Lantern: Reflection Of The Peach Blossoms Chapter 8

Volume 1: Incident of H City's Earth-born Fetus

Editors: Isalee, Rei

Chapter 8 – Your ex-wife is perfect in every aspect, except for his taste in men, which is just s.h.i.t…

After closing the door, Zhang Shun looked back at his brother who was now curled up on the sickbed. The sight hammered on his heart.

He knew his cries for help were the very reason that his brother could suddenly wake up from the coma.

That was just how amazing human potential was. A dying mother would wake up at her child's cry, and a husband trying to save his wife would suddenly come up with enough strength to lift a car. People would risk their lives for things they wished to protect with all their hearts. It was a dreadful power that was hard to imagine.

At that moment, Zhang Shun once again thought of Chu He's plea —— Could you please give Mahā's life back to me?

Who was Mahā? Countless doubts hovered inside Zhang Shun's mind like clouds, but there was one thing he was certain of: if Chu He really wanted it, he could give up everything to fulfill his wish.

Li Hu spoke resolutely, but she came rather slow. There wasn't any news from her for more than an hour. Zhang Shun tried to make a call through the inter-phone, but all he got was a busy tone, as if the signal had been cut off. Therefore, he could only gaze at the door in fear. When he thought that Li Hu would never come,  a series of distant explosions suddenly broke out in the building.

Zhang Shun's pupils constricted at once. He heard the sound approaching rapidly, immediately followed by a loud bang as if something heavy was thrown against the door!

Zhang Shun jumped to his feet. "Li Hu? Li Hu, is that you?!"

"Don't open the door!" On the other side of the door, Li Hu was yelling at the top of her lungs, "You must not open the door!"

"Are you okay?! What happened to you?!"

"I'm fine- Ahhhhh!!"

Li Hu suddenly let out a shrill cry. Her voice sounded almost inhuman. However, before second young master Zhang could ask, he heard Li Hu's trembling words, "Don't… Don't open the door. Stay with your brother, don't come out… Ahhh——!"

Zhang Shun had never seen a woman suffering like this in front of him. He was about to rush out when a man's deep, icy voice suddenly sounded outside the door, a voice that gave him a deep sense of foreboding just by the mere sound of it: "Forty-nine Monster Sealing Nails. Let's see how long you can stay alive."

A sharp swish cut through the air, and Li Hu's distorted scream rang out once again, "Feng Si! Feng Si I know you're in there!! Wake up! You motherfu —— Ahh!!!!"

Boom! There came another shattering rumble. Zhang Shun couldn't hold himself back anymore. He ran up and pulled it open!

In the next second, cold and slimy air surged toward him like waves. Before Zhang Shun could even understand what was going on, a heavy blow had already hit him right in the the chest and knocked him into the air!

Second master Zhang crashed into the wall with a thud, but he soon got up again. In extreme pain, he saw a tall man clad in a black robe walk in from the door, lifting Li Hu by her neck. The woman was dressed in red from head to toe. Zhang Shun almost couldn't tell whether her clothes were originally red or if they were soaked in her blood. Her long hair stirred behind her and her feet were shaking incessantly —— Judging from the frequency, it would be only a minute or two before she died.

Zhang Shun felt his blood rising to his head in a jet. He grabbed a chair leg from the broken pieces laying all over the ground and lunged toward the man with a glorious shout!

But then, the black robed man looked up. His scarlet eyes moved to Zhang Shun ——

Zhang Shun was pinned to the spot at once by the cold, almost sepulchral sensation in the air. He stiffened as though it had frozen his blood as well. The chair leg dropped from his hand and clanged against the floor.

That was the moment when he suddenly recognized this man. He had seen the person before —— When Chu He arrived in his room that haunted night, the evil spirit disappeared and the image of this man unexpectedly appeared at the corner.

At that time, he only threw Zhang Shun a cold glance without uttering a word and soon disappeared into thin air.

