archfiend

Chapter 17: Manager Su (1)

 Xu Yangyi wasn’t aware of the branch’s business at all. Perhaps it would be better to say that even if he did understand, he still wouldn’t care too much. Heavens Law was a militarized administration. Besides learning the habits, geographical distribution, classification, and societal structure of demons—and also how to develop their own cultivation—other finer aspects wouldn’t be taught.

Demon society was far more complex than beyond what normal people could see. It wasn’t enough to even study these things to begin getting involved in this society. Furthermore, the cultivation world didn’t require something like this. The law of the jungle was that simple.

Thus, it could be said that Xu Yangyi basically didn’t understand what a berserker symbolized for every exam candidate and so on. He also didn’t know that after he slayed the berserker, the branch would become the receptacle of much attention. He only knew he was confronted with a choice now, an extremely grim choice.

“What? Handsome dislikes big sis’s handiwork?” A jade-like hand, followed by a sweet voice, set down the cold, sweet fermented rice balls in her hand and took out a snowy gold-marked card from her bosom. She didn’t pass the card into Xu Yangyi’s hand but gently pursed it to her lips, leaving a red layer of delicate fragrance on it. She then flicked it, causing the card to streak into his sturdy chest. [1]

It was unknown what methods she had used, but the button on his chest popped off with a clack, followed by the second one… the third one… straight to his chiseled abs until the card stopped at his hand and squirreled itself away. 

“Big sis knows I’m bold to trouble you with these ordinary foods, even if I did prepare them myself. The flavor can’t be compared with the cultivation foods you normally eat… A stud like you won’t blame me, right?”

Xu Yangyi calmly took the business card from his wide-open clothes and blew on it. “The Bountiful Treasures Pavilion’s Manager Su, I have less than a month until I have to return to the branch to make my report. There’s not much time.”

“You can do many things in a month… Does handsome think that it isn’t fitting for a normal person like me to chat with you?” The woman stooped over, propping her perfect face to peer at him. “Big sis only wants to invite you for a bite, that’s all. Sir is connected to the Bountiful Treasures Pavilion. We can discuss the purchasing arrangements for the demon’s corpse. Can’t I appreciate a handsome customer?” She laughed and said sweetly, “And doesn’t Mr. Xu’s ‘first time’ deserve to be celebrated?”

Her voice wasn’t melodic at all, but it betrayed a languid smokiness. If a young maiden could be said to be a silver bell, then she was the lantern’s evening candle. She was classy, respectable, and a trace of alluring appeal revealed itself in her extravagance.

For those who heard these words, her voice couldn’t help but make one think about how rosy and seductive her lips were. The softness of her watery gloss if a hand was used to gently caress her lips. 

It was presently midsummer, and her light-blue crop top revealed the snowy flesh of her navel. With her top closely pressed against her bewitching body, it made one unable to mentally link her with any item that covered her body. Instead, one was bestowed with a desire to immediately peel these clothes back, and use their tepid fingers to touch the silky flesh lying below her shirt.

Her miniskirt outlined the enticing S-shaped curve of her ample derrière, and her two snowy thighs below were like jade, tender and straight. On her feet, she donned a pair of wine-red Christian Dior high heels. The clacking sound they made as they rapped against the floor was sweet to the ears. A long white cotton scarf draped her smooth shoulders, adding an even more indistinct flavor.

This was a woman in full bloom. Like the penetrating maturity of a honey peach, as if one could suckle water by gently biting on the skin. A look that was exquisite and fully complementing with rosy lips and eye shadow of slight depth. All in all, it was a fact that could be testified.

This was a beauty, an extremely stirring beauty.

The beauty gently took off her cotton scarf, and beneath the haziness, a tattoo of a vermilion rose could be seen on her shoulder. Her gaze faintly swept over Xu Yangyi’s pectorals and abdominals, and she used her alabaster hand to hand him the scarf to cover himself. Her red lips carrying an enticing charm, she whispered gently at the side of his ear, “Handsome… tonight, big sis will be waiting for you. Come to 28 Spring Road, and we’ll discuss the purchasing arrangements in detail. Be there or be square.”

