The ill-timed late-night topic was urgently shut down for the moment. To avoid awkwardness, the two of them gnawed on ribs together while watching the Spring Festival Gala and chatting about ancient dragon gossip.
King Yingde’s bizarre private life in particular deserved serious condemnation. They got quite absorbed in the discussion, completely ignoring the fact that he was currently in Jiangcheng Dragon Palace and could hear every word perfectly clearly.
Come to think of it, the man had also fathered a whole string of dragon sons, every one of them historically remarkable and famous across the four seas.
And yet on New Year’s Eve, the Four Sea Dragon Kings had all gone home early. Yuxu had even posted a selfie while sitting on a Dragon King’s throne… Only King Yingde had not gone home. He had actually volunteered to preside over the banquet in Jiangcheng Dragon Palace and calm the water yao, and not one of his dragon sons had shown up to eat with him.
“Terrible husband, terrible father, only knows how to be a Dragon King.” Qin Shu shook his head and sighed. “Seriously, he’s even more extreme than my dad.”
“Uncle is pretty good,” Pei Zhao suddenly protested.
Qin Shu raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you defending him?”
“We added each other on WeChat.” Pei Zhao curved his lips. “He has a spare phone with every photo of you from birth until now. He even has pictures from the New Year performances you went onstage for a few years ago, and he wanted me to send him more.”
“…He didn’t send you the photos of me wearing a dress too, did he?”
“Mm.”
Qin Shu froze, then put on an expression of profound grievance. “Mm… That’s unfair.”
Pei Zhao tilted his head. “Why?”
“You’ve seen me in a dress, but I’ve never seen you wear…”
Pei Zhao froze too. After thinking for a moment, however, he did not look embarrassed at all and instead started planning thoughtfully. “Then I’ll wear one for you on my birthday.”
“That sounds great… but wait, something’s wrong here, Zhaozhao. If we’re celebrating your birthday, why am I the one getting rewarded?” Qin Shu could not help laughing.
“Who is rewarding whom is hard to say.” Pei Zhao answered softly and gave him a meaningful look.
Qin Shu: …
Pei Zhao had been born in summer. After some complicated calendar conversion, his birthday landed exactly on August first. A wonderful summer vacation. They would have plenty of time and leisure, the college entrance examination would be over, there would be no academic pressure at all, and they would not even have summer homework.
Half a year left. Qin Shu decided he would begin extra physical-conditioning training starting today.
Beginning with eating and sleeping well, then immediately advancing to high-intensity outdoor ghost-catching exercise.
After sweeping the New Year’s Eve dinner clean, Qin Shu took a photo of the spotless empty plates and sent it to Su Ting Lian, successfully exchanging it for this year’s New Year money.
He put on his coat, carried a large box of fireworks he had preordered in one arm, took Pei Zhao’s hand with the other, and walked into the open center of the courtyard.
Coalball instantly bounced down from the treetop and flapped its wings. The ji ghosts hiding among the branches all turned their heads toward him in perfect unison.
With densely packed human faces staring at him, Qin Shu’s eyelid twitched. He said seriously, “You don’t need to carry me there. I can fly too now. I need the practice.”
Dark wings quietly pierced through several layers of clothing and spread soundlessly behind Qin Shu. Dense black ghostlight shimmered and left afterimages, reflecting against the moonlight curved like a scythe.
By the time the wind rose, the two of them had already crossed the Yangtze River.
Qin Shu had learned several flying techniques from his previous self. They had appeared so many times in Lord Zhaoyuan’s memories that after watching enough, the movements had become thoroughly familiar. No matter how clumsy he was in practice, he was no longer worried about panicking midway and falling.
Even if there really was an aerial accident, forget Pei Zhao. Even little Coalball, desperately flapping along beside him with its short, fat wings, could probably yank him back by force.
With his sense of safety maxed out, Qin Shu held nothing back and released his strength without restraint. The results were actually excellent.
Before he even felt he had flown enough, they had already reached the air above the church. Fireworks bloomed continuously around them, competing to open across the night sky.
Qin Shu and Pei Zhao hid within the glowing embers left behind after the fireworks burst, looking more like tiny sparks scattered through the darkness than people. No one noticed them.
Father William was busy distributing free dinners in the church’s front hall, while the mentally unstable nun had also been called over to help ladle soup because they were short on hands.
The gloomy atmosphere around her had been cut in half by Spring Festival couplets and bright red paper-cut flowers pasted over the stained-glass windows. The nun was not exactly young, but several elderly parishioners still stuffed bulging red envelopes into her hands while wiping their eyes and saying they felt sorry for the poor girl.
