Volume 3, Chapter 79 – Ecology (Two-in-One)

Following the two burly men into the bar, Fei Ming glanced around nervously.

In Diming City, up in the Upper City, Xueli Bar was a pretty famous entertainment spot. He’d heard all sorts of stories about this place, and he’d sometimes even dreamt that once he made it big, he’d come here to spend money.

But the way he was setting foot in here now was nothing like what he had imagined.

He shouldn’t have been this passive.

He shouldn’t have been this scared.

“Look over there, that boy…”

“Obviously, a little virgin…”

“Such a tender expression. Heehee, just Sister Yuan-yuan’s favorite type…”

A lot of people were staring at him. Faces twisted by light and shadow floated in the dimness, women in revealing outfits smoking and pointing at him from afar.

Fei Ming hated being looked at like this. Even though the people in the bar who had noticed him and were talking about his arrival weren’t even one in twenty, he still felt humiliated.

It’s like I’ve turned into one of those animals in a circus.

He told himself that.

With a bang, he felt himself hit a wall.

Pain shot through his nose, and Fei Ming couldn’t help tearing up. A powerful force had flung him to the floor. He forced his eyes open and saw a woman standing in front of him, her face sprouting long tendon-like whiskers, with a fat head, big ears, and heavy makeup.

“Well now.” The woman turned, saw Fei Ming clearly, and bent halfway over to inspect him.

“Judging from that look, you really don’t seem like someone who should be here…”

Now that they were closer, Fei Ming could see her more clearly. The long tendril was attached to her nose. Her hair bristled out from her forehead to the back of her head like porcupine quills, and her two fan-sized ears flapped now and then as she spoke.

No words would come out. He could swear to Mo Buddha that he was using every ounce of willpower he had just to keep himself from screaming in terror.

“Bama, stop scaring him, Bama.”

A man’s voice came from the darkness.

“Listen up. He’s our guest. You already wasted us a lot of time just by taking this long to find him and bring him here.”

“Is that so?” Only then did the hideous, fat woman nod.

She seemed to know the speaker, and she clearly knew what was behind him.

“Get up.”

The woman moved away, and a hand reached down to haul Fei Ming to his feet.

Fei Ming looked up and saw it was the man in the black suit who had brought him here.

“Walk faster.” The man nudged his bony shoulder. “There are plenty of weird things here. Even I don’t dare hang around too long… unless you’ve got certain special tastes.”

Special tastes?

Thinking of what kind of place Xueli Bar was, and what sort of services the women who worked here usually provided, Fei Ming shivered hard, goosebumps breaking out all over him.

You could see it with the naked eye—his pace sped up sharply. Under the guidance of the two men in black, he turned down a dark corridor, took an elevator to the second floor, and was led to a luxurious private room.

“Welcome, my little brother!”

The host of the room was a dark-skinned man in a white suit, with a carefully groomed moustache on his upper lip, sunken eye sockets, and a fat belly.

As soon as he saw Fei Ming, he abandoned the two blonde women at his side, stepped forward to shake his hand, threw an arm around his shoulders, and dragged him to sit down, forcing the women to serve him food and drink.

“I…I can’t eat…” Fei Ming stammered nervously. He snuck a glance at the man in the white suit. “M-Mr. Xibo, I’m really sorry…I don’t know how I offended you…”

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The pressure was about to crush him.

Mo Buddha, he was just a thirteen-year-old middle schooler. How had he gotten dragged into something like this?

His thoughts were a jumble, but it had all begun when he’d gone to look for his good friend Shuma, only to be told by her family that Shuma had already been missing for a day.

“I don’t know.” Shuma’s mother’s eyes were red. “She’s a good girl. She wouldn’t leave home without my permission. I think she must have been kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped? But why…”

Fei Ming couldn’t understand. Shuma was pretty enough, but Diming City was run by gangs, and those big figures had rules. They banned arbitrarily snatching kids that age.

“They left this card.” Shuma’s mother handed him something, then tried to kneel to him.

“I can’t read…I can’t do anything…so could you please, Fei Ming, think of something? Whatever you want…”

Alright. That was why Fei Ming was here.

