forgotten rolled out, and it was actually still maintaining that beautiful shape!

Pro! Senior you really are a pro in tying a bowknot. Its lasting power is so strong!

Hearing my surprised yell, senior quickly ran in and picked up the bowknot from the floor, "I completely forgot about its existence."

You forgot! You actually really forgot about it! I suddenly felt sad for the bowknot black snake.

"After being imprisoned for a few days, it seemed to have become even more ferocious." Senior held onto the snake and took a better look before making that conclusion.

Nonsense! After being tied up in a bag, and was then forgotten for a few days, I guess no matter what it was, it would turn ferocious!

"Do you want it?" He held the snake in front of me.

I could see inside its golden eyes; a raging anger of wanting to dismember me was conveyed. "No, thank you." Immediately rejected it. You must be joking, I'm not the five-colored rooster head, there's no reason for me to want it.

"This can be reused as a familiar after the curse is removed. It's very easy to use."

Remove the curse? I glanced at the "white insect" I still have not yet used, and was still inside the glass bottle on top of the desk.

How do I remove it? Don't tell me I need to clean it again!?

"Nope, this is more effort-consuming, but if you don't want it, I'll send it to Gasai. He's very interested in this type of thing, and also like to research on it." Senior hovered his palm facing down, and a rather small round array appeared on the floor. He threw the bowknot inside, and in just a moment, they disappeared together, "This is a object teleportation shifting array, it's very easy. You can find Andy to teach it to you."

"Alright." I nodded. Nowadays, there were more free time, and the chances of me running to Andy's place became higher. I guess senior definitely knew about this, that's why he asked me to find Andy.

"Oh right, senior, what kind of job are you taking this time?" I was rather curious because I knew senior's jobs were often not at that world. Normally, it would be here, or at an even more supernatural-ish places, and it was very seldom he would take the initiative to ask me out.

No wonder the weather was sunny.

Senior glanced at me, snorted coldly, "In fact, it's nothing much. Some seal was coming loose, and then the thing sealed underneath is slowly starting to awaken. The client specified that he wanted me to solve this." He took out a cap from his backpack, and put it on his head. I saw senior's silver hair, tied behind his head, turning completely black, and the same thing happened to his eyes. A live color-changing show was played out in front of my eyes, "If you want to follow me to take a look, you'll reach home a little later, if not, I'll send you back home first."

Underground seal?

"I want to go." I was very curious about the things happening in the world I live in, since it was the place where I was born.

What kind of seal does my world have?

At that moment, I thought of various things seen from manhuas and movies.

"Alright then, let's go."

A huge teleportation array appeared below our feet at the same time. This time, however, it took a little longer.

First, I saw silver rays of lights surrounding the array, and after a few seconds a completely different place appeared.

For me, it was a very familiar place; skyscrapers, streets, and the never ending sounds of speeding cars.

I'm back, after almost two months from being enrolled in the school, I came back to the world I used to live in.

The scene in front of my eyes hadn't changed even the slightest since I last saw; it was still a modernize country.

I wonder if it was because I stayed in school for too long. After looking at the abundant green plants and landscaping for a while, it felt rather weird looking at the buildings in the surrounding. In addition, the air here is gray. But why didn't I realize this before?

"Let's go, the place is nearby." Senior pulled his cap down which covered almost more than half his face, and walked out. It's only then when I discovered we were in a small alley where no one would take notice of us.

There was a main road just up ahead the small alley, surrounded by office buildings. Not too far away, there was a huge general hospital, and all around were sounds of people and cars honking.

Senior seemed to be very familiar with the road, since he didn't even hesitate to cross the road, and headed towards somewhere near the hospital. After walking around a street, he walked into a high-fenced area. It was a very big temple, where there were God statues and what-not inside. A large amount of white smoke came out from the roof — this was a famous incense temple.

My mother would sometimes go to the temple to pray, but it wasn't as exaggerated as this. It felt like one would be smoked to death if one was to go in.

