Chapter 87: Habit

“Are you f*cking crazy?” The crested ibis furrowed its brows. “Do you know how long the jail sentence is for eating a national endangered animal?”

The suited man sneered after hearing these words. “I’ve heard for a long time that your country’s yao cultivators are protected very well, but I didn’t expect them to be this childish. Since I dare to eat you, would I still be afraid of some wild animal protection law?”

“You’re a foreign yao?” Alarm rang in the crested ibis’ heart. He retreated a few steps towards the river.

The suited man evidently knew the reality of ‘villains dying by talkativeness’. He completely ignored the crested ibis’ words and suddenly spread out both arms, pouncing at the crested ibis like he was hunting. The bloodthirsty aura on him triggered the crested ibis’ memories of a frightening experience when he hadn’t yet taken on human form – a male eagle had nearly clawed him to death that year. Although he evaded the suited man’s attack in a panic, his complexion was very pale.

“I heard the crested ibis is accorded a lot of importance in your country. The fresh blood of a bird with high human regard and faith must be very tasty,” The suited man was not infuriated by the crested ibis’ dodge either. On the contrary, he took off his suit blazer. “Quick-witted prey can whet the appetite.”

The crested ibis thought of the two yao cultivators who had been drained of blood. They might not have had high cultivation, but one of them was a flower yao whose actual form was a Dutchman’s Pipe while the other was a half-human and half-fish, mixed-blood yao who seemed to have the lineage of a koi.

Humans were very odd creatures. Though deep down, they no longer believed in the supernatural, they still believed that seeing a Dutchman’s Pipe blossom would bring them luck and that wealth would definitely stream in if they raised koi at home.

Their low cultivation was one of the reasons why this foreign yao had eaten them, but the special meaning behind their original forms was probably the greater reason.

“What are you doing here?” Two firmly-muscled men wearing short-sleeved sports attire even in autumn ran over from the river dike. Noticing the hostile atmosphere between the crested ibis and the suited man, the gray-sleeved man used the sweatband around his neck to wipe his face. “This is a civilized city, fights are not allowed.” He raised his sleeves, revealing his tattooed, sturdy arms in an attempt to scare the two people off.

“Two humans?” The suited man wrinkled his brows. His dark blue eyes swept across the sweat on the two muscled men and an expression of dislike appeared on his face. Sweaty middle-aged men whose skin was an ugly shade of dark from the sun was his most hated food. Their blood was foul.

“Scram, mind your own business,” A red light flashed across the suited man’s pupils.

“Hey, do you know where we’re from?” The grey-sleeved man instantly became unhappy. Peeling off his shirt, he clenched his fists and shook his pectoral muscles, flaunting his offensive abilities. The other took the chance to fish out his phone and call the police.

“Stupid,” The suited man made a grabbing motion and the two muscled men were dragged to him as if there was an invisible string around them.

“I hate being interrupted when I’m enjoying my meal,” The suited man cast a disdainful glance at the two people before directing his gaze at the crested ibis. He stretched out an arm and very easily gripped the crested ibis by its neck.

“You eastern yao really are too incompetent. Eliminating all of you is even easier than suntanning,” The suited man was handsome, but there was completely no elegance in the way his hands moved. The suited man grabbed the crested ibis by the hair, held down his shoulders, and prepared to snap his neck.

The next second, he was sent flying by a wave of power.

The two muscled men’s jaws dropped involuntarily as they watched the suited man who had been acting like a pretentious prick suddenly fly out, the height at which he flew up exceeding even seven or eight meters.

This was a scene shot for a low-budget wuxia film, right? How could a person send an adult man that high up and that far with just one kick of the leg? That was life-threatening! They looked at the young man who had made a sudden appearance and felt their worldviews tottering on the edge of collapse.

The crested ibis, who had thought that he was a goner, looked at the yao who had suddenly appeared beside him. Opening his mouth, he let out a few dry coughs, unable to even say one word.

“We treat guests from afar with kind hospitality, but there is a phrase called ‘guests act in accordance to the convenience of the host’. On our eastern land, behavior such as eating yao isn’t permitted.” Fu Li picked up the crested ibis behind him and threw him to the side. “This honored guest has violated our management bureau’s rules, please leave with us.”

“And what are you?” Rui Er was born a noble vampire prince and had already lived for more than a thousand years. He had no fear of sunlight or silver things, and possessed riches unimaginable to many humans.