It was a business card. He had called the number on it, and the person on the other end hadn’t doubted him after hearing his voice, only told him a time and ordered him to shake off the servants and wait quietly in front of a rice-and-grain shop.

Maybe they weren’t actually after Shuma.

Fei Ming was fairly worldly for his age. That came from his capable older brother, who worked as an administrator for a company in the Upper City. By being around him, Fei Ming had gained broader horizons and more maturity than his peers.

Because of that, when he saw the luxury sedan pull up in front of him and the two men in black suits step out, he suddenly understood. He realized that their real target might be him.

Because his home was in the rich quarter, and there were rules there. Nobody was allowed to come looking for people like this, no matter who they were.

But Shuma… she hadn’t gotten into the noble school by paying her way. She had gotten in purely on grades.

Shuma’s family had nothing that a gang would covet. Her mother was a widow, and the father’s inheritance barely covered their steep tuition. All of that money had already been transferred into the school’s accounts when she enrolled. Anyone who checked that much would know there was no real profit to be squeezed from that household.

They were after me.

Some gang wanted to talk to me, but it was inconvenient for them to come directly to where I live. So they had waited for me to come looking for Shuma…and they had even grabbed Shuma to use as leverage.

On the drive over, Fei Ming had thought about a lot. He felt he should be angry, but once he stepped into Xueli Bar and met Xibo, the leader of the Fire Serpent Gang, he immediately lost the courage to be angry.

Just as he’d told Xibo, he had no idea how he or his brother had offended this man, to the point that he’d mobilized his people like this.

“You? No, no, no…not you.” Xibo burst out laughing at that.

That was worse.

Fei Ming went numb.

If it wasn’t him, then it could only be about his brother.

“Come now, little brother…” Xibo once more slung his arm around Fei Ming’s neck, his five thick fingers, each sporting gaudy gemstone rings, rubbing against the right side of Fei Ming’s neck.

“I’ll be straight with you. I’m only handling this on someone else’s behalf.”

“We haven’t done anything to your little girlfriend, believe me. As long as you cooperate and do a little something for us the way we ask, neither you nor your little girlfriend will be harmed. I guarantee she’ll go home safe and sound.”

If that wasn’t a threat, what was?

Fei Ming’s expression turned ugly.

He truly didn’t know what rule he or his brother had broken to be noticed by this boss, who appeared on TV all the time and packaged himself as a “philanthropist.”

All he knew was that this was very, very, very serious trouble.

……

On the other side, Alai had already driven into the Diming City urban area and was telling Bai Xiang how he and Guo Rongzhi had met.

“Mr. Guo is a good man.” Alai lifted his chin firmly. “One of the rare good men around here.”

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“When I say that, I don’t mean he saved us by hiring us. I mean he gave us the thing we’d dreamed of all our lives: respect.”

Bai Xiang noticed that he had a kind of pathological fervor when it came to Guo Rongzhi.

It was easy to see. Most of the time, Alai’s emotions were stable, but when he talked about this, his breathing grew faster and his voice carried more feeling.

Most of all, his eyes.

From beside him, she could see part of his gaze behind the sunglasses. There was fire there, a feverish fire.

“Thirty years ago, I was a little thug. I spent all day in the Lower City, and my greatest joy was kneading balls out of filth-smelling sewage and playing soccer with the other kids.”

“I had no shame, so I didn’t care if I had no clothes.”

“And I couldn’t read, so I didn’t know what morality or gratitude meant.”

“Do you know what Diming City’s Lower City is like? Because it’s close to Great Yu…certain things are particularly rampant there. I only realized this after leaving. The whole Lower City is basically a livestock farm for cultivating organs.”

He chuckled as he said that. “The gangs who control Diming City have changed many times, but no matter who it is, they all use the same name for the Lower City: the breeding ground. It’s been that way for decades.”

“Plenty of people come to that kind of place to buy children. Adults always like to ‘raise them from childhood,’ but even if they take them away, they’re just turning them into enforcers. Consumables, essentially.”

“Only Mr. Guo, after he took us away, actually started by teaching us to read and write. Only he really treated us as human beings.”

It was not an especially moving story and was easy enough to understand.