Zhuang Shun always thought that he had seen an illusion, or perhaps the man was a ghost. But at this very moment, he was suddenly inspired: "Y-y-y-you —— You are ——"

A horrifying 'Errghhhhh' squeezed its way out of Li Hu's throat. The man tightened his grip as he glanced nonchalantly at Zhang Shun.

Zhang Shun found it a little hard to believe: "You're my brother's —— boyfriend?!"

The man: "…"

Li Hu: "…"

As if he had heard something very funny, for an instant, Zhang Shun even saw a smile flash across the man's face. He changed his mind about killing Li Hu and threw her out like throwing a bag.

"Boyfriend." He repeated, finding the world quite amusing.

Li Hu fell to the floor with a thump. She looked completely battered and exhausted, her hair loose and disheveled on her back, as she forced out a hoa.r.s.e cry between her clenched teeth, "Fanluo, the Demon Lord…!"

"You did not cultivate that ninth tail for nothing, little fox. That Guardian Array that you've set up at the entrance is quite something. Unfortunately, this hothead accidentally broke the core of your array without even knowing it." The Demon Lord looked at Zhang Shun with a genuine interest in his eyes and said, "Boy, if you had really insisted on not opening that door, I wouldn't be able to get in even if I killed her. How pitiful…"

Zhang Shun scolded, "Who're you? What do you want?"

The Demon Lord didn't answer. He just walked towards Chu He, who was curled up on the bed. Li Hu, who was already more dead than alive from all the coughing, got up with a roll as if she was suddenly on fire: "Let go! You will not be able to leave this place! Zhou Hui is already on his way here!"

The Demon Lord said, "So?"

"You can kill me, but do you have the power to kill Zhou Hui too?!"

The Demon Lord answered her question with an actual movement —— He lifted Chu He from the bed to his chest and walked straight toward the door.

"Even if it's Zhou Hui, it would take him at least four hours to follow the scent of that zombie familiar to the onmyouji's hiding place, then discover that the j.a.panese boy is just bait before he rushes back here. Don't you think four hours is enough for me to turn you from a fox into a fox fur shawl?"

Li Hu's face turned deathly pale at once. She gazed straight at Chu He, asking, "Are you just going to watch your lover boy threaten me like this?"

Of course, Chu He could not have answered him since he was still unconscious in Fanluo's arms.

The Demon Lord laughed, "I was just said to be his boyfriend, and now I'm his lover boy! Anyhow, you two have a truly odd relationship. You gripe at each other all the time, but you are both willing to risk your life for the other to such an extent…. " While talking, he turned around and walked toward Li Hu in such a manner that even Zhang Shun could tell that the "fox fur shawl" he was just talking about was not a joke!

"The nine-tailed fox of Team Six of Yunnan," the Demon Lord slowly said, "I will avenge that campaign on the Realm of h.e.l.l-Dwellers starting from you today."

He shifted Chu He to one hand and reached for Li Hu, who was still coughing incessantly at his feet, with the other. Countless strange red patterns suddenly emerged on his hand, immediately followed by a burst of dazzling and bright S-shaped currents! Li Hu's eyes widened at once. However, she was quick and brave. The next second, she was already retreating rapidly, shouting, "——Feng Si!"

Chu He did not react at all. Instead, the Demon Lord had already appeared behind her like a ghost and heavily struck where her heart was!

Li Hu spat a mouthful of blood. Her body flew out, knocked down Zhang Shun, who was still pinned to the spot, and in the end crashed onto the wall of the ward, leaving the entire wall in cracks! The Demon Lord landed and walked over steadily. Li Hu trembled in the cloud of dust. She tried to get up but fell down again after a few attempts. Desperate, she suddenly caught hold of Zhang Shun and bit straight into his nape.

"Ahhh!" Zhang Shun screamed. He felt that she had almost bitten a piece of flesh off. "What're you doing?!"