She headed straight out, and her bountiful ebony hair cascaded behind her. She glanced over at the dumbfounded husky, faintly smiling. “You’re on your own.”

Clack… Clack… The sound of high heels tapping upon the ground was music to the ears as she left the sickroom. Already, a light was radiating from the eyes of the husky by the side. As soon as the beauty left, Mao Ba’er began barking up a storm.

“Pretty boy… I knew your face would bring you a love affair! Let’s go! We should really go! We need to go! But since you’re discussing a buyout with the Bountiful Treasures Pavilion, why did she snub me, the manager?! It should be me and her talking things over, right?! No way! I want to go, too!”

Xu Yangyi looked at the business card, bound in somewhat of a trance, and fanned his face. “Be good and stay put.”

The husky used his paw to cover his mouth incredulously, his doggy eyes tearing up. “So… you want to discard your boyish body that you’ve nurtured for the past twenty-one years? Together with me?”

Xu Yangyi laughed coldly, simply not answering the other. He had never been the herbivore, and moreover, he wasn’t one to decline a rose-tinted rendezvous. However, tonight wasn’t like that at all.

Because on the back of the business card was the symbol of Heavens Law. A coiling dragon with a sword in the center. He couldn’t be more familiar with it.

“Heavens Law is an ‘academy’ and the Bountiful Treasures Pavilion is a ‘supply unit’. She’s obviously a normal person—is she from Heavens Law?” He narrowed his eyes. “Interesting…”

As night fell, he arrived at the appointed location. He was dressed rather casually in an ordinary T-shirt, jeans, sneakers, and sun visor added on with a pair of sunglasses on top. It wasn’t until he arrived that he discovered that the arranged place was in an upper-class neighborhood.

The greening and public safety were both done quite perfectly. This district should’ve been Sanshui City’s finest neighborhood. Inside, there weren’t any buildings but rather a couple small villas. Even the cars parked near the sidewalk were worth at least around 600,000 to 700,000 Chinese dollars. Of course, there weren’t many villas, as well. At most, there were around ten. 

Someone was watching him…

Just as he entered, he discovered an extremely veiled gaze. It carried no killing intent whatsoever, but it was a gaze of strange alarm, nervousness, and all kinds of negative emotions. In a flash, he had seized it.

After the matter of the box within his qi sea—and while his qi sea’s expansion was temporarily without solution—the event brought with it the benefit of an instantaneous result. His current degree of sensitivity towards the outside world vastly oustripped that of his previous level. 

His eyes drifted over in passing, and in that stitch of time, he clearly sensed the other immediately rein in their gaze like a bird on a hair trigger. Moreover, the owner of that gaze’s heartbeat immediately spiked and their body temperature further soared. 

They were… scared of him? Why were they afraid of him?

Manager Su wouldn't be scared of him. Did his style not mingle in with the neighborhood’s common crowd, in the other party’s eyes?

This gaze was frightened of him… or frightened of… someone like him?

“Interesting…” Xu Yangyi licked his lips and took off his glasses, looking over.

It was a white villa. Sanshui City didn’t have any mega-luxury villas that came preinstalled with a swimming pool and tennis court. With an energetic Chinese-style, this villa stood out like a sore thumb among the block of western-style villas, recognizable with a single glance.

Swish… At the same time, inside the villa, an elderly man lowered the blinds in a flurry, using a handkerchief to wipe away at his cold sweat as if his life depended on it. His voice warbled like he had suffered a stroke. “He saw me… He looked at me…”

He faintly shivered and cold sweat slicked his hand. At his side, Manager Su flipped through a fashion magazine in boredom, not lifting her head. She said, “What you’ve done is yours to blame. I set up a line for you in the consideration of your two million.”

