Chapter 115

Wang Zhenqiu looked at the message on WeChat, his eyebrows involuntarily raising slightly; this was a message sent by the temporary worker from the northeast, but the timing of the message was really too fast—just as he had barely finished agreeing with the person surnamed Zhou, she sent the message over; all along the way it's been like this, as if the other side has been constantly watching this side.

"Your friend's reaction is quick! This is that Northeastern guy, right? He's an innate aberration, manipulating electromagnetic waves!" Zhou Shuo's gaze flickered slightly, and he accurately saw the WeChat message on the screen from the fine reflection in the exquisite boy's eyes. He remembered that the Northeastern temporary worker was a rather perverse way of manipulating and receiving electromagnetic waves.

"Ah." Wang Zhenqiu listened to Zhou Shuo's words, somewhat dazed as he lifted his head, but his phone vibrated in his hand, then he lowered his head, only to see another message appear on the phone screen.

"You guessed right, awesome, (⊙? ⊙)."

"" Wang Zhenqiu looked at the message with the surprised emoticon, and involuntarily raised his head and glared at Zhou Shuo. He didn't know about this; how did this guy know? He was clearly standing opposite him, not far away, so how could he see the message on his phone? Could he also manipulate electromagnetic waves?

"Don't look at me like that; I saw the message's reflection in your eyes—just that my eyesight is good. But looking at it this way, we've already been noticed as soon as we arrived here; next time we do anything, we should turn off our phones first." Zhou Shuo looked at the guy whose face was as delicate as a girl's, couldn't help but curl his lip, and also guessed some things: he and Xia Liuqing had already been monitored the moment they arrived here.

"" Facing Zhou Shuo's words, Wang Zhenqiu blinked his eyes, while Xia Liuqing beside him slapped the back of his head.

"That's my oversight." Upon hearing Zhou Shuo's words, Xia Liuqing immediately realized that the methods of innate aberrations are varied; someone being able to monitor via electromagnetic waves isn't surprising. But this old Jianghu veteran, though barely keeping up with the times, forgot that aberrations could use technology to monitor them; in a moment of carelessness, he almost got stabbed to death.

Looking at Xia Liuqing's careless face, Zhou Shuo twitched the corner of his mouth. This carelessness almost got him killed; he had thought this old man would be more reliable than Lu Liang and Gong Qing, but his luck was truly terrible. The old man might be reliable, but his luck was terribly poor—not only did he lose the target, he also ran into two opponents who made him careless.

"Well, you numbskull, you'd better go discuss with your companions!" Xia Liuqing looked at Zhou Shuo, whose mouth kept twitching, felt a bit sorry, turned to his disciple Wang Zhenqiu and said.

"Oh." Wang Zhenqiu looked at his half-master, and hurriedly nodded.

"Balun, little Zhou, let's step aside to discuss—well, right, turn off our phones first." Xia Liuqing watched as he greeted Balun and Zhou Shuo to leave together; while speaking, he remembered and took out his phone from his waist pocket to turn it off.

"I never carry a phone on me." Balun looked at the old and young pressing stop on their phones, twitched the corner of his mouth, and was purely being dragged along.

"Well, Old Xia, you intend to cooperate; I can tentatively trust your disciple, but can the company really be trusted?" Zhou Shuo turned off his phone and asked Xia Liuqing.

"That numbskull kid is also the type who flips his face at a moment's notice, but I have no choice now; you two can't find Jin Feng, so I can only pin my hopes on this—come on, let's talk! Balun, little Zhou, you two withdraw now; I'm the one who dragged you into this!" Xia Liuqing stopped in his tracks, his face grim; he couldn't even guarantee his disciple, let alone the company.

"As long as I don't stand opposed to your country's government, I'm fine." Balun spread his hands to express his demand.

"I've already agreed to help; running off midway would be pointless." Zhou Shuo shook his head. Right now in Azure Tour Village, aside from his promise to Old Xia, there's also the existence of the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections.

"But little Zhou, we need to get this straight: you can't have designs on the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections in this operation. You've already gotten hold of the Heaven-Piercing Talisman; this time, the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections—I, the old man, mean well. Once you get it, the company will surely hunt you down to death." Xia Liuqing looked sternly at Zhou Shuo.

"Fine, I promise not to touch the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections." Zhou Shuo looked at the stern Xia Liuqing, cleared his throat, and frankly admitted he did covet the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections, but thinking about it, the Divine Machine Hundred Reflections is now linked with the Self-Cultivation Furnace that can transmute aberrations—it really seems like a hot potato; should he take it or not?

"I hope you can restrain yourself; I can understand you to some extent—you actually don't like our Complete Nature, but you were forced to join us. Complete Nature has no restrictions, but you must realize that the fewer restrictions there are, the more one must learn to restrain oneself, otherwise…." Xia Liuqing was very stern; Complete Nature has no rules, yet the absence of rules makes people die faster.

"I understand, Old Xia." Zhou Shuo looked at the stern old man looking at him, sincerely nodded in acceptance; he understood the reasoning, but sometimes when a person truly faces temptation, it's hard to withstand the test.