"This is the place that asked for help?" I looked at the temple that had white smoke coming out of it. Nn, feels very suspicious.

"Nope, I was rather curious how many spirits on top would faint because of the smoke." Senior stopped, looked at it for a moment, and he turned around to leave, "The place that asked for help is over there."

Looking towards the direction senior pointed at, I could only see a building under construction. The construction looked like it started not too long ago. Only reinforced concrete and what-not could be seen, and on top, were a few workers with safety ropes doing their jobs, "That's the one?"

It was really a very manhua-like kind of setting... Normally, accidents often happen in the hospital, in a temple, or construction sites.

Don't you have anything new!?

"It's that one." With a "bang" sound, senior smacked the back of my head. It was only then that I saw a small shop below the building that was under construction. It was a makeshift hut designated to sell worker's items. Inside was a small refrigerator filled with beer, water, and other various beverages. There was also piles of hot grilled sausages, lunchboxes, and what-not. It was really filled with everything.

That small shop?

I doubtfully turned my head around, and saw senior prudently nodding his head... it was really that shop?

"It's that shop, let's go." Senior was also lazy to continue on with my nonsense, and directly walked towards the shop.

The shopkeeper was an uncle, about forty or fifty years old, was flipping sausages and sticky rice sausages. Sometimes, passer-bys would buy food items from him, but majority was sold to the workers nearby or workers passing-by, mostly drivers who were transporting items.

No matter how I looked at it, the uncle didn't look like someone who would look for a special ability school... Could it be that this uncle was the same as in the movies? As soon as he took off his human flesh, he was actually not a human but something else?

"Hello, I'm a Black Robe from Atlantis Academy." Senior directly spoke to the uncle without any regards whether the other person would be scared or dumbfounded, "How did you know about us, and even asked for me specifically?"

Nn, I'm also very curious about this.

The ordinary looking uncle shouldn't know about the abnormal killer school, right?

The uncle put down a bowl of glutinous rice sausages, and calmly lifted his head to look at senior, "What-Milantisi Academy?" A very Taiwanese slang.

I saw black lines falling behind senior's head.

"Uncle, we want to know if you were looking for someone to deal with strange incidents?" Before senior could say anything, I quickly tried to communicate with the uncle who had an inexplicable look.

Sometimes you can't speak too seriously with an uncle, or else he wouldn't be able to understand.

Firstly, Uncle Sausage's face was filled with questions, but after a few seconds, it turned into a face of one who saw the light, "Ah! Yes, yes! A few days ago, my daughter gave me a card and asked me to call a person, saying whatchamacallit, to look for the blackest person."

The blackest person...

"Chu, if you dare laugh, I'm going to beat you up." Veins appeared on senior's fist.

I bit my tongue, daring not to laugh out loud, to avoid getting beaten up.

"Ah, you are the person from the call I made; a youngin (young person)." Uncle Sausage said with an incredible voice, "The one who's looking for you is my daughter. She'll be here soon, just wait for a moment." Then the uncle coolly took out a cell phone and dialed a number.

Senior's face was very cold, completely frozen. I could actually understand how he was feeling, really.

"Senior do you want to eat sausages?" I took out some money and passed it to Uncle Sausage, wanting to play pachinko on the wooden machine nearby. In the past, when my dad used to bring me out to play, he would always play pachinko. However, I've never played before because I'm very unlucky, so no matter what I play, I wouldn't win, and there was also a huge chance of demolishing someone else's machine.

Narrowing his eyes, senior was not looking at the sausages but at the pachinko machine, "Pachinko?"

"Nn, if you can get the ball in, you can exchange it for a sausage."

"?" He used a quizzing gaze to look at me..

"Senior, do you want to try and play? Since we'll be waiting here either way." I moved aside, emptying the seat, "Anyway, it's something based on luck, just try playing with it for a while, and pretend you're playing with marbles."