Fu Li had seen through Rui Er’s actual form. He was nothing more than a hybrid of bat and human. He couldn’t be considered to have a good foundation, nor was his cultivation very profound. Thus, Fu Li couldn’t quite understand what this foreign yao cultivator was so proud of. Did he think he was unrivaled just because he bullied a few little yao in the yao world?

“If the guest does not cooperate with this humble one’s investigation, I will have no choice but to be discourteous,” Fu Li stretched out a hand, the other hand still placed behind his back. “You have taken two of my cultivation world’s lives and attempted to injure our country’s national endangered animal. Not only did you violate the cultivation world’s regulations, you simultaneously breached the human world’s laws and resisted arrest. You have an extremely vile nature.”

Seeing that the pretentious suited man was completely unharmed despite falling from such a height, the two muscled men felt that there was something very fishy about today’s incident. Although they usually liked bragging and would send someone flying with a kick regardless of what anyone said, it was still quite scary to see someone sent flying by a kick for real.

When they heard ‘cultivation world’, ‘human world’ and whatnot, they felt that they seemed to have accidentally touched the fringes of a mysterious world.

“Hmph, you want to arrest me with just yourself?” Rui Er laughed contemptuously. “Truly laughable. Someone without any cultivation wants to arrest me?”

The crested ibis, who had been carted to one side to stand properly, spat out the word ‘idiot’ upon hearing these words. Fu Li didn’t have any cultivation? If these words got out, the entire cultivation world would burst out laughing. Who didn’t know that this rabbit spirit seemed gentle and harmless on the surface, but had boundless magic power when beating up yao? No one in the entire cultivation world wanted to offend this great lord.

Rui Er very quickly paid a price for his ignorance. A slap of the palm sent him into the waters.

No!

He hated water!

Rui Er treaded water, wanting to float up. However, only half of his body made it out of the water before he was sent back into the water by a stomp of Fu Li’s foot.

“Boss,” The gray-sleeved muscled man rubbed his eyes. “Just now, how did that person get on top of the water?”

The black-sleeved muscled man stood upright and still. His face was blank from excessive shock. “Ah, he must’ve flown over.”

How could people fly? Impossible!

The gray-sleeved muscled man blustered in the depths of his heart. But all he did was twitch the muscles on his face and look up at the sun in the sky. “I’m probably dreaming.”

The black-sleeved muscled man said with a stiff face, “You should think about when we’ll be silenced.”

With how powerful these people were, they definitely wouldn’t be willing to let others discover their special characteristics. Since the two of them had discovered the existence of people with superpowers in this world, they would probably end up silenced.

A string of superpower films played out in the minds of the two burly chaps. The eventual conclusion they arrived at was that cannon fodders who discovered a secret too early on would generally fail to live on. The two people glanced at each other, each seeing a hint of despair in the other’s eyes.

They hadn’t yet flaunted photos of their muscles to their friends; they didn’t want to die.

Ru Er was tossed about by Fu Li till exhaustion took over his mind and body. In the end, he feebly turned into a black-grey bat that struggled painfully in the water. Stepping on the water, Fu Li turned towards the crested ibis. “Come here.”

“For what?” Although the crested ibis verbally expressed reluctance, he still obediently stepped onto the water and walked over.

“Capture this bat and return to the management bureau with me.”

“Why don’t you capture it?” The crested ibis stooped over and picked up the bat from the water. He forcefully shook his hand to get rid of the water on it. Then, he took out string in preparation to tie it up into a ball.

“Bats are fond of hiding in dark caves and dislike taking baths. Who knows how much harmful bacteria they have on their bodies?” Fu Li’s aversion was very obvious. “It isn’t very appropriate for me to do this sort of thing.”

The crested ibis who was currently tying the bat up: …

He was the national treasure, was it appropriate for him to do this sort of thing?

Calm down, calm down. Lifesaving grace ought to be repaid many times over. He couldn’t get angry, couldn’t get angry.

“I thought you might have more common topics of discussion since you both have wings,” Fu Li was persuaded by the reason he himself had weaved. “That’s why I let you handle it. It can’t be more appropriate.”

The crested ibis reached the end of his patience. “I am a national treasure.”

“I’ve long finished reviewing the junior high school textbook, I know you’re a national treasure,” Fu Li kicked the bat the crested ibis had tied up with the edge of his foot. “In the past, this thing’s patterns even symbolized luck and fortune. But isn’t it still running over to suck blood now? Really, there’s more and more degeneration, and completely no progress.”

He walked to the shore and went up to the two muscled men.

“You must be very curious why we can fly?”

The two muscled men nodded.

“But I can’t tell you,” Fu Li cocked his head. He tapped each of them once on the head. “Continue toughening your bodies. Forget this bizarre, unscientific matter.”

