I gave Wang a compendious account of what happened here. After listening to my tale, Wang asked, “Urm, Brother Yan, do you need Captain Zheng to come over?” “Nope, I have it all under control here.” Wang responded with a wordless hum, and the line went dead.

My cordial conversation on the line with Wang left the foreman dismayed, shivering with consternation as he winced at the idea of what could befall him.

I squeezed his phone back into his hands and placed an arm on his shoulder, “So, back to business. Come on now, I’m still waiting for your answer. Will you authorize my request? If you can’t, then get me someone who can!” The foreman floundered with his phone, looking for a number and he tapped on it when he finally found it. He listened to his phone, waiting for someone to answer on the other end until he began saying, “Urm, Mr. Li…” Fearing more walloping from us, he told his employer, Mr. Li everything, all the while trying to keep himself composed and calm as he provided a water-downed account of what happened which evoked a thin and satisfied smile out of me.

The foreman then conveyed our request and the caller from the other side roared with indignant outrage, “NO! HAVE WE NOT PAID THEM ANY COMPENSATION!? IT’S ALL IN BLACK AND WHITE! WHY SHOULD WE GO BEYOND THAT?! Send them to me! NOW!” And that was it. The foreman looked speechlessly at me, hoping for an answer from me and I shrugged. “Well, lead on then,” I said.

Lin Feng vaulted himself off the mound of fainted men, the sight of which still made the foreman flinched with fear. The foreman ran to a Santana parked at the far side of an excavator and twisted the keys to unlock the door. “Good God, how old is this Volkswagen? Can it still pass inspection?” “I still can delay it for two years,” the foreman muttered, nonplussed. Saying nothing else, we got into our own vehicle and we followed the lead of the rickety Santana out the dirt road exit of the little hamlet.

On the way, Na San, who has yet to utter even one syllable since we arrived, said suddenly, “Urm, Young Lordling, is it really fine to…” “Relax,” I broke him off there, smiling, “We’re used to dealing with unscrupulous entrepreneurs such as this one.” I knew Na San was worried that we might instead get ourselves into trouble. His numerous run-ins with villainous folk had made him wary of them. “Should negotiations break down, just plug a knife into him,” Edelweiss quipped indifferently and Na San could only nod. Sitting up front, a bemused Yuanyuan, who was riding shotgun beside Lin Feng, stuck out a tongue and remarked under her breath, “Human lives mean nothing to you, innit?”

We followed the foreman down the road after we left the village and came to a pay-per-hour fishing spot. We stopped the car quite away from the spot and shepherded us to a man sitting by the pond, sipping on his cigarette as he attended to his fishing line. They exchanged a few words and the middle-aged man twisted to look back and studied us for several seconds before he waved at us, motioning for us to come near. From the way he was looking at us, the man looked exceedingly full of himself and he was replete with the kind of ostentation and self-satisfied vanity native to rich snobs. We went near. Yuanyuan and Xiao Yu opted to wait in the car and I wondered if that had anything to do with the cold-blooded joke about life and death earlier.

The man lifted his sunglasses to take a good look at us when we got near and asked, “Who among you is this Murong I’ve heard about?” I chuckled and went straight to his pile of gear and extracted a foldable stool which I opened and sat on it, right in front of him, and I answered, “I’m Murong.” He scrutinized me from top to bottom and squealed, “So you’re the chap who asked us to build a new place for that old senile?” I nodded, clicking my lighter to set aflame a cigarette.

“Humph, and who do you think you are? So what if you’re the police? Everything we do is legal! We’ve contracts and agreements!” He burst with indignant guffaws. I bobbed my head apathetically and waited until his laughter ended and I said, “This is just a personal request. It would be fine for everyone if you would agree. But if you won’t, then we’d have to…” “To what?!” He erupted lividly, cutting me off, “WHAT WOULD YOU DO?” From over my shoulders, I could hear Edelweiss cracking her knuckles resentfully. I bet she was teetering on the edge of storming over and giving the man a good thrashing, which he really needed.

Chongxi and Lin Feng each extracted another pair of foldable stools and sat beside me. “You must have not been watching the news,” Chongxi observed dryly, “We’re from the De Chang Center for Paranormal Studies.” That seemed to have stunned him momentarily before he laughed, “Hahahaha! I see! You’re the trio of swindlers everyone’s been talking about! Hahahahaha! So what? You’re going to sic some ghosts on me or what?! Do you even know who I am?”

