Chapter 22 : Mixed Doubles

The evening wind on the rooftop, wrapped in the shattered light of the neon signs, blew the fur ball on Chengzi’s hoodie into a frenzy.

She leaned against the rust-spotted iron railing and took a deep breath.

“A little tipsy and a cool breeze is the best feeling!“

Chengzi shouted at the trail of light left by a plane in the night sky.
The giant screen on the commercial street in the distance was playing a perfume commercial.
A pale pink light drifted to the rooftop with the wind, shattering into light spots on the orange highlights of her hair.

“M… miss…“

A stuttering voice suddenly came from behind her, as if an old cassette tape was stuck.

Chengzi turned around.
A gray-haired man was staggering towards her.
The moonlight happened to illuminate the lipstick-shaped black spot on his neck.

“Want… want a… drink?“

The gray-haired man held half a glass of tequila, his footsteps so unsteady that he seemed about to fall over at any second.

The alcohol dripped from his fingers, etching small, scorched holes in the waterproof coating of the rooftop floor.

“Sorry, I don’t drink.“

Chengzi backed away awkwardly while refusing.
This guy was clearly a drunkard.
If he got entangled with her, it would be endless.

She didn’t want to get entangled with a drunkard.

“Have… have a drink!“

The gray-haired man threw away his glass and staggered towards her, spilling half a glass of tequila all over the floor.

“Stay away from me! I’ve learned karate!“

Chengzi backed away in a panic.
The gray-haired man staggered forward.

Chengzi wanted to push him away, but even though she had learned karate, she couldn’t push this man away.
It felt like pushing a stone that weighed hundreds of kilograms.

“Have a… drink with me!“

The gray-haired man stuttered.
His hands were about to grab Chengzi’s fair neck.

His dilated pupils reflected the neon signs, and the patterns of his irises wriggled strangely, like blood vessels.

“Help!“

Chengzi shouted in a panic.

The moment those cold hands touched her neck, the moon was suddenly devoured by a shadow.
A hand stretched out from the shadow and grabbed his collar.

“Crash!“

Then came the sound of flesh colliding with the debris on the rooftop.
The gray-haired man was thrown against an abandoned sofa, and the sofa tipped over, its springs breaking.

‘Holy crap, a savior?’

A savior with a ponytail stood quietly in the moonlight.
In the afterimage left on Chengzi’s retina, the savior’s soaked baseball jacket was billowing with a water mist.
The water droplets flung from the brim of the savior’s cap fell in mid-air, each one refracting the moonlight-like silver light.

She just didn’t know why this savior was soaked to the bone, as if she had just climbed out of a river.

“So… so pretty…“

Chengzi murmured.

“Go!“

The voice coming from under the savior’s mask was muffled, as if deliberately trying to lower the voice.

“Oh! Oh!“

Chengzi nodded blankly.
She scrambled up from the ground and ran into the stairwell.

As the fire door of the stairwell was completely closed, the girl finally twisted her neck, making a “crack, crack” sound of bones rubbing together.

“Is he possessed?“

The girl watched as the gray-haired man slowly climbed up from the debris, his figure twisting strangely.

In her vision, the black line on his body was twisted into a ball.
It was obvious that the source of the demonic energy was on him.

A black vortex spinning in the gray-haired man’s pupils suddenly spewed out an asphalt-like substance that flowed down his cheeks.
His fingernails grew to the length of a scalpel.

The moonlight at this moment strangely bent into a parabola.
The moment the water droplet dripping from the cuff of the girl’s baseball jacket exploded on the ground…

“Boom!“

The gray-haired man was kicked into the pile of abandoned furniture again.
The old spring mattress let out a screech of rusted steel bars.

“So weak even when possessed!“

The girl shook her ponytail, and the water droplets flung from the ends of her hair condensed into ice crystals in mid-air, then instantly melted back into water droplets.

“Be careful!“

Just as the girl was cracking her knuckles with a “crack,” preparing to press her advantage, a hand suddenly stretched out from the side, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her away.

The force was as precise as a surgical operation.
A warm touch drilled into her skin through her soaked sleeve, and the sudden scent of cedarwood filled her nasal cavity.

‘Xu Zhi?’

“Crack!“

Before the girl could open her mouth, the concrete suddenly exploded.
Three claws stabbed out from the dust.
If Xu Zhi hadn’t pulled her away, the girl would probably have been pierced by these claws.

