Beginning with the Ubume Bird

Chapter 109: Chapter 8 Hexagram

“Him? He’s chatting with another narrow-b.”

Li Yan suddenly felt emptiness beneath his buttocks; with a straightening of his lower legs and a forceful turn of his waist, he flipped over, but still thudded into the depths with a splash!

Smack!

Li Yan’s right hand clutched the edge of the chair, desperately trying to pull himself out, as the sticky darkness tugged at his body, half of his face already sunken into the massage chair.

Two pitch-black hands reached out from behind the chair, tightly strangling Li Yan.

“Stay with me…”

The man’s voice was somber.

He stretched out his calloused hand to cover the screen, his fingertips slowly emerging from the TV.

Arms, waist, thighs.

Finally, the sound of leather shoes lightly touching the ground.

The man was wearing beige suit, his eye rings were dark as if he hadn’t slept for a long time.

Trapped in the quagmire-like massage chair and unable to move, Li Yan’s eyes rolled around, and he mumbled:

“If I were to stay here, I’d definitely sing better than you. After singing for seven years, even bringing a dog over wouldn’t end up like you.”

Seeing that the “thug” in front of him wasn’t the slightest bit panicked, the man narrowed his eyes.

He bowed his head in silence for a while, then burst out laughing with a crazed look when he raised his head again.

“Then stay as my company!”

Having said that, he grabbed Li Yan’s wrist holding onto the edge of the chair and yanked hard, trying to push Li Yan further into the chair.

…

Five seconds passed.

“Get in, get in!”

Ten seconds passed.

“Uh… ha~ha~, um… ha~ha~”

Half a minute…

Splash.

The man sat on the ground, his face drenched in sweat.

Li Yan’s wrist was immovable as if it was iron welded in place. His exposed eye looked at the man.

The man abruptly stood up, his face fiercely scouring the room before finally finding a paper cutter in a drawer.

He walked over to Li Yan’s massage chair with the knife in hand, the blade pointed at Li Yan.

Li Yan looked at him with the whites of his eyes showing.

“…”

The man’s eyes turned red, the white tip of the knife trembling.

“What’re you looking at? Do it.” Li Yan revealed a row of pearly white teeth. “You’ve had seven years to find a narrow-b like me, don’t miss your chance.”

Clang~

The paper cutter hit the ground, the man slapped himself, ripping the posters on the counter to shreds, and grabbed a flowerpot to smash at the glass door.

The seemingly fragile door remained perfectly still; the glass, with red stripes and the words “audio recording” on it, was smeared with mud.

He kicked the CD cabinet over and over, the dull thuds were full of irritability. The CDs, with Emil Chau’s smiling face, scattered all over the floor.

“Damn it! Damn it!”

The man sat on the ground, clutching his hair with a troubled expression, his eyes reddened.

Seeing this, Li Yan couldn’t help but laugh: “Even as a ghost, you don’t dare to stab a person? You really are unique, like a scorpion taking a crap.”

The man’s lips quivered with anger, and he shouted with his neck stretched: “Can you control it? Can you control it?!”

Li Yan sized up the man and said:

“I’m saying, how did you get in? We’re both in a tough spot, tell me about it.”

The man pursed his lips and turned his head away, ignoring Li Yan.

“Just talk, bro, what did you used to do?”

“…”

The man swallowed hard, choking his throat, and after wiping his eyes, he said:

“I must say, you’re a big-hearted kid; aren’t you afraid to die?”

“Die?” Li Yan’s eyes swept around.

“This place isn’t qualified for that.”

The man shook his head; it took him a long moment to calm down, then he thought it might not be too bad to have someone to talk to.

“Before, I was in a band. Lived near Summer Palace, do you know Shu Village? That night after drinking with a few pals till drunk, I wandered around here past eleven, and in the blink of an eye, I couldn’t find anyone around. The rest, just like you.”

“With your voice, the band must not have made much money, right?”

“That’s because you don’t get it!”

The man seemed to be caught on a sore point, but considering the situation, arguing about it seemed pointless, so he didn’t get enraged. Instead, he sighed.

“Struggling for a few years and getting nowhere, back then I performed at Happy Park, and the money from that was just enough for a round of drinks. Never got to honor my parents, seeing them one more time now seems unlikely.”

“I’ll help you.”

“Mind your own business; you can barely save yourself,”

The man snorted with a laugh.

“Do you know why I knowingly entered this problematic store?”

Li Yan asked him.

“You’re nuts, nobody cares about you.”

The man cursed.

“Hehehe…”

Li Yan’s half-visible face smiled, and for a moment, it was unclear who was really the ghost.

His fingers suddenly clenched tightly, leaving several clear marks on the massage chair.

“Squeak~”

White smoke rose from the chair as the roaring sound, along with white steam, billowed upward.

In the man’s disbelief, the black upholstery burst into flames, and Li Yan leaped up, surrounded by the air echoing with the roar of a ferocious beast.

Chaos tattoo, Fierce.

The man was speechless for a long time.

A soft green light radiated from the black square hole of the six coins.

Dressed in capri pants and a beige women’s suit, Lady Dan stepped out of the green light. Her pristine fingers rested on the crackling phonograph, seemingly fascinated by this oddly shaped device.

“Lady Dan, can you find a way to get him out?”

After hearing this, Lady Dan leaned close to the man’s face, frightening him into retreating repeatedly.

She turned to ask Li Yan.

“This hexagram?”

“What’s a ‘yao’?”

“When someone like him gets lost in the underworld and can’t find their way back, that’s called a ‘yao’.”