Although I said that, I wasn't sure if senior even played with marbles before.

Senior used a very serious expression to look at the machine. Anyway, it was only playing with marbles not fighting with enemies, no need to be so serious, right...

With a "clang," the marble was shot out, hitting the frame and the rims a few times, and it fell into the hole which had a colorful tape stuck on it.

"Oh, oh, youngin, you're very lucky today, this means you win three sausages." Uncle Sausage smiled and continued, "The little brother over there, do you want to play, too? Uncle will let you play once for free."

I was stunned for a moment, "Me?" I definitely won't be able to get it.

"Chu, you can try it." Senior moved aside and gave his seat to me, his finger tip knocking on the glass twice, "You'll be able to get it, it's just something that depends on luck."

But my luck has always been really bad...

"Look at the circle on the top." Senior looked at the small hole his marble went into, "You just have to make your marble drop here, neither more nor less. As long as you think this way, one time will be enough."

Neither more nor less, right? I stared at the hole for a moment. Nn, since senior already said to do it this way, maybe I could really make my marble enter that hole.

Then, the marble shot out, directly falling into that hole!

"Yeah!" I won on the first time playing pachinko!

I'm very lucky today.

Senior and I exchanged our six sausages with the uncle for two hotdogs. Both of us were standing at one side, eating while waiting for the person who was looking for senior.

The sounds coming from the building were very loud, where there were still workers walking up and down, and shouting. Sometimes, there would be two or three people forming a group coming out to play pachinko and rest before returning to their work. Since senior and I probably looked out of place, there would be one or two curious people who would occasionally approach us and ask a few questions. After telling them we were students, the people would then leave.

"This tastes really weird." Senior said while chewing on a hotdog.

"When you guys came here to deal with stuff, don't you guys eat the snacks over here?" Which part tastes weird? I thought it tasted really delicious. At least glutinous rice sausages were homemade, completely different compared to those plastic skin products that couldn't be bitten off.

Senior shook his head, carefully tearing open the outer layer of the paper bag a little, "I came here only for work, and I normally don't eat during work. If I have to stay overnight, the restaurant or hotel would prepare food for us, so I never thought of buying food from the roadside."

No wonder senior asked me about red bean biscuit before. Wait a minute, "You said you don't eat during work, but aren't you eating now?" I stared at the hotdog in senior's hands, and one-third of it was already gone.

"Today, I only planned to investigate, and formally deal with it tomorrow." Senior glanced at me, and he tore open the paper bag a little more, licking the sauce that got on his fingers. He absolutely look like it knew how to eat this, for his movements were very careful and familiar, "If it woke up because the seal broke, I would need some time to determine the type of seal that was used."

"Oh." I felt rather relaxed. It should be a rather simple job, right?

I crumpled the empty paper bag and threw it into trash can in Uncle Sausage's booth.

"Ah, what kind of school are you guys from?" After a while, when there was no more customers, Uncle Sausage curiously and casually asked, "Why are there Blacks and Purples?"

"It's just a normal school that helps others to deal with some stuff." I really don't know how to explain our school to Uncle, since it was just two months ago when I asked the same question.

Senior was still eating, and he wasn't planning to join in on our conversation.

"Is that right? Ah, nowadays kids have to help their school deal with stuff?" Uncle Sausage was uncertain and very puzzled while glancing at senior.

"That's right, to earn some pocket money." I simply used the simplest sentence to conclude the topic.

If he knew the meaning of the so-called "earning some pocket money," he would definitely be extremely shocked.

Uncle Sausage asked some more stuff about the school, and was then interrupted a few seconds later.

"Dad!" Appearing suddenly in front of the booth, and interrupting our conversation, was a capable looking older sister wearing a dark blue office suit with neatly tied hair, and typical high heels. Just by looking at her, she gave off a feeling of a director in an office, "You don't need to always come here to set up the booth."

With a thud, senior threw the garbage into the trashcan, and took out a tissue to wipe his hands.

