Chapter 245: An Outwardly Fierce but Inwardly Shaky Enemy
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Obtaining absolutely nothing from Zhang Lisheng, who shook his head in ignorance as an answer to all his questions, Harvey put away his pen and paper with a blank expression. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Zhang, although you basically have said nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve said before just now that I may not be able to answer you about privacy issues.” Zhang Lisheng spread out his hand and smiled, before s.h.i.+fting his gaze to the hospital bed.
As he looked at Effiny who was in a coma but whose face remained ruddy and s.h.i.+ny, he said to Steven in gratification, “Professor, Professor Effiny’s condition is much better than I thought. I first thought that she would be staying in the ICU…”
“Oh Lisheng, if you’re old enough, you’d know that the patients lying on ordinary beds are not necessarily better than patients lying in the ICU. There’s no danger to life but you may have to live the rest of your life without any senses or consciousness. Just how better do you think it is from a direct death, child?”
“There’s an old saying in China, ‘a living dog is better than a dead lion’. As long as one is still alive, there’ll still be that strand of hope of a miracle and besides, the doctor has not even made any diagnosis on Professor Effiny yet.” Zhang Lisheng pondered for a moment before walking towards his supervisor, who was sitting on the plastic chair next to the sickbed with his eyes filled with affection and sadness as he watched his sister, consoling him.
“Thank you, child,” Steven was silent for a moment before replying. “Go and have fun with your girlfriend. The hospital is not a place where a young person like you should stay. Just let me stay alone with Effiny.”
“Alright. I won’t bother you then, Professor. If you need any help, feel free to contact me.” Zhang Lisheng sighed and turned to look at Harvey. “Lieutenant, can I leave?”
“Of course, Mr. Zhang, you can leave at any time.” The NCIS agent personally opened the door for Zhang Lisheng. “Lastly, let me ask you a question that doesn’t infringe your privacy. Why do you think Mr. Justin, who is very promising and young, would betray his supervisor and make such an irrational criminal offense?”
“To be honest, Lieutenant, Justin was the first person to discover that mysterious Gold Core. H-However, out of various considerations, Professor Effiny excluded him from future experiments. You’ve been exposed to a lot of criminals so I’m sure you should know that sometimes when people feel that they’ve been wronged and treated unfairly, to the point where they become irrational, they would often carry out some terrible acts. ”
“It was Justin who discovered the target object of those mobs? Oh, I didn’t know that there’s such an inside story…” Harvey said with astonishment.
“It’s not quite an inside story. Although it’s Justin who discovered the experimental material, he made that discovery using the instruments in the laboratory on the property of the US government when he was ordered to a.s.sist other scientists. For this reason, he doesn’t have the owners.h.i.+p and the exclusive research right of that material. As the leader of the experiment, it’s entirely reasonable in the academic world for Effiny to exclude him from the experiment due to his lack of ability. Therefore, he’s completely mad for hating Effiny and injuring his own supervisor.” Upon hearing the NCIS agent’s word, Steven suddenly chimed in without turning his head.
“Professor Steven is right. According to academic practice, it’s completely reasonable for Justin to be excluded out of the experiment. However, just like I said, this person is very, very extreme. He’s purely a madman who has lost his mind so for this reason, he carried an irrational and criminal offense.” Zhang Lisheng quickly echoed his supervisor’s words and nodded solemnly at Harvey before walking out of the ward.
In the hospital corridor where the smell was a little unbearable, he let out a sigh of relief and took out his phone. Just as he was about to call Tina, he was suddenly blocked by a young white man who had a big nose and his thick-browed companion who shared the same color of skin and age but with a reluctant face.
“Is there anything I can help you with, misters?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a moment before asking with a frown.
When they heard his fluent New York accent, the thick-browed young man who had a reluctant expression on immediately muttered in Mandarin, “See! How can such a standard and fluent English that sounds exactly like those US series come out of a Chinese’s mouth? Look at that face! Just look at his temperament and you can tell that he’s 100% a foreigner! If he’s a Chinese just because his hair is black and his skin is yellow, then don’t you think the number of Chinese people in the US would be too many already? C’mon! Let’s go! Stop blocking his way! Otherwise, we’ll have to transform again and my body is unable to bear it okay?!”
“Yeah, his accent doesn’t sound like a Chinese at all. Oh, I know! This must be an overseas inheritance of our witchcraft!” That big-nosed young man who blocked Zhang Lisheng’s path had his eyes light up right away. With pleasant surprise, he used heavily accented English and stuttered using words that failed to convey his meaning. “h.e.l.lo, good afternoon. Y-Yes. Y-You are… what? Somebody different, right? Er… wizard, wizard’s sacrifice and death… and medical skills…”
“Haha…” Zhang Lisheng looked at these two white young men, whose actions were weird but unscrupulous at the same time as their eyes widened in a dumbstruck manner, with a cold gaze but with a smile, before changing into Mandarin and said, “Elder brothers, you two obviously have a Caucasian face but you two actually practice witchcraft and speak English like that? How ludicrous!”
“Y-You’re really a Chinese person!” The two guys in front shouted at the same time in astonishment.