I inhaled deeply on my cigarette and said, “Well, you can be the Warlord of Western Chu for all I care. Just tell us if you’d agree to our request or not.” “Well, I’LL RUDDY NOT!” He barked without even the slightest hesitation, his voice awfully proud and haughty that Lin Feng and Chongxi were clicking their tongues disapprovingly. I tossed the stub of my finished cigarette on the ground and crushed under my shoe, saying, “Well, let’s not be too hasty. Who knows, you might chop and change before you even know it. Three days. I’ll give you three days, after which I’m sure you would agree. Hold on to your hat then! I shall be expecting you at our Center after that!” We got up from our seats in unison and began leaving. But I stopped just after a couple of steps and turned before adding turgidly, “Remember, three days! During then, you’d be wise to avoid water!”

“You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you, boy?! Hahahahaha!” The middle-aged snob roared. I turned back when I heard him and I said coolly, “Nope. I’m not trying to scare you…” and with a steely voice, “I’m threatening you.” With that, we walked away, no longer turning back despite the man’s continued string of insults and jeers.

We ignored whatever the man hurled at our backs as we left. “We’ll see if he’s still able to laugh after this,” Edelweiss hissed darkly. Na San had remained quiet until now, even though he understood nothing about what was going on. Walking next to me, Big Sister too peered at me suspiciously, implicitly hoping for an explanation as she too was none the wiser.

Naturally, I could see that she was expecting my explanation. I stopped, only to give her a cryptic smile before I pointed faraway at the middle-aged man. Everyone turned and saw him crouching by his gear, packing up. Our little chat with him must have extinguished the fun of continuing to fish.

From afar, we watched as he reached for his fishing rod. Then a claw, with coarse, mottled-green skin, shot out of the water and locked around the man’s wrist! It was so quick, yet when the claw appeared, the water did not even ripple. Quick as a toad’s tongue, the claw dragged the man into the water.

The angry heckles coming our way instantly became cries of “Help!” and “Save me!” those were muffled by the water. The foreman, who was still there with him, scrambled into the water to help. Only, his foot was just barely into the water, another claw popped out of the water again and its digits wrapped around the poor man’s ankles and he too plunged into the water with an anguished scream.

No one else saw the claws and other anglers only realized what was happening when the chaos was already revolving on its own in the knee-deep pool of water. Everyone stood around the pond, watching two grown-ups, thrashing and waddling helplessly like a pair of walruses in a shallow pond of water. “Gods in Heaven, what in the world are you doing in the water!?” One of them shouted and another quipped, “What is this? Are they pretending to be drowning? Well, their play-acting looks real, I’d give them that!”

For seconds, everyone watched the two men struggling in the water until they became still. Then a man shouted, “Wait, surely they’re not really drowned?” One of the earlier voices who spoke chipped in, “Surely not. The water’s barely a foot deep.”

Nevertheless, men clambered in and lifted the pair out of the water. With a few abdominal thrusts, the two men belched up mouthfuls and mouthfuls of water.

We were standing barely tens of meters away, taking in everything with mirthful glees on our faces before we finally burst into uncontrollable fits of laughter with everyone finally getting the ominous message I said to the man just now. Gasping between guffaws, Edelweiss asked, “Surely Freaky won’t go as far as to kill them both?” “Relax,” I dismissed casually, saying, “Freaky’s been getting lots of practices during our quest in the past! I’d pay him the compliment by saying he’s quite the expert in shake-downs like this by now, hahahaha!”

With a thrust of my arm into the air, I waved for everyone to follow me to the car. It was time for us to leave the place. As the engine of the car roared to life, Lin Feng asked, “So, where to now?” “Let’s first go back to the Center,” I said after a moment’s thought, “Some preparations are in order for our trip into town this evening. It’s time we have a look at the descendant of Tribe Nine Li!”

Lin Feng nodded. “So, how do you think is the leader of all the descendants? It would never be Huang Li, that at least I’m sure of,” he said. “Course not,” I remarked, saying, “She would not have given us that surprised expression when we showed her the broken arm then if she’s really their leader.”

The noon sun was overhead by the time we reached the Center. We phoned for take-out and our lunch only ended after a little more past two.

We decided that Yuanyuan and Xiao Yu should stay out this time, since both the girls did not have any ways to defend themselves especially if things were to indeed turn out hairy. There was no way we could be sure of their safety. No matter how close Wu Zhong was to the capital, or no matter whether our enemies were armed or not, we should be careful, especially since our enemies were no strangers to magic both foul and good.

Xiao Yu was worried about Chongxi. But she knew she was no use to man or beast. So she left him her car keys and took a taxi home. Yuanyuan decided to stay and man the Center for us, in case that Mr. Li decided to make an early visit.