The Natives of This World Are So Fierce Chapter 28: Faceless Entity
Although evening was prime time for the barbecue business, the owner's son clearly mattered more than his shop.
With no other staff working there, the owner decided to close up immediately without another word.
Doudou had quite an objection to that.
His reason was that he hadn't finished the barbecue he'd ordered.
In fact, with everyone caught up in the divination, Doudou had been the only one actually eating.
His objection was easily resolved: they packed it all up to go.
The group followed the owner around the back of the shop and climbed into a van with "Haohao Barbecue" printed on it.
"My home's out in the suburbs. It's a bit of a drive."
The owner glanced back as he spoke, then started the van and set off.
He had just called home to tell his wife and her younger brother to get ready.
Hearing that he was bringing yet another master home, his wife sounded both hopeful and resigned. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law shouted things like "Don't get scammed again!" loudly enough that all three passengers could hear him over the phone.
That left Qin Xiaoxia, Su Su, and the owner feeling rather awkward.
Only Doudou kept eating barbecue in the back seat as though nothing had happened, proudly offering Qin Xiaoxia skewers of potatoes and green beans that he thought tasted good.
As for Su Su, Doudou had no concept of giving ladies or beautiful women special treatment, so he didn't offer her a single skewer.
Qin Xiaoxia finally couldn't stand watching and passed Su Su some meat skewers, corn, and other food.
Ever since she'd spilled her boxed lunch at noon, Su Su had eaten practically nothing except a chicken drumstick she'd picked up off the ground.
Now that her excitement had subsided a little, her stomach was already growling with hunger.
Still, she could hardly fight a child over food, even if she privately doubted that he really was a child.
When Qin Xiaoxia handed her the meat skewers, Su Su, who had never felt much obligation to act ladylike, managed only two dainty bites before giving in and joining Doudou in demolishing the remaining barbecue.
It was already the evening rush hour in Qiantang, but the owner was an experienced driver. After winding through the city to avoid the congested areas, he soon reached the suburbs.
"Um, there were some things I didn't explain earlier... Haohao, my son, lately he's been..."
The owner hesitated, then decided to tell them after all.
"As you know, I run a barbecue shop, so we keep raw and frozen meat at home all year round."
"My son Haohao has been getting more and more fond of eating raw meat lately... He often breaks free and goes to the freezer to gnaw on it..."
As though afraid they would get the wrong idea, the owner hastily added another explanation.
"But Haohao never bites people!"
The main problem was that this condition brought far too many disturbing possibilities to mind.
Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou were fine, but Su Su broke out in goosebumps, especially when she recalled the scene she'd witnessed during the divination.
Fortunately, with Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou there, she managed to keep herself composed.
Appearances really could be deceiving. The owner looked ordinary and drove a battered van, but his family must have been quite well off.
The van stopped outside a detached villa in the suburbs.
They were on a village road now, with buildings far more sparsely scattered than in the city.
Everyone got out to stretch their limbs, while Doudou casually dumped the pile of barbecue trash he'd been holding onto the seat.
"Ah Fang, I'm back!"
The owner shouted toward the house, then opened the courtyard gate and hurried inside with the three of them.
"Awooo!"
An utterly chilling howl suddenly came from inside the villa.
It sounded like a feral cat in heat in a village at night, a piercing, miserable, inhuman wail.
Both Su Su and Doudou jumped.
Qin Xiaoxia, however, showed no such reaction. Instead, he frowned.
A sense of aversion and disgust began building in his mind, stirred by the surroundings and all sorts of factors he couldn't quite explain.
"Brother-in-law! Get in here and help! Haohao suddenly got agitated and broke out of the ropes again!"
A voice came from inside. Hearing it, the owner forgot all about his guests and rushed straight into the house.
"Come on, come on... Hold him down..."
"Watch your hands, watch your hands... Keep them away from his mouth!"
"Watch his feet, watch his feet..."
"That's it, that's it..."
"Awooo!"
"Hey, hey! How did he suddenly get so strong?"