A few minutes later, the two muscled men stood up on the stone steps. Chastising themselves for resting midway through their run, they continued jogging into the distance.

At the management bureau, the crested ibis’ departure hadn’t attracted much attention. The spider yao had also fostered good relations with the surrounding yao because of this matter. Whether it was the yao world or human world, ‘joining together against a common adversary’ would always be a good way of cultivating friendships.

The spider yao spoke about how sad he had been in prison and how unused he had been to the humans’ fast pace after leaving prison. In doing so, he aroused the sympathy of many yao cultivators.

“But the blood-sucking yaoguai outside hasn’t been caught. What if the crested ibis ran into trouble after running out…” The one who spoke was a very young hibiscus yao. She had a sweet appearance and her heart was as soft as her appearance.

“The crested ibis has already lived for hundreds of years, how could he so easily be harmed?” Another yao responded impatiently. “He’ll return on his own later.”

‘Ai, he really did come back on his own.”

“Where, where?”

“Why is he with someone from the management bureau?”

“Did he hug the thigh of the management bureau?”

Everybody gossiped about the crested ibis in a very lively manner. On the contrary, it was the spider yao who lowered his head as he silently gnawed on dried meat. It was just that he would occasionally steal a few peeks at the floor the management bureau’s office was on.

Fu Li brought the crested ibis into an office for receiving yao cultivators before giving Zhuang Qing a call.

Zhuang Qing and a crowd of colleagues were pinpointing suspicious areas using a projector. They were in the middle of their discussion when his phone rang. The other colleagues silently glanced at Zhuang Qing’s phone. Upon seeing the caller ID, Zhuang Qing hesitated for three seconds before picking up the call.

“Fu Li, did something happen?” He thought of Fu Li’s overly-sleepy appearance with some worry.

“What are you doing? Nobody picked up when I dialed the internal line,” Fu Li took two cups of tea, handing one to the crested ibis. The crested ibis, who had still been very surly in speech just now, became so well-behaved after entering the office that he seemed more like a quail than a crested ibis.

Even when Fu Li passed him the tea, he only dared to accept it with both hands and hold it up to his mouth, taking small sips from it.

“Capture what?” Fu Li heard that there was proper business for the bureau to do and his voice instantly became more solemn. “What happened?”

“What? A blood-sucking yao?” Fu Li glanced at the bat who had been bundled up in a ball of string and stuffed into a plastic bowl for takeout. “I captured a bat outside just now. This bat seems like a foreign hybrid species. It wanted to drink the blood of our bird world’s national treasure, so I seized it and gave it a beating.”

“You captured it?” Zhuang Qing’s voice raised a few octaves. “I’ll go over this moment.”

“Boss, did something happen?” Seeing the somewhat strange expression on Zhuang Qing’s face, Chu Yu thought that Fu Li had encountered some trouble. A tinge of anxiety could be seen on his face.

“Fu Li called to say that he captured a blood-sucking bat outside,” Zhuang Qing looked at the projected map of the city. Putting down the laser pen in his hands, he walked out.

Seeing this, the other people followed after him.

The crested ibis hadn’t drunk more than a few sips of tea when a long string of footsteps sounded from outside. When he looked back and saw the man heading the group, he no longer dared to even drink his tea. In a blink of an eye, he leaped up from the chair and shrunk into a corner.

Noticing the crested ibis’ movements, Fu Li couldn’t help taking an extra glance at him.

Seeing Fu Li seated leisurely beside the table, Zhuang Qing strode in. His first question upon opening his mouth was, “Still sleepy?”

Fu Li stared blankly for a moment before shaking his head vacantly.

Everyone following behind Zhuang Qing wore slightly strange expressions. Given that such a major incident had happened today, it was already strange that Fu Li hadn’t rushed over first thing, but the boss was now even specially asking if Fu ge was sleepy or not…

There was a perpetual feeling that their thoughts would shift to something more complex the moment they weren’t careful.

“So all of you were actually present,” Logically, it was still vacation period, yet all of the high-level bureau employees were present. This indicated that the matter wasn’t as unimportant as Zhuang Qing had made it out to be. He directed his gaze at Chu Yu. “What exactly happened? Tell me.”

“Two yao cultivators were murdered during the past two days. You should know of this, right?”

Fu Li nodded. “I already received the news forwarded by all of you.” He only knew that two yao cultivators with low cultivators had been murdered, as well as their original forms and the state of their cultivation. But he hadn’t seen even one photo of the murder scenes. Zhuang Qing had even told him previously that it wasn’t anything major, but it seemed from everyone’s attitudes that this matter was not actually minor.