"Sister, this two youngsters said they were looking for you." Uncle Sausage revealed a hearty and said to the lady. Completely disregarding what the other person just said, he continued, "The people whom you asked me to call a few days ago; they said they were people from it."

The lady looked and senior at me skeptically, looking at us back and forth, before stammering, "Someone introduced me to look for you, but you are a little..."

Too young, I know, I'll help you to continue.

"If you doubt our work ability, then there's nothing more to say. I'm not interested in wasting my effort to prove myself to someone else." Senior coldly snorted, and simply turned around and left.

Is this really alright? ...Really not turning back?

I quickly ran to catch up, "Senior, she is the client, right?" I walked with senior for a rather long distance, passing through an intersection where there were traffic lights. He didn't even think of turning back, he just left.

"So what?" Senior glanced at me, "Since she doubt my abilities, then just let her go find someone else, wouldn't that be better? And this would also allow me to save time."

Senior's ability most definitely didn't need to be doubted... but the problem was normal people wouldn't know it!

I followed him into a convenience store across the street, and as soon as the automatic door opened, other than the sound of the employee's cordial greeting, the cool air-conditioning came blowing on our face.

I haven't had this kind of feeling for a long time. I looked at the abundant candies and biscuits everywhere; it was also a scenery I missed.

"Chu, we are different from the general spirit energy users." Senior walked over to the cabinet where the drinks were, opened it, bent his body, took out two bottles of honey soymilk, and walked towards the counter. After coming out of the automatic door, he threw one of the bottle to me, "Trust and confidence is the most basic requirement. In her case, someone introduced us to her, but she herself doubted the people whom her friend had introduced, and after seeing that we're young, her degree of trust was greatly reduced. As a result, even if we really did solve her problem, at best she would only feel she had misjudged us or just the thought of her profiting from this event."

"Without getting trusted for a job, I wouldn't accept it."

In fact, I don't quite understand senior's meaning, I just felt it was rather stubborn.

"Then we should just ignore the problem?" What about the seal?

"It's something humans created, so I don't really care." Senior snorted, "But she is not my only client."

There's a second one?

Senior brought me to the temple we saw earlier.

"My other client is over here." Senior looked at the temple and said.

"Ah?" Isn't this place the place where senior said he was curious of how many spirits would faint because of the smoke?

At this moment, the smoke in the temple seemed to have thickened, and I realized a wisp of white smoke had appeared underneath my feet, very thin fog, the kind which will disperse as soon as the wind blew. Not long after the wisp of smoke appeared, in a matter of seconds, someone suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

It was a little girl, probably about eleven or twelve years old, and she looked like an elementary or junior high school student. She looked very decent, wearing a blue pleated skirt and a white uniform shirt.

"Client?" I suspiciously looked at Senior.

"Nn." Senior slightly nodded towards the little girl, "I've kept you waiting, this is the first time we meet, Seventh Master of Spring and Autumn."

The girl smiled as she bowed, "Hello. Sure enough, Black Robes are calm people. As soon as I saw you, I felt reassured." Then, she turned towards me and bowed slightly, "This person must also be a student from the school. He must be a very powerful figure in the future."

I had a feeling it would be hard for me to become powerful even in the future.

"It would take him a long time." Senior curved up a cold smile, and it felt like someone was pouring salt over my wound, "I received a notice, but I still don't know what is it that I can help you with?"

The girl pointed at the building under construction, it was the same one we had just came from, "That place is supposed to be the place where the Beast of Scroll is sealed. However, it was bought by someone else last year, and the land is being used to construct buildings. The original seal was broken, and now the Beast of Scroll is slowly awakening. I'm worried something might happen."

Uh, I felt like I had seen this plot somewhere before. Isn't it in manhuas!?

Some seal was broken and the evil king underneath stormed out, made a mess of killing the humans in the world. Finally, a hero would appear to reintegrate the seal, and it would then become peaceful once again. The humans would live a happy life, THE END.