"GO! b.i.t.c.h." Li Hu cursed with a trembling voice, "Hurry! Don't let him take your brother away! If your brother becomes a demon, the Realm of G.o.ds will be doomed!"

"But I…" Before Zhang Shun finished, he suddenly realized that he could move again. It was as though Li Hu had really bit into some acupoint on him. He got up in a fl.u.s.ter and immediately rushed forward —— after only two steps, then he was dumbfounded once again, "I-I-I-I… But what can I do?! I know nothing!"

Li Hu was shouting herself hoa.r.s.e, "Are you an idiot?! Your brother even returned the Breath of Buddha to you! He's asking you to help him fight off the Demon Lord!"

Right after she finished, Zhang Shun saw that the Demon Lord's face changed —— Even though it was only an extremely subtle change in expression which could hardly be seen among the dust that filled the air, Zhang Shun was still keen enough to sense it. Without any hesitation, he charged up, as if guided by instinct, and blocked the Demon Lord with one hand while fetching for his brother with the other!

Everything happened in thunder and lightning like the dazzling scenes of a fast forwarded movie.

The moment that Zhang Shun touched the Demon Lord, a golden swastika flew from his palm and clashed against the strange red patterns on the other person, producing a series of squeaking sounds that made people's teeth ache. At the same time, the Demon Lord caught Zhang Shun and flung him to the side. Second young master Zhang's body hit Li Hu in the head as he flew out, knocking this fox who had just crawled up with much difficulty back down and almost sending her to Buddha.

Li Hu cursed, "Your a.s.s——"

Next, the golden swastika overcame the demonic pattern, and all of the skin on Fanluo's arm burst open!

——Honestly speaking, it was hardly a fatal blow for a King Asura like the Demon Lord, but it indeed took everyone by surprise. Even Zhang Shun himself was stunned for a bit. A cloud of blood gushed out like an erupting fountain. The Demon Lord was instantly covered in red as if he had just escaped from h.e.l.l!

“…Expected…" The Demon Lord slowly said, his narrow eyes turning to Zhang Shun, "As expected from the Buddha's bone…"

He started to walk toward Zhang Shun as if he suddenly found him very interesting. "Boy, I really should treat you like a man now."

Only then did Zhang Shun realize that a door had appeared in the void behind him. It was decorated with numerous bones, with a dense layer of black mist floating in front of it. As the Demon Lord approached, the door gradually opened, and from the inside came the exceptionally sharp and mournful wailings of ghosts.

Li Hu was still coughing blood as she caught hold of Zhang Shun: "Run… Just run. Move!"

"My brother! He still has my brother!"

Li Hu was in such a rush that even her eyes turned red. "Just let him die! Your brother asked for it! The Demon Lord is going to summon his Dharmic Projection as King Asura now. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh——!"

At that moment, the Demon Lord reached into the void, and lightning that was bright enough to burn one's retina formed into a longsword wrapped inside a devastating light as it was thrust at Zhang Shun's back——

At the same time, Chu He opened his eyes.

He stopped the Demon Lord's powerful wrist with his hand. When he looked up, his face was paper white, but every word he said sounded like it was tampered through ice: "Who said you could touch my little brother?"

Suddenly, boisterous winds howled forth out of nowhere and Zhang Shun turned his head back in shock!

Before him, the wind blade whirled wildly around Chu He's feet into an unfathomable whirlpool as Chu He's figure changed rapidly inside the storm eye. The white robe dropped to the ground and his long hair stirred behind him. Like the Phoenix soaring above the Ninth Heaven, he shook his sleeves and revealed the slender arms underneath. His left hand was clutching a string of cyan prayer beads, while his right hand raised a long-spear high into the air and thrust it down at the Demon Lord with the devastating momentum of ten thousand thunderbolts!

Boom!

The airflow produced by the clashing of weapons blew Zhang Shun away. His back banged so heavily into the wall that he almost spat out a mouthful of blood while still in midair.

