Chapter 60: CH 60

Suddenly the street light above them flickered and went out.

At the same instant, Zong Yan cut through space and tightly grabbed the Night Watchman persona card. On the fingertips of his other hand, a golden flame magic pattern burst out—just in case.

“W-what’s wrong?” Ye JingMing asked. His face was vigilant and fearful.

He took a few steps back, shrinking behind Zong Yan, and stared at the glittering magic pattern on the other teen’s fingers.

After the previous incident with the shoggoth, Ye JingMing almost suffered from PTSD. For a long time, the slightest unexpected movement put him on alert.

But Zong Yan had helpfully reminded him that since he wasn’t Awakened, the probability Ye JingMing would run into an otherworldly monster was as low as winning the lottery. Even if there were a lot of extra-dimensional creatures in Jiangzhou right now, they rarely attacked ordinary people, but focused on the Awakened.

The flesh and blood of Awakened people was more effective than eating the bodies of a hundred ordinary people. In addition, the Awakened possessed an inherent attractiveness to aliens, which was the reason Zong Yan had been forced to move out of the tube building.

“There’s a situation.” Zong Yan crushed the Astrologer’s card, and a levitating crystal divination ball appeared above his palm.

“Is it, is it the type of situation I’m thinking of?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it’s too serious. Don’t worry,” Zong Yan reassured him. The next moment his eyes turned an arcane shade of purple, flickering with stars of light.

Thousands of information streams invisible to human sight converged in the sky and coalesced in his eyes, just like a high-tech projection. A vast star map unfolded before his eyes.

“There seems to be something above that street lamp.”

Ye JingMing thought of the close encounter at the school and suddenly felt a little more courageous.

He dared to take the basketball out of his schoolbag, weighed it in his hand for a moment, then hurled it through the air. But nothing happened. The ball rolled into the nearby fountain.

There were a lot of people in the street. After all, they were in the city center. Not far away was a large shopping mall filled with luxury stores, and before them was a square with a fountain in the middle.

By the time they’d finished rehearsal it was almost seven o’clock, the usual time for people to go out to eat. White collar workers who’d just left work sat under the umbrellas of a café to one side.

“It’s too populated here. Let’s head to the mall.”

Zong Yan made a clear decision. He and Ye JingMing exchanged a glance, then turned their heads to the fire escape of the shopping mall.

The emergency exits of the shopping mall were almost never used. If you could take the elevator, you certainly wouldn’t decide to climb the stairs. Only the emergency lights were on inside.

Ye JingMing saw a flash of light, and then the black-haired teenager wearing a Qingyang High School uniform transformed into a gray-haired Night Watchman with a top hat and black umbrella.

“Do, do you feel like you’re taller now?” he stammered a bit and hesitated before saying.

“Taller?” Zong Yan paused for a moment and instinctively glanced at his feet.

Although the Night Watchman’s costume was a bit retro, it didn’t actually copy the short high heels that men sometimes wore in the 17th century. His footwear resembled the Martin boots popular in modern times.

“Maybe I look more mature like this? I don’t know. Well, it’s not really the best time to talk about it. Let’s go.”

The Night Watchman had learned from experience. This time he didn’t try to take Ye JingMing with him through the shadows, but just walked into the fire escape.

Zong Yan’s Night Watchman’s outfit had already been exposed to the public. He didn’t care if people labelled him as a cosplay fan.

“You’d better keep behind me.”

Zong Yan felt a little guilty. The creature was probably only here because of him. Thank goodness he had the ability to protect his friends. It was something of a blessing in misfortune.

In addition, Ye JingMing had encountered the occult world before. He wouldn’t be surprised by anything Zong Yan did.

Fortunately, the creature that appeared in the vicinity wasn’t hard to deal with. It was a Hunting Horror, a B-rank superior independent species.

