0093 The Wood Demon and the Demon Blade

“Yes, yes, yes, Captain Li is right.”

“Good thing that punk was timid and spineless. He didn’t run his mouth in front of those city men just now, or else we’d all be in serious trouble.”

“Heh. A student brat like him wouldn’t dare say much anyway. Captain Li, calm down first.”

“Enough. Spare me that nonsense. In a couple of days, pick a quiet day and keep teaching that punk. Since this was something Young Master Zhou asked for, we need to give him an explanation.”

“Right away! Don’t worry, Captain Li.”

Hou Rui did not bother listening any further, because he had already heard enough. So all of this had been Zhou Xing’s doing after all. Now Hou Rui knew exactly who he needed to settle accounts with.

He waited a few more minutes before the fat policeman finally walked out of the interrogation room with Captain Li. When the fat cop stood in front of Hou Rui with his chin raised high, he put on an air of generosity and said, “You can go back for today. I’ll question you again another day. Remember, don’t leave Beijing. I’ll keep watching you.” As he spoke, the fat policeman even made a throat-cutting gesture at Hou Rui to threaten him.

But Hou Rui still said nothing in response. He simply got to his feet and staggered outside. Yet once he was beyond the police station, his back straightened at once, and the unsteady steps in his legs vanished. He strode briskly toward the nearby highway.

He raised a hand and hailed a taxi. After that, Hou Rui headed all the way back into downtown Beijing. When he finally settled back in his own car, the fury in his heart toward Zhou Xing had already swelled to the point where it could no longer be contained.

So Hou Rui took out his phone and sent a message to Old Xiao: “Can you help me check on someone?”

“Hey, Wild Dog, long time no see. You still haven’t croaked?”

“Cut the crap. Can you help me or not?”

“No problem. Using the organization’s intelligence division costs fifty thousand dollars at minimum. Since your clearance isn’t high enough, you need me to handle it for you, and my service fee is twenty thousand.”

“Fine. I’ll transfer the money right away. The person I want checked is a Beijing political family brat named Zhou Xing.”

“Wait for my news.”

After Hou Rui finished speaking with Old Xiao, he drove back to school and buried himself beneath the blankets in his dormitory.

But on the other end of the line, after Old Xiao put away his phone, he lifted his head and looked coldly toward a man not far away.

The man was an utterly ordinary middle-aged fellow, standing no more than five foot five, with a slightly hunched back, a listless expression on his face, and a pair of old-fashioned black-framed glasses with thick square lenses. Right then, this nondescript man was fussing over a camera tripod, doing his best to angle the lens toward a large pool several yards away.

Old Xiao stood there in silence, watching the man busily at work. When the man finally finished setting up the camera, he stepped back, picked up a wired remote control for the lift from a nearby chair, and cheerfully pressed the red button.

With a low hum from the motor, a huge cast iron plate was lowered by the lift to a point more than three feet above the pool.

The man then adjusted the camera focus again. Once the image sharpened, it became clear that beneath the cast iron plate, a white net had been spread wide, trapping a man with his arms and legs splayed out in a cruciform shape. The man inside the net appeared to be unconscious, which was why he was being handled so easily.

“You really are a pervert,” Old Xiao said at last, after watching in silence all this time.

“Heh. Demon Blade, you’re not the first person to say that to me, and you won’t be the last.” When the man laughed, he made a harsh sound like metal scraping against metal, grating to the ear.

“Whether you’re perverted is your own business. What did you drag me here for, Wood Demon?” Old Xiao finally called out the man’s name.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. Once I finish my work, we can talk slowly.” As he spoke, the short Wood Demon comically picked up a toy water pistol and sprayed jets of liquid at the man trapped in the net under the cast iron plate. The moment those droplets splashed onto the man’s face, the unfortunate fellow woke up at once.

“Ah, ah, ah!” The liquid that missed the man fell into the pool, and in an instant it was as though drops had plunged into a vat of boiling oil. Countless splashes erupted at once, along with a series of small explosive bursts. When the droplets thrown up from the pool struck the cast iron plate and the trapped man’s body, he let out a shrill scream and thrashed in agony without stop.

“Who are you people? What is this? What the hell is this stuff? Let me out!” The man in the net stretched out his neck and roared, but Wood Demon merely curled his lips slightly, as though he were smiling, and then explained, “Miss Lisa asked me to bring you a message. See you in hell.”