“Thanks!“

The girl shook off his hand with a huff.
For some reason, the warm touch actually made her feel a sense of attachment.

‘I kind of regret shaking his hand off…’

“He’s possessed.“
Xu Zhi just shook his head to show that he had no other intentions.
“We have to force the demon out, otherwise, the only one who will get hurt is this man.“

“OK, you do it.“

The girl shrugged and turned to leave.
Anyway, Chengzi had been saved, and she hadn’t been discovered by the Demon Suppression Division.
She should leave now.

But when she reached the rooftop door, she found that the iron door of the rooftop was suddenly covered with a black spiderweb that had surged out from the cracks in the building.
The surface of this black substance had an oil-like luster.

The girl tentatively pulled at the black spiderweb sealing the door.
The viscous substance pulled out a gelatinous substance that was hard to separate.
The corrosive mucus etched honeycomb-like holes in the toe of her canvas shoes, emitting a nauseatingly rotten smell.

It seemed that only by releasing her demonic energy could she destroy this black spiderweb.

And Xu Zhi was still here.
The girl wasn’t stupid enough to release her demonic energy in front of him.

“Tsk, so annoying…“

The dark clouds suddenly covered the moonlight.
The girl clicked her tongue.
This feeling was like a game where you couldn’t leave the boss room without defeating the boss.

She turned back and walked behind Xu Zhi, casually picking up a cast iron water pipe and weighing it in her hand.
Mmm, it felt good.

“It looks like it wants to send us both off here.“

Xu Zhi said casually.
He didn’t turn his head, but he smelled the faint osmanthus scent on the girl.

“How are you going to force it out?“

The water pipe spun in the girl’s palm, creating afterimages.
She looked more like she was here for a group fight than to exorcise a demon.

“Stick this on his forehead.“
A yellow talisman suddenly appeared between Xu Zhi’s fingers.
“A special product of the Demon Suppression Division, the Demon Suppression Talisman.“

“Then I’ll pull aggro!“

The girl swung the water pipe, creating a whooshing sound.
The moment the rusty iron pipe collided with the demon’s claws, countless sparks exploded.

Then, half of the iron pipe spun and embedded itself in the water storage tank, the cut end still glowing with a dark red heat.

This kind of cast iron water pipe was just a slightly thicker paper roll in the claws of a Resentful Demon.

“Tsk!“

The girl casually threw the remaining half of the water pipe.
It stabbed into a claw that had drilled out from the ground like a javelin, but unfortunately, it didn’t cause any substantial damage.

The girl’s toes hooked onto a metal billboard, kicking it up to block the second wave of claw attacks for her.
The sound of tearing metal was endless.

This feeling of being unable to cause damage to the enemy due to equipment problems made the girl feel inexplicably irritable.

“Here! Use this!“

Xu Zhi spun around and cut off an attacking claw with his saber.
He reached into his waist and threw a twenty-centimeter-long black hilt to the girl.

“What is this?!“

The girl reached out and caught this hilt-like object, while dodging a stabbing claw.

“Hold the hilt and swing it!“
Xu Zhi shouted, and flew to cut off a claw.
“My backup weapon!“

The girl fiercely swung the hilt at an attacking claw.
A precise sound like a Swiss watch being wound came from inside the hilt.
In an instant, a white blade over a meter long extended.
A white light flashed, and the claw was cut like butter with a hot knife.

“Wow! So cool!“

The girl shook off the black substance on the blade and struck a pose she had learned from a game.

“Made by the War Preparation Bureau! It’s yours!“
Xu Zhi turned and jumped to the girl’s side.
“Although I don’t know where I offended you, take this as an apology!“

The girl just snorted lightly and flew into the net woven from countless claws, charging left and right as if she were in an uninhabited land.

She slid and slashed, and the net woven from the claws was shattered by her.

“Now!“

While the girl was cutting a path through the net woven from the blades, Xu Zhi, like an arrow, shot through the water mist and appeared in front of the gray-haired man.

“The Heavenly Law is manifest, the Earthly Decree is resplendent. Yin and Yang be the lock, the Five Elements be the boundary. Let the demon submit, let the spirit be sealed—Suppress!“

As the incantation was finished, the Demon Suppression Talisman on the gray-haired man’s forehead instantly extended golden threads.
The threads passed through the gray-haired man’s skin and bound the black shadow inside him.
The shadow let out a strange, baby-like cry and emitted wisps of white smoke.

