Chapter 238
Chapter 238
Crows, Attack!
After the teahouse manager left, Qin Ying stared silently at the Hu Family Manor for a while longer.
She took out her phone and sent Xie Shao a message.
With the Thunderbird by Xie Shao’s side, there theoretically shouldn’t be any need to worry about his safety. Even so, Qin Ying reminded him not to get too close.
If things descended into chaos, he was to take her Jinbao and retreat immediately.
Despite how eccentric Xie Shao looked in person, his messaging app avatar was a momo emoji wearing boxing gloves.
The instant her message went through, he replied with a puppy nodding in agreement. “Got it!”
Qin Ying sat alone at the table, sipping her tea.
Before long, Han Lie returned on quiet feet, his mask still on, and shook his head at her.
He had searched the entire teahouse but hadn’t sensed an abnormal aura on anyone.
Qin Ying tapped her phone awake and saw that it was already almost noon.
She pushed the plate of pastries toward Han Lie and told him to try some.
Since nothing was happening at the moment, Qin Ying found a topic to pass the time. “Ah Lie, you’ll be staying here for a while longer. Is there anything you’d like to do?”
At his age, Han Lie would be a young man in the prime of his life even by modern standards. It would be downright inhumane of Qin Ying to keep him hidden at home in an apron, doing nothing but cooking and cleaning.
Now that he was here, she hoped Han Lie could do something more meaningful.
For example, he could take a good look at this world, or get an education.
Han Lie frowned as he drank his tea, holding the beautifully shaped lotus teacup in one hand.
The Cup certainly looked lovely, but the lotus steeped inside gave the tea a strange, bitter taste. Pretty to look at, awful to drink.
Next time, he would pick some honey-sweet blossoms and steep them for the Supreme Deity instead.
As he was thinking this, he suddenly heard Qin Ying’s question.
He put down the teacup. Just when Qin Ying thought he would hesitate and fidget again, he raised his head.
His clear, sparkling eyes looked remarkably like Wangcai’s when it was begging for food. They shone so brightly that Qin Ying was powerless against them.
The Supreme Deity liked straightforward people. Mustering his courage, Han Lie said, “Can I learn to drive?”
If one had to name the thing in Qin Ying’s world that appealed to him most…
Going out during the day had shown Han Lie much more of this world.
The last time he went to the urban village where Huang Jun lived and made off with Huang Jun’s phone, he had already found himself marveling at how comfortably and prosperously the common people of this world lived.
Their homes might be a little cramped, but they were comfortable enough. Even commoners could afford polished rice, fresh vegetables, and meat.
No one sold their children for a bite to eat. There were no corpses lying in the streets and no Monstrous Beast attacks on the city.
After accompanying Qin Ying outside that day, he had seen an even broader world.
What fascinated him most were the steel automobiles racing up and down the broad, level streets.
He remembered the Supreme Deity telling him that these giant beasts could easily smash someone into pieces and scatter them everywhere. She had warned him to obey traffic rules and stay out of their way.
Qin Ying’s casual description had left a deep impression on Han Lie.
After riding in a car twice himself and secretly observing how the people known as drivers controlled them, Han Lie felt that these steel beasts didn’t seem too difficult to master.
He could learn to drive the ones that traveled on land first. Later, he could learn to fly the kind he had seen on television.
He looked Qin Ying straight in the eyes and said earnestly, “If I may be so bold… I’d like to learn to read and write, and to drive.”
“Eventually, I want to operate those enormous machines that can easily lift giant beams or break through solid rock. They’re called excavators!”
The more Han Lie spoke, the brighter his eyes became. He had made operating excavators and cranes his ultimate goal, ranking it ahead of even flying a plane.
Under his intent gaze, Qin Ying raised a hand to cover her eyes. Her shoulders shook as she finally burst out laughing.
His wish was so simple and sincere that she suddenly felt as if she were sponsoring a child who had never had the chance to attend school.
