We entered the house and I asked of the patient. “There’s no need to rush,” said Mr. Wang, “You have all traveled far to come here. Please enjoy a meal first!” He led us into a dining hall inside where a table, laid full of sumptuous appetizers: mantis shrimp, peanuts, and jellyfish salad, was waiting for us. There were two men already seated at the table, who introduced themselves both as Lius. We chatted and exchanged greetings as more dishes came from the kitchen. Our hosts tried their earnest to entertain us, their chopsticks waltzing around the table to fill our plates and bowls with delicacies. Out of respect for them, Lin Feng and I returned the gesture, picking food for them as well, although Yuan Chongxi, in his usual tactless manner, continued wolfing down his food and drinks. Halfway through the food, drinks, and merriment, we felt a strong and overwhelming heaviness falling upon us and everything went dark…

I was awoken to the voice of somebody whispering into my ears. “Come on! Wake up! You’re in danger!” My eyes snapped opened instantly at the warning but everything was dark around me. With my Spirit Sight, I saw Xiao Qi tugged at my nose, still trying to wake me. I sat up. “Where are we?” I asked. “All three of you have fallen into a trap! You’ve slept the whole afternoon into the night now! There is firewood laid around this house, ready to be set into flames!” I struggled to get up, my hand reaching into my pocket for my Spirit Gourd, but it was missing! All of our belongings were gone! Immediately, I understood: there was no mistaking it this time, this was the Creed for sure! They had set a trap for us!

Apparently, Xiao Qi was at the Center when Mr. Kang came seeking for us. Seeing that we were leaving the Center for work, she decided to tag along, hiding in the trunk of our car. At first, she thought of giving us a surprise. But it was daytime when we set off into the rural areas and the car was also parked without shelter when we reached our destination. Unable to withstand the robust Yang energy in the daylight, Xiao Qi was forced to wait for us in the car until night fell where she came out. But she could not find us; instead, she chanced upon the men who had received us and overheard their plans to burn us alive! Frightened of our safety, Xiao Qi realized that we might have been incapacitated. She looked high and low, through every nook and cranny until she found us already unconscious for several hours. She tried so hard to rouse me from my drug-induced sleep until I finally woke up! Fighting through the urge to succumb into another deep slumber, I checked Lin Feng’s pulse and realized that we have been drugged. I rushed outside without being noticed and found a clay jar outside filled with water. I grabbed a pail of water and hurried back inside. I revived my companions with cold water thrown into their faces and finally, they too woke up drowsily.

It was our gesture to reciprocate the hospitality of our hosts that had prevented us a fatal death. Lin Feng and I had been picking food for our hosts, hence they did not dare to administer any poison into the food. This forced the rest of the Creed who were watching behind the scene to drug the entire table. When everyone had collapsed, the others revived the three men who were with us and began to plan an alternative method to kill us. But they did not want any trouble with the law, therefore they decided to disguise our deaths as accidents. They stripped us all of our belongings and kept us in a room where we were set on beds as if we were asleep. The rest of the followers of the Creed then prepared to set the cabin on fire with us inside! What an intricate and brutal plan, I scowled angrily, that they even drugged their own men in order to get to us!

With the two of my companions up, we discussed our options quickly. Xiao Qi would possess the leader of the gang to create a diversion and we would use the commotion to escape. We marked the route of our flight where Xiao Qi would rendezvous with us halfway. We watched Xiao Qi glided out of the cabin and we made our way out the compound after surveying our surroundings and reached a wall. The lower half of the tall wall was made up of gravel and the upper half was made of red-colored bricks. I stooped down below and gave Lin Feng a lift. When he got up, he helped Yuan Chongxi and me over the wall and we ran as fast as our legs could carry us!

We scrambled and scuttled desperately in the dark, fighting through the dense tangles of undergrowth and thickets until we saw a flicker of light in the distance. It was a little provisions store, we discovered. We went to the shop and borrowed a phone which we made contact with Zheng Shuang and relayed to him our position, leaving to him the chores of arranging for reinforcements in this neighboring county.

We continued our trek, trying to put more distance between us and our pursuers, when the rowdy noise of riots came from behind us. We had been found! Our pursuers caught up to us in an assorted array of vehicles: some came with cars and trucks while some rode on autorickshaws! A mass of bright headlights sped towards us and within seconds, the entire convoy surrounded us, their menacing and blinding lights from their headlamps glaring angrily at us. Our captors got off their vehicles and stood around us in an intimidating manner as the circle closed in on us slowly! Just then, a dark silhouette flickered by in a flash, and Lin Feng found himself holding his whip! Xiao Qi had liberated our belongings! Seeing that we were on dangerous ground with enemies at all sides, she flew to us as fast as she could and first shoved the first item she first reached for into Lin Feng’s grasp! What a terrible coincidence that it had to be his chain-whip! A man lunged forward; it was the same Mr. Wang who had first received us! With a meat cleaver in his hand, he threw himself at us, eager to spill first blood! What our captors did not notice was Lin Feng’s seething rage. He burned with a fit of boiling anger that even Yuan Chongxi and I had never witnessed before, that we could vaguely feel the heat of his churning anger from his very person! Lin Feng sidestepped Mr. Wang’s blow before his whip snapped furiously in retaliation!

