Chapter 7: Watching the fun
The story the two people outside told was three-tenths true and seven-tenths false. The encounter with evil spirits was true, but the innocent suffering was false. The death of someone was true. So, were they really his so-called brothers?
Who knows?
Three white eyes, half eyebrows, drooping mouth corners, and prominent brow bones. Qin Qinsen really couldn't feel the slightest bit of brotherhood with such a cold and sinister person.
And this box...
"Are you okay?" It was unusually quiet inside. Boss Huang gritted his teeth, pushed open the door and rushed in.
At a glance, he saw Qin Qinsen standing by the table, writing with great speed. Before he could say anything else, a flash of inspiration came to him and he created a talisman with one stroke.
Qin Qinsen knelt on one knee and put a talisman on the box.
"Yes."
Taking the box thrown to him, Boss Huang sighed, "Such a strong evil spirit."
"Don't open it." Qin Qinsen reminded, "Let the victim decide how to deal with it."
With an inquiring look in his eyes, Boss Huang chuckled, "Xiao Qin is really smart. So, tell me, how do we deal with the two people outside?"
"That's your problem." Qin Qinsen glanced out the door and smiled. "In my opinion, it's better to call the police."
Boss Huang pointed the box at Qin Qinsen and scolded him with a smile, "It's too much to watch the fun. Let's go."
He was the first to walk out of the board room. He waved his hand, and Xiaoliu and Xiaocheng were immediately confused and followed Boss Huang out. Qin Qinsen was a little surprised, "Corpse driver?"
Corpse-carrying in Xiangxi is the most famous form of the practice, and the old Taoist priest has a friend who does just that. He's sinister and taciturn, rising early and working late, and never married. He only says that the only way to pass on his skills is to take on an apprentice.
"You have good eyesight, kid. It's a pity that I don't have it." Boss Huang chuckled, a hint of regret in his tone, "I was ignorant before, so I learned a few tricks from others and barely made a living."
"Since we're here, let's go get our reward."
With the two zombies, he arrived at a private restaurant in the city center without any obstruction.
In the private room, a burly man sat at the head of the table, cigarette in hand, tossing peanuts with chopsticks. His targets were the four people lying against the wall, each one clutching their knees and stomachs, faces etched with pain but daring not to utter a single sound.
"Brother Hong." Although he had retired long ago, Boss Huang still showed respect to the burly man.
"Come on, sit down." Brother Hong put out his cigarette, ignored the two people standing upright behind him, and instead looked at Qin Qinsen, "I got the things back."
This is a declarative sentence, and it is obvious that he trusts Boss Huang very much.
"Little boy, take a look at what you like to eat. Brother will treat you." He threw the menu in front of Qin Qinsen and brought a bowl of soup to Boss Huang. "Drink the soup first."
Boss Huang drank the soup obediently without saying a word, and was like a completely different person from before.
Qin Qinsen glanced at the hot soup that had been served in the bowl in advance and was at just the right temperature, then looked at Boss Huang who had suddenly become well-behaved. A playful expression came over Qin Qinsen, and Boss Huang glared at him while he was drinking the soup.
"Why are you flirting with me? Hurry up and drink your soup. You've been busy all day and you're hungry."
At this moment, the door to the private room opened from the outside, and someone walked in while talking on the phone. "...I know, I'll definitely find it back, brother, don't worry! What do you mean you're worried because it's me?! Are you still my real brother?!"
"Box?!"
The visitor saw the box with a yellow talisman on it on the dining table. The red talisman was very eye-catching.
"I found it, I found it, bro, come to Lin Ji to pick me up!"
Without waiting for a reply from the other end, the caller hung up the phone and started to work on the box.
Snap——
Qin Qinsen stopped him without hesitation and slapped the man's hand. "Watch your eyes and don't move your hands."
"Who are you?! I can't even touch my stuff?!"
"If you want to die, then move."
You can commit suicide, but don't do it in front of him. Qin Qinsen thought to himself that this person probably didn't know the power of the things in the box.