Any religion entering China had to adapt to local customs, and Father William naturally was not the sort to cling rigidly to rules. He had turned this sacred New Year’s Eve dinner into an exceptionally festive and lively affair.
Jiangcheng had few churchgoers, but many were devout. And when they were guided sincerely by an actually competent priest, the effect was especially strong.
Qin Shu decided not to bother him for now, since going inside would only create more work. But seeing all the believers eating dinner together so peacefully… setting off explosives without warning in the cemetery behind the church might make it look a little too much like Satan had escaped from hell to cause trouble.
Pei Zhao seemed to understand his concern. He took two snap-pops from the fireworks box and casually tossed them.
The thunderous crack split the sky, disturbing a dead soul beneath one gravestone so badly that it crawled up and looked around. The instant it saw Pei Zhao, however, it hurriedly ducked back down and started pretending to be dead on the spot.
The noise was loud enough to wake ghosts, yet the people inside the church seemed not to hear a thing. One table was even holding hands in prayer before dinner, the atmosphere still peaceful and serene.
Pei Zhao smiled. “As long as they aren’t disturbed, it’s fine. One little spell solves it.”
“…So modern!”
Now Qin Shu was excited. He hauled out the heavy eighty-eight-shot aerial firework, placed it in the open cemetery, and lit the fuse with a sparkler.
The rising firework gave a shrill roar and exploded into magnificent color high overhead. Coalball spun excitedly, transformed into Chen Li Chi’s withered face, fluttered over, and swallowed in one gulp the resentful ghost rushing at Qin Shu from behind.
“…This thing seems to have a special preference. It likes old men and old ladies, especially frightening old men like Grand Shaman Chen.”
Qin Shu complained faintly, then could not help thinking aloud. “Zhaozhao, if I record Coalball looking like this and send it to Chen Shui… do you think he’ll love me to death, or try to strangle me?”
Pei Zhao raised an eyebrow and thought about it too. Then, with extremely strong follow-through, he pulled out three coins and tossed them onto the ground.
“Mm. Three Blossoms Gathering at the Crown,” Pei Zhao analyzed with complete seriousness. “Chen Li Chi himself definitely wouldn’t mind. He’d strongly encourage this behavior. He likes it.”
“Hahahahaha… Fine. Then let’s just livestream it.” Qin Shu laughed so hard he could barely breathe, pulled up Chen Shui’s contact card, and started a video call. “Pei Zhao, why are you so lovable?”
“I *%#! You called at a time like this just to show off your relationship?!”
The moment the call connected, chaotic noise burst from the other end, along with Chen Shui’s near-hysterical shout.
Qin Shu froze and looked at the phone screen. The picture shook wildly, firelight flying everywhere. A moment later his eyes widened. “Holy shit, what is that thing? Why does it have two heads?! Phoenix Village raises chimeras now?!”
“Nian beasts! Nian beasts are here to eat the children!”
Chen Shui’s voice came through clenched teeth as several enormous strings of firecrackers flashed across the screen in his hands.
He ran at full speed while panting out an explanation. “Because my uncle died, everyone in the clan said we wouldn’t celebrate a joyful New Year this time. Then a government worker came from the city a couple days ago to promote forest-fire safety and flat-out refused to leave! So this year’s fireworks event got canceled… I *%#! Every nian beast in the whole damn world came to Phoenix Village to eat children!”
Qin Shu stared blankly for a moment, then turned and exchanged an equally stunned look with Pei Zhao. He asked weakly, “…Nian beasts?”
Pei Zhao frowned slightly. “I left divine sense behind in Phoenix Village… They really are nian beasts. I seem to have developed an attention-deficit problem.”
“Could it possibly not be attention deficit, and instead be because you’ve only been paying attention to me?” Qin Shu did not know whether to laugh or cry. He picked up the lighter again. “Silly. How about this: we’ll set off one more Phoenix Dancing Through the Nine Heavens and one Gatling. We’ll take the rest of the fireworks to Phoenix Village.”
Then he told Chen Shui, “Turn your phone volume all the way up!”
Before either of them could answer, another box Qin Shu had lit shot straight toward the vault of the sky and became a continuous chain of golden-red flames, illuminating the night.
At the same time, Qin Shu held a machine-gun-like handheld firework in one hand and scooped Pei Zhao up with the other, flying into the sky so they could experience the detonations from close range.
“Huff, huff… it works a little! I’m almost deaf!” Chen Shui shouted through the phone. Once he confirmed the nian beasts temporarily did not dare approach his side, he sprinted through the village carrying the phone that was booming nonstop, laying out a long trail of firecrackers along the way. It wound for dozens of meters like an endless great red snake.
