Hell's Handbook

Chapter 170: Visiting the Temple

In the end, all of them agreed to accept the middle-aged man into the team. Just like before, Su Jin let a drop of his blood fall on the man’s hand, then once the black demon’s hand shattered, it turned into the emblem of Team Boning Knife and appeared on the man’s arm.

“Hoho! I’m so happy that I made it into Team Boning Knife today! Let me introduce myself. My name is Wu Chen, I’m a veteran and my Spirit Power is shapeshifting,” said Wu Chen with a big grin on his face.

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“Shapeshifting?” The rest of the team was very curious to find out more. There were so many types of Spirit Power. Some were more direct sources of power like psychokinesis and internal energy, while others were more passive like the power of slothfulness and numbing. It was hard to say which one was better than the other. It all depended on the situation.

Wu Chen smiled faintly as he stood in front of Chu Yi. His body began to change like he was made of plasticine as his skin shrank in some places and expanded in others. Less than 20 seconds later, a second Chu Yi stood before the team, the only difference being their clothing.

“Oh my god!” Chu Yi himself gasped in shock as he stared at Wu Chen. As far as he could tell, Wu Chen looked exactly like him. He wouldn’t have been able to tell himself apart.

The rest were amazed as well. Su Jin paused to think, then raised Wu Chen’s arm to take a look. “Is your ability to change based only on what your eyes are able to see?”

“That’s right. I can change into anything I see. But only living things.” Wu Chen nodded and reverted to his own look again.

“So, you’re not able to replicate any parts that are hidden from your view. Or at least, you’re not able to do that if you don’t know about it.” Su Jin was a very observant man. From the outside, Wu Chen did look just like Chu Yi. But Chu Yi had a mole on his inner arm that Wu Chen had failed to reproduce.

The team felt that Wu Chen’s Spirit Power would do wonders in a Challenge. As for the whole thing about reviving the dead, Wu Chen didn’t hide any details from them either. They were curious about the Gods’ Ceremony, so they asked him about it.

“If you get five different items for it, you can activate the Ceremony and receive a reward from it. There are certain special items that must be included in this list of five in order to receive the reward to revive the dead. I am only sure of three of such items at the moment.” Revival of the dead was something that was extremely important to him, so while exchanging information, he was always sensitive to anything pertaining to this topic.

He opened his Handbook and showed the team the three items he knew about. Basically, he just needed one of the three items listed to be the main item in the Gods’ Ceremony. Then only would he get the reward he wanted.

Other than Situ Jin, the other three blinked in surprise at the list. Out of the three items, one of them was actually the Key to Immortality.

They exchanged glances but didn’t say anything. Wu Chen was not really a trusted member at the moment, after all. If he became someone they trusted, they might tell him that they actually had one of these.

After they left Hell’s Bar, they returned to their own universes. Su Jin had just returned to the real world when he received a call from Situ Jin.

“If you don’t have anything in particular to do, then come to B City for a while. If you’re going to join the Department of Supernatural Affairs, you’d need to complete some paperwork,” said Situ Jin.

It was true that Su Jin had no reason to remain at Cloud Mountain anymore. He looked out at the peaks that were slowly turning white again. Perhaps the mountain range would look like what it used to in just a few months’ time. But it was hard to tell when he would be able to get Ye Yun back from Shen Wu.

Kano Mai was worried about letting Su Jin travel by himself, so she was prepared to buy another ticket to travel with Su Jin to B City. But when she tried purchasing a ticket, she got a call from the airline.

“Someone’s already bought us tickets?” Kano Mai was surprised.

Su Jin thought about what could have happened, then said, “It’s probably Situ Jin. He’s a high ranking government official after all. He just needs to pull a few strings and he’d get something like this done very easily. That’s where all our tax dollars are going!”

By the time they got on the plane and arrived in B City, it was the next morning. As the capital city of the country, B City’s airport security checks were a lot stricter than other places. The security officers inspected Su Jin from head to toe and were just short of dismantling his nail clipper at the rate they were going. But despite all that, none of them saw his Handbook at all.

After they walked out from the terminal, someone approached them immediately. He wore glasses and looked like a well-mannered gentleman. Su Jin remembered him. This man had broken into his house along with Situ Jin the last time and tried to attack him with poison.

“Hello, Mr. Su! We’ve met before. And this young lady here must be Miss Kano, right? I’m Glasses. Mr. Situ got me to pick you guys up,” said Glasses with a smile. He had ambushed Su Jin with Situ Jin back then and Su Jin was the one who personally saw them out of the house too.

He ushered them into a car and they arrived near a bustling business district after about half an hour. Su Jin found it strange that both the special police and the Department of Supernatural Affairs chose to base themselves in an office that was smack in the middle of the city center.

Situ Jin was already waiting for them by the time Glasses brought them into the Department’s office. He nodded slightly at his two guests, then called all his subordinates together.