Bang! Senior smacked me behind my head and interrupted my delusion.

I suddenly felt something was not right. Logically speaking, it should be summer right now, if it's at school then it's fine. However, even when we're back in our world, why didn't it feel hot?

In the past, in this time of the year, it should be extremely hot that I would have turned into a dried corpse. In addition, the sky looked rather dark, and the surrounding air seemed to be stuffy.

"A typhoon is coming." Senior stood next to me, and lifted his head to look at the sky. I didn't know when, but the sky had started to turn grayish, and the clouds were moving very quickly.

That's right, in the previous years, in this time of the year, there would always be typhoons, and schools had to stop classes because of it.

Typhoons are the students' good gospel!

However, my current school shouldn't have any typhoon that will allow us to have holidays, right? Nevertheless, the school kept on giving us holidays, so whether or not there was a typhoon, there was not much of a difference.

"According to my speculation, the Beast of Scroll is afraid of wind and water. If the typhoon comes, maybe it would be able to lengthen the time before it wakes up." The little girl followed suit and glanced at the sky, "However, this is not a permanent solution. I hope the Beast of Scroll could be moved to another place as soon as possible, to avoid interfering with its sleep."

Senior nodded, "Alright, I will definitely deal with it."

An extremely confident reply.

I guess, if it was me, I definitely won't be able to answer so simply. The things I needed to learn were still bountiful. There should be a day when I could be like senior, right?

Should be, it was definitely should be.

"Then I'll be requesting help from the both of you." The girl bowed, and said earnestly. The girl's body slowly turned into white smoke, and just disappeared right in front of us.

"This way, the entrustment is done." Senior took out a cell phone from his pocket and sent a message somewhere, "The Seventh Master of Spring and Autumn is the God of a lake. The place we are standing on used to be a lake, but it was later filled up due to constructions of buildings, so she is currently living together with the spirits of this temple."

I looked for a while, this is a Temple of a Land God. There was no sign of worshiping of a Lake God.

"She has already been forgotten, since there's no one here who knows there used to be a lake here. We only knew of it because everything was recorded in the books. After you go back to the dorm, you can find it in the library." Putting away his cell phone, senior lifted his head, and his black hair was in a mess after being blown by the wind.

"Alright." I nodded my head, and noted it down. Nevertheless, I wonder if there was any way to investigate the record in the library to find out more about the constructions here?

Just as we were about to decide what to do, and senior also seemed to have decided to bring me back home, when I heard the sound of high heels heading towards us.

It was the office lady from earlier, and she was now chasing after us.

"Both of you, I'm so sorry." The lady was rather out of breath when she stopped in front of us. She then handed a business card to us, "I'm a secretary from Limbang Construction Company. I'm very sorry about earlier, can I re-entrust it to you once again?

Senior took the business card, frowned as he looked at it, and then he passed it to me.

On top was printed with two words "Hong Yue," and next to it was the job title "Chairman's Secretary."

"I made a call for verification. I'm so sorry, I had been really rude, please do forgive me if I offended you." She very politely bowed towards us, "I want to re-entrust you to help my company to resolve some matter."

I secretly glanced at senior. Hong Yue looked really troubled. If senior doesn't accept it, she would, of course, look for someone else, and if got cheated then, it would be bad, right?

Red eyes glared at me.

"Recently, in our construction site, the place where you were waiting at, earthquakes would often occur at night, but the residents nearby said there was no such thing. However, every morning when the workers arrived, they would find parts of the construction had collapsed. So we were all very troubled by this matter." Before senior could say anything to refuse, the lady immediately continued, "I'm really begging for your help, or else our company really can't go on."

It seems pretty serious, yeah...

"Alright, we can help you." Surprisingly, senior answered really straightforwardly, "But this is not my forte, so he's going to do it."

I saw a finger pointing at me.

...Wait a minute! Me?

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