While Chen Shui was arranging the firecrackers, a nian beast tried to intercept him. The giant creature, more than ten meters tall, lowered one of its enormous hideous heads. Its entire body was covered in pale, eerie fur, making it look like a starving ghost-lion with huge blood-red eyes.
Chen Shui could only yell at the top of his lungs and hold up the phone to drive the head away, and even then it did not retreat very far. The nian beast remained crouched on a nearby mountainside, silent and motionless, staring directly at him.
And there was more than one of these terrifying things. The camera swept across several pale figures occupying the mountains at once, along with Liu Yang Yang’s back as he was flung into the air by a beast horn.
If there had only been one, firecrackers might have driven it away. With this many… ordinary repelling methods probably would not do much.
Once Qin Shu saw how extreme the situation was, he immediately accelerated, spread his wings, and shot straight toward Phoenix Village.
“Holy shit, Brother Qin, you can fly now?!” Chen Shui shouted in shock from the screen.
“Is that the important part?!” Qin Shu’s voice was nearly devoured by the wind from his high-speed flight. He shook the fireworks in his hand. “Once the firecrackers are laid out, light them immediately and buy some time! I have plenty more stock over here. I’m almost there!”
“Got it!”
Without hesitation, Chen Shui grabbed a roadside stone and expertly smashed it hard against the fuse until friction sparked it to life. Deafening firecrackers exploded one after another beneath the sky.
Not a single Phoenix Village resident cowered. Instead, they formed a circle and began singing in rhythm with the explosions. Their voices grew louder and more penetrating, creating a patch of pure ground in the central Drum Tower square that no evil being dared approach, where the weaker Gu practitioners, elderly people, and children were gathered.
At the same time, before the firecrackers burned out, Qin Shu successfully reached Phoenix Village. The brilliant fireworks firing continuously from his hand turned the night sky snow-white, then rained down from above, all of their light falling across the nian beasts in the mountain forest.
“Zhaozhao, can I beat one?”
Qin Shu shouted the question as his black beast horn quietly lifted the hair from his forehead. He tossed the fireworks into the group of nian beasts to scatter them temporarily, then had Yuanbao help him catch one first.
The hideous giant beast had two heads and four ears and towered enormously, yet its path was blocked by a glittering blood-red centipede. Yuanbao loved looking pretty and was covered in sparkling glitter, while the little bow on its tail bobbed under the fireworks as it viciously taunted the beast.
Pei Zhao found it cute. He pulled out his phone, first took a photo aimed at the nian beast’s snow-white doglike head, then replied softly, “Try it. Yuanbao, don’t use poison.”
Yuanbao flicked its tail in understanding, then wrapped around the snow-white horn on top of the beast’s head and cooperatively dragged the head hard backward, exposing its throat.
Qin Shu leapt up immediately, planted a foot on the nian beast’s chest, grabbed the fur of its huge head with one hand for support, then experimentally raised his other fist and slammed it with full force into the side of the beast’s neck.
The beast horn on his forehead gave off a vicious ghostly glow and swept upward with Qin Shu’s movement. With a wet puncturing sound, it stabbed into the giant beast’s lower jaw and tore through the thick fur and flesh. The horn drove straight into its blood-filled mouth and pierced the tongue from below as well.
A shrill scream neither human nor animal split the sky alongside the booming firecrackers, frightening the other nian beasts into scattering. A second later, Qin Shu’s next punch landed directly on its windpipe, and the scream cut off instantly.
Blood poured from the torn lower jaw of the nian beast, as if a violent, scalding rainstorm had erupted without warning, soaking Qin Shu from head to toe.
He lowered his head slightly as droplets of blood continuously ran down the side of his face and disappeared into his collar. Beneath the night sky, his silhouette reflected in the fireworks was instantly drenched in dazzling crimson.
“Holy… a god of death in the rain!” Liu Yang Yang had appeared at some point and now stood beside Pei Zhao with his hands on his hips, clicking his tongue in admiration.
He had just been thrown off the cliff by a nian beast and nearly smashed his face black and blue, but his body of steel and iron was completely fine. He bounded over to watch the excitement and kept talking. “Brother Pei, why is your husband so handsome? I almost want to call him husband too, hahahah—”
Pei Zhao glanced at him blandly. Liu Yang Yang’s laughter stopped immediately, and he quietly corrected himself. “Ahem. I take back the last sentence. Everything before that stays.”
“Thank you. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year, happy New Year… hahaha, Brother Pei, you’re too polite.”
Qin Shu ignored the loudmouth, wiped his face, smeared the blood aside with one hand, and seriously stared at the nian beast’s deformed neck, caved in from the beating. After thinking for a moment, he pulled out his pitch-black knife.