“Let me introduce someone to all of you. This gentleman here is Mr. Su Jin. From today onwards, he will be one of our consultants, so I hope everyone will work well together,” Situ Jin gave a brief introduction.

All of them were rather surprised. Ever since they moved into the new millennium, the Department had not hired any new consultants. They didn’t expect their department head to suddenly bring one who was not only young, but also someone they had investigated previously.

Situ Jin could sense the tension in the room, so he frowned and said, “What’s wrong? Do you have any objections?”

“No, no, not at all. It’s just that…we’ve not hired a consultant for a long time now,“said King Kong in a small voice.

“That was because we didn’t need to in the past,” said Situ Jin. He continued to introduce his subordinates to Su Jin, “This is King Kong, this is Glasses, and this is Grandmaster. You’ve met them before. This lady over here is Bo Ya. There are some others who are busy carrying out other work outside, so I’ll introduce them to you another time.”

Su Jin nodded at each person as a way of greeting them, then Situ Jin clapped his hands and said, “Alright now, everyone, you can go back to doing whatever you were doing earlier. Bo Ya, please help me make three cups of tea and send them into my office.”

“Yes, Mr. Situ.” Bo Ya nodded.

Situ Jin motioned for Su Jin and Kano Mai to follow him into his office. Su Jin noticed that Situ Jin’s office was only a few square meters large, so he laughed and said, “Your office is a little small for a department head, don’t you think?”

“I don’t spend a lot of time inside here anyway, so the size doesn’t really matter. Moreover, land in B City costs an arm and a leg. The Department has spent all its budget on improving and upgrading our equipment, so we don’t have a lot of money left to spend on having a big office,” said Situ Jin.

Su Jin chuckled and commented, “Oh? Are you also going to tell me that the government didn’t provide you with a place to stay?”

“They did, but one of our improvement projects lacked funding, so I sold it,” said Situ Jin, as if this were a normal thing to do.

Both Su Jin and Kano Mai were shocked. Selling an apartment provided by the government for work was definitely unheard of. Then again, this was Situ Jin they were talking about. Given his personality, doing something like that was totally plausible.

“Are there any more procedures I need to go through? If not, I’d like to return to S City.” Su Jin was very tired and wanted to just go home and sleep. He didn’t want to entertain Situ Jin anymore.

Situ Jin immediately replied, “There’s one fellow I’ve been investigating in B City for a very long time now and I’m now sure he’s an owner. Over the past one year, several murders have happened around him and I think he’s the culprit. Come with me.”

Su Jin had already agreed to help Situ Jin when he needed any, so he got Kano Mai to stay behind in the office to rest, while the two men left to look for that owner.

It was afternoon by the time Situ Jin finally brought Su Jin to their destination. Su Jin nearly lost his temper when he saw where the owner was supposedly living. They had arrived at a daoist temple.

“Are you sure about this? This is a daoist temple!” Su Jin whispered to Situ Jin as they hid in the shadows nearby.

Situ Jin looked completely unfazed by this. “Why are you so surprised? You mean daoist priests can’t be chosen as Handbook owners?”

Su Jin still felt like something was amiss. Suddenly, an idea struck him and he said, “Wait. This is Xu Ran’s territory, isn’t it?”

Situ Jin averted his gaze and Su Jin let out a sigh. He didn’t expect Situ Jin to actually bring him directly to Xu Ran, and Situ Jin didn’t look like he was here on a friendly visit.

“What are you trying to do? At the very least, I need to know, right?” said Su Jin exasperatedly.

Situ Jin paused to think, then decided to tell Su Jin. “The priest in charge of this temple is not Xu Ran, but his teacher, Qiu Chan. Priest Qiu Chan has secluded himself here for a very long time now and I feel like something’s not right about it, so I wanted you to come here and take a look.”

“Something’s not quite right? So you’re hoping to sneak in?” asked Su Jin.

Situ Jin nodded. Su Jin sighed again and said, “Look. Xu Ran is a lot more powerful than I am. We’re in his territory, so as long as we set one foot inside there, he’ll know immediately. There is no way we can sneak in.”

Su Jin had witnessed for himself how powerful Xu Ran’s psychokinesis was. Trying to sneak into a place he kept watch on was definitely impossible. Even someone at Su Jin’s level would be able to cover the entire temple with their psychokinesis. You couldn’t possibly go undetected at all.

“Don’t worry! Xu Ran’s in N City, which is really far from here. I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.” Situ Jin seemed to have already checked everything out beforehand and was just waiting for Su Jin to come over and help him. “Enough of this nonsense. All these priests are very tricky and I need you to think of a way to somehow dull their senses or something.”

Su Jin didn’t have a choice. Since he was already here, he had to go with whatever Situ Jin wanted to do. He sent his psychokinesis into the temple, only to immediately sense an identical energy surge right back out.