Sounds of frantic commotion drifted out of the house. Clearly, the owner's earlier claim that Haohao was harmless had been nothing more than words.
Together with the incessant, agonized howls, they made Doudou's and Su Su's scalps prickle.
Yet Qin Xiaoxia strode straight toward the house, treating those horrifying sounds as though they were merely a kitten's hisses.
There was nothing for it. However uneasy they felt, once Qin Xiaoxia moved, Doudou and Su Su had to follow.
Su Su didn't want to miss anything, while Doudou didn't want to leave Qin Xiaoxia's side for even a moment when he was scared.
The villa was fairly large, but the direction of the sounds was clear, so Qin Xiaoxia had no trouble finding his way.
They came to a room beside the stairs on the ground floor.
The barbecue shop owner and his brother-in-law, two grown men, were pinning eleven- or twelve-year-old Haohao to a folding bed.
With no room for her to help, the boy's mother watched anxiously from the side.
Looking at her child's blurred face, she covered her mouth, wanting to cry but not daring to.
The folding bed's steel wires creaked and groaned.
Suddenly, Haohao, who had been struggling nonstop just a moment before, went still.
For a moment, the two grown men didn't know what to do.
Then all three people in the room realized something and turned toward the doorway.
Three figures stood there.
A little boy who looked about three or four, a pretty young woman, and, at the front, a gray-haired young man.
Qin Xiaoxia regarded the people in the room with an indifferent gaze.
More precisely, he was looking at Haohao, pinned to the bed with the ropes only half secured around him.
The boy's face could no longer really be called a face. It looked as though someone had rubbed haphazardly at it with an eraser. Apart from his mouth and nostrils, his features were already badly blurred, and even his eyes seemed to have degenerated.
Disgust-a feeling like having an unwelcome relative or obnoxious guest turn up in one's home.
The barbecue shop owner looked at the young man, as though reassessing his impression of this "foreign master" and his companions.
He could sense it very clearly.
Haohao was trembling, ever so slightly.
A faint purple burned deep within Qin Xiaoxia's pupils.
What he saw was utterly different from what ordinary people could see.
A "thing" seemed to cling to "Haohao" like a superimposed image.
It was a bizarre, distorted shadow, vaguely humanoid but faceless, with numerous tentacles resembling boneless arms.
At that moment, the thing was meeting his gaze.
Qin Xiaoxia felt all sorts of emotions-curiosity, disgust, bewilderment... but, strangely enough, no fear.
He narrowed his eyes, and a voice that seemed to vibrate against the eardrums and deep within the soul emerged from his mouth, carrying an echo of magic.
"Sahala nakulori bando."
Apart from Doudou and Qin Xiaoxia, presumably only that bizarre thing could understand this magic language.
It was a demand: What are you? Reveal yourself before me.
Even ordinary language could contain wondrous power, let alone magic language imbued with magic.
A resonance and constraint with the force of a command spread through the sound.
"Aah!"
Haohao suddenly broke free of his father and uncle, sprang off the bed, and hurled himself toward the room's only window.
A shadow moved faster than "Haohao."
A single hand clamped around Haohao's body.
Magic wasn't some sort of spellcasting power from human novels, nor did the notion of a physically frail mage apply.
Magic arose from the soul and the body, and its effects were inseparable from both.
Apart from special cases like Doudou, a body imbued with magic possessed strength that was absolutely staggering.
Haohao struggled desperately to no avail, then opened his mouth, revealing somewhat pointed teeth, and savagely tried to bite Qin Xiaoxia's arm.
Thud!
Before he could bite down, Qin Xiaoxia slammed "Haohao" hard onto the floor.
A kind of invisible purple flame suddenly flared violently. Countless streams of magic, like electrical currents, flowed into a net that wrapped around "Haohao."
The surrounding air suddenly grew immeasurably heavier. Haohao kept struggling, but could no longer make any violent movements.
"Sahala nakulori bando."
The magic language rang out again. This time, its irresistible force was even stronger. Although it wasn't directed at them, everyone else in the room, Doudou included, felt their bodies tingle and their throats itch.