A Good-for-Nothing

242. Overwhelming Shame

Translator: Dragon Rider

Li Zong wanted to help He Zheng relax, so they stayed in the Zhu family for three days.

However, they still had to do what they must do. On the fourth day, when the Zhu family were ready, they set off to go to Coastal City together.

Before leaving, Mu Fangsheng the leader of Fengdu Special Missions, Feng Yuehe and Su Disheng came to the Zhu family with those who were supposed to impersonate members of the Zhu family. Before they got on the plane, to be on the safe side, Li Zong had cast the Spell of Erasure on the Zhu family to modify part of their memories. In other words, right now the Zhu family had no recollections of the Demonic Seed, believing that they were going to the Supernaturalism Management Bureau (SMB) because of a special task.

When they had arrived at Coastal City, Li Zong personally arranged for the Zhu family to be settled in SMB. According to Zong Xian, they were to stay in the Ministry of Supervision for some time and would be granted permission to leave when the investigation was over. The reason why they had to be separated from the outside was because Zong Xian was worried that they might be attacked if there was a leak about their presence in SMB. He was also doing this to prevent the Zhu family and the He family from divulge the secret.

The He family had been put in quarantine already.

It was inappropriate to have Old Master Zhu stay in the Ministry of Supervision, so Li Zong pulled some strings and arranged for the Zhu family to be accommodated in the United Front Work Department.

He Changchun was unaware of this. He was still in a small room of the Ministry of Supervision, so angry that he couldn’t speak. He inwardly cursed Zhu Ning, feeling that even death couldn’t stop her from getting him into trouble. At the same time, he was indignant that SMB put him and Qiao Peiyu in the same room.

However, complaining was the only thing he dared to do about it. He Changchun was too cowardly to take it up with Li Zong.

After dealing with the key members of the Zhu and He families, staff members of the headquarters of SMB located in Coastal City, along with the Special Action Group of Shen City, conducted an intensive search in the residences of the He and Zhu families. And there was nothing He Zheng could do about it.

Right now, He Zheng had a more urgent matter to settle.

Early this morning, He Zheng was dragged out of bed by Li Zong, who had him go to SMB with him. He Zheng was so sleepy that he couldn’t even open his eyes. He had been spending a lot of time reading that novel in the past few days and was still dwelling on its plot.

When they had entered SMB, He Zheng’s mind cleared, but he believed that Li Zong had brought him here to train. He planned to check on his grandfather first, but he had just got out of the car and hadn’t turned aside yet when Li Zong grabbed his collar and drew him towards his office.

When He Zheng was brought to the office by Li Zong, he was still in confusion. When he saw the crowd of people sitting in the office, he was astonished.

“What are you guys doing?”

Chen Qianlin and a few others hurriedly greeted Li Zong. “Good morning, Supt. Li.”

Li Zong inclined his head.

“I called you guys over here to have a meeting. The bureau want us to depart a few days ahead of schedule so that we’ll have some time to acquaint ourselves with the situation there. The exorcism championship has been provisionally arranged for the end of this month. The venue is on a small island in the southern Pacific Ocean. Considering how long the journey would take us, we may well have to depart five days before the even starts.”

Li Zong’s eyes swept across the people present.

Li Zong had made a decision as to which ones of them he should take to the exorcism championship. According to the rules, each competing team consisted of six members. He Zheng and Chen Qianlin, both of whom were good at offensive spells, must go with him. Most foreign contestants excelled at all kinds of bewitchment spells, which made it necessary for him to bring Qiu Luo, a spirit immune to all bewitchment spells.

As for Jin Qianlai, considering the venue was in a foreign land where nobody knew how to deploy magic circles, there was no need to include him in the team.

Every team needed a member with healing powers. Although Tao Wujiu’s abilities couldn’t hold a candle to the Force of Rejuvenation of the Zhen family, he was from a very prestigious sect, and if he was to participate in the championship, the Hezao Sect would definitely load his pockets up with good stuff. Therefore, Li Zong was also bringing Tao Wujiu with him.

Thus, four places on the team were taken.

The remaining two members were to be selected from this year’s new recruits.