Mr. Wang would have survived with, at most, a terrible wound on his head if what Lin Feng wielded only an ordinary whip. Instead of snapping with a deafening crack like ordinary whips and leaving only a superficial but awfully painful wound, Lin Feng’s chain whip struck on the poor man’s head with a dull “Boom”, splitting his head open like a watermelon! The man was tossed backward by the force of Lin Feng’s furious reprisal that his blood and gray matter spattered the spot where he fell and died instantly! The brutality of Lin Feng’s stroke instantly struck fear into the rest of our captors, who immediately threw down their arms and begged for mercy, their knees bucking with panic as they fell to their knees! Lin Feng bolted forward and thrashed them mercilessly in revenge while not forgetting to jab at their various meridian points on their body!

I felt my Spirit Gourd in my hand and realized Xiao Qi had found my stuff. I immediately step towards the dead man and collected his soul. We would have avoided shedding blood if not for their ill intent towards us. Even so, I had grown aware of my companions’ and my lack of sensitivity to violence ever since our adventures in Inner Mongolia. Fuelled by anger and vengeance, we no longer had the same qualms and doubts that we felt during our first traumatic experience of killing someone.

Never mind our captors’ attempt to sedate us, steal our belongings and murder us, they were even trying to hunt us down to finish the deed without any ounce of mercy! Lin Feng was especially angered by their barbarism that he used his special technique, a method of sealing various meridian points on the enemies’ bodies. With this method, they were as good as dead; in seven days, the blockage of their meridian points would ultimately kill them and this method had no cure or counter. Lin Feng had been so greatly changed in the course of our encounters with the Creed and his exposure to their ruthlessness and brutality had somehow turned him into a companion that even I sometimes found distant and scary.

My train of thoughts was suddenly broken by the sound of sirens blaring from afar. Our reinforcements were here, finally! Lin Feng unsealed enough of his captors-turned captives’ meridian points to allow them to move, and allowed the police officers to haul the entire band into their patrol cars. I went over and gave the leading officer an appreciative shake of his hand and the officer snapped to a salute. Zheng Shuang had reported our incident to the City Council who had quickly mobilized the nearest police force to our aid. The City Council, having appreciated the damage and carnage that these acolytes of the Creed were capable of, had decided to lend their full support!

It did not take long for Zheng Shuang himself to arrive. We reported everything to him while we went through the items that Xiao Qi had liberated for us. We got on our car then, with Zheng Shuang leading us in his own vehicle, as we returned to the village to look for Mr. Kang, the village councilman. But he was long gone. Zheng Shuang left instructions for his men to conduct an around-the-clock surveillance on his residence in case the man returned while we traveled back to our Center.

We returned to the Center still burning with anger over what happened! We began arguing amongst ourselves but Xiao Qi stopped us, although she did not forget to point out that it was she who had been instrumental in our escape. Nevertheless, it was true that we owed our lives to her. We conveyed our sincerest gratitude to her and set a rule for ourselves: we would practice utmost caution especially when dealing with strangers! The world was fraught with unknown dangers and evil that it was only prudent that we remained careful. We would refrain from taking any food and drinks from unknown provenance and maintain constant vigilance! Beside us, Xiao Qi quipped, “And remember to bring me with you all for safety!”

Zheng Shuang came to the Center the following day to provide an update. Interrogation revealed that those that were arrested were merely low-leveled minions acting on orders of Mr. Wang, whom the rest addressed as Wang Laosan (literally, the third of the Wang brothers), also the one who had died under Lin Feng’s stroke. Our near-death incident had received widespread attention across the city, being the most recent episode of the string of crimes committed by the Creed. As it turned out, news of their kidnapping of innocent children from all over the city had escaped somehow. News about our abduction blazed through the city, recounting of how the evil minions of the evil cult had tried to murder innocent people and even took to the streets to hunt down runaway escapees like a lawless bunch of marauders. The face of Mr. Kang, the village councilman who had tricked us into the trap, was now everywhere in the city; wanted posters and news reports featuring his likeness could almost be seen at every corner of the city as a county-wide manhunt began. On the other hand, Zheng Shuang, being the good friend he was, had tried his best to keep Lin Feng’s slaughter of Mr. Wang under wraps. The local police did not look kindly to common citizens taking justice into their own hands, he said, and we should be careful next time! My companions and I traded dark looks as we remembered about a few of the others whose meridian points had been sealed by Lin Feng. Death would claim them very soon as well and their deaths were also Lin Feng’s doing.

I fished out a cigarette and lighted it for Zheng Shuang and drew a swig off my own. “This might also be only the tip of an iceberg,” I said to Zheng Shuang, “The whole thing seems like an elaborate ruse, beginning from the Kang man’s mother!” “Fear not,” Zheng Shuang replied, “We’ll wring it out of this Mr. Kang when we lay our hands on him!” The rest of the arrested suspects were lackeys which knew nothing of us, merely that Wang Laosan had referred to us three as his “enemies” and he needed their help to get rid of us. Without truly understanding the whole story, the fools had stuck themselves into the entire affair only to become dispensable cannon-fodders. But police records indicated that Wang Laosan himself was once a convict. When he was released from prison, he had met and mingled with a band of friends who were also part of underground societies and local gangs. This could also mean that the diabolical influence of the Creed might have also reached into the scene of organized crime of this county…