Evil As Humans, page 8
After she released the scissors, she almost fell flat on her ass.
“Let’s change. I’ll try the ghost master.” After panting for half a day, Red Fedora finally spoke in a hoarse voice.
Yin Ren: “You still want to test? Shouldn’t you take a break…”
Red Fedora smiled wearily. “You have to try all three. People may not be suitable for just one direction… Why? Are you sacred?”
“I’m not afraid, but is this really safe?” Yin Ren clasped his arms. “The test alone is so dangerous, so the work must be even more…”
“The test is conducted according to the most stringent standards,” Red Fedora whispered. “Being stringent is good. There’s a reason why Shian’s salary is notoriously high. The risk isn’t small… If you fool around casually and something happens in the future, it may hurt others.”
Yin Ren was silent for a moment before he let out a sigh. “Please give me your hand.”
Red Fedora puzzledly looked at him.
“I want to see if your injury is serious.”
“Are you a doctor?” Red Fedora spread out her hands obediently.
“Somewhat.”
Yin Ren lowered his head. His long hair slid over his shoulders. He didn’t touch her hand but pretended to put his hands around Red Fedora’s hands.
According to what Blue Vest said, this girl had a talent for making spiritual weapons. Yin Ren didn’t know what Shian’s treatment level would be like. He only knew that if the corrupted blood of the corpse worm seeped deep into the flesh, it could cause a lingering disease to develop.
Making spiritual weapons was a delicate task, so a smith’s hands should not tremble.
Yin Ren held his breath and concentrated. He condensed a gentle breath-like magic in the palm of his hand. Most of the blood in the depths of the wound was sucked away by him, and the rest wasn’t enough to worry about.
“It’s nothing major,” he said. “Remember to deal with it as soon as possible. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“Thank you.”
Red Fedora raised her hand and wiped the sweat from her face with her sleeve. At this time, Blue Vest seemed to have calmed down. The three of them took a step around the round table and exchanged positions.
After being put down by Red Fedora for a while, the corpse worm’s skin had already returned to its original state. The previous corrupted blood was still in place, exuding a burst of fishy smells.
Yin Ren picked up the scissors and cut at the skin…
But it didn’t cut.
The scissors that were incredibly sharp before, now seemed as if they didn’t even have a blade, let alone make a small slit.
This time, the three of them all failed. The broken pile of bones didn’t respond to Blue Vest, and as soon as Red Fedora’s fingertips touched the wooden pen, she stepped back several steps as if she had been electrocuted without even picking it up.
After two rounds, all three of them had only one occupation left untested. Compared with the guaranteed Blue Vest and Red Fedora, Yin Ren’s situation was particularly embarrassing.
Blue Vest hesitated for a bit, but still said a few words of comfort. “Don’t be discouraged. Since Shian let you, an outsider, take the exam, you must have some talents… Come on, try the ghost master.”
Yin Ren smiled at him. He walked around again and stopped in front of the tray containing the wooden pen.
At present, the most suitable occupation for him was ghost master.
The number of people in this profession was inconspicuous, so there was no need for him to work hard. It was enough to be patient with evil spirits—it was just asking an Evil Spirit whether they could handle evil spirits was about as absurd as asking the sea if it was afraid of rain.
Yin Ren stretched out his hand without hesitation and grabbed the wooden pen.
This wooden pen was older than him. It was most likely transformed from a fuji* wooden pen thousands of years ago. There were at least ten ghosts attached to it. The moment Yin Ren touched the pen, they began to pour evil qi in him one by one.
*Method of “planchette writing”, or “spirit writing”, that uses a suspended sieve or tray to guide a stick which writes Chinese characters in sand or incense ashes.
The evil qi entered his body and was extremely cold. If he were a normal person, he could only rely on his physical body to resist. Yin Ren closed his eyes. He didn’t absorb the foreign evil qi right away, but instead let it pass through his limbs and bones.
