Chapter 231: A New Alliance?
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The second encounter between Hao Ren and the demon hunters was dramatic. After their surreal battle, they met again but in the real sense of the world: Hao Ren was out shopping with the vampire while they bumped into the two demon hunters who were respectively a mobile phone seller and a mediocre regional manager just like any other office workers. It wasnt’ clear what had happened to them but they clearly looked devoid of the intention to fight.
In a quiet corner between the shop and the emergency exit, Liu Sheng was staring at Hao Ren with his half-smiling and half-crying face as he took out a box of cigarettes and offered it to Hao Ren.
Hao Ren was a smoker in the past, but he quit the habit since the female canine with an ultra-sensitive olfactory receptor moved into his home. "No thanks, I don’t smoke. By the way, I’m surprised to see you here. So demon hunters really live among ordinary humans, huh..."
Liu Sheng lighted up a ciggy, like a normal office worker goofing off and complaining about life, he glanced around and then exhaled softly and said, "Apart from learning from my parents and the seniors, I’d also been to private school, was a certified student before becoming a First-Degree Scholar—almost. I was teacher, a sailor onboard a fleet of private steamers in Zhejiang, and a batch of the old PLR shoes was made during my time as a manager in a workshop a few decades ago. I was a PC parts seller in the city more than ten years ago, but now I’m a little manager of this commercial mall. So what say you—am I living among humans?"
Liu Sheng paused. His eyes swept across them. "Just like how you come out shopping with the vampire; as the world was built by human, no matter how special and how powerful we are, we’ll still have to live like human—eat, work and sleep."
"I’m not one of you." Hao Ren waved his hand frantically. "I’m human. Pure human race."
Liu Sheng smiled without saying a word. He for sure knew who Hao Ren was, he just didn’t bother to look into a lot of things. Hao Ren had noticed a sense of I’ve-seen-it-all and tiredness on Liu Sheng’s face. Zhao Xi had it too albeit not as obvious because of facioplegia. Hao Ren asked curiously, "Are you quitting your demon hunter job?"
"I’d still do my job if evil spirits are harming people." Liu Sheng looked at Vivian with a half-smiling and half-crying face. "But I won’t bother you guys, I’m too tired."
"What happened to you guys?" asked Vivian, frowning. "I thought demon hunters are as stubborn as a mule. And they won’t change till the day they die."
"What if there’s bigger trial than death in this world?" Liu Sheng smiled as he said. "A Goddess once said she didn’t bother to educate a bunch of lunatics with words, so she threw us into a jail—another world to be exact which was specially catered to people like us. In that world, a tiny planet has over forty races, over three hundred organisations of various ideas which are further split into four to five factions. Everyone was condemning the others as heretics, and a holy war erupted every three minutes in the name of justice. Nobody cared what the cause of the conflict, and no one had ever thought of the logic of their struggles because as long as the other was deemed a heretic, that was a good enough reason to start a war. So there we were in a fantasy-like world, switching camp everyday to fight the world’s heretics and at the same time being deemed heretic ourselves by the whole world.
Liu Sheng paused for a moment before letting out a long sigh. "It was said that it was an epitome, a dream created by God to bring together all the stupid internal conflicts and blind wars that have taken place in many worlds. Those soldiers and generals who had lost their sense of logic and were completely carried away by their racial fanaticism were just phantoms—but that makes no sense. It was as real as the real world. We were there for like three hundred to five hundred years, and had seen for ourselves the stupidity of extreme racism."
Like a stingy folk, Liu Sheng took a last puff on the ciggy which had burned to the filter before stubbing it out in the ashtray on a rubbish bin. "Racism is plainly stupid."
Hao Ren: "....."
He had felt the style of Raven 12345 in him.
Vivian was left speechless. "Though it was weird, it’s good. All demon hunters and unusual creatures should be such educated."
"That doesn’t get to the bottom of the problem, she said." Liu Sheng twitched his mouth and said, "What she meant was you can’t solve every problem with violence, it stifles the variability and self-correction ability of the human race. I didn’t really understand what she said, maybe she had her own consideration. We were just the unlucky ones."
