Chapter 144 – The Guardian

Before coming in, Situ Jin had discovered that the entire house had been surrounded by a small forcefield to keep sound out. He had exchanged his points for a similar forcefield before, so he recognized it immediately and was certain that something bad was happening inside.

In fact, it was very bold of Situ Jin to barge in without knowing anything, since intruders were usually killed in such situations. However, he did not hesitate because he was the head of the Department of Supernatural Affairs and his job was to protect his fellow citizens, even though this couple’s son was an owner.

The two men stared at Situ Jin and were surprised to see him. It never crossed their minds that someone would come to such a secluded little village and try to stop them from killing two ordinary folks.

“Kill him too.” The dark-skinned man was very annoyed. Since Situ Jin had decided to risk his life by doing this, they could just kill him as well.

He flicked his fingers and two sharp blades appeared where his fingernails should have been. The fair-skinned man pulled him back suddenly, let go of Su Jin’s mother and motioned at Situ Jin to show that he did not mean any harm before pulling his companion further back.

“What are you doing?” The dark-skinned man was confused.

The fair-skinned man glanced at him and said frostily, “He’s from the Department of Supernatural Affairs, so it’s better to have nothing to do with him. Otherwise, we’re going to have a hard time here.”

“What are you afraid of? Just kill him and nobody will know that we did it.” The dark-skinned man thought that Situ Jin was merely an ordinary person and killing him wouldn’t make any difference.

The fair-skinned man frowned in annoyance and said, “This fellow is also an owner and we know who’s backing him. We cannot afford to offend this guy, so we’d better go!”

The two men spoke openly and did not have any regard for Situ Jin, despite sounding like they were wary of Situ Jin. Their attitude greatly irritated him because he could tell that these two men were only afraid of the people on his side and didn’t actually think much of him.

At the same time, Situ Jin had to admit that these two men gave off a much more imposing air compared to any of the owners he had fought previously.

The dark-skinned man was convinced, so they leaped over the fence without even giving Situ Jin a second look. They clearly did not want to even fight Situ Jin.

Situ Jin breathed a long sigh of relief. After going through several Handbook Challenges, he had become a lot stronger than before. But the stronger he got, the more he realized that the difference in power between owners could be really huge. There were people who could kill him with just the snap of their fingers.

“Are you alright?” Su Jin’s father picked up his wife from the ground and looked at her anxiously.

Situ Jin walked over, retrieved a purple seed from his Handbook and told Su Jin’s father, “Let her eat this.”

Su Jin’s father knew that Situ Jin had saved them and was not a bad person, so he took the seed from Situ Jin and fed it to his wife. Color instantly returned to her face and she stopped frowning as her eyes slowly opened again.

When Situ Jin saw that she had regained consciousness, he said to them, “Look this way please! That’s right, look into the lens here! Say cheese!”

There was a loud click and a bright flash. Su Jin’s parents looked like they were in a daze, which was exactly what Situ Jin wanted. But he frowned and muttered to himself, “It’s too bad that this thing requires the people to have their eyes open in order to erase their memories, so I had to waste one Purple Star Seed to wake her up.”

He then walked towards the kitchen, looked around for some time to finally find some leftover rice and two eggs. He made himself a nice plate of egg fried rice ^note[#uncleroger] and nodded satisfactorily to himself after he was done eating.

“I’ll just take that as payment for the Purple Star Seed.” Situ Jin shrugged, then walked back to the two older folks. He took a while to cook up a story and said, “So…it’s like this. You two got injured because you discovered that he had been secretly eating eggs and both of you started arguing and fighting with one another. Okay?”

After the old couple nodded, Situ Jin walked out of the house. A few seconds later, the two of them woke up from their daze at the same time. Su Jin’s mother raised her hand and slapped her husband across the face.

“It’s bad enough that you were secretly eating all our eggs, but you actually dared to hit me?!” Su Jin’s mother raised her voice as she cried. Su Jin’s father looked like he was at a loss and felt great remorse in his heart. He had never hit his wife in all their years of marriage.

Meanwhile, Situ Jin was already long gone. He had a feeling that he would meet those two owners again, and it wouldn’t be long before that happened.

Three days later, Su Qing had just finished class when Yang Mengmeng came running over with a big smile on her face. Her mother had come up with a recipe for a new snack and wanted Su Qing to come over to have a taste.

“Again?? I’ve become so fat recently because I’ve been trying out your mom’s new recipes! I’m going to turn into a pig at this rate,” said Su Qing as she pretended to pout. But the twinkle in her eyes was a clear sign that she was just teasing her best friend.

“By the way…Mengmeng, do you have a crush on my brother or something? Why else would you be so nice to me? Huh? Huh?” teased Su Qing with a cheeky grin on her face.

Yang Mengmeng’s face instantly turned bright red and became panicky as she said, “That’s…that’s not true! I just…I just want to thank your brother for helping me.”

“You’re only going to thank him?”