There were countless ghost hands pulling and scratching from all sides. The evil qi was increasing evenly, making his blood feel as if it were mixed with icicles, but his body felt no pain. It was similar to a pharmacist weighing medical herbs; the ghosts were adding little by little to find the balance of his “talent”.
Unfortunately, his body was basically condensed evil qi. Pain was still pain. Yin Ren wouldn’t be injured, and it was a pipe dream that his body would get possessed.
He even admired the ghosts in this pen a little—the ghosts in the wild were fierce and vicious and acted chaotically, while the ghosts in this pen were well-trained. He had reason to suspect that they were even orderly queuing up in the pen.
One, two, three…
Ignoring the torture-like pain, Yin Ren estimated the time and let go at a pace about the same as Blue Vest. He didn’t “fight to the limit” like Blue Vest, so his evaluation might be a bit higher, but not by too much.
Thanks to his two teammates, he successfully got away with it.
Seeing Yin Ren’s results, Blue Vest’s expression lightened a little. “Haha, look buddy. Like I said, you have talent!”
“This is the end of the test?”
“Yeah, the test is over.”
“Then who will come…” Yin Ren just wanted to ask who would fill out the form, when he saw the wooden pen take off in place.
The wooden pen was floating in the air and swished wildly around the three people’s examination report, almost puncturing the paper. As it moved, the monitors around the ceiling twisted, and a chugging mechanical sound rang out incessantly.
The wooden pen first filled in Blue Vest’s form: [Ghost Master: Good-; Spirit Smith: x; Corpse Servant: x]
Then came Red Fedora’s form: [Ghost Master: x; Spirit Smith: Good; Corpse Servant: x]
Last was Yin Ren’s: [Ghost Master: Good; Spirit Smith: x; Corpse Servant: x]
The strength judgments of the three of them were not far apart. Yin Ren was quite satisfied with the result.
“Get lost.” A slightly disgusted voice came from the wooden pen. “The first kid sweated so much. Disgusting!”
After the shrill voice finished, a series of vague “yes, yes, yes” came from the wooden pen.
Blue Vest: “……”
Blue Vest pretended as if nothing happened. “It’s almost over. There’s only the stress test left.”
Red Fedora nodded breathlessly, showing a look of relief. She wiped the blood from her hands carefully for fear of dirtying her report.
Yin Ren paused slightly with the hand holding the report. The black door stood quietly on the corner that was just opposite of the stress test room, emitting a strong aura that couldn’t be ignored. The deep blackness seemed to be a vortex that was constantly drawing his attention.
Can’t these two people see it?
Evil As Humans Ch9
Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
* * *
Chapter 9: Preliminary Approval
The door of the stress test room was closed tightly, and no one prompted them to continue.
The three of them didn’t enter the door immediately. Red Fedora took out wet wipes and band-aids from her bag and handled her wounds carefully. Blue Vest took out two bottles of sports drinks and gave one to the empty-handed Yin Ren.
“Drink it. It’ll make you feel better.”
Blue Vest took two sips and sat down at the edge of the corridor. “We have plenty of time. Let’s take a break first.”
Yin Ren took the drink with both hands, unscrewed the cap by following the other party, and took a sip.
It was very refreshing and sweet. He liked it a lot.
“You have great mentality, and you don’t panic when you see evil things. The last time we participated in the examination, a young man directly fainted.” Blue Vest sighed and looked at the ceiling.
“This isn’t your first time?”
“Second,” Blue Vest said. “That girl is my cousin. We all belong to a small family. Well, it’s a small clan, but that’s really it. We can’t really study well, but we have some talents, so we’re here to try our luck.”
Yin Ren sat down beside him. “Last time you guys…”
“I couldn’t handle the stress test.” Blue Vest was calm. “I can’t blame others. It was because I wasn’t ready yet.”
“What is the general test for the stress test?”