The blade slid downward from the bloody hole his horn had made in the beast’s jaw and smoothly opened its abdomen. Qin Shu’s movements were far too practiced, and he remained silently covered in blood, giving the entire scene an extremely eerie atmosphere… The villagers gathering to watch could not help feeling uneasy.
But this was not yet the most shocking sight of the night. Qin Shu reached into the nian beast’s broad abdomen, stirred around for a while, then pulled out many wet bones and several chunks of flesh that had not yet been digested.
Human flesh.
“Were there casualties in Phoenix Village?” Qin Shu finally asked into the silence.
Liu Yang Yang stopped joking as well. Frowning, he came forward to help dig through the contents. “No. It probably ate them on the way here. There are too many mountains nearby and plenty of villages too… The forest-fire prevention campaign was serious this year, so there really were far fewer people setting off fireworks.”
“It isn’t the fire-safety campaign’s fault. If the mountain forest caught fire because of firecrackers, even without nian beasts, they could all end up trapped and burned to death.”
Qin Shu spoke thoughtfully, then turned toward Pei Zhao. “This nian beast smells wrong. No point waiting for another day… Zhaozhao, want to chase them back to their nest and take a look? If I can kill one, I can kill all of them.”
“Okay.” Pei Zhao caught Yuanbao as it flew back and handed Qin Shu a wet wipe. “I don’t know where nian beasts nest. They rarely appear in groups, and where they live has always been a mystery.”
“It’s fine. We can follow the clues from the map. Start with Zuo Zhe’s map and follow the branches of the dragon vein toward the central region.” Qin Shu wiped his face. “There is definitely something wrong with the smell of this blood. It has dragon-vein aura on it.”
At any other time in previous years, being touched by dragon-vein aura would have been an excellent opportunity for yao beasts and divine beasts to transform and improve. But today’s dragon vein produced the exact opposite result.
“Wait! I’m guessing you two won’t have time to come back tonight. Hold on for a second!”
Liu Yang Yang suddenly called after them, turned, and ran. Two minutes later, he returned to the mountaintop out of breath with several thick red envelopes stuffed in his arms.
“Granny and the village chief are treating the injured. Little Sister Ping got pregnant last month and got so scared by the nian beasts that she can’t be left alone. These are the New Year envelopes they prepared for you two… although you two already drove ‘Nian’ away, hahaha.”
“Thank you. Then we’ll leave this place to you. Keep an eye on the injured for the next few days and watch whether their wounds mutate. Contact us immediately if anything happens.”
Naturally, Qin Shu did not bother being polite. He accepted the red envelopes, gave a few instructions, then finally showed an ordinary smile and clapped Liu Yang Yang hard on the back. “Happy New Year.”
“Ow! Your hits hurt so much!”
Liu Yang Yang’s aggrieved cry faded far behind them. Laughing, Qin Shu shot straight into the sky and traveled onward over the Nine Provinces, following the wandering line of the mountain ranges.
A moment later, he suddenly looked down at Pei Zhao. “I’m filthy and covered in blood. How come you don’t mind today? You can actually fly yourself, right?”
“No.”
“Heh. Fine.”
Pei Zhao particularly liked being carried princess-style, because he could lie bonelessly in Qin Shu’s arms without using any effort.
He could enjoy the scenery and press his face against Qin Shu’s chest whenever he wanted. Extremely convenient.
And today, Pei Zhao seemed especially fond of Qin Shu looking like a serial killer drenched from head to toe in blood. Probably because every time he watched Qin Shu fight and kill, a certain unusual feeling would rise inside him.
Qin Shu had no objection. He only raised an eyebrow. “If we manage to track down their nest tonight, we’ll probably have to fish another god out. Nobody’s around to help set up the formation. Everyone went home… Will just the two of us be enough?”
“We’ll be fine. I’m very strong.” Pei Zhao tilted his head, and his tone suddenly became meaningful. “I got a little stronger recently.”
“You don’t mean you got a little stronger today, today specifically, do you?” Qin Shu caught the implication.
“Mm. Dual cultivation is very useful. Haven’t you noticed you have more strength too?” Pei Zhao said softly, faint heat moving through his golden eyes. “Being able to kill a nian beast this easily, Qin Shu, you really are impressive.”
“Hehe, that’s true! If I’d known, we could’ve started earlier… No, today was better. Out with the old, in with the new.” Qin Shu truly had gotten a taste for it and had no intention of hiding that fact.
Pei Zhao was only more direct. “Are we still welcoming the new tonight?”
“…Absolutely.”