NOVEL NEXT Ch. 13
Chapter 13: Materials and the Altar
The next day at noon, an off-road vehicle roared up to the suburban villa where Li Zhen was resting.
The car door opened.
A round-faced, triangular-eyed fat man impatiently pulled a black briefcase out of the car and hurried into the villa.
As soon as he saw Li Zhen, the fat man shouted, “Damn! I thought you’d come to your senses, but turns out you wanted these things! I was about to fall asleep last night, but you scared the hell out of me.”
He placed the briefcase on the floor and, as if seeking credit, took out a black plastic bag filled with some kind of liquid.
“You said you needed the blood of ten people, so I got blood from twenty. All taken from healthy adult males—guaranteed fresh, still warm.”
“You robbed a blood bank?” Li Zhen took the heavy bag, opened it, and looked inside. It was filled with neatly packed blood bags—around twenty of them.
The fat man rolled his eyes. “Use your head. You think I’d rob a blood bank for that little bit of blood? I offered five hundred cash per person—right then, right there—and whoosh, a crowd came running.”
“Good thing my dad wasn’t at the factory, or he’d be asking a hundred questions. It wouldn’t have gone half as smoothly.”
“And this—this one’s even creepier, looks just like a small human skull…”
He took out a round object wrapped in a black cloth bag and carefully placed it on the desk in front of Li Zhen.
The moment he set it down, he jerked his hand back as though shocked by static, shuddering all over. “You said you wanted a real one, and I actually thought about buying a fresh one to, you know, handle myself—but then I realized that was way too disgusting.”
“Then I figured, hey, the biological research institute has tons of specimens. They’re bound to have some. I got in touch with someone there, cost me a good bit of money… It’s definitely not fresh. See if it fits your needs.”
“This stuff isn’t easy to get. I could only get this one. I begged, offered more money, but they still wouldn’t give me another.”
“Since when are skulls supposed to be fresh?” Li Zhen opened the cloth bag. A pure white skull appeared before his eyes.
It was a macaque skull.
Below it were several smaller skulls—probably the bat and snake skulls Li Zhen had requested.
Li Zhen couldn’t tell whether these were genuine skulls or just some kind of crafted replicas, but the fat man he’d grown up with—Wong Kam-Sun—wouldn’t lie to him about something like this.
“There’s also this.” Wong Kam-Sun pulled out a bizarre thirty-centimeter-tall statue from the bag.
It had six arms and a bat-like face—matching Li Zhen’s description from the previous night. It was the Six-Armed Demonic Statue he needed, but…
Why the hell did it have an hourglass figure, with curves in all the right places and a slender waist?
That grotesque face on such a body almost made it look like… a bat loli?
Li Zhen’s expression stiffened.
Was this really something humans could make?
Grinning wickedly, Wong Kam-Sun slapped the statue on the rear and said proudly, “3D printed. Rapid prototyping! You said you wanted it to look more evil—look, look how evil this is—”
Unable to bear it, Li Zhen snatched the statue from him and pushed him toward the door. “You’ve brought everything. You can go now.”
“Damn, you heartless bastard! Get the stuff and kick me out?” Wong Kam-Sun protested. “I’m telling you, this design’s perfect—it’s the most—hey, hey, stop pushing! Alright, alright, serious talk!”
Shoved up to the doorway, Wong Kam-Sun peeked outside, then quickly shut the door behind him. “Be honest, man. Are you dabbling in black magic or worshipping some evil god?”
Wong Kam-Sun was a normal guy. The moment he heard what Li Zhen wanted, he had a few… suspicions.
He’d searched on his phone late into the night, not sleeping until dawn. His small eyes were still bloodshot.
Li Zhen sat back in his chair and said casually, “Just thinking that the people I hate are all living longer than me—it makes me uneasy.”
Wong Kam-Sun’s eyes went wide. “You… damn, you’re gonna use this stuff to curse people? That’s awesome!”
“It’s a secret art from Southeast Asia,” Li Zhen said, his tone deliberately mysterious. “As long as you place someone’s photo on the altar, misfortune will come to them.”
“Nice! That’s badass—wait, who’s on your list? That punk Li Jin, right? He used to follow you everywhere before you got sick. Then you fell ill and he vanished—what a hypocrite.”
Li Zhen nodded, indicating that he’d add Li Jin’s name.
“And Li Ji and Li Huang,” Wong Kam-Sun quickly added. “Those two bastards aren’t any better.”
“Oh, oh, and that scumbag Wong Ka-Wing! Rotten to the core! You need a photo, right? I’ll get his for you right away!”
Then he scratched his head. “But seriously, whatever you’re doing, don’t skip your treatment.”
After a pause, Li Zhen smiled faintly. “When I can’t walk anymore, I’ll go for treatment. But for now… look at me, I can still live normally, still enjoy life. If I go for treatment now, I might not get days like this ever again.”
The topic inevitably grew heavy.
Wong Kam-Sun felt uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say.
As a friend, the best he could do was help Li Zhen lift his spirits, so he wouldn’t sink completely into despair.
…
After sending Wong Kam-Sun off, Li Zhen carried the prepared materials down to the basement.
He hadn’t mentioned that his eyesight had fully recovered—otherwise, Wong Kam-Sun would’ve dragged him straight to a hospital for tests.
Li Zhen had long grown used to living with blurred vision, and even after talking with him for so long, Wong Kam-Sun hadn’t noticed anything strange.
After telling Aunt He, who was cleaning, not to enter the basement without his permission, Li Zhen stepped into the innermost empty room.
With a “click,” the light came on, bathing the small room in a cold, white glow.
The air was damp and chilling, yet the space was clean.
Inside were only a few tables and chairs Li Zhen had prepared.
Finally, he could begin…
Even with his usual gloomy temperament, Li Zhen couldn’t suppress the surge of excitement at this moment.
He opened the small booklet and placed it on a chair, then unpacked the bag.
According to the instructions in the booklet and the fragments of memory he’d obtained, he first needed to set up a basic altar.
The Six-Armed Demonic Statue was placed on the tallest table.
Who knew if this thing would even work…
Looking at the statue filled Li Zhen with a strange sense of discomfort.
But since this was the only statue he had, he couldn’t afford to waste time—he would just have to use it.
The macaque skull and the smaller skulls were arranged on a low table before the statue.
Then, after setting out the offerings and candles, Li Zhen took out the bat—the cursed creature—from the bag.
The bat still had needles stuck in its ears. It had been unconscious all night and showed no signs of change.
He placed the bat in a small wooden container before the demonic statue and lit three candles before the offerings.