At this time, Zhang Lisheng stopped talking to them and just bypa.s.sed them directly, before striding forward away.
“Buddy! He ignored us after saying a sentence to us. W-What does he mean by this?” Seeing Zhang Lisheng’s strange action, the thick-browed white young man watched his disappearing back and said in a slight daze.
“I think he must have most likely been stunned by my question and regretted it after having a slip of mouth. Let us go after him.”
“W-Why are we going after him?”
“Since he practices the same witchcraft just like us, it means that we’re all family! Let us go after him and ask what that US soldier asked him just now. If we report it up, it’ll be intelligence already!” The big-nosed young man explained in a whisper. Pulling his companion with his might, he gave chase right away.
“What if he’s not willing to tell us?”
“Hurmph! If he doesn’t give face to our friends of the same witchcraft, let us make him submit through pressure instead! He’s also a wizard and it’s not prohibited for us to use witchcraft on him! We won’t go against the law no matter what.”
“T-This doesn’t seem to be too good.”
“What are you afraid of? Both of us are Rank-4 Wizard! You can command strange insects while I have the soul of Wind Tiger on me. Even if he’s…” As the two of them conversed with each other, they ran out of the hospital.
When they saw Zhang Lisheng turning into a dark alley on the street in the distance, they hurriedly rushed over, only to find that there was no one in the long and straight lane.
Despite sensing that something was not right instinctively, that big-nosed young man still pulled his companion into the alley by force.
“That fellow must have entered a side road! He’s a local so he must be familiar with this area. Let us look for him carefully. If it really comes to necessity, we must use force to subdue him first…” As he was muttering while carefully walking forward, a pair of invisible cold claws suddenly emerged from behind him that was apparently empty and grabbed onto his head, stopping him from continuing his words.
Then, a cold voice resonated in the ears of the two of them. “The two of you are looking for me, right? I thought that you two would be slightly skilled for being so daring to act so unscrupulously but it has never crossed my mind that you two are actually worthless fellows. Ah forget it, let us take a stroll to the top of the building and I’ll send you your last journey.”
As soon as his words left his mouth, the big-nosed young man suddenly felt that he was picked up from the ground by his head like a carrot being pulled.
In mid-air, he cast the secret method of the Witchcraft’s Gate of Sacrifice and grew yellow and black stripes on his body. A bitingly cold strong wind blew around his body but despite his endless struggle in escaping, he still could not escape from the clutches on his head. As he rose up to the tall building swaying left and right in the narrow alley, the giant claws grabbed him by the shoulders and gave him a shake, rattling till all of his joints were dislocated before throwing him on the roof of the building.
His companion, on the other hand, cultivated the Witchcraft’s Gate of Death and did not transform. Right now, his neck had already been bent into a strange angle as he suffocated, looking as though he was going to die very soon.
Looking at the miserable appearance of the companion, the young man’s gaze gradually became dazed. He began to shout unwittingly, “W-Who are you? Who are you? Where are you…”
In the air, a tall and skinny monster covered in dense black scales that had nine peac.o.c.k tail-like scorpion tails swaying behind him showed himself. “You asked me who am I? I also want to ask you who are you? How do you know our Chinese witchcraft secret technique and why would you two block my way in the hospital?”
“W-Who are you? Where are you? Y-You’re… Who are you…” The young man seemed to be turning a blind eye at the monster that had appeared in front all of the sudden as he repeated his words that he said just now continuously with a lifeless look.
“You became scared to the point you became dumb just like that? You’re extremely arrogant but only have 10% of the guts of someone who’s even weaker than an ordinary person? Do you think I’d really fall for it?” Zhang Lisheng, who had transformed into the lizard’s power who had launched the sudden attack to subdue his enemies, showed a ferocious smile by the corner of his lips. Extending one of his feet, he stamped the young man with a high nose into a puddle of meat and bone fragments.
“Ah, ah, ah…” The young man whose entire joints had been dislocated wriggled viciously like a worm with his blue veins popping out on the top of the building. However, his eyes still seemed to be lifeless.
Upon seeing this, Zhang Lisheng had no choice but to believe it. This enemy who had picked trouble with him for no reason and had been aggressive and compelling would actually turn out to be a useless fellow who had no guts at all in the face of adversity.
“Don’t tell me that the reason they still maintained an ordinary person’s att.i.tude in spite of their unscrupulousness in carrying out their actions is because they’ve just gained their power… But, the cultivation of witchcraft cannot be succeeded in just one night!” Zhang Lisheng s.h.i.+fted his attention onto the other thick-browed white young man but he noticed that this fellow was no longer breathing already.
Smiling wryly, he could not help but mutter, “If I’ve known this earlier, I should have used milder means to deal with them. Looks like I can’t get any answer from them anymore right now. How useless! If they really have yellow skin and black hair, they can be comparable to those young Chinese wizards I came across South Africa last year who went to Cape Town as though they were on holiday to meet their death.”
As he was speaking, he suddenly realized that the thick-browed white man lying on the ground who had just died not long ago suddenly shrank by more than ten centimeters. His face twisted into an Asian look with single eyelids and flat nose, with his hair becoming black as well.