But because the new recruits, thought possibly more powerful, had not received any special training yet, which meant that they were not as experience as He Zheng and his fellow trainees. Therefore, eventually Li Zong had decided to select the last two members from the rest of the trainees.

“Wait. Where are we going exactly? What the hell are you guys talking about?” He Zheng was annoyed, not having a clue what they were talking about.

Frowning, Li Zong stopped speaking and gestured them to wait a moment.

Then he drew He Zheng out of the door and said in a muted voice, “I remember telling you about this twice – I’m the one assigned to select some of you to build a team and bring the team to participate in the 2018 World Exorcism Championship. I thought you heard me.”

“When did you tell me exactly?” said He Zheng, furrowing his brows.

Li Zong said, “Last night before we slept, and this morning when we were in the car.”

The night before, He Zheng was reading the novel [ABO] I Want to Bear You Some Kids on his cellphone before sleeping. The author was amazingly productive and the novel was unusually long. He Zheng was a slow reader and still hadn’t finished reading it. He had been so enthralled by it that he hadn’t heard a single word of what Li Zong had said to him at that time. Mistakenly believing that Li Zong had been saying “Good night, baby” or something like that, he had absently uttered “Um” in response.

As for this morning, because he got to sleep too late the night before, he had been groggy and having a nap when Li Zong had been speaking to him, and had just dreamily let out a grunt as a reply to Li Zong.

Now it turned out that Li Zong had been informing him of such an important matter at that time.

Li Zong didn’t notice He Zheng’s abnormal expression? Of course he did. He was just pretending otherwise.

As Li Zong noticed the faintly awkward look on He Zheng’s face, his eyes darkened slightly and with that he said, “Give me your phone.”

He Zheng was instantly on the alert, quickly flung his hand into his pocket and grabbed his cellphone, “What do you want to do? Don’t you dare, Li Zong.”

Li Zong actually could be quite intimidating when he was silent and poker-faced. He had got the nickname “the Number One Iceberg of SMB” for a reason.

“Do not make me say it twice, my flat-chested sweetheart.”

He Zheng swallowed hard. He had no idea when Li Zong had nicknamed him as such, but this nickname was normally used on only two kinds of occasions: when they were in bed, and when he screwed up something. On one occasion, when a girl living nearby had sent him a friend request, he had insensibly accepted it; Li Zong had found out about it and eventually the two of them had ended up having to settle it in bed.

Usually, when Li Zong was teaching him a lesson in bed, He Zheng could only repeatedly apologize in a tearful voice and urge Li Zong to do it faster.

When Li Zong called He Zheng “flat-chested sweetheart”, He Zheng almost said “I’m sorry” with teary eyes as a reflex response.

Without saying anything, he tossed his phone to Li Zong, turned around and pulled the door open only to see that Chen Qianlin and the other few bastards were still in their respective eavesdropping positions, bending forward with their butts raised.

He Zheng went even angrier, blue veins pulsing horribly in his temples, barely able to keep from going berserk, clenching his teeth and saying nothing.

Li Zong quickly opened the fiction app on He Zheng’s phone which was strange to him and glanced at the name of the novel. Huh, I Want to Bear You Some Kids. It would seem He Zheng had been thinking about that a lot lately, which was why he was reading this kind of stuff.

He deleted the app before returning to his office.

Those bastards who had eavesdropped on the conversation had already returned to their seats, either looking up at the ceiling or gazing down at the floor. None of them was willing to admit that they had heard the whole process of the unpleasant interlude in the gay couple’s life.

Though Li Zong was an old cadre, he was no doubt an old cadre who had long since stopped caring about things like face. Therefore, he was still calm and his face gave little away.

“Let’s pick up where we left off. The seven of you have been selected to participate in the exorcism championship this year. Now you are to go to the training ground where you could get to know each other.”

The others bobbed their heads repeatedly. He Zheng was sitting on a sofa with his chin rested on his hand, looking out of the window. The others rose one after another and walked towards the door. Li Zong called out to He Zheng.

He Zheng stood up from the sofa and slowly followed them.

The others were quite sensible. After getting into the elevator, they noticed that Li Zong and He Zheng straggled behind. Tao Wujiu quickly jabbed the button to close the elevator doors and said, “Ahem, I’m sorry, Supt. Li, but I’m fat and the elevator is on the verge of being overloaded. I’m afraid we’ll have to put you to the trouble of waiting a few moments.”