It took him a lot of effort just to get up only to find Li Hu sprawled next to him. She struggled to fish out a cell phone from her pocket and started videotaping.

Zhang Shun: "???"

"Are you not recording?" Li Hu said in between coughs of blood, "Your brother's Dharmic Projection is said to be one of the Top Ten Sceneries in Heaven. You don't get to see it often." As she spoke, she opened the WeChat app and started uploading it to her Moments page.

Zhang Shun: "…"

***

Li Hu opened a WeChat group and typed a few lines with her shaky fingers. After quite a while, a reply finally came with a notification.

Zhang Shun glanced at it from the corner of his eyes, but the angle was too slanted for him to read off the screen. All he could tell was that several people were replying at the same time. The light reflected off the cell phone's screen made Li Hu's face appear a little creepy. She looked up and gave Zhang Shun an absent look.

The look gave second young master Zhang gooseb.u.mps. Fortunately, Li Hu stopped paying attention to him afterwards and turned back to her phone, speaking hoa.r.s.ely to it, "Stop joking. Feng Si is risking his life on the frontlines, but Boss Zhou is still on his way. What should I do?"

Another voice message came almost instantly. Li Hu was too weak to lift the phone to her ear. She turned on the speaker, and a voice with a Cantonese dialect came through, "Hu Liu, You must be the one who's joking. I just got off the phone with the Beijing side. Zhou Hui has been guarding the Qian-Kun Array in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Great Hall of the People for three days already, okay?"

Zhang Shun saw the color draining from Li Hu's face at once as she asked in a trembling voice, "What did you say?!"

On the other side, the long-spear and the sword blade pressed against each other, producing a blood-curdling screech.

The Demon Lord squinted his long, narrow eyes, an action that made him appear even more cold-blooded and heartless. He turned his wrist abruptly and pushed Chu He back several steps!

Zhang Shun cried out, "Brother!"

He tumbled over to his brother, unable to feel even the sharp pain coming from that dislocated elbow as he moved. However, his brother lifted one hand and stopped him right there. Chu He's back was still facing him. The side of his face exposed under the hair was pale to the point of almost being blueish. He was breathing so rapidly that it almost felt like he was dying.

Staring at Chu He face to face, the Demon Lord slowly said, pausing after each word, "Your True From has already been destroyed, and you have almost exhausted your Primal Spirit and Core Blood by now. How dare you still fight me in Dharmic Projections? Do you really want to die so badly?"

——The Demon Lord was obviously enraged for real. It took Chu He quite a while to barely catch his breaths. Straightening his back, he stared back at him, sounding extremely weary, "Kill me then."

Even Zhang Shun could hear the sense of discouragement in those words. Just as he was about to blurt out "Don't", he saw the Demon Lord whirling to him, his mouth stretching into a distinctly angry smile: "Why would I kill you? But I'll accept his life today."

Zhang Shun immediately sensed the danger. In the millisecond he was still deciding between turning around to flee or pressing ahead in the face of it, thousands of hectares of thunder and lightning struck down at him from above and arrived before his eyes in an instant!

It simply happened too fast. Before Zhang Shun could react, a strong force pushed him into the air. Immediately afterwards, someone came from behind and caught him in midair. As soon as they landed heavily on the ground, the person immediately pressed his head down to the floor.

The next second, a stream of flames swept past the back of his head like a dragon's breath, charring the broken tiles and bricks behind him!

The hair on the back of Zhang Shun's head were burnt at the ends. He was perfectly aware that he would have lost his entire head to the flame if he was just a millisecond late. He vomited out a mouthful of scorched blood, completely disabled by the pain in his ribs. Turning his head around, he saw that it was Li Hu who caught him in the air, while his brother was the one who pushed him away.

——Chu He blocked the attack in the end. His back smacked heavily into the wall. The impact was so strong that his gaunt body even bounced slightly as blood shot straight out of his mouth!