“Lisa? What Lisa? I don’t know any woman named Lisa. You’ve got the wrong person. Hurry up and let me down!” the man in the net cried in panic.

“As you wish.”

Wood Demon pressed the red button on the control again, and the entire cast iron plate began to descend slowly, drawing closer and closer to the pool.

“Wait a minute! What is this water? What are you trying to do?” the man in the net shouted again, but it could not stop the plate from lowering.

“Hush.”

The moment Wood Demon uttered that word, one of the man’s feet in the net touched the surface of the liquid in the pool.

The instant the shoe-clad foot made contact, greenish smoke hissed up around the sole. Then, as the man’s ankle sank into the liquid, his trouser leg and sock were corroded away in a blink. And the moment his flesh touched the liquid, it did not merely blister and blacken at once; it also drew from him a horrible scream like a wolf’s howl.

At that moment, Old Xiao finally saw a change in Wood Demon’s expression. As the man emitted that inhuman cry, the eyes behind Wood Demon’s glasses began to shine. It was a light mixed with delight and excitement, much like the look a man gets when a beautiful woman from his fantasies willingly throws herself into his arms.

“Aaahhh!” The man’s screams were utterly heart-rending. By now, his body from the waist down had already sunk into the pool, and amid the bubbling, smoking liquid, he kept writhing frantically, yet he still could not escape the white net.

Oddly enough, the unknown liquid that had corroded away the man’s clothes, shoes, and socks still had not managed to destroy the white net. As a result, the trapped man was left in a state where he could not live and could not die.

Thirty seconds later, Wood Demon switched to the green button. With the sound of the motor turning, the cast iron plate rose once more, pulling away from the horrifying pool, but when the man’s legs below the waist emerged, they had already turned eerily black.

That was not all. Overcome by unending agony, the man could no longer even cry out, though his whole body trembled and twisted nonstop. As his blackened legs rubbed against the white mesh, strips of scorched flesh were peeled away by the thin, sharp strands, revealing bright red muscle beneath.

At the sight of this horrific scene, Old Xiao’s face also darkened considerably. He was not so weak as Hou Rui, who would have vomited outright, but his stomach still lurched repeatedly, and even the jaw muscles along his cheeks tightened involuntarily.

“Heh-heh-heh. Fiberglass netting and concentrated sulfuric acid have always been my favorites. The only drawback is that the fun can’t last too long.” While speaking, Wood Demon pressed the red button again, and under the dying, desperate eyes of the man in the net, the cast iron plate and white mesh sank once more into the pool. This time, Wood Demon directly lowered the man in the net into the sulfuric acid up to his chest, and the trapped man instinctively struggled with all his remaining strength.

Amid the violently churning sulfuric acid, Old Xiao could see hands and a head breaking the surface now and then through the gaps in the white mesh, only to sink quickly back into the acid.

This time, Wood Demon only waited ten seconds before lifting the fiberglass net again, but the man inside it was already unable to move at all. He could only gasp in his last breaths. His face was covered with patches of blackened, scorched marks, and from the neck down he was no longer fit to look at. Under the combined effect of the sulfuric acid and the fiberglass net, even places like the knees and elbows had been reduced to bare bone.

“What a pity. Judging by his condition, he can probably only endure three rounds. I really hope I can find someone to break the record for five soakings.” As he spoke, Wood Demon shook his head and sighed, then pressed the red button once more. This time he lowered the trapped man, along with the cast iron plate and the net hanging from it, directly into the acid pool.

“All right, the task is done. Let’s have a little chat.” Wood Demon tossed aside the lift remote and put away the camera memory card before finally turning to Old Xiao.

The acid pool in the distance was still bubbling away, and the whole room was filled with a thick, pungent smell of acid. Yet the man seated on the sofa seemed unable to smell it at all. His eyes rested on Old Xiao with utter calm as he asked directly, “Does Wild Dog count as your student?”

“What, are you finally planning to go after him?” Old Xiao asked back with equal calm.

“Don’t misunderstand. It’s not for my own little business. The organization wants me to evaluate Wild Dog.”

“...” After a brief silence, Old Xiao still shook his head. “Wild Dog is only a joke that happened to take shape. He doesn’t count as my student.”

“That’s good. Then if I pay him a visit, or if something happens between us, Demon Blade, you need not concern yourself.”