Hao Ren understood that meaning of Raven 12345: she had always insisted that mortals should deal with their own affairs, own development, and rectify their own mistakes. If it required the entire civilisation be bulldozed down and started all over again, then let it be as long as the civilisation could keep going, she wasn’t going to intervene. She just had to do some minor fine-tuning which wouldn’t affect the overall progress of the civilisation.
Of course, this conclusion was just an ideal version of which Hao Ren had tried hard to beautify Raven 12345 in his heart. The real situation could be that the Goddess was too busy cooking her instant noodle, she couldn’t care less for this bunch of losers. As the fanatic demon hunters were very upset and causing trouble in the heaven, the female psychopath decided to open the spatial door and threw them into it. All the grand stories ensued were just cooked up impromptu.
Vivian crossed her arms and looked at Liu Sheng and said, "Whatever it is, I don’t like conflict. The current state is the best. Anyway, as far as I know, those demon hunters who were caught in the trouble should be the small group which was passing by, you guys—"
"Just the two of us are local." Liu Sheng pointed at Zhao Xi. "They were on a reconnaissance mission and passing by. I was the one in charge here so I became their temporary team leader."
It seemed the education Raven 12345 imposed on the demon hunters was just to cause them to disgust those meaningless struggles and hadn’t changed their stand and professional ethics. This was evident in Liu Sheng’s cautious manner when they were talking about the covert operation of demon hunters. But Hao Ren had guessed what it was. "Was it about The Day of Return?"
"Apparently, you know something."
Hao Ren smiled. "You don’t have to be so cautious before us. You could even set aside your thoughts on the unusual creatures and the demon hunters. You now know who we’re working for, and we’re obviously non-partisan. Do you think it’s necessary to be so wary of heaven mercenaries?"
Hao Ren made the name ‘heaven mercenary’ up on a whim, and he thought it apt too.
Liu Sheng agreed. "You’re right. The one behind you is simply too powerful. So I’ll be honest with you; were were indeed investigating The Day of Return when a group of shamans and vampires were digging for relics in the north, but now I know they’re not related to you."
"The north..." Vivian winked but she couldn’t recall any ‘old friends’ of her in the north. Meanwhile, Hao Ren curiously asked, "How much do you know about The Day of Return? We’re investigating the event."
"No more than what you’ve already known." Liu Sheng shook his head. "What I do know is, the unusual creatures are very concerned about it. They’re planning to make use of the ancient relics to launch another attack. As the influence of demon hunters has abnormally diminished for the past years and coupled with the fact that it’s not as easy to make war as in the past, we couldn’t monitor the movement of the unusual creatures as easily as in the past. All we know is that they’re studying about The Day of Return in a few places—around the Arctic, Africa, Central America, and a secret location in the Pacific. Werewolves and vampires are the most active. While some shamans have joined the party, it’s not known what’s their intention: there shouldn’t be any relics left to be found."
"The Arctic... Africa..." Hao Ren mumbled, trying to memorise. "Understood. I’ll investigate who these unusual creatures are. Hopefully I’ll get the intel soon."
He gave Vivian a glance. She nodded lightly as if saying she would get everything done.
"By the way, we can cooperate." Hao Ren looked at Liu Sheng as if expecting something. He needed to expand his intelligence operation among unusual creatures and demon hunters; while he had made positive progress among unusual creatures thanked to Vivian and Ebben family which had spread their shelter organisation to other families, he was still at a dead-end on demon hunters. The only source he currently had was Nangong, the half-baked demon hunter, who left him a list of names but had left out Zhao Xi and Liu Sheng...
Anyhow, that fellow who was called Sanba was good at nothing accept warding off evil spirits.
Liu Sheng stared intensely at Hao Ren and then said cautiously, "I’m still a demon hunter and she," pointing at Zhao Xi. "and I are still pondering what we should do. So we’re not going to commit to anything yet. But... you and I are no longer enemy. And I hope you won’t get us involved in your business with other demon hunters. Don’t put me in that difficult situation."
The ambiguous reply was good enough. Hao Ren knew though Liu Sheng wouldn’t get involved actively, he wouldn’t decline request for non-critical information. So Hao Ren smiled and nodded, feeling satisfied. Suddenly the MDT spoke into his mind, "News from the administration: homeland of Hilda has been located."