Chu He fell to the ground with a plop, his face pressing against the floor. He made a few attempts to get up, but eventually failed to do so.

The Demon Lord went up and looked down at him from above.

"What a mess…" He whispered with the hint of a smile as he leaned down and grabbed Chu He's chin.

From where Zhang Shun was, the Demon Lord's st.u.r.dy back had blocked his brother's face. He could only see the white robe spreading across the floor and the long hair tangling together with it. They were slanting slightly upwards —— the Demon Lord had probably lifted him up by the chin.

Zhang Shun would be an idiot by now if he still believed this man to be his brother's "boyfriend", but that action and the angle he was looking at it still gave him a strange and dubious feeling.

"I know you don't want to die. Otherwise you wouldn't have come to me, using my power to avoid the Heavenly Trial."

The Demon Lord leaned over and whispered next to his ear, "I'll give you two options. First, come with me. I can't revive Mahā for you, but I can at least keep you alive. Everything is still possible as long as you're alive. And second, kill your brother."

Color drained from Chu He's face, turning it a shade of ghastly pale. He was feebly gasping in pain with lowered eyes.

It was a rare sight to see such an expression emerge on his countenance which was always as cold and indifferent as an ice-sculpture. The Demon Lord seemed to admire the view for a while before he whispered into Chu He's ear with a smile on his face. "I suggest that you make a decision soon… I'll get hard if I see you panting like this any longer."

Chu He froze in his tracks momentarily and held his breath. It was no easy feat for him to do so. He choked on the blood that was caught in his throat a few times before he finally managed to swallow his b.l.o.o.d.y saliva and said, "I…"

"He'll definitely choose the first."  A lazy voice sounded at the door, "But I'll choose the third option for him."

Chu He suddenly shut his eyes while the Demon Lord, after a moment of shock, started to laugh. He turned around and asked, "What's the third option, Zhou Hui?"

Whilst trying to withstand the excruciating pain coming from his ribs, Zhang Shun abruptly turned around. Similarly, Li Hu breathed a sigh of relief and her entire body immediately collapsed at ease onto the ground.

A young man was standing by the door, his tall st.u.r.dy figure wrapped inside a motorcycle jacket. He was taking off his sungla.s.ses, revealing the exceptionally handsome face behind it with its usual rakish, carefree smile. Zhang Shun always thought the smile was extremely annoying, but at this moment, it made him feel so relieved to see that dashing face which had become more pleasing in his eyes by several folds.

"The third option is he stays here and his little brother lives while you yourself go back to the Realm of Asuras. Don't think that I can't kill you by myself. It's just that I spent so much energy on that beautiful little onmyouji just now that I don't feel like playing with you today."

He even waved at Zhang Shun as he talked, asking in extreme sincerity, "How was it? Now that you've seen your brother's boyfriend, do you find me to be better than him?"

"…" Zhang Shun asked, "Can't you pretend to be cool for two more minutes?"

The Demon Lord laughed. He held Chu He up single-handedly as he lifted the sword up with the other hand underneath the black robe painted with bone chains. Pointing the tip of the sword, which was still dripping with blood, straight at Zhou Hui, he bantered, "Your wife is perfect in every aspect, except for his taste in men, which is just… Not many people can stay completely indifferent and unmoved at the sight of their own children's souls scattering under the Heavenly Condemnation. You're really the only one among all the Six Realms in that sense."

Zhang Shun wasn't sure if he was seeing things, but he thought he saw Zhou Hui's back stiffen.

However, Zhou Hui had very good control over his expression. He didn't react and only moved his eyes to Chu He.

Chu He didn't move a muscle ever since Zhou Hui came in, not making any sound or movement. His face was buried in the Demon Lord's chest, so it was impossible to tell what expression he had. But looking at the clots on his robe and the blood dripping down from all five of his fingers, he really was at his end.

