SES Chapter 202 Part 1

Chapter 202

They set off again, this time with Cao Yanhua driving.

Under the immense pressure of everyone’s “lack of trust,” Cao Yanhua drove steadily and cautiously, creeping along. The sky began to darken, as if Leopard’s shadow were gathering again.

What kind of bizarre method had Leopard’s ancestor used? Summoning? Luring?

Yan Hongsha felt uneasy about the long-term consequences. “Could Ya Feng know this method too? Could she find a ferocious slip before we do?”

Ya Feng had been arrested along with Leopard’s subordinates, but no matter how much she was interrogated, nothing concrete came out. And since she truly had no overseas connections, she might have already been released.

Luo Ren shook his head. “Ya Feng isn’t on the same level as Leopard.”

At most, Ya Feng was someone with a twisted mind who had accidentally resonated with a ferocious slip. What she could sense from it was limited.

Leopard was different. Her family line had deep ties to the previous generation of ferocious slips, and her ancestor was the only known person to have committed all seven of the ferocious crimes.

Luo Ren couldn’t let go of what Yan Hongsha had said earlier about “activation.” “I’m still inclined to believe what Hongsha said—that as a descendant of those who worshipped the ferocious slips, Leopard’s blood is different from ordinary people’s.”

Cao Yanhua’s palms grew sweaty on the steering wheel. “Brother Luo… our entire Cao Family Village seems to be descended from people who worshipped ferocious slips too.”

Luo Ren smiled slightly. “That’s different. From the Qin dynasty to now, your village has gone through countless generations. And not everyone who worshipped the ferocious slips wanted to ‘restore some grand cause.’ Plenty of people just wanted peaceful lives.”

As he said this, Ya Feng’s words suddenly came back to him.

—He’s not the same as you. Many people in Cao Family Village aren’t the same either.
—How are they different?
—Born different.
—Are you different too?
—I’ve got a rotten heart.

Luo Ren frowned. Looking back now, Ya Feng’s answer had carried information.

This “difference” came from two possible causes.

First, being born different.
Second, having a vicious heart.

Luo Ren let out a long breath. “Leopard meets both conditions. She was born different, and her cruelty is well known. What’s more, several generations ago, her ancestor committed seven ferocious murders.”

Not everyone’s blood could be used for this kind of summoning.

Thirteen Thousand suddenly spoke up. “And I think there’s another reason why the sixth ferocious slip came to us on its own.”

“Blood, simply put, is a liquid that smells of blood. But more complexly, it contains a lot of genetic information. With DNA alone, you might even be able to clone a person.”

He pointed at Luo Ren. “By that point, the ferocious slips had already started targeting us—wasn’t Ya Feng using some kind of human trafficking letter to lure us all to Cao Family Village? Could it be that the sixth ferocious slip sensed from Leopard’s blood that Leopard was Luo Ren’s enemy—and Luo Ren just happened to be the one the ferocious slips wanted to deal with?”

A chill ran down Luo Ren’s back.

If that were true, then the appearance of the sixth slip wasn’t solely due to the ritual. It was a careful selection, a mutual need, a convergence of desire—a powerful alliance.

When Leopard’s ancestors fled to Southeast Asia, they should have known the ferocious slips had already been sealed away. That blood-burning ritual was a gamble. Before sending out those seven people, even Leopard’s great-grandfather didn’t know whether it would succeed.

So when it finally worked, he died of joy. His murmured words—“It’s opened, it’s really opened again”—meant that the seven ferocious slips had been opened once more.

If the appearance of the sixth slip was that complex, then Leopard couldn’t possibly know where the seventh was. She had always been sending people to search for it. That “hide” didn’t mean she had hidden the slip—it meant the slip itself had cleverly hidden away.

Yan Hongsha frowned. “It’s definitely hard to find. Those ferocious slips are sometimes frighteningly intelligent. I still remember how it was clearly afraid of water, yet attached itself to an old clam to avoid it.”

Thirteen Thousand lowered his head and calculated. “Seven times seven. That leaves… nineteen, twenty days. In twenty days, we have to go to Fog Town first to look for the Phoenix Luan Clasp. We might also need to go to Long Town. If the seventh slip is hidden in some especially bizarre way, and the Phoenix Luan Clasp doesn’t give us any strong hints… the outcome is really hard to predict.”

The atmosphere in the car grew heavy.

At first glance, holding six slips looked like a great situation. But who would have thought that if the timing was off by even a little, everything could collapse overnight?

And by “collapse,” this definitely didn’t mean Cao Jiefang.

No one spoke. Everyone silently counted the days.

Twenty days—less than three weeks, four hundred and eighty hours—would pass in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, Cao Yanhua slammed the horn enthusiastically.

“Don’t be so pessimistic! Think about it another way—if we’re lucky, after twenty days, we’ll be done with this godforsaken ferocious-slip business for good, and we can finally live peaceful lives! Hey, what are you all going to do then?”

Thirteen Thousand glanced at him. “What are you going to do?”

Cao Yanhua had it all planned out. “Me? I’ve got tons to do. First, I’ll go back to Cao Family Village—fighting with my family long enough already. I’ll train properly with my junior master, work at a bar to make money, figure out how to get Phoenix Tower’s business going… I checked online the other day—lots of film crews shoot around the ancient city. If they need stunt actors or something, I’ll sign up and be an extra. Maybe even Jackie Chan will show up…”

He spoke with a flushed face, overflowing with excitement, his eyes full of longing for life after those twenty days.

Little by little, everyone’s mood was lifted.

Thirteen Thousand thought for a moment. “Me… I’ll pay off my debts first. Always owing people thirteen thousand—it’s awkward.”

Yan Hongsha cut in, “That’s better than me. I owe over three hundred thousand.”

She sighed. “Maybe in the future, everyone will call me Three Hundred Thousand instead of Hongsha.”

Luo Ren laughed. “Actually, I have an idea about Hongsha’s debt.”

Thirteen Thousand slapped his thigh. “I was thinking the same thing! Luo Ren, see—great minds think alike.”