Ch77 - The Mantis Catches the Cicada

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor- Koneko, Proofreader-Ghostie 

The native religion of Japan is Shintoism.

Shintoism is a pantheistic and polytheistic religion which believes that all things have spirits and that mountains, water sources, birds ,animals, flowers and trees within nature can all become deities.

Even the family to which Akihiko Yamamoto had returned to, had a thousand-year-old tree enshrined in the courtyard as a God of the Town House.

However, after carefully reviewing ancient books, Akihiko Yamamoto came to the conclusion that while many spiritual objects could be worshipped as Gods, those that needed to be imprisoned by any means were frequently powerful beyond the control of ordinary people— they were extremely fierce and violent. 

More importantly, these “Imprisoned Gods” were often resentful of their masters because they were forcefully confined.

Although they were similar to other “House Gods” in granting the wishes of their owner, the “Prisoner God” is far stronger in power and fulfilled the prayers with more precision. However, the “Prisoner God” is like a bottomless pit that can never be filled— its hunger consumes everything around as their own source of nourishment; including wealth, fortune, luck, and even life itself.

Akihiko Yamamoto had heard that Chen Dafa’s wife and two sons had died whilst he had also attended the funerals of his “brothers” on a few occasions.

In the past, Akihiko Yamamoto’s intuition sensed something was strange around him, but ever since he presumed that Chen Dafa was feeding the “Prisoner God” in his own house, Akihiko Yamamoto became convinced that both Chen Dafa’s wife and children, as well as his adopted sons, were just lambs to the slaughter  he raised just for sacrifice.

Ordinary people may experience dread, shame or even jealousy after discovering the secret of the “Prisoner God”. They may even be like Chen Dafa, who wanted everything for himself, even going as far as killing the previous owner and stealing the “Prisoner God” for his own personal use.

Akihiko Yamamoto was the same.

But his desire was not for money, power or longevity.

What he wanted was the “Prisoner God” itself. 

There was nothing more tempting to a practitioner of Onmyōdō than having a powerful servant.

Akihiko Yamamoto had always been conceited, and extremely confident in his talents and abilities.

He felt that he was only one step away from being the top practitioner of Onmyōdō. What he lacked was a powerful slave.

So he focused on obtaining Chen Dafa’s “Prisoner God”, determined that he should get it no matter what. 

As for whether the “Prisoner God” could be refined into a servant after he got it was not even included in the plan or considered as an issue by the ever conceited Akihiko Yamamoto.

And just when Akihiko Yamamoto was struggling with how this plan could be carried out, Chen Dafa’s legal team sent him an email.

——This must be the will of the great God.

Akihiko Yamamoto thought as he walked. 

At this time, Chen Dafa was terminally ill and would pass away at any time— it was impossible for him to interrogate the whereabouts of the “Prisoner God”.

However, this was not a difficult task for Akihiko Yamamoto.

As a practitioner of Onmyōdō, Akihiko Yamamoto, similar to Bei Quan, had mastered some secret arts including “soul searching”— a “forbidden technique” that should never be used by anyone in the family.

The soul searching technique was very similar in a way to the “empathy sensing” that Bei Quan often uses, that is they both directly “read” the memories of the target. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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However, Akihiko Yamamoto didn’t care about Chen Dafa’s life or death. Naturally, he didn’t care about using this forbidden technique on him.

—— Find the Prisoner God and kill those who know about it. 

This was what Akihiko Yamamoto had in mind.

He didn’t care about the $4 billion inheritance, so unlike Daniel, he didn’t have to be careful about the following sequence of events— leaving behind witnesses or worrying about exposing himself to the police.

The only thing Akihiko Yamamoto was concerned about was the other practitioner of magic who was still hiding.

Thinking of this, Akihiko Yamamoto slightly pulled up his right sleeve to reveal his wrist. 

On his right wrist, there was a large black, red, and yellow wound, extending from the wrist to the inner elbow. The skin and flesh were burnt, which looked very serious upon first glance.

This is the burn from the first night in the mansion.

Only the day before, he had released the scarecrow puppet to scout around, but the scarecrow puppet never returned— it was destroyed by a fire attack, causing his spell to backfire, leaving him with this large burn on his wrist.