He was… ridiculously adorable.
Seeing her laugh, Han Lie was bewildered.
Had he asked for too much? Was he being shameless?
His face flushed, and he was about to take back what he had said when Qin Ying suddenly stood up and reached across the table to pat his head.
“Ah Lie is a good boy.”
Han Lie froze. Hadn’t the Supreme Deity patted Wangcai the same way before?
Qin Ying withdrew her hand and said generously, “You can study! Anything you want!”
She would start by enrolling him in online courses, then find a way to secure him a legitimate identity and send him to college.
“Th-thank you.”
Han Lie was only halfway through thanking her when his expression abruptly turned grave.
He rose and walked to the window.
A faint breeze carried the stench of birds and the tang of blood.
Han Lie looked at Qin Ying. It had begun.
The smile vanished from Qin Ying’s face. She took out her phone and checked the time first.
It was exactly 12:01 a.m.
She got up and joined him at the window, just in time to see the crow sentries, previously perched like statues along the walls of Hu Family Manor, take flight and dive menacingly through the air.
At first, only one or two rose into the sky. Then more and more sentries followed.
Caws rang out in waves as a visible black cloud surged up from Hu Family Manor.
A closer look revealed that the cloud was made entirely of crows.
There were simply too many of them, and their movements were so perfectly synchronized that they looked like a cloud caught in the wind, wheeling across the sky.
“That’s a lot.”
Even though Qin Ying had prepared herself, she had never imagined that so many crows were hidden inside Hu Family Manor.
More unsettling still, the manor received visitors during the day. Somehow, this enormous flock had remained hidden right beneath everyone’s noses.
An inexplicable chill crept into Qin Ying’s heart.
Strangely, the flock overhead wasn’t making much noise.
Defying their natural behavior, all the crows except the sentries remained as silent as if they were mute.
As time passed, more and more crows filled the air above Hu Family Manor.
They circled overhead in orderly formation.
From where Qin Ying and Han Lie stood, it looked as though a colossal, spiraling cloud had risen straight from the ground.
The flock continued circling, but the chaotic battle described by the teahouse manager had yet to break out.
“What are they waiting for?” Qin Ying asked.
Han Lie’s iron-gray-rimmed eyes remained fixed on the flock. His usual awkwardness disappeared, leaving his profile sharp and focused.
“The enemy,” he replied.
As soon as he finished speaking, he warned her, “They’re here. Listen.”
Prompted by him, Qin Ying listened carefully.
Amid the beating wings and scattered caws, she indeed picked out another sound.
It was also the flutter of wings, but this one had a distinctly leathery, fleshy quality to it.
“There are a lot of them,” Qin Ying said, tilting her head.
The moment the words left her mouth, a deeply unpleasant sensation washed over her.
It felt as though something invisible were stabbing into her eardrums.
Qin Ying was just about to turn her head when Han Lie, standing beside her, raised an arm and pressed her head against his chest.
He used his hand and body to block her ears.
The scent of the shower gel from home filled her nose. The discomfort vanished at once, replaced by the steady beat of Han Lie’s heart.
After a moment, Han Lie said with certainty, “Bats. I can’t identify the species yet.”
His voice reverberated through his chest, sounding low and muffled.
Qin Ying instinctively struggled, but Han Lie immediately said in a deep voice, “Don’t move. It’ll hurt your ears.”
Qin Ying fell silent.
Really, it would have been perfectly reasonable for her to cover her own ears while he covered his.
She had been about to say as much.
But then she suddenly remembered how her friends used to call her a robot.
So she kept the thought to herself.
The streetlamps around Hu Family Manor had already been blotted out by black feathers. Just as the flock’s agitation became unmistakable, a mass of black mist exploded from a point somewhere in the manor’s rear courtyard and crashed into the crows.
The two black masses twisted together like braided ropes, tangling and tearing into each other in midair.
Blood rained down as black feathers drifted across the sky.