Dragon Hermit

“Young Master Xie, do you want to have barbecue together with us?” Xia Yan shouted at Xie Zheng’s retreating back. However, Xie Zheng did not turn his head to look back and clenched his fists even tighter. After sitting down in a good spot inside Sena Time, he took out his smartphone and made a call.

“Chancellor Wang, I am Xie Zheng… yes, they are all in good health…Yes, I want to ask you a question. You have a freshman named Xia Yan in the History Department of your University, right? …Yes, yes, I believe such a student is a stain to your university… All right, I’ll be troubling Chancellor Wang then. Don’t worry, the Xie Estates will donate ¥1M to the University…”

Xie Zheng hung up the phone, and a heinous expression appeared on his handsome face: “Xia Yan, just wait till you are expelled! I’ll deal with you properly at that time!”

Xia Yan knew that Xie Zheng would not take it lying down and retaliate, but that didn’t matter to him since they had already become enemies before the lotus lake. Furthermore, for someone like Xie Zheng, being slapped twice was something that could only be avenged through the utter decimation of the perpetrator, so Xia Yan didn’t care about adding a little more fuel to the fire.

Besides, even if Xie Zheng did not retaliate, Xia Yan would definitely take the initiative to act against him. If it weren’t for the fact that he still hadn’t clarified the questionable circumstances surrounding his father’s accident, he would have already moved against the Xie Estates.

After they were done having the barbecue, the trio returned to Hearthcreek Apartments. As soon as they entered the door, Zhang Shufen and Le Wenqing sighed tiredly and laid on the sofa after taking off their shoes messily. This, in turn, made Xia Yan roll his eyes as they were in such high spirits while window shopping in the afternoon but acted so tired the moment they returned. [The stamina of girls is just too game breaking.]

“Xia Yan, military training is over now, so are you still planning to return and sleep at the dorm?” Zhang Shufen asked lethargically.

“Not this time. I’ve yet to spend even a single night here!” Xia Yan said.

“I’m warning you now, you better not attack us at night!” Zhang Shufen exclaimed.

“I’m not someone like that…” Xia Yan defended himself.

“Our beautiful looks can turn anyone into a criminal!” Zhang Shufen said.

“Don’t drag me into this!” Le Wenqing rolled her eyes at her and stood up. “I’m going to take a shower first.”

“I’ll head back to my room first.” Xia Yan fled from the scene, feeling quite frustrated. [Why is a grand necromancer like me so bad at dealing with girls?]

The undead element in the mirror came out and coiled around him like usual but the Horcrux warded it off again. Xia Yan has already been accustomed to its existence by now and in his opinion, it was better than a dog as he didn’t need to feed it or take it out for a stroll; a pretty convenient pet.

He pulled open a drawer in his cabinet and took out a fist-sized wooden carving of a tiger descending the mountain. This was the gift he had crafted for his martial uncle for his purview.

“I should also prepare a birthday gift for Xue’er. What should I prepare?” Looking at the wooden carving and two silk fans, Xia Yan felt worried again. It was a difficult hurdle for a teen who had never experienced love to choose a gift for someone of the opposite sex.

“Forget it, I’ll ask martial uncle’s help in selecting something from the Antique Street tomorrow,” After thinking long and hard, he still couldn’t decide on a gift, so he just gave up.

After taking a shower and turning on the air conditioner, Xia Yan sat on his bed in only his underwear and meditated. The undead element converged towards him continuously and turned into his magic reserves within the magic tower inside his mind. Although he was still far from close to filling the entire second floor of the magic tower, Xia Yan wasn’t in a rush as the path of a mage was an arduous one.

A few hours later, Xia Yan finally opened his eyes. He felt invigorated and the fatigue from window shopping in the daytime was completely gone. He took out his smartphone then looked up the Xie Estates using the search engine and the relevant information appeared before his eyes.