"What do you mean? Who are you? Boss Hong, is this one of your men?"
After three questions in a row, Brother Hong only said to the waiter, "No cilantro, no green onions, just slightly spicy. Add some sea cucumber stewed with millet. Do you have kale today? Forget the bitter melon. Let Lao Lin do it faster."
After the waiter left and closed the door, Brother Hong turned around and asked, "What are you yelling about? Do you want to be like them?"
Teng An looked in the direction of his finger and saw Xiaoliu and Xiaocheng standing blankly by the wall, their eyes filled with abnormal grayness, and they didn't look like living people.
"What the hell!" Teng An quickly grabbed a chair and held it high up in front of him, "What's wrong with them?"
"You don't know?" Brother Hong, like a naughty boy, picked up some peanuts and threw them at Xiaoliu's face one by one. "You asked me to find something, but you don't know what's inside it."
He smiled disdainfully, obviously not taking Teng An seriously.
Qin Qinsen poured himself a cup of tea, "Those two are dying, the ones lying there."
Qin Qinsen glanced at the person standing by the wall, who was obviously listening carefully. He raised the corner of his mouth in an ambiguous way, "At the very least, he'll be in trouble."
"If you open the box now, it's a different price."
The price of saving the lives of a whole room of people is naturally different from saving the lives of only two people.
"W-what do you mean?" Teng An was nervous and confused.
"What I mean is, the thing in the box cost my subordinates their lives. Of course, this is not your fault. After all, when we took this deal, President Teng said that the box could not be opened. They were just careless and thought they could touch anything."
After hearing what Brother Hong said, the person lying against the wall shook even more violently.
Boss Huang snapped his fingers, and Xiaoliu and Xiaocheng regained consciousness. When Xiaocheng saw the person in front of him clearly, his legs went weak and he almost fell to his knees. Xiaoliu, however, smiled and said, "Brother Hong!"
"I don't deserve it." After saying that, he punched him in the face. "You're trying to trick me before you even have all your hair grown, you idiot."
Qin Qinsen ate his food while watching the fun, taking a sip of tea from time to time. "If someone is beaten to death, I have a salvation service here."
"Your business is so extensive?" Teng An came over, his face full of curiosity. "What happened to that guy just now? When can I take my things away? Why are they acting like they've seen a ghost?"
"First, tell me where the box came from." Compared to Brother Hong's passionate martial arts dramas, Qin Qinsen prefers to listen to stories about supernatural powers.
"The box belongs to our family," Teng An said hurriedly. "It's been kept in the old house. My brother suddenly went crazy and insisted on sending the box to Ning'an Temple. He also forbade us to touch it. That's why I recommended Boss Hong to him."
Brother Hong was once a gangster, but for some reason, he'd faded from the scene in recent years. Instead, he opened a security company, one of whose services was escorting valuables. Unfortunately, some of his subordinates weren't happy with the idea of laundering their wealth. Not only was the pay slow, but they also had to dress up in suits and serve wealthy clients every day, which was more unbearable than killing them.
"When people are not united, trouble will easily arise. Excuse me." Brother Hong wiped the blood off his hands and continued the conversation.
The Teng family's request was originally easy to complete; they only needed to send the box intact to the next city. However, Xiaoliu and the others had other ideas, believing that something that cost so much to transport must be very valuable.
Regardless of what's inside the box, the unpretentious material, the simple shape, the intricate carvings, and the Teng family's ancestral name alone are enough to make it coveted. The very afternoon he received the box's photo, Xiao Liu had already negotiated with seven or eight buyers, two of whom even paid deposits directly.
Xiaocheng skillfully administered laxatives to the delivery team, sending those with serious injuries directly to the emergency room. The escort mission had to be handed over to the only free team that day. After Xiaoliu led the team to take over, his thoughts began to become more active.
The box can be sold at a high price, but what about the things inside the box?
"So you opened the box and wanted to take the stuff out and sell it again?" Qin Qinsen laughed. His greed brought him fatal disaster.
