Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The exhaustion brought about by that one swing of the blade gradually dissipated by the time he finished the burgers, and he found that his physique had slightly improved as well.
This enhancement would allow him to siphon spirit power in a more efficient manner.
“So, this is what it means to have my bloodline altered, eh?” he thought.
The effects were a rather delightful, exhilarating surprise to him. It was his first time feeling that owning a spirit vessel wasn’t such a bad thing after all, and that he’d actually managed to gain a good number of benefits from it.
…
Shortly after Zheng Yang and the people from the club left the police station, three people with a unique air about them arrived.
The trio was led by a middle-aged woman who looked to be in her thirties. She had vibrant, wavy red hair and looked very, very alluring.
A young man who looked to be in his twenties and another man who looked to be in his forties or fifties were right behind her. They moved with a determined, imposing stride, their eyes suggesting that they were assessing everything they were looking at.
As soon as she arrived at the station, the leading woman asked the doctor, “Emily, where is that guy you spoke of?”
Emily rolled her eyes for a bit and took off her mask, revealing her very stunning features. She then pointed at Desmond and answered in an exasperated manner, “Rovni, are you telling me that you can’t see someone tied up right in front of you?”
The two fat police officers took a look at the trio and then at Emily, then said, “Hold on there for a second. Who the hell are you people?”
Rovni’s long eyebrows twitched. She didn’t bother concealing the disdain she felt for the two fat officers. The young man right behind her had a boxy face, and he was wearing sunglasses even though it was night time. He also had on a thin, long coat, and fingerless tactical gloves. The man reached into the pocket of his coat, took out his wallet, and flashed his ID at the officers without even looking at it first.
His moves were slick and cool-looking.
“Dr-driver’s license?… Are you a chauffeur or something?”
Chauffeur?
The young man’s expression turned stiff when he looked at what he’d shown the officers.
“I’m sorry. Wrong ID.” He put his driver’s license away and took out a black identification document. He flipped it open, revealing the right ID to the officers, and said, “Special Phenomena Bureau (SPB), English branch. We’ll be taking over from here on out, including this man and everything related to him.”
Without batting an eye at the two officers, Rovni stared at Desmond while ordering the two men, “Ricky, take him away. Venar, take care of the procedures.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The young man in the long coat hauled Desmond up by the ropes tied around him and walked to the car parked outside the police station with great strides.
The other man in his forties or fifties then flexed his neck at the police officers, gesturing for them to get on with the case transfer.
It was only then that yet another officer in the station received an order from their superiors that the case would be transferred to the SPB.
Rovni looked even more displeased, as if she was disgusted by the inefficiency of the police station’s operations.
Desmond was taken away, along with the notes on Zheng Yang and the security guard of the club.
Emily finished her work and headed home.
…
Zheng Yang swung his machete around in the empty cabin of his boat, trying to figure out how to create a powerful swing, as well as how to position the blade. As a result, he was becoming more and more experienced in swordsmanship.
He then realized yet another thing—he could make progress just by putting his mind into what he was doing, even if he were to do so without any guidance from others or any secret knowledge.
Because he’d killed that eldritch entity earlier, Zheng Yang thought he’d find himself in that ghost ship dream after falling asleep that night, but that didn’t happen.
Henry came to the docks early the next morning, asking for Zheng Yang’s ID. He made a photocopy of it in the office and then took a full-body shot of Zheng Yang standing in front of his boat. After this was done, he had Zheng Yang sign an order and a commission service agreement, then went on his way to handle Zheng Yang’s boat registration and sailing license.
All of this used up almost all of Zheng Yang’s savings.
There actually was a test he had to take.
But it wasn’t of any importance.
The club had some form of examination to test whether a member was qualified to sail a boat. With his very own eyes, Henry had seen Zheng Yang sailing the boat into the harbor while towing a yacht behind it. As such, he decided that there was just no need to test someone with boating skills like his.
As for the wooden sailboat that was totally devoid of any technological contraptions, there was just no way to prove that the boat wasn’t a stolen vessel. Moreover, the club also had enough influence to vouch for a client that they saw to be a kid from some very rich family.