“I don’t know. The content of the examination changes every year. The evil things used in the vision test weren’t the same batch as last time. Just like a college entrance exam, this place is only serious about your skills. Nothing will be easy.”
There was insufficient lighting in the corridor. The white brush of light shone from the top of his head, making Blue Vest look extremely tired.
Red Fedora had finished wrapping her band-aid and took a few sips of the drink. She was obviously listening to the conversation between the two of them as she interjected with a firm tone, “The test can be retaken every year. It’s not a big deal if you don’t pass. Just come back again next year.”
There seemed to be something behind her words.
“That’s right. Don’t do things like bribing and cheating.” Blue Vest grinned.
Yin Ren drank his drink until the bottle was completely empty.
“I don’t understand… but I’m a bit impressed by your hard work. What’s that saying, ‘too much is just as bad as too little*’?” Yin Ren clinched the bottle as he spoke in a casual tone. “If the two of you force yourself too much, it can easily affect your performance.”
*(过犹不及) Idiom referring to doing too much is just like not doing enough, neither are appropriate. This idiom comes from the story in The Analects of Confucius. You can read about the story in my Kinky Thoughts.
Blue Vest only took his words as a courtesy and wanted to snort, but he choked it back when he looked at Red Fedora.
Red Fedora was looking at her scarred hands thoughtfully.
“Let’s go.” Half a minute later, she straightened up her hat and didn’t say much.
The temperature of the room in the stress test was low, and the room was much smaller than all the previous rooms.
The cement floor was covered in dust, and there was a desk and two chairs on it. A little girl sat motionless on one of the chairs. Her right elbow propped up her arm on the table, posing similarly to an arm-wrestling stance.
Judging by her body, the girl looked no more than five or six years old. Her hair was braided, and her shirt was a brownish yellow color, similar to that of corpse water. The arms under the sleeves were bruised and swollen, looking like they were rotting.
But she wasn’t a rotting corpse.
Her head had an earthy texture, just like someone had chopped off a human head and placed a clay ball with hair in its place. The clay mass was dry and larger than a human head. The flat “face” had no facial features and only deep cracks.
The cracks looked bottomless, and from time to time, soil debris would fall off and be brushed on the table.
Probably because there was no mouth, the little girl was very quiet. A long and slender phantom stood behind her. It was too vague to determine if it was a man or woman.
The phantom put its hand on the girl’s shoulders, and its ten fingers looked abnormal. As soon as the phantom’s neck reached the ceiling, its head disappeared behind the pale wall.
They didn’t say a single word.
Yin Ren had never seen such evil things. Just looking at the evil qi they were giving off, even if Blue Vest and Red Fedora fought together, they wouldn’t win.
Blue Vest swallowed his saliva. “This is… arm wrestling, right?”
“Touching an unknown evil is taboo.” Red Fedora was worried.
No one knew what weird abilities they would have. At least these two didn’t look like they were powerful. Even if Shian wouldn’t let anything bad happen to them, it only ensured that “there would be no aftereffects”, not “there would be no pain”.
“Forget it. I… I’ll go first.” Blue Vest rolled up his sleeves and sat down in the chair.
The desk drawer was facing his stomach, and it was dark inside.
Despite a living person sitting in front of her, the little girl didn’t respond.
Blue Vest wiped the sweat from his forehead, rubbed his palms together, and outstretched his hand.
Swish.
The girl slowly turned her head. As she moved, more broken soil poured onto the table.
Blue Vest stared at the little corpse’s hand, trying his best not to look at the girl’s cracked “face”. He didn’t dare relax his vigilance. Using all his strength, he grabbed the little hand that came toward the table.
Red Fedora and Yin Ren looked at each other in silence. They watched Blue Vest’s face start to turn purple as blue veins burst out on his head.
The little girl’s hand was motionless.
Blue Vest gritted his teeth, took out a charm with his left hand, and attached it to his right wrist.