“Fine, you too!”

Su Qing burst out laughing as she shook her head. “I’m SO sure you’re crushing on my brother. Seriously though, he’s like the perfect guy. If I weren’t his younger sister, I’d want to marry him myself.”

Yang Mengmeng burst out laughing too. “Oh goodness, how could you praise your own older brother like that?”

“Why not? I’m being very serious here. He’s the one who’s worked so hard just to put me through school and he can’t bear to spend more than the minimum on himself. But…recently, he seems to have won the lottery or something. Hey, Mengmeng, doesn’t that mean you’ve found a rich man to marry?!” said Su Qing with wide eyes, as if her best friend were already her brother’s girlfriend.

Yang Mengmeng was about to defend herself when she suddenly realized something was wrong. The path in front of them didn’t look like the usual one they took.

“Su Qing, what…what place is this? Why don’t I have any impression of this place at all?” asked Yang Mengmeng puzzledly.

Su Qing quickly realized that she didn’t know where they were either. The two girls were extremely familiar with the area around their own school, so it seemed impossible for them to suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar place.

“Hello, pretty ladies! Which one of you is Miss Su Qing?” A dark-skinned man approached them with huge headphones on his head and looked like he was into hip hop.

“We’re not Su Qing and we don’t know anybody by that name.” Su Qing immediately sensed something wrong and denied being Su Qing, since there was nobody else around to expose her lie.

“It’s her then. Everyone from the Su family seems to be pretty smart, huh?” A fair-skinned man walked out from the other side to block the two girls’ way. These were the same two men who had tried to kill Su Jin’s parents that night.

Su Qing furrowed her brows because she could tell that these two men were very dangerous. There was a cold-bloodedness about them, so they seemed more like two unfeeling machines rather than normal human beings.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Su Qing started feeling scared.

The dark-skinned man smiled and said, “Nothing much, we just wanted to find out more about your older brother and we hope you can cooperate with us. I really wouldn’t want to hurt such a pretty girl like you.”

“My older brother?” Su Qing was very sure that these two guys were bad people, but she didn’t dare to turn them down straightaway, because she was afraid that both herself and Yang Mengmeng would be in danger if she did that.

“That’s right. Did your brother…what’s going on? AGAIN?!” The dark-skinned man had a furious look on his face because he could sense that someone had barged into the forcefield he had created.

“I’m the head of the Department of Supernatural Affairs, Situ Jin!” Situ Jin had a feeling that he would run into these two again very soon, and he was right.

“Go to hell!” This time, the dark-skinned man lost his patience immediately. He stretched his fingers out at Situ Jin, sending ten small blades flying toward Situ Jin like darts.

Situ Jin stood where he was and he just needed to move his body slightly to avoid all ten blades. This ability really surprised his attacker.

“Mr. Situ, can you please stay out of this since it has nothing to do with you?” said the fair-skinned man with a frown. He was more afraid of Xu Ran than Situ Jin, really. Before coming, he had already done a very thorough investigation of Xu Ran, including his best friend, Situ Jin.

Situ Jin stared frostily at the fair-skinned man and said, “I’m the head of the Department of Supernatural Affairs of this country and my job is to protect my fellow citizens!”

Su Qing’s eyes lit up when she heard these words. She had no idea where on Earth this man had come from, but he seemed really cool and he sounded like a good person.

“Poking your nose into others’ affairs might result in your life ending prematurely!” The fair-skinned man’s tone of voice was becoming more hostile now.

“My job is to protect my fellow citizens, even at the expense of my own life!” said Situ Jin before shaking his wrist slightly to make a sword slide out from his sleeve. This was a very intricately made Tang sword, which was a popular weapon that was representative of the Tang dynasty.

“Let’s go!” spat the fair-skinned man angrily. He didn’t have any regard for Situ Jin, but he certainly could not afford to offend Xu Ran. He heard that the leader of the organization wanted to get Xu Ran to join the team, so if they ended up offending Xu Ran over this mission, they were going to end up dead.

“And what if we’re here to deal with something other than your fellow citizens? Like, a rabid monster, for example?” asked the fair-skinned man suddenly before leaving.

Situ Jin’s expression didn’t flinch as he said, “As long as it exists within the boundaries of this country, that makes it a monster of my country, so you’re not allowed to touch it either!”

The two men stared at Situ Jin in disbelief. This man was like a piece of chewing gum stuck in hair. They had to talk to the higher ups about Situ Jin at this rate. Otherwise, there was no way they could continue with any of their missions here. They couldn’t possibly flee every time they ran into Situ Jin.

After the two of them left, the scenery reverted to the way it was supposed to be. Situ Jin took out a pen-like object and said to the two girls, “Ladies, please look this way.”

“What’s that?” Su Qing was right next to Situ Jin, so she reached over and took it from him to take a closer look.

Situ Jin was caught by surprise and was about to snatch it back from her when Su Qing curiously pressed down on one of its buttons.

Click