Finally, everything was going smoothly because Henry had dared to take a risk on Zheng Yang.
He’d personally seen Entes and his group of rich kids hanging out with Zheng Yang, so he figured that Zheng Yang definitely wasn’t some no-name kid without any kind of background.
With Henry vouching for Zheng Yang in a determined manner, the club’s person-in-charge green-lit the procedures.
People who work in such clubs all earn some extra money one way or another, after all, and it was simply a case of “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
This was also the reason why Zheng Yang was willing to hire Henry to get all of the procedures done for him. Because the man couldn’t prove that the boat wasn’t Zheng Yang’s, and because he could vouch for him too, then Zheng Yang could avoid a lot of unnecessary trouble. If he were to register the boat himself and try to get his sailing license, he would have had to spend a lot of money to put his boat on a public notification period for 30 days. If no one claimed ownership of the sailboat by the time the notification period ended, the authorities would issue a license to him.
If someone else were to claim ownership of that sailboat of his, regardless if the notification period had already ended, his license would be revoked all the same.
It was near noon when Henry brought Zheng Yang his licenses.
“Mr. Zheng Yang, have you got your injection yet? The club has already paid Ms. Emily,” Henry asked Zheng Yang as he handed the documents over to him. He also reminded him to paint the license plate number somewhere obvious on the boat, and offered to do it for him for a small fee.
Zheng Yang paid for the service, not wanting to do it himself.
As for the injection, he stayed silent for a bit, thinking that the dog had attacked him because it had been possed by an eldritch entity. But then again, there was just no telling if that dog had had a disease to begin with. After thinking this over, he replied, “Alright then. I’ll get on it right away.”
After Henry left the docks, Zheng Yang packed his stuff into a backpack and headed for Emily’s private clinic according to the address written on that name card.
Her clinic wasn’t far away from the harbor, and it only took him a 15-minute or so walk to get there. After a while, he came to a quaint building surrounded by trees.
It was almost noon by the time he arrived at the clinic. He went inside and was quickly stopped by a pretty girl in pink nurse attire, with a smattering of freckles on her face.
“I had an appointment with Ms. Emily for that rabies vaccine injection.”
Zheng Yang handed the name card to the girl while looking her up and down.
“Umm… Ms. Emily did have such an appointment arranged in the morning, but you really should have shown up early.”
The girl took a jab at him with a rather displeased look on her face, irritated at how Zheng Yang had only shown up when it was near lunchtime.
Despite being rather displeased, she nonetheless was dutiful enough to pick up the phone and call Emily before instructing him to fill out a personal information card and then wait at the door of the treatment room.
“Name’s Viya,” the girl said. “You can come to me at the reception desk if you have any questions.”
Zheng Yang stopped in his tracks and asked right away, “Well then, could I ask you to go on a date with me after work?”
“Huh?” Viya puffed out her rather firm chest and said to him with a smug look, “I have a boyfriend and… while you are rather cute, you’re too young for me.”
“Okay, then. See you around.” Zheng Yang waved his hand stiffly and went on his way.
“Too young?” he thought to himself.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The treatment room was the innermost room on the ground floor. Zheng Yang walked over to the door just as Emily came down from upstairs, about to head over in his direction.
Emily walked over to him and said, “And here I thought you gave up the treatment! The first shot should be done in the first 12 hours after coming into contact with the infected animal, and no later than 24 hours .”
Even though she had her mask on, Zheng could see the serious look on her face.
Zheng Yang then flashed a grin and said, “Thank you, Ms. Emily.”
At that moment, a girl shot into the clinic like a gust of wind. She was wearing a school uniform and had a beaming smile on her rather cute face. As soon as she got near the stairs, she shouted loudly to her mother, somehow sounding as pleasing as a chirping skylark.
“Mom, I’m home. Can we get lunch now?”
Before running upstairs, the girl seemed to notice that there was someone at the door of the treatment room. She noted that the person was her mother, so she turned around and skipped her way over to her.
“Get upstairs, Eva. I need to work here,” Emily said to her daughter, frowning.