Chapter 229
San Francisco, the “site of demo” that Josephine Wong contracted Jianmen to cleanse. It was just early morning, yet the sky was cloudy, windy and the air was slightly more humid than usual. All of the agents from the Division assigned to the site were gathered at a small deserted plaza at a relatively safe distance from the site.
“Alright, agents of Division. Thank you for answering my call to gather.” Jianmen stood on a temporary pedestal made from broken rocks nearby so that he could see everyone and appear humble and not too demanding: “I know you are assigned to this site and you are under orders to help me, but I still appreciate your cooperation for these two days. And today is the last day of the whole endeavour. Before we start today, I want to remind everyone one more time that today would be the hardest day yet. As you can tell from your debrief, you are to be stationed around the area, at respective areas to guard the perimeter, and to prevent anything from escaping. Any questions?”
“Mr. Yu, we don’t have a lot of manpower here to cover the entire surrounding area.” one of the agents raised her hand: “And according to the map of our stations, there are large gap areas no agents would be covering.”
“Nothing would make it out of there..” Jianmen explained: “The stakes you put into the ground - when I activate them, they would form a huge labyrinth and a prison to trap the unclean presence inside. They would try to escape, but they would only be directed to a limited number of ‘exits’, where all of you would be stationed at. When the unclean presences inside made it to these ‘exits’, they’d still get blocked. Even if they were able to break through the area, they would all be severely weakened, and I would intervene myself. So all you need to do is clean up any loose ends if there is any. I believe everyone’s got my metal amulet for you, with which you would be invisible to them should anything bad happen. You can also activate it using a bit of your blood to conjure a shield to protect yourself. You mostly likely won’t need it at all, but just keep in mind that you still have it as a safety measure.”
“Sir, how are you going to cleanse this big of a site without enraging the evil that remained here without it fighting back?” Agent Jill asked with a curious tone: “I know you’re really good … but you only have less than one day left, normally it would take months to slowly chip away this much evil power before anyone can cleanse it all.”
“Well, desperate times.” Jianmen smiled and nodded: “Also I am assured that the place would need to be rebuilt anyway, so I would employ some moderately drastic measures. To put it simply, I’d be poisoning the unclean presence here, think of it as a kind of chemical warfare on the spectral battlefield. And don’t worry, the ‘poison’ is completely harmless to humans, it would just be a bit salty and bitter if you got it in your mouths. Please be assured, my methods might be unorthodox, but it’s completely safe to you, and it could even be a little… romantic.”
“Huh?” “What?” this answer confused the agents even more.
“Alright, let’s get to work my dear agents. We have work to do!” Jianmen laughed widely and clapped his hands.
“I thought you already sort of knew what the stakes are for?” when heading towards their station, Agent Hall asked Agent Jill.
“Yeah, I’m just confirming.” Agent Jill giggled: “I’ve never seen one of these big wooden stake arrays up close. This is kinda awesome. No scratch that, it’s really awesome. I wonder if he would be willing to be my master.”
“Well, good luck. He seems nice, I would think he’d be happy to take you in.” Agent Hall said.
“I mean… He clearly thinks quite highly of us - he assigned us the biggest exit.” Agent Jill walked up to a temporary watchtower they built overseeing the site, with protective sigils hanging over the ceiling and on the handrails.
“But I still want to see this - how is he going to poison the evil presence here?” Agent Jill looked over the vast areas with her binoculars: “Is he gonna pour something in the underground water?”
“That doesn’t sound romantic.” Agent Hall shook his head: “And how the hell do you even poison a haunted place and evil energy like this?”
As Jianmen was walking towards the center of the area, some very old memories came back to him.
“Have you heard of the tale of the pious eminent monk?” sitting over a piece of bulging boulder hanging over a giant volcanic lake in the mountains, Yanyu Shi, a beautiful woman with unparalleled power had a special Guqin on her lap and a small fox with silver fur sleeping next to her.
“No.” Jianmen was sitting on the edge of the boulder with his legs dangling in the air: “But I guess it’s gonna be one with great sacrifice and devotion?”
“What’s it called again? A stereotype?” Yanyu Shi chuckled as she looked to the serene waters of the lake: “Yeah. But this one is particularly romantic - he figured out the circulation of water, and that the water would flow through all lives. So he started chanting the most arcane, divine, and powerful scriptures of virtue, faith and light by the sea. He hoped that by blessing the entire ocean, the water in it would come to cure and bless the world and thus relieving all lives off their pain and suffering.”
“Wow, that’s ...”
“Yeah.” Yanyu Shi gently played her Guqin and let her gentle and calming melodies roam the air: “And I’ve got an idea like that recently, and I would like your help.”
“Of course. Anything.”
Jianmen reached the center of the area, and he opened a china bottle. Some kind of light brown power came from the bottle and shot up into the sky, right at the thick clouds above.
“Alright, all agents, please stand guard.” Jianmen’s voice was not loud, yet it reached all agents of the Division surrounding the area loud and clear even without an enchanted earpiece and blessed connections: “And please feel free to share in the public comms channel if it reminded you of anything.”
“What?” Agent Hall was more confused.
“I heard the drums echoing tonight ...” Jianmen started softly singing.
Orange and golden lightning exploded from the clouds above, the clouds right above the area seemed to be lit up from within, as if a particular bright sun was just right behind them. Then within a few seconds, rain started pouring from the cloud.
Vapor rose from the ground as the raindrops hit the ground, faint screams, cries, moans and curses from thousands of voices erupted, but they were soon clouded by the sound of the rain. The buildings in the area, which were kept in their places by the unclean energy that resided in this place, started softening in their integrity, dissolving, falling apart and eventually washing away.
“Holy fucking shit, he blessed the rain.” Agent Jill reached outside the shade of the watchtower to catch some rain water: “He blessed the fucking rain!”