Zhou Hui's breath grew heavy.

Demon Lord Fanluo laughed, "I'm choosing the first one. Why don't you give it a try and see if you can stop me?"

As soon as he finished, Zhou Hui stepped forward. Suddenly, wind started to blow vigorously at his side without any warning.

Unlike the ordered spiral when the Dharmic Phoenix Projection was summoned, this wind was extremely reckless and wild. It brought down the entire ward in only a few seconds! Zhang Shun desperately grabbed ahold of Li Hu, who was breathing her last, and quickly retreated to the corner of the room, only to be greeted by the sight of the ground collapsing where he once stood. Out of thin air, Zhou Hui had transformed into a six-meter-tall golden manifestation. Wielding the formidable twin blades in hand, he slashed towards the Demon Lord with heavy momentum. It was as if the heavens had come crashing down!

——Boom!

Along with the thunderous rumbling, half of the hospital building collapsed easily, like a pile of dominoes. Bricks and stones showered down, and Zhou Hui's Dharmic Projection towered from heaven to earth in the rain like a divine beast from the primeval ages as it opened its b.l.o.o.d.y mouth, which was big enough to swallow the sky, at the Demon Lord ——

Meanwhile, the gate to the Realm of h.e.l.l-Dwellers suddenly grew at least thirty meters in height behind the Demon Lord and opened. Innumerable furies and ghosts swept across the boundless Blood Sea and shot straight up into the sky!

Zhang Shun grabbed firmly onto the edge of the broken walls, his pupils dilating from extreme shock. "That's… That's Zhou Yi…"

"That's Boss Zhou's Dharmic Projection cast through the Realm of G.o.ds." Li Hu said feebly, "You're thinking that it's unusually terrifying, completely different from that of Feng Si's, aren't you?"

Not knowing what to say, Zhang Shun nodded.

——Chu He's Dharmic Projection was completely human, and the Demon Lord's was half-human. However, despite its relation to the Realm of G.o.ds, Zhou Hui's Dharmic Projection totally had an image of the terrifying demonic beast in the prehistoric legend that was said to occupy the world.

It was so fierce and cruel that tens of thousands of people would just be a plate of blood and meat on the vast ground in front of his eyes.

"The Dharmic Projection cast through the Realm of G.o.ds changes according to one's will. The complete projection is at least a thousand times bigger than this." Li Hu sounded exhausted. "It's such a bad luck that I've run into the Demon Lord today. Wait for another day when I have enough energy, and I'll show you my True Form. My True Form is… Wait, what's that?"

All of a sudden, Li Hu got up and quickly stumbled towards the area where the floor had split into two sections. The wood was pointing to the sky, and countless rebars were visible underneath.

Zhang Shun turned his head and saw Zhou Hui's enormous Dharmic Projection suddenly freeze in mid-air as if someone had pressed pause. He quickly returned to his human form.

The storm stopped, as well as the wailing of ghosts. Zhou Hui stood on the now devastated ground with an indescribable expression on his face. Only his body trembled in a strange way.

Chu He was standing across from him.

He had shed his Dharmic Projection and resumed the appearance Zhang Shun was familiar with. One of his hands was clenching Zhou Hui's blade.

Blood flowed down his body like water running out from a leaky pipe, but he didn't move. He just stared at Zhou Hui with a face that was completely apathetic and devoid of expression.

——He was standing in front of the Demon Lord, Fanluo.

Translator's Notes:

I just want to clarify the different names they used when addressing one another, since so far, most characters' ident.i.ties are already revealed. The captain of the six teams refer to each other by Last Name + the Team Number they each lead.

So Hu Liu = Hu + Six = Li Hu (Li Hu is her alias).

Feng Si = Feng + Four = Chu He (Chu He's real name will be explained later).

This might not be as obvious but Zhou Yi = Zhou + One = Zhou Hui.

Hope it's not too confusing! Just look for the last name if ever confused lmao