“Grandfather!” At the old man’s side, a twenty-year-old youth followed, decked out in designer brands from head to toe. The deep furrowing of his strong brows revealed his obvious dissatisfaction. “What’s happened to you? Our company went from little nobodies to riches totaling a billion! I don’t understand, isn’t he just the police captain? Even when Chief Zheng sees us, he has to take the long way around! We’re the economic pillar of Sanshui City! Nowadays, to be rich is to be a lord; what are you scared of? Who saw you? Who do we have to be scared of in Sanshui City?”

He didn’t even finish speaking. Or perhaps he was simply unable to continue speaking because his grandfather, who had never raised his voice at him and granted his every request, fixed him with a penetrating gaze.

“Shut your mouth.” The old man closed his eyes and deeply clenched his teeth several times, his voice light yet penetrating with a strength that couldn’t be refused. “Take a seat, nice and quiet. Don’t say anything else.”

The youth hadn’t finished speaking, and his chest heaved up and down a couple times. He curled his lips, restraining his anger and sneering. Standing in front of the window, he neither spoke nor sat down.

Swish! Manager Su shut the magazine closed all of a sudden and looked at the considerably handsome youth with a smile that wasn’t a smile. “Why did you bring him here? He’s just a dainty young master protected in his own little bubble. His character isn’t great and his temper is big. He doesn’t even know anything, and can’t discern the severity of the situation. In his heart… perhaps in the immensity of heaven and earth, his grandpa is the greatest, right… Sir, aren’t you worried that he will offend him?”

The old man’s Adam’s apple painfully stirred, and his hand holding his cup of coffee trembled somewhat faintly. “After he graduates, he’ll go abroad to pursue his studies… He is the sole scion of the Cao Family, in any case, a great organization will fall to him…”

He opened his murky eyes and sighed deeply. “I am an old man. This is a burden I cannot carry… I originally believed I would still be able to hold on for ten more years and let Mosheng live carefree for that period of time and continue his life of pleasure… I didn’t expect… a matter like this would happen now.”

“Perhaps that man doesn’t care at all.” Manager Su poured him a cup of coffee, pushing it over. “Why should you?”

“He may not, but how can I risk not taking this matter to heart?” The old man took the cup of coffee, his hand shivering to a degree. He looked at the blinds in trepidation. “And while I know that even a tiger at the zoo doesn’t eat people… who dares release one?”

“In order to let that man see our sincerity… Now, granted that Mosheng isn’t sensible, but moreover domineering, as heir of the Cao Family he must stand here.”

Cao Mosheng looked at his grandfather in shock, as if he didn’t recognize him. He felt his throat become fairly dry and walked in front of the window. He raised a blind, looking at Xu Yangyi leisurely walking by. Because of his towering anger, his voice somewhat trembed. “Him?”

“It’s him?!”

“Look at his clothes… Tsk, tsk… Even I’m embarrassed! I spend enough on a single meal in what he makes in a month! Grandfather! Are you confused?! It’s him? How can it be him? I can drop 100,000 and get a bunch of flunkies like that to come!”

“Cao Mosheng, hasn’t Lord Yun told you that food may be eaten indiscriminately, but words cannot be spoken carelessly?” Manager Su leisurely pursed her coffee to her lips, not raising her head. “The Cao Family lost their middle-aged son, and are you are the sole heir. For Lord Yun to pamper and spoil your nature to not know of the immensity of heaven and earth… Hehe, Lord Yun, do you regret it?”

Cao Mosheng bit his lip and looked towards his grandfather, yet discovered that his grandfather was surprisingly nodding deeply in pain. 

“Grandfather, what’s gotten into you tonight?” Cao Mosheng fiercely swept his wide eyes over to the window. “It’s just a person like this… A person like this! …Just you wait! I’ll give Chief Zheng a call right now! He’ll send him packing straight out of Sanshui City tomorrow!”

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiuniang the dish in question.