As far as Zong Yan was concerned, if it wasn’t the incarnation of an evil god, anything else that jumped out in front of him was just delivering vegetables for him to chop. As long as he didn’t make a mistake like with the shoggoth last time, he could send pretty much any alien creature back to outer space with a couple of whacks.

By the time the Dragon Group showed up to find the awakening source they’d detected, Zong Yan had already cancelled the Night Watchman status. He was standing in front of the café, drinking a coffee and waiting for them to arrive.

“So you’ve already handled it…. Thanks very much. You saved us some work.”

The investigator in charge of coordinating with the police spoke to the officers behind him, then everyone dispersed one by one.

The occult world cooperated secretly with police departments and other organizations in various countries. Basically, if there was a shortage of personnel, everyone would work together to help.

Zong Yan, the recently crowned tenth Monarch of the occult world, was in the limelight recently. His name was the first item in the MU app’s search bar and dominated the search topics for almost two weeks running.

It was rumored that several of the old hands on the Monarch list were very curious about the young and gifted tenth Monarch. However, the Dragon Group in Jiangzhou looked at Zong Yan as a kind of mascot.

The tenth Monarch was so young. He wasn’t even an adult yet, still in his third year of high school, and how important was senior year? Maybe it was because everyone had gone to MU. They wanted to take care of him like a precious object.

“In that case, let me take down your statement.”

“Okay.” Zong Yan readily agreed. “Tonight’s creature was most likely a B-rank Hunting Horror. When we went to the landing on the second floor of the mall, it suddenly attacked us. I tried to lead it away to protect the public, but it might have been seen. I’m very sorry.”

“That’s fine, that’s fine.” The investigator typed efficiently on his tablet and quickly submitted an investigation report. “Jiangzhou hasn’t been peaceful lately. The Internet’s locked down to prevent a panic. If someone tries to upload a video it’ll just be blocked.”

Ye JingMing listened to this casual statement with considerable awe.

As they spoke, Zong Yan remembered the help request that had provoked so much discussion on the MU app. “By the way, what’s happening in New York?” 

“New York? Something big’s going down in New York!” The investigator frowned. “Lately there’s a big decrease in the number of creatures sighted in Jiangzhou. The one you met today is only the second this week. The Dragon Group sent a lot of people to New York to help out. The news that’s come back doesn’t look good.”

Zong Yan had guessed something along those lines. After all, the recent international news was also bad.

The nuclear power plant leak in New York had given rise to international condemnation, especially from Europe, the most direct victim located across the ocean from the United States.

The world was now waiting to see how the United States managed the nuclear leak.

“We’re observing whether the situation there is contained. If they don’t succeed, we’ll have to go over there on a mission.”

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There was no way around it. Professional matters had to be left to professionals. This wasn’t a nuclear leak at all, but an incident caused by an otherworldly species, so it was even more important not to disclose anything to the public.

However, the members of the Dragon Group belonged to China’s special forces. If the Dragon Group went to New York to help out, they would be well-compensated for their assistance.

“Thanks for your hard work.”

After giving his statement, Zong Yan sighed and walked home with Ye JingMing.

When he arrived at home and opened the door, Nyarlathotep, who’d transformed into a pool of mysterious liquid, extruded a mouth and a hand and pointed to the door. “Someone delivered a package for you today.”

“… You didn’t do anything to the delivery person, right?”

“No.” The Bloated Woman lightly hopped down from the second floor, covering half of her face with her fan. “But he might have accidentally seen something he shouldn’t have. If he ends up with a bit of mental illness, it’s really not my fault.”

Zong Yan: …

He picked up the utility knife, opened the package and took out the instrument inside.

This was the flute that Zong Yan had custom-ordered from the musical instrument shop.

His original intention was to pick out a flute at random. But when he actually got to the store, this plan flew out the window. He couldn’t think about anything other than buying a superior quality, expensive flute that had to be made to order. It was like being possessed. 