In just half a second, the shadow of the Resent-filled Ghost was wrapped in the talisman and fell to the ground.

“Clang!“

Xu Zhi’s long saber instantly pierced into the talisman.
With the talisman as the center, a golden eight-trigram array pattern extended on the ground.

As the golden patterns gradually dimmed and disappeared, the Demon Suppression Talisman also burned to ashes.
Xu Zhi finally let out a breath of turbid air.

“Demon suppression complete!“

The black spiderweb curled up into a ball in the ashes of the Demon Suppression Talisman, and the iron door of the rooftop made a creaking sound.

An asphalt-like substance was slowly seeping out from the cracks in the ground.
This was the Resentful Demon’s final struggle, but it was instantly frozen by the frost flowers that burst out when the girl’s heel crushed it.

When Xu Zhi looked up, the girl’s figure was about to disappear into the shadows of the stairwell.

“That! Have we met before!“

he shouted at the girl.

The girl just waved her hand and completely disappeared into the shadows of the stairwell.
But what he didn’t see was that the girl’s palm still had a burning scar, the mark left by the Demon Suppression Talisman.

“We have met, but I probably won’t see you again…“

the girl in the shadows murmured to herself.

Xu Zhi stared blankly at the empty stairwell.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps came from below.

“Boss… wasn’t… didn’t you say you’d take me to play? How did it turn into overtime?“
Lu Qingtian in the stairwell was panting heavily, holding onto the railing.
“I’m so tired…“

The moonlight poked its head out from behind the dark clouds again.
The pure white light fell on the rooftop, but in the blink of an eye, the gray-haired man had disappeared without a trace.

“I told you to collect data, and you gave me seven lives!“

In the private room of the nightclub, a woman leaned against an alligator leather sofa and cursed into the phone.
The laser lights left colorful light spots on the tips of her tea-colored hair.

The entire private room was filled with the scent of gardenia.

“Don’t ask me to clean up your mess next time!“

The woman picked up a glass of whiskey and took a sip.
The ice cubes collided in the amber-colored liquid.

She hung up the phone.
The wide-mouthed glass slammed heavily on the marble tabletop.
The ice cubes in the glass were shaken up by the force, and along with them, the half-black corpse on the tabletop was also shaken.

It belonged to the Skin-Painter.
The 47% of its body it had abandoned when it had escaped the frozen lake.

“Now, what should I do with you?“

The woman’s gaze swept over the corpse, and she couldn’t help but let out a light laugh.

“Creak!“

The door of the private room was suddenly opened.
A boy with gray hair walked in.
But compared to his appearance in the lobby, the dance floor, and the rooftop, he looked more tender now.
His face looked like a fifteen or sixteen-year-old boy, and he was bruised and swollen.

He reached up and tore off his gray wig, revealing a head of dark-gold-dyed choppy hair.
He swaggered to the woman’s opposite side, reached out, and picked up the half-empty glass of whiskey the woman had just placed on the table and downed it in one go.

Then he immediately grimaced and covered his face.

“Hiss… that sister hits really hard…“

“Here, put this on it.“

The tea-haired woman threw over an ice pack.
“How did it go?“

“I managed to divert the Demon Suppression Division’s attention with that defective product.“
The dark-gold-haired boy held the ice pack to the corner of his mouth, his voice muffled.
“It’s just that sister named Bai Ling…“

“I’ll deal with that girl.“

The tea-haired woman poured another half-glass of whiskey and pushed it in front of the boy.

“The Demon Suppression Division won’t find out, will they?“
The boy stared blankly as the tea-haired woman started pouring goji berries into her whiskey.
“Sister, what are you doing?!“

“That Demon Suppression Division kid coming here was just a coincidence.“

The tea-haired woman suddenly sat on the boy’s lap, her slender fingers lifting his chin.

“You’re so injured… you’re very tempting…“

The tea-haired woman licked her lips, the corners of her mouth, painted with lipstick, curling into a charming arc.
Her narrowed eyes flashed with a seductive light.

“Don’t…“

The boy’s latter half of the sentence was blocked by warm lips.