"I'd better not say more, lest you think I'm an old man nagging." Seeing Zhou Shuo's sincere nod, Xia Liuqing couldn't find a better way to put it; indeed everyone understands the principle, but in front of certain realities, one often can't put it into practice—just like himself, when he was young he once dreamed of becoming an upright person, but after joining Complete Nature, although he never directly committed evil, he still implicated many innocent lives.

"Master, can I come over? I've already discussed with Brother Xiao and Brother Guan and agreed to cooperate with you." Just as Xia Liuqing finished speaking, Wang Zhenqiu's voice came from afar.

"Get over here!" Xia Liuqing responded somewhat unhappily to the distant voice; hearing his words, the boy whose face was as delicate as a girl's leapt over, a hint of sunny smile at the corner of his mouth, and spoke his decision.

"We'll cooperate; you help us deal with Ma Xianhong, interrogate him about the whereabouts of Granny Jin Feng, and we'll clean up the village's twelve superior root instruments, as well as those aberrations that have been transmuted and those that haven't."

"Have you already decided how to handle it?" Xia Liuqing placed his hands behind his back, lowered his gaze, and asked gently, "Are the temporary workers ready to take the fall?"

"How to put it! The contract we signed with the company was voluntary from the start; working means having the appearance of a worker, you have to act according to the leader's face—even taking the fall is part of the job." Wang Zhenqiu looked at his master and replied with a grin.

"Little numbskull." Xia Liuqing looked at the grinning kid, couldn't help but show a hint of a smile, and slightly nodded his head, approving of the boy's idea.

"I hope you get a good leader." Zhou Shuo looked at the grinning boy, couldn't help but twitch the corner of his mouth; he understood the boy's meaning—even if temporary workers have to take the fall, they won't volunteer to do so; they need clear orders from leadership, and whether they take the fall depends on the higher-ups' intentions.

"Then I'll borrow your auspicious words, Brother Zhou." Wang Zhenqiu looked at the person blessing him and nodded with a chuckle.

"Those people in the village brought it on themselves; if they didn't crave extraordinary power, they wouldn't have caused this disaster. So tell me—when are we moving?" Xia Liuqing looked at his disciple, whose smile hid a very heavy gaze, defended him with a sentence, and asked for the timing of the operation.

"Evening will do. Oh, right—Master, Brother Zhou, and this foreign friend, I have something to say upfront: you can do your own things during the operation, no problem, but you absolutely must not touch anything in the village—Self-Cultivation Furnace, Divine Machine Hundred Reflections. If you mess with those, we won't be able to answer to our superiors." Wang Zhenqiu's smiling expression shifted slightly, then he made a demand.

"We've already discussed this; we don't want to be enemies with the company. To put it bluntly, in the whole circle, only the company doesn't look at us Complete Nature freaks with colored glasses." Xia Liuqing didn't commit to the statement, glanced at Zhou Shuo from the corner of his eye—this was the sole unstable factor in his team—while Zhou Shuo looked at the two master-disciple with an indifferent expression; to say the least, it's no surprise they think alike, being master and disciple.

"Then that's best." As Xia Liuqing's disciple, Wang Zhenqiu grasped his master's expression perfectly; his gaze lingered thoughtfully on Zhou Shuo, then he glanced at the long sword at Zhou Shuo's waist, smiled and nodded, after which he widened his curious eyes and stared at Zhou Shuo.

"By the way, Brother Zhou, what martial arts do you practice, where are you from? Can you tell me?"

"What for?" Zhou Shuo looked at the boy gazing at him with admiration, twitched the corner of his mouth, and frankly said the kid was handsome, though a bit of a brat, and male, yet he indeed gave a special good feeling.

"That numbskull wants to learn your martial arts—what else could he do?" Xia Liuqing looked at his disciple's expression, couldn't help but curl his lip, and speaking crudely, with this disciple, a single puff of his butt tells him exactly what kind of crap he'll pull.

"Mm-hmm!" Wang Zhenqiu heard his master's words, didn't hide it, and kept nodding his head.

"My martial arts aren't secret; I learned them from various people. Most of it isn't hard to pick up, but you need to put in effort to study deeply—what do you want to learn, the Heaven-Piercing Talisman?" Zhou Shuo looked at the unguarded boy, gave a leisurely counterquestion, and said his own skills are a mixed bag; many aberrations can get hold of them, but not everyone can master them.

"You'll teach?" Wang Zhenqiu's eyes slightly rose.

"Sure, come on, I'll tell you." Zhou Shuo looked at the boy whose eyes were shining, and nodded.

"No, uh… my thoughts are all over the place; I have no interest in the Eight Extraordinary Skills—at the very least, not the Heaven-Piercing Talisman. I just want to learn your technique where the Yang Spirit leaves the body but the body can still move." Wang Zhenqiu saw Zhou Shuo nod, hurriedly waved his hands, and with a grin put forward his request: although the Eight Extraordinary Skills are good, he has no intention of learning them; although he has some background, he doesn't want to become enemies with the Heavenly Master's Manor and the Lu Family.

"That's not anything special either—just train a corpse dog a bit. A corpse dog is one of the seven corporeal souls of a person; the corpse body is the soul's abode, and the guard dog of the abode is the corpse dog…" Zhou Shuo held nothing back, directly converted the method of uniting flesh and spirit into some terms, then taught it to the boy.