Chapter 1 In the Car

Inside the car,

Zhou Ze watched Old Xu in the shop kneel on the ground.

He also saw the moment when Old Xu thrust the dagger toward his own face.

To be honest,

It was rather heartbreaking.

Boss Zhou's inclinations were perfectly normal.

Although he had been with Xu Qinglang for a long time, their relationship had always been proper.

But as the saying goes, even for a man, it's pleasing to the eye to have a handsome man fluttering around in front of you, isn't it?

But now,

Xu Qinglang was disfigured.

"Tsk..."

Feeling a bit down,

Zhou Ze took out his lighter and lit the cigarette that had its filter almost chewed to pieces in his mouth. He didn't smoke it, just held it between his fingers, his hand resting outside the car window.

Soon,

The heavy rain soaked the cigarette.

This cigarette,

Could no longer burn.

"Aaaaaah!!!!!"

A scream,

Came from the noodle shop.

Pain.

Of course, it was painful.

Zhou Ze's hand trembled, unable to flick off nonexistent ashes. He didn't really know what the meaning of his action was.

In Old Xu's cries,

There was a sense of release.

As if someone suppressed for too long,

Had finally broken free from their shackles.

Swallowed her,

Invited the Sea God,

Was he planning…

Zhou Ze turned on the windshield wipers.

He watched as the wipers continuously swept the rain off the windshield, but in the next second, water droplets instantly covered it again, repeating endlessly, never stopping in the heavy rain.

"Was he trying to seal a part of the Sea God within himself?"

Zhou Ze pondered.

He had to think about it.

Zhou Ze knew how much Old Xu loved his face.

He had been bullied and ridiculed because of that face when he was a child, and even after growing up, he had been harassed because of it.

His hometown land was demolished and he received more than twenty apartments,

But his choice was to open a small noodle shop.

And stubbornly opened it together with that idiot Xu Le's bookstore,

In this godforsaken, outdated commercial center.

It had a bit of a… tofu beauty vibe.

Zhou Ze had always felt that it was normal for a man to like his face and for a man to enjoy "grooming" himself.

Many men like to use "unkempt" to flaunt themselves,

Constantly citing Einstein, Gao Xiaosong, and others as examples,

But they don't look to see if they have the kind of inner strength that can completely explode.

"Sigh."

He sighed,

Muttering to himself:

"Old Xu,

Disfigured."

It was as if he was saying,

His best-looking porcelain had cracked.

Heartache.

"Heaven and earth are boundless, profound heart is righteous;

My body is the prison, my heart is the lock, my soul is the ban,

Seal,

Preserve,

Bind,

Fix!"

In the pool of blood,

Xu Qinglang spread his ten fingers, dipped them in his own blood, and began to draw symbols around himself while chanting incantations.

The whole scene,

Looked a bit bloody and glaring.

A man whose charm reached his bones,

A man who could evoke the protective instincts of both men and women with just one glance.

He knelt in the pool of blood,

His chest, his face,

Blood was flowing non-stop.

But his eyes,

Were full of calmness.

As if what was being ruined,

Wasn't himself at all,

But rather,

A tool.

Zhou Ze remembered a veteran he had treated before. That veteran was a real veteran, not the kind fabricated in this era of self-media. After the war, the veteran didn't become an official, but went home to farm.

He farmed,

For thirty years.

When he got too old to farm, he went to the martyrs' cemetery to guard the tombs of his former comrades, those he knew and those he didn't, those who might have shared a pot in the past.

He guarded, for another twenty years.

One rainy morning, while sweeping the floor, he fell and broke his leg.

Zhou Ze remembered that while he was treating him, he was about to comfort him as he usually did,

But instead, he was comforted by the old man.

The old man was still seriously calculating, at his age, with a broken leg, what else could he do?

Later, during rounds, the old man talked to Zhou Ze. He said that people who truly came down from the battlefield were actually very afraid of death, but their fear of death was different from others.

They would calculate,

Like losing a hand, getting shot somewhere, suffering some injury, how much food they ate at noon today.

Calculating this and that,

They felt that this body and life were no longer related.

Missing a leg, but still alive.

Probably,

That was the feeling.

At this time, Old Xu reminded Zhou Ze of that old soldier.

For a purpose,

Even one's own body,

The person inside the mirror when you wake up every day,

Could actually be a dispensable part.

Old Xu's face began to turn pale, an eerie white, not like blood loss, but more like poisoning.

Zhou Ze was still sitting in the car, watching.

Old Xu said,

Let him handle this matter himself.

Zhou Ze had agreed.

So now,

He was just watching from the side,

Watching him courting death,

Watching him disfigure himself,

Watching him laugh and gasp for air,

Could he bear it?

He couldn't bear it,

But he had to.

Streaks of green began to emerge from Xu Qinglang's body, first his chest, then his limbs, and finally, slowly, they permeated his face.

At this time, Old Xu,

Was a bit like a witch doctor in an African tribe.

Very crude,

Very simple,

Very desolate.

Like a sculpture,

That could be taken to a museum for preservation.

When Xu Qinglang finished chanting the incantation,

Zhou Ze suddenly felt that,

The rain nearby,

Had suddenly become heavier than before.

And it had become heavy to an exaggerated degree.

It was really pouring down.

The rapid sound of raindrops hitting the ground sounded like the galloping of thousands of horses.