Xiao Cheng knelt on the ground, not daring to raise his head. "The Teng family values the box so much, it must be very valuable."
"Have you ever thought about why others specifically told you not to open the box?" Brother Hong sneered, "You have the guts to intercept, but you don't have the guts to open the lid yourself."
"Does Potato know that his most admired Sixth Brother is using him as a target? Can you sleep in the middle of the night, Wang Laoliu?"
There were seven people following Xiaoliu, including the one in the private room today and a young and inexperienced Shuzai.
Xiaoliu was not only greedy but also a bit clever. He took Xiaocheng and Shuzai to meet the buyer, while the rest of the group pretended to escort the goods to Ning'an Temple.
Faced with his employer's repeated insistence that the box not be opened, he had his own ideas. He found the most obedient boy, Shuzai, and let him decide for himself: should he open the box and become his sworn brother, or continue to listen to Brother Hong and act like a lapdog?
Shuzai immediately said that Brother Hong was nothing.
Excitedly opening the box, he saw a bracelet inside. Without giving it much thought, he picked it up and was about to show it to Xiaoliu and Xiaocheng. Unexpectedly, he put the bracelet on the next second, his eyes rolled back, showing only the whites of his eyes.
Then, Shuzai started dancing, spinning in circles. No matter how Xiaoliu and Xiaocheng shouted and slapped him, it was useless. He just kept doing it on his own and finally strangled himself to death.
After Shuzai died, the bracelet slipped off. Xiaoliu grabbed the box and ran, wanting nothing more than to get rid of it quickly, take the money, and leave Haishi, free from the constraints of Hongge and that damn security company. With money, he could fly as high as he wanted. Who could stop him?
"Let me guess what happens next - you can't see the buyer at all, because no matter which way you go, you can't leave a certain range. So in desperation, you contact Brother Hong, using the excuse that you should act separately to protect the safety of the goods. But this box is very strange, and anyone who touches it can't leave Haishi, so Brother Hong finds Boss Huang." Qin Qinsen propped up his chin.
There was admiration in Brother Hong's eyes, and Qin Qinsen guessed that he was almost right, but it was he who proposed to meet in the city center. Who knew that one party happened to be caught in a traffic jam, and the other party couldn't get out of that desolate wilderness at all.
"Stop, stop!" Teng An stood up suddenly, raising his arms high. "Are you talking about this box in my house?"
Are his old things so powerful?
Teng An stared at the box suspiciously, completely bewildered. "I don't understand what you're doing, but my brother said this must be delivered to Ning'an Temple before Sunday!"
"I have to?" Qin Qinsen tilted his head and looked at Boss Huang, "Then I don't care?"
It's Saturday night now, so we still have time to set off for Ning'an Temple.
Boss Huang didn't respond, but just looked at Brother Hong.
"Okay, the employer has the final say. Of course, these two little scoundrels will have to trouble Master Qin."
It's not nice to talk about the people below getting their lives involved in some petty tricks, but Brother Hong has his own way of dealing with ungrateful people, and it's not up to anyone else to interfere.
Qin Qinsen understood that what he meant was to rescue the people first and then Brother Hong would settle the score with them.
"They are not clean to begin with, and now they have been marked, so they can't escape at all." As he said this, he lightly tapped Xiaocheng's eyebrows with his sword finger and chanted an incantation in a strange rhythm.
From Xiaocheng's perspective, Qin Qinsen's eyes were fixed on him, as if possessed by a spell, forcing him to meet his gaze. As the incantation grew faster and faster, a golden light shone in Qin Qinsen's pupils, dazzling beyond measure. The area between his eyebrows, where he had burned them, grew increasingly hot, until it became unbearable, and Xiaocheng cried out in pain.
"break!"
With a soft cry, Xiao Cheng felt dizzy as if someone had slapped him hard on the back of his head. His throat surged, and he spat out a mouthful of foul-smelling blood.
The same method was used on Xiaoliu, and after it was over, everyone felt that they had lost their appetite.
At this moment, Teng An received a call - the real employer had arrived.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