The charm spontaneously ignited without wind, and from the thin paper ash, another dark blue hand protruded from under Blue Vest’s right wrist. The two hands wrapped around the little girl’s hand, and together they were desperately trying to pull it down.
The dark blue hand was twice as long as a human hand, but it was thin and dry, like a skeleton’s. Its sharp nails pressed against the back of the girl’s hand but failed to leave any scratches on the corrupted skin.
The girl’s little hand seemed frozen in place, not even moving an inch.
After half a minute, she probably got tired of waiting, and a gust of wind blew out from her cracked skull. The ghost hand was instantly covered with dust. Blue Vest screamed in pain as the ghost hand on his wrist seemed to turn into a corpse in the ground. It quickly dried up and rotted, then disintegrated into brown and yellow bones before disappearing into the air.
Without the ghost hand, Blue Vest’s eyes were flushed. He faintly bit his lips, causing them to bleed.
He shivered and fumbled in his pocket, then stuck about six talismans to his lower arm. The next moment, his elbow looked as if it had bloomed into a deformed flower. Six ghostly hands protruded from the bend of his elbow and fiercely grabbed the little girl’s arm.
The little girl tilted her head.
Blue Vest shivered. There was a sticky whine that came out of his throat. He opened his mouth and vomited a large amount of dark yellow, muddy soup.
After a few breaths, the soup turned into a swamp-like, dark brown mud. Despite still having half his strength left, Blue Vest’s hand was easily pressed down by the little girl.
Blue Vest didn’t care about the outcome anymore. He pushed away the tables and chairs, fell to the ground, and scratched his throat in pain. His mouth and nostrils kept spewing out sticky mud. Red Fedora quickly stepped forward in shock. She pulled out a peach wood amulet from her bag and pressed it close to the center of Blue Vest’s brows.
The amulet that was attached to his skin made a sizzling sound like meat being grilled.
Blue Vest finally stopped scratching his throat. He lay breathless on the ground as the mud he vomited gradually became clear.
After tossing like this for more than ten minutes, Blue Vest barely returned to normal. His examination report fell to the ground and was soaked in muddy water. The report had an additional large dark brown fork, which looked like it was painted with muddy water.
“Ah, failed again. You guys go for it. I’ll sit for a while.”
After a while, Blue Vest picked up the report as he spoke weakly. His voice was hoarse and abnormal, and there were painful scratch wounds on his throat with a little blood still oozing out.
The little girl returned to her original posture, facing the doorway.
“Yes, this may be the wrong direction. We have to win it some other way…” Red Fedora stepped on the ground full of mud with a terrified expression.
Yin Ren: “I’ll go second.”
“No, I’m more experienced. Let me…”
Before Red Fedora finished speaking, Yin Ren had already walked ahead in great strides and sat down.
He didn’t touch the hand, but carefully bent down and plunged one hand into the dark drawer. The desk was the style used by primary school students. It stood to reason that the drawer in the desk wouldn’t be any deeper than half an adult’s arm’s length, but Yin Ren’s shoulder was already stuck in it as he made a groping posture.
“Watch out!” Red Fedora screamed.
As soon as Yin Ren began to grope around the drawer, the little girl stood up slowly. She twisted her stiff joints, climbed on the table with all her limbs, and “looked down” at Yin Ren from above.
The phantom behind her let go of her hands and rushed in Yin Ren’s direction with its ten abnormally long, thin fingers. As the girl approached Yin Ren, the fingers retracted one by one into her palm.
It was a countdown.
Yin Ren continued to keep digging undistracted, without lifting his head.
The little girl didn’t let him go because of this. More broken mud trickled down and hit the side of Yin Ren’s face. The “face” without a facial feature was getting closer to him.
Just before it was about to touch him…
“Found it.”
Yin Ren took out a small red object and resumed his sitting posture. The little girl returned to her original position at a speed not possible for humans and assumed her original posture.