“It’s him.”

Lady Dan nodded and said, “First, we need to find a vessel for him.”

After she finished speaking, she pointed casually at a morning glory-shaped gramophone, “How about this one?”

“It’s too big, something smaller.”

Li Yan picked up a white Sony Walkman.

“How about this one?”

“That’ll do.”

Lady Dan grabbed the man’s collar and amidst his banal questions, “What are you doing?” she forcibly stuffed the man’s head into the Walkman’s black and white screen.

Li Yan watched the scene with amazement.

“Although ‘yao’ is rare, it’s weak. Why bother bringing him along?”

Lady Dan handed the Walkman to Li Yan.

“Earlier outside, although his singing was awful, it’s just that…”

In Kui’s record book, on East Street of Xuanwu Gate, there was also a suppressive object.

Li Yan looked distantly at the retro yet dilapidated western-style building outside the gate.

The doors were closed, with carved marble openwork, a church in shades of gray and white that looked long uninhabited.

[Protestant Yandu Bishop’s House Ruins (Night)]

Catholics will receive blessings.

All non-Catholic sects are repelled.

“During the chase earlier with the tattooed man, it was within the range of this suppressive object. Yet, I received no warning of any abnormal status. If you say this street is evil, the whole city’s the same. If I had to say there’s something special about this place…”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Li Yan examined the white Walkman in his hands.

[Sony Discman D777]

Category: ???

Quality: ???

Cannot be taken outside of Yan Fu Fruit.

Note: Inside it is a middle-aged person, who only fiddles with unusual music that no one likes, a decadent soul.

Li Yan stepped out of the church and stood under the sign of “Rolling Stone Culture.”

“Whoosh!”

A gust of wind swirled around Li Yan’s arm, giving him the creeps.

One by one, the cherry tomato fairy lights went out, casting a gloomy shadow on the street.

“Pachi”

Li Yan looked down; he was standing in a puddle of blood, feeling a gap beneath his feet.

He bent over to pick up something from the blood, round and smooth to the touch.

After wiping off the blood, Li Yan held it up to the ginger-colored moon in the sky.

Transparent, with petal-like things inside.

A glass ball?

Li Yan chuckled in disbelief. He tossed the ball away but felt uneasy. Upon looking up again, he was discomforted.

What hung in the sky was not the moon but a human face filled with resentment.

Suddenly, a chill ran under Li Yan’s feet. He reflexively drew the Ring Dragon Sword, chopping and flicking his wrist outward. He didn’t know what he hit, but whatever it was, it stuck to the wall, leaving a smear of red.

“Lady Dan, go inside first.”

Li Yan stepped onto the street, allowing Lady Dan, transformed into a blue glow, to wrap around the coin-shaped hole in his necklace.

Rustling sounds reached his ears, coming from the location where he had killed the tattooed skeleton man.

The skull-tattooed man with a pierced neck was crawling towards Li Yan like a catfish, scratching along the ground.

His bloodstained face showed red gums, and sticky yellow corpse oil trailed across the tar road, looking nauseating and terrifying.

Li Yan casually unhooked a green mailbox, holding the Ring Dragon in his left hand and dragging the metal mailbox with his right, moving towards the writhing tattooed skeleton man without a hint of emotion on his face.

The sound of his black leather shoes stepping on the ground was mixed with the screech of the mailbox, the rhythm distinct and clear.

The disgusting corpse monster paused and then began to frantically rub against the ground, twisting away in the opposite direction of Li Yan.

Obviously not as fast as Li Yan.

The waist-thick mailbox, whistling with the wind, crashed down on the corpse creature, sending flesh flying.

Li Yan did not stop. Again and again he struck, like a psychopath from an American movie, until the corpse at his feet was unrecognizable, the bloodied, twisted mailbox in his hands looked mashed. Only then did he stop.

“Bang!”

He tossed aside the mailbox and looked out over the desolate street.

The street that had been relatively tidy when he arrived was now peppered with black oil stains. The “Xianghe Meat Pie” sign above the restaurant was shattered, a sight of utter post-apocalyptic decay.

At the corner of the street, a slender leg wearing glass sandals emerged, initially drawing Li Yan’s interest until he saw the woman’s red and white mottled torso and his face soured.

Behind the “woman” were many shadows of arms, cast against the wall, creating a spine-chilling scene as they surrounded her and surged toward Li Yan.

A man in a suit and shoes, carrying an armband with red background and yellow writing, wearing an old Zhongshan suit was the old man.

With a big head sticker on her face. A girl with lamb horn braids, standing on one foot on a roller scooter.

Each one was covered in blood, missing limbs, not looking alive at all.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.”

Li Yan switched the Ring Dragon Sword to his right hand and took a few steps before realizing he had entered the church’s range.

“Your status ‘Fierce’ is suppressed.”

“Your metal-detecting items cannot be used.”

Li Yan tapped the aluminum shell of the Sony Walkman.

“What should I call you?”

“Liang Ye…”

The man’s voice came from the Walkman.

“Sing a few lines for me, don’t let me be busy for nothing tonight.”

“The same song as before?”

“You said I didn’t understand, so sing whatever you can. Whatever you think sounds good, sing that.”

Li Yan thought to himself, let’s see if it’s because of this ‘yao’ that the church’s suppressive effect hasn’t manifested. If so, I must take it out at all costs.

“Cough, cough, look at the screen, a song by me and some buddies.”

The man’s voice was a bit embarrassed but filled with expectation.

Li Yan had yet to realize what kind of strange thing he had inadvertently rescued…