To Guo Rongzhi, it had probably been nothing more than a casual decision. He needed to cultivate people he could trust to manage his businesses. When they engaged with the outside world, it wouldn’t do for them to speak like chickens and ducks. At the very least, they had to understand the language.

Yuyan was a high-tier language. With dialects included, it could even serve as a sort of code. Teaching Yuyan made it easy to separate them from the other Nanman in terms of culture and mindset.

It really was a small thing, and his motivation had probably just been “usefulness.”

But clearly, Alai didn’t see it that way.

He truly was different from other Nanman, especially in how deeply he understood Yuyan culture. He said he had been diligently studying the ancient history and rites of Great Yu. The more he studied, the more he felt his homeland was beyond saving.

Bai Xiang looked at him. “You had the chance to go back to Great Yu with him.”

Nanman really didn’t get good treatment in Great Yu.

There were four ranks of commoner in Great Yu.

First-rank “merit-folk,” pure-blooded people of Yu who had produced merit within three generations.

Second-rank “white-folk,” pure-blooded people of Yu with clean records and no criminal history.

Third-rank “labor-folk,” open to non-Yu as well. They generally held relatively respectable jobs, with only a few doing heavy labor.

Fourth-rank “servant-folk,” the lowest rank. Criminals, foreigners, and demonized people were all lumped together here, allowed to do only the lowest, dirtiest jobs and forbidden to receive wages.

If Alai had gone back to Great Yu with Guo Rongzhi back then, he might not have qualified for the first two ranks, but becoming a third-rank labor-folk would not have been a problem.

At the very least, it would have been much better than staying here.

And “family ties” was not a good excuse in this case. If Alai had wanted to go, Guo Rongzhi would have had ways to bring his family along as well.

“I grew up here, after all.” Alai paused, then answered Bai Xiang. “Mo Buddha will cast the souls of the dead back into reincarnation. If I’m destined to return here again in my next life, running away now won’t change that.”

Mo Buddha.

Another religion that had been completely modified by local culture.

“Mo Buddha will bless you.”

Bolu’s voice suddenly sounded from the back seat. His eyes shone as he looked at Alai. “You’re a true fighter. Mo Buddha will definitely grant you wealth and honor in your next life.”

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“Thank you.” Alai’s response was very calm.

“But I don’t care. Wealth and honor—I already have those.”

Bolu, too, was a believer in Mo Buddha.

Bai Xiang tapped her fingers on her thigh.

The Buddhism Tiger-Subduing Temple had brought to this land seemed to have completely morphed as well.

Perhaps Alai’s story had moved Bolu. He no longer sat there in a daze, nor did he glare at Bai Xiang with the same hostility as before.

Sometimes he would even try to join in their conversation, adding bits of his own experience. His desire to “prove his own usefulness” was almost palpable.

Gradually, as the convoy entered the Upper City, the scenery on both sides grew more prosperous.

Before this, the cityscape had barely been at the level of larger towns. Only once they reached the Upper City did the high-rises appear, and the roads begin to clog with traffic.

The atmosphere here was very different.

If Bai Xiang had to describe it, she would say that in terms of social mores, it was far more open than Great Yu.

“More open” didn’t even begin to cover it. It went beyond what she had seen in her previous life.

To give an example: while they were stuck in traffic, she looked around at the street and saw all kinds of strangely dressed people.

There were men with mohawks dyed in patchy colors, dressed like rock musicians.

There were women with shaved heads and nose rings, wearing black one-piece swimsuits underneath completely transparent long dresses.

And those were nothing. What really opened Bai Xiang’s eyes were the organs.

And she didn’t mean people showing off mechanical prosthetics.

That group wasn’t small, but what she really meant were the demonized.

For instance, right now she was watching a demonized man with four legs pedaling a custom bicycle at high speed, food delivery boxes in hand as he shot through the traffic.

His movements were extremely nimble. Though he rode very quickly, he always slipped through gaps at just the right moment, showing incredible control and dynamic vision.

The reason was obvious. Bai Xiang saw that his eye sockets were filled with bulging compound eyes.

There was also a figure whose upper body was covered in long fur, like some kind of shaggy beast-man, playing guitar and singing by the roadside.