In order to create an opportunity for the two of them to sort things out, Tao Wujiu had called himself a fatty despite the fact that he weighed only 60 kilos and was as thin as a monkey.

He Zheng gave a sneer and said nothing.

And then Li Zong leaned closer to him. Li Zong was giving off a very pleasant smell and it reminded He Zheng of a cold silver mountain spring, which was quite characteristic of Li Zong’s unique individuality.

“Are you mad?”

“I’m not,” He Zheng replied.

Li Zong turned him around and stared at his face for quite a while. He Zheng kept avoiding Li Zong’s eyes.

“You’re lying. I have no problem with you reading novels, but if you keep spending so much time staring at your phone, your eyesight will be damaged.”

At the mention of novel, He Zheng’s hair seemed to crackle with electricity. Of course, he was not angry with Li Zong. He felt terribly ashamed because Li Zong had seen the name of the novel! It was such a disgrace to read a novel titled I Want to Bear You Some Kids!

“I…I’m not…” He Zheng stammered for quite a while, the embarrassment on his face deepening. Eventually, he stopped trying to explain and gave up guessing, directly grabbed Li Zong’s collar and demanded, “Tell me – did you open that app before deleting it a moment ago?”

The look in Li Zong’s eyes flickered before he, with a completely natural face, said in a calm tone, “No.”

He Zheng gradually loosened his grip on Li Zong’s collar, but he was still fairly skeptical. “Really?”

“Really.” Li Zong removed He Zheng’s hands from his collar and kissed him, “Be good. Don’t overthink it.”

He Zheng felt a sense of relief but the next second Li Zong deliberately asked, “What kind of novel were you reading? You seemed so addicted to it. Tell me its name so I could check it out later.”

‘Tell you its name? Over my dead body!’ thought He Zheng.

He Zheng hurriedly withdrew his hands and stuttered, “For-Forget about it. You’re too busy to read any novels, aren’t you?”

Sometimes Li Zong could be mischievous as well. He had come to know everything but decided to trick He Zheng into believing he knew nothing. “True. How about you tell me what it’s about?”

He Zheng, “…”

Never mind. It was better to tell Li Zong a story than to let Li Zong find out he had been reading a novel with the stupid name I Want to Bear You Some Kids.

“I’ll think about it.” He Zheng’s face was burning slightly and he averted his eyes.

He Zheng could be unreasonable just because someone made a remark he found unpleasant, but he could also be too embarrassed to look Li Zong in the eye just because of a single sentence of Li Zong’s.

As luck would have it, at this moment the elevator reached their floor.

The elevator doors opened, revealing Zu Zhichong and Tun Shanhai who were chatting in a devil-may-care manner, each with a pile of files in their arms.

The two of them were shocked as their eyes alighted on Li Zong and He Zheng who were in a hug.

Tun Shanhai still couldn’t believe that the man in front of him was his boss who was always composed and who always seemed immune to the charm of both men and women. Before he could say “Chief”, Zu Zhichong clapped a hand to his mouth.

“Ahh…let…go of me!”

Zu Zhichong, who was very quick-witted, immediately flung out a hand and jabbed at the CLOSE button. Then he said with an obsequious chuckle, “Boss, I’m sorry. I don’t know who pressed the button of this floor. We’re going down. You may continue. We didn’t see anything!”

While speaking, he was still jabbing at the CLOSE button.

Embarrassment written all over his face, He Zheng failed to say or do anything.

As the elevator doors closed, they heard Tun Shanhai roar, “Zu Zhichong, you old bastard, why were you gagging me?!”

“Stop it, my dear. Don’t you know that hindering others from making out is very bad karma? No wonder you’re still single.”

These words were followed by a faint muffled scream of pain which quickly disappeared as the elevator went down.

It was ten minutes later when He Zheng and Li Zong finally arrived at the training ground on the rooftop.

He Zheng could have sworn that when walking in, he saw some kind of inexplicable gleam in those trainees’ eyes, especially Tao Wujiu’s.

He Zheng’s speculation proved right. The next day, rumors about Li Zong’s and his marriage partner’s public display of affection started circulating in SMB.