The Xie Estates was a subsidiary company of the Xie Group and the man leading it was none other than Xie Zheng’s father. As for Xie Zheng, he was the vice president of the company.

Xie Estates was one of the top three real estate companies in Chengdu. They had developed a lot of properties in the city and the Grandwest Panorama was one of their high-end residential projects.

The co-worker who delivered his father back home and even his father, both of them were unclear about the true cause behind the accident, but Xia Yan had found a lot of questionable points from what he heard from them. Furthermore, the Xie Estates had acted quite cold-bloodedly and just compensated them with a paltry sum of ¥100K.

Now that he had the strength, Xia Yan naturally wanted to find out the truth of the accident and obtain his vengeance by passing judgment on the perpetrators of the accident.

The information on the Internet was extremely limited though as it only had some general information about the incident. Xia Yan browsed for a while longer and finally placed his phone down with a frown on his face.

“It seems like I’ll have to look for someone to help me investigate this matter.”

Looking at the time, it was exactly 3 AM in morning but Xia Yan didn’t feel sleepy at all. Hence, he put on his clothes and left the apartment room quietly. He then descended the apartment and left the area.

It is now the quietest time in a city and there was hardly any of the traffic that was visible during daytime, and just had an occasional car whizzing across the streets. Xia Yan found the cool night wind quite refreshing and pleasing. This made him realize that he actually preferred the night much more than the day.

[Is it because I became a necromancer?]

Going north along the Fu river, he gradually reached the Jiuyan Bridge. The other side of the river was still bustling with activity as the northern side of the bridge was a hotspot for bars, so that street was still lit brightly and buzzed with noise. The people who assembled here included those who felt emptiness in their hearts and were lonely, as well as frustrated narcissists. Naturally, it also included all sorts of bad characters and scumbags as well as hidden heroes. As such, this was a place where all kinds of stories took place.

The undead element in this street was much denser than the other streets, just like Xinglong Street, and this was pretty common for all the night spots.

The rich undead element influenced the human mind and magnified all kinds of desires. As such, humans felt less reserved in such places and indulged in their desires, even committing acts that they would never do normally.

Xia Yan walked through the street with the same slow pace as before; this was a scene that he had never seen before in his hometown. He saw a pretty woman dressed in skimpy clothing vomiting onto the curb crazily while crouching down and even witnessed the famous ‘picking up a drunk woman.’

He knew what would happen to the woman who was helped into the car, but he had no intention of getting involved in the incident. In his perspective, anyone who chose to get drunk so late into the night should have prepared themselves mentally for such a thing to happen. Xia Yan wasn’t obliged to treasure someone else in place of them when they didn’t even treasure themselves.

Xia Yan was just a bystander of this lively nightlife currently and just watched the events that took place in the street while walking around. Although he was unaware of it, he gained more insight into life through this experience.

“The two ladies over there, please stop!” Xia Yan was enjoying the night when he suddenly heard a rather elderly voice call out. At first, it hadn’t bothered him and he just continued walking but the following conversation drew his interest, so he stopped his footsteps.

“What do you want, old man?”

“This Old Daoist here wishes to tell your fortune.”

“Stop kidding us, old man. This move of yours is too outdated already. At your age, you need to bring more cash along with you and cruise over in a nice car to pick up girls, okay?”

“I can see shadows on both of your faces. Girls, I wonder if you have run into misfortune recently?”

“Wow, handsome guy… how did you know that?”

“Because this Old Daoist is able to read fortunes. Come, let us sit down and chat at leisure!”

Xia Yan turned his head in surprise and saw that there was a wide wooden platform outside the bar with around half-a-dozen tables arranged there. It was cooler and quieter outside compared to the interior of the bar, so it was a much more pleasant spot.

The man and the two women were currently seated at one of these tables. The two women were dressed in clubwear, and although it was difficult to determine whether they were beautiful because of the heavy make-up on their faces, they had all the right curves and were definitely stunning women.

On the other hand, the man seated across them was a handsome old guy.