Old Xu's heritage was not from a reputable sect. His master was like that, so he couldn't possibly teach anything upright and honorable.

Therefore, Zhou Ze didn't find anything strange about Old Xu's current state.

Rain was falling,

Blood was also falling.

The lights in the noodle shop were on, but they reflected a bloody red hue.

Suddenly,

Zhou Ze felt that what Old Xu was doing now felt a little familiar.

He was trying to forcibly bind the Sea God, who was carefree in some sea, to himself.

Which meant,

That in the future, he would likely rely on this to borrow power from the Sea God.

During this period, there would definitely be constraints, definitely be arguments, definitely be mutual defenses, and of course, there would definitely be the transfer of benefits and compromises between the two.

It was a little,

Familiar.

Zhou Ze turned his head, adjusted the rearview mirror, and looked at himself in the mirror.

Heh,

I was wondering why it was so familiar.

The reflection in the mirror,

Was also smiling.

"Hey, I'm saying, you wouldn't also be sealed within my…"

"Gate... Keeping... Dog…"

"Tsk."

Zhou Ze smacked his lips.

"Is he getting anxious?"

Zhou Ze suddenly became interested and continued to look at himself in the rearview mirror, saying:

"It can't be, right?"

"Gate... Keeping... Dog…"

"Hey, just repeating this over and over again? Your explanation is a bit weak, can we try something new?"

"Self… Righteous… Gate… Keeping… Dog…"

Zhou Ze faced his reflection in the rearview mirror,

And raised a middle finger.

"Whoosh... Whoosh... Whoosh..."

At this moment,

The sound of wind suddenly came from the noodle shop.

Even the fluorescent lights began to flicker on and off.

The surrounding temperature also dropped accordingly.

In the darkness,

Something was really being drawn,

Being pulled over.

"Seal!"

Xu Qinglang propped his hands on the ground.

He raised his head,

Gritting his teeth,

Suppressing the backlash within his body.

His muscles were spasming, and the wound on his chest was also trembling. Especially the gash he had stabbed and stirred on his face, it looked particularly hideous at this time.

Zhou Ze took out his phone,

And habitually wanted to take a close-up of Old Xu,

But then he thought about it and put his phone back.

Sprinkling salt on someone else's wounds,

Adding fuel to the fire,

Was something that most people found enjoyable and could get pleasure from,

But looking at Old Xu in so much pain inside,

Zhou Ze really couldn't bear it.

"Aaaaaah!!!!!"

A scream came.

Fortunately, there were basically no people in this commercial center at this time,

And the rain was very heavy,

So there was no need to worry about alarming others.

Old Xu was still in a lot of pain, but he had been holding on, and if he made it through, he would succeed.

The previous "inviting the master into the urn" was just foreplay. The real pain and struggle were here.

That Sea God, or that sea serpent demon, would not willingly let a mortal on land forcibly associate with him.

To put it bluntly,

This kind of relationship,

In the Western system, it's called a contract, and in the East, perhaps "symbiosis" is more appropriate.

It's a bit like two people partnering to do business.

The level gap can't be too big, otherwise, the business won't work. The "friend" character, to put it bluntly, is two strings of equal money.

In the eyes of the Sea God,

Perhaps Old Xu,

Really wasn't worthy.

Thinking of this,

Zhou Ze frowned again.

And looked at himself in the rearview mirror again.

"You… Also… Know… Ah…"

"Idiot,

Reinforce the seal for me and shut his mouth."

Zhou Ze closed his eyes,

And waited slowly.

At the same time, he was thinking about what to do after Old Xu succeeded.

Monkey mud seemed to have great benefits for him, but he didn't scar after being injured, which didn't seem to be because of the monkey mud.

Should he let Old Xu go to Korea afterward to get his face fixed?

But even if a surgically altered face looks exactly like the original, there would always be a knot in one's heart.

In fact, at least for Chinese men, no matter how much they say they love your soul, not your youth, not your figure, not your legs, not hormone secretion,

Most of them still mind if their partner next to their bed has had cosmetic surgery on their face.

Okay.

Across the road inside,

His friend was suffering,

Zhou Ze felt that thinking about these things now was a bit disrespectful to him.

But besides thinking about these random things to distract himself, Zhou Ze had nothing else to do.

At this moment,

In the pool of water on the road in front of Zhou Ze,

A figure suddenly slowly emerged.

It was a figure composed of rain.

The figure was blurry.

But behind him, there was a long tail, also composed of rain, swaying casually.

This figure,

Was heading in the direction of the noodle shop.

The expression on Zhou Ze's face instantly became serious.

He straightened the seat that he had reclined a bit earlier,

At the same time,

He turned on the high beams in the car!

"Pa!"

Under the illumination of the high beams,

The shadow also stopped.

Then,

He turned his head, no longer facing the noodle shop, but facing Zhou Ze in the car.

It was a distorted and terrifying face. The shimmering water droplets were like dense scales.

Carrying ferocity,

Carrying intimidation,

He let out a low and suppressed sneer at Zhou Ze:

"Jie jie…"

Zhou Ze licked his lips.

His skin began to turn green.

Two fangs appeared at the corners of his mouth.

Black flames were burning in his eyes.

At the same time,

He let out a roar that belonged to a zombie.

Without hesitation, he retorted,

"Roar!"