In glass tanks on the sidewalk—like the displays at an aquarium—sat merfolk adorned with luxurious jewelry.

At first, Bai Xiang thought this was something like a slave auction, but when one of the mermaids raised a microphone and a shrill voice came from the external speakers, she realized it was more like a “stage show,” there to liven up the atmosphere for the mall.

“There are a lot of demonized people here,” she remarked.

“Because the Yunhe Demon Kingdom was destroyed,” Alai explained. “It was a small Demon Kingdom that had taken root near Diming City and polluted several surrounding towns and villages. After it was dealt with, it no longer existed, and all the demonized who had been contaminated trickled into the city. Only here could they hope for a better life.”

“They’re not discriminated against?” Bai Xiang was curious.

“The cycle of Mo Buddha’s reincarnation includes the beast path,” Bolu answered from the back seat. “We all know we might be reborn as pigs or dogs in our next lives. With that in mind, of course we don’t look down on demonized people.”

“There’s another important reason,” Alai added with a frown. “They’re actually very popular in the Upper City.”

Bai Xiang could see that.

There were indeed many demonized people in the Upper City, but regular dark-skinned humans were still the majority. Quite a few of them were clearly well-off from their clothing and accessories, and it was often that sort of person who showed great interest in the demonized.

It was a bit disgusting.

It reminded her of certain filthy things.

“That’s right,” Alai said with a nod. “Some people…we’d rather not comment on their appetites.”

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An hour after entering the city.

The convoy arrived at Mingfei Airlines’ Upper City office.

It was a ten-plus-story office building, and the area was already cordoned off by the police. Pot-bellied, curly-haired officers with batons were driving pedestrians away, forbidding them to gather.

“Please stay in the car for now,” Alai instructed before getting out to negotiate.

Bai Xiang watched him find the leader of the police group and, using his body as a shield, slip a roll of bills into the man’s hand.

The man’s expression, sour a second ago, suddenly brightened. He threw an arm around Alai’s shoulders and started calling him brother.

Thump.

A soft sound.

Bai Xiang didn’t need to turn her head. She could sense someone riding past on a bike and casually dropping a bottle of drink, which landed right on the hood.

She glanced that way. The police were already pulling back.

She opened the door and got out, lifting her mask for a breath of fresh air before pulling it back down. Then she turned and picked up the fallen drink.

The Mingfei Airlines security team immediately formed a human wall, blocking her from view.

Bai Xiang stared at the bottle, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly beneath the mask.

Because on the bottle, someone had scrawled a crooked line of Yuyan with a marker: [Beware of ambush]

“It’s been handled.”

Alai came over to report.

“That ‘ghost’ could create illusions, making people think windows were doors. It was killed by Xingshui Security’s employees.”

“This building isn’t just our office. All told, thirty-two people died.”

Bai Xiang asked, “If I’d decided to rest in Diming City first, you’d have arranged for me to stay here?”

Alai nodded. “Since our previous lodging plan fell through…our company’s security measures here are fairly comprehensive.”

Xingshui’s people patrolled the block twenty-four hours a day, and this time the loophole had appeared because someone had skipped out on duty, leaving a two-hour gap.

“And now?” Bai Xiang asked.

“Now that it’s been haunted, we can’t stay here,” Alai admitted. “It’s not that it’s unsafe, but all kinds of parties will be coming to investigate soon. Everyone will be thoroughly checked, and it’ll be easy for conflicts to start.”

Mingfei Airlines had the qualifications to maintain an office in the Upper City, but compared to the big conglomerates, they were still nothing but ants.

Their nameplate couldn’t shield anyone. If the inspectors happened to see Bai Xiang here, Alai didn’t need to think hard to know what would happen.

So he kept his words as tactful as he could, trying not to anger her.

But he noticed that the way Bai Xiang looked at him had grown a bit strange.

Those golden eyes of hers seemed to hold a peculiar power, as if they could see straight through everything.

“What are you planning next?” Bai Xiang asked again.

Alai frowned, raised a hand to cover his mouth, and spoke very softly, in a voice only Bai Xiang could clearly hear. “I’m thinking of taking you to my home.”

“Don’t worry. There’s nobody else there.”

“Just my mother, and one little brother.”