“The very scary appearances of the two murdered yao cultivators sent many yao cultivators into a panic, so there are now many yao cultivators living temporarily at our management bureau,” Chu Yu explained. “But living here all the time isn’t a solution either. The longer this is drawn out, the more detrimental it’ll be. Who would have expected you to capture the suspect just as we were formulating a capture plan. Where was this suspect locked up at?”

Fu Li pointed at the transparent plastic takeout box on the table.

Chu Yu lowered his head and looked at it. It seemed to be a ball of string? Upon closer inspection, he found a claw sticking out of the ball of string. “This is…”

“The mixed-blood product of a human and bat yao,” Fu Li saw that Chu Yu was about to reveal Rui Er, who was in the takeout box, and hurriedly held up his teacup, standing further away. He was afraid that the dust on the bat’s body would fly into his teacup.

Unresigned, Rui Er trashed about. What mixed-blood product of a human and bat yao? He was a prince, the prince of the noble blood clan.

“Bat yao?” Chu Yu picked up the string and carried Rui Er out. His nose twitched. “He does indeed reek of blood. There’s even the smell of the Dutchman’s Pipe and the koi. He drained those two yao cultivators of their blood.”

Fu Li thought about it before adding, “Can foreign yao speak oriental languages fluently?”

“No,” Zhuang Qing pointed at Chu Yu. “Take that dirty thing further away.”

Chu Yu took a few steps back towards the door. The teacup Fu Li was holding returned to its original spot. Zhuang Qing walked to him, dragged a chair over, and sat down. “It’s fortunate you captured him. If not, no one would be able to rest easy.”

“This incident was also a coincidence. If the crested ibis hadn’t dropped his wallet, I wouldn’t have chased after him to return his wallet. I might not have captured him if that was the case,” Only then did Fu Li remember that the crested ibis’ wallet was still with him. Fishing out the wallet, he looked around and found the crested ibis standing at a corner. “Your wallet. Check whether there’s anything missing.”

“N-Nothing,” The crested ibis leaned over to take his wallet. To him, anything that would allow him to be an extra millimeter away from Zhuang Qing was a good opportunity that he would not give up on. He placed his wallet into his pocket, said a word of thanks, and hastily ran out.

“He seems to be very scared of you. Did you beat him up in the past?” Fu Li found this a bit strange. The crested ibis and dragons were two different types of creatures; their paths shouldn’t have crossed much.

“I’m not familiar with him,” Zhuang Qing touched the teacup in Fu Li’s hands. “The tea isn’t hot anymore, I’ll help you refill the water.”

“Thank you,” At Zhuang Qing’s house, Fu Li had let Zhuang Qing ladle out food for him, so he didn’t think too much when Zhuang Qing said that he would help him to refill his tea. He directly handed Zhuang Qing the cup.

When Zhuang Qing went off to refill water, Fu Li realized that everyone was looking at him with a very odd gaze.

“What’s wrong?” Fu Li looked at Chu Yu in confusion. Chu Yu shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Why do I feel like your gazes are very strange?” Fu Li contemplated it for a moment and then took out a pile of snacks from his Qiankun pouch and placed them on the table. “Hungry from working overtime?”

All the employees: “Haha.”

The sound of their laughter was both awkward and completely bereft of any amusement.

Zhuang Qing came back from refilling water and was greeted with a huge crowd of people surrounding Fu Li. He furrowed his brows. “None of you have anything to do?”

“Such a major incident has occurred; have the report materials been prepared? Has the job of pacifying the cultivation world been arranged? Any follow-ups on the issue of security in the future? What about the criminal’s verbal confession, has it been recorded?” Zhuang Qing placed the cup in front of Fu Li. “Don’t gather here, do what you should be doing.”

Everyone scattered in all directions. Carrying the takeout box containing the bat, Chu Yu was on his way past the deck on the second floor when he heard a few yao cultivators gathered together and talking about how the crested ibis had hugged Fu Li’s thigh and whatnot.

He dismissed it with a laugh, and was about to head to the interrogation room when he heard a yao cultivator with a slightly shrill voice say, “Maybe that crested ibis wants to rely on its good looks to seduce Fu daoyou.”

Chu Yu’s footsteps came to a halt. He looked towards the yao cultivator who had spoken.

Not too far behind him, Zhuang Qing, who had just walked out of the room meant for receiving yao cultivators, also happened to have heard this statement. His expression was extremely indifferent. The corners of his lips pursed up slightly.