Zong Yan had really never been in contact with any musical instruments before, but when he walked into the music store, he was able to see the advantages and disadvantages of various instruments at a glance. Sitting on a piano bench he casually played Chopin. Picking up a violin he turned into Paganini. The owner of the store was surprised and thought he’d met a reclusive musical genius. He quickly gave Zong Yan a discount.

It was only after Zong Yan selected the flute materials, added a pile of special requirements, and paid a huge deposit that he realized what he’d done.

Recently, because Nyarlathotep helped him solve the problem of becoming the tenth Monarch, Zong Yan was able to occasionally pick up missions on weekends to earn some extra money.

It had to be said that investigators really made money fast. As long as you were alive to enjoy it, any D-level mission earned upwards of five figures, and C-levels were six figures. Zong Yan suddenly became one of the invisible rich.

Then he bought a flute and instantly returned to pre-liberation days.

“A flute?”

When Zong Yan took out the flute and began to examine it, the smile on the Bloated Woman’s face froze over.

It wasn’t just the Bloated Woman. The Haunter of the Dark who’d just launched into the air, the Black Man who’d formed a solid body, and the Black Pharaoh who was lying lazily on the tatami mat, all turned their heads with bright smiles that were suddenly frozen on their faces.

All of the incarnations of Nyarlathotep were staring at the flute in Zong Yan’s hand.

“What’s wrong?” Under the stares of numerous evil god avatars, Zong Yan felt a bit on edge. He skillfully adjusted the bone-white flute in his hand.

Strange, he was certain he’d never touched the thing before, but he felt unexplainably familiar with it. And it wasn’t the same as the feeling he got from the ability given to him by the Great Old One Hastur….

He put the flute to his mouth and gently blew the first note.

What kind of heavenly music was this?!

Zong Yan was deeply intoxicated by his artistic talent. He held the flute in his hands and began to play, totally infatuated. He didn’t look at the glazed faces of Nyarlathotep’s avatars at all.

‘At last, at last, the recital of the Father God begins.‘

‘How is it that a stream of consciousness possesses such a devastating musical talent?’

The avatars exchanged a look with each other and retreated silently into the darkness.

Zong Yan was oblivious to this. Nor did he know how blood-curdling was the sound he played.

There’s a certain type of person who doesn’t have the slightest bit of talent for music and knows nothing about it, but stubbornly believes that what they’re playing is the music of heaven.

Sadly, there was no sane person around Zong Yan to remind him of this. After all, his audience was filled with evil gods.

—

The author has something to say:

Zong Yan: I’m the only one who’s drunk, ah, it sounds so good

Everyone else: ……

TL Notes:

PTSD – A disorder in which a person has difficulty recovering after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event (via Google)

invisible rich – 隐形富豪 – A rich person who is low-key about their wealth, or a rich person who’s unknown to the public

instantly returned to pre-liberation days – 一朝回到解放前 – return to before liberation in one day – the things you worked hard to achieve are lost all at once, and you can only work hard from scratch; to be in a similar state to before liberation in the 1940s when most people were poor and felt helpless

felt a bit on edge – 如坐针毡 – sit on pins and needles; as if sitting on a spiked rug; be in an extremely uncomfortable position; be kept on the anxious seat; be on nettles; be on tenterhooks; be [sit; stand; walk] upon [on] thorns; feel as if sitting on a bed of nails

totally infatuated – 如痴如醉 – delude one to folly; be out of one’s mind

blood-curdling – 惨不忍睹 – too horrible to look at; could not bear the sight; so horrible that one could hardly bear to look at it; so miserable that one cannot bear seeing it; abysmal, terrible, horrible, miserable

Glossary of world terms—new in this chapter:

Hunting Horror – 恐怖猎手 – A race of flying serpentine creatures

Image source: Call of Cthulhu, French version – H.P. Lovecraft Wiki

[ Project Page | Ko-Fi ✿ | Other translations by Confectioner ]

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