Akihiko Yamamoto was confident in his own abilities and knew that his scarecrow puppet was not a gadget or toy that could be destroyed easily. 

Therefore, even if he was not happy to admit it, Akihiko Yamamoto had to be wary of the other practitioner within the vicinity who was hiding from him.

His first thought was that the other party must have come for the “Prisoner God” as well.

Since they were competitors, there was absolutely no possibility of working together.

In order to get rid of this enemy and keep the secret of the “Prisoner God” from falling into the wrong hands, his only choice was to kill the other person first …… 

Akihiko Yamamoto pulled down his sleeve and pressed his wound through a layer of fabric.

Just then, he heard the sharp footsteps of thick-soled boots on the ground coming from the direction behind him.

In the next second, a gun-wielding intruder appeared at the corner in the corridor.

The man immediately saw Akihiko Yamamoto— he bellowed before raising his gun towards him. 

However, Akihiko Yamamoto moved faster than the other man.

Several black shadows leaped out of Akihiko Yamamoto’s sleeve like snakes and flew toward the gunman, drilling into his seven orifices.

Just like the previous time, the gunman covered his head and face as he fell to the ground, letting out a miserable, blood curdling scream.

Black blood gurgled out of his eyes, ears, mouth and nose. A few seconds later, the man was dead. 

Akihiko Yamamoto took a few quick steps towards the dead gunman and retrieved the few black shadows he had just released.

—— If the other practitioner’s goal is the “Imprisoned God”, he will certainly go directly to Chen Dafa.

Akihiko Yamamoto raised his head, glancing at the stairs that lead towards the second floor.

—— The first thing you need to do is to take precautionary measures. 

He gritted his teeth and pulled out a scarecrow from his pocket.

This was his third, and only remaining scarecrow— his last puppet.

Akihiko Yamamoto bent down and used his fingers to dip the black pus blood flowing from the now deceased gunman, drawing the five senses on the little straw man’s face, outlining a pentagram on its chest.

Akihiko Yamamoto then threw the straw man to the ground. 

The moment it hit the ground, the straw man transformed.

“This will do.”

Akihiko Yamamoto said in Eastern Japanese.

Together with the scarecrow, they headed for the stairs leading to the main bedroom on the second floor. 

…… ……

……

Between a brass floor clock and the wall, a man was hiding, tightly covering his mouth with his hands to not allow his trembling voice and panic to escape his lips.

This was the last of the four heirs, Huan. 

He had no idea that he wouldn’t be able to come down for supper due to being sick, and that such a horrific alteration would occur in the mansion.

Huan was alerted of something not being quite right when he faintly heard gunshots from his bedroom on the third floor and found out that his cell phone had lost signal.

He carefully slipped out of the room and went down to the first floor from memory, only to find the body of the butler who was shot to death.

Huan was naturally scared, realizing something bad was going on around him. 

He just came for a billion dollars and didn’t intend to die for it.

In the midst of all the panic, Huan’s only thought was— I want to get out of here!

He was like a hamster running for its life, cautiously moving a little at a time towards the direction of the main door.

Huan heard the footsteps of the gunmen earlier than Akihiko Yamamoto and hid in this cramped corner, being one step ahead. 

He then witnessed the whole process of Akihiko Yamamoto killing people with shadows, as well as turning the scarecrow into a huge living being— he was in a huge shock and couldn’t believe what he saw with his own eyes! He felt creeped out and was horrified.

——That’s the devil!

Huan rested his back against the wall, his whole body was shaking heavily. He clearly heard and felt his teeth chittering.

——It must be a devil from the East! 

He said to himself.

——You can’t stay here anymore!

——I must leave quickly!

Huan held back his fear and looked down the corridor. 

Akihiko Yamamoto and his Scarecrow have gone upstairs.

Under the dim light of the wall lamp, Huan could only see the corpse lying on the floor with its five senses hollowed out.

——Get out while you can!

Huan held the clock with one hand and staggered to his feet. 

However, the next second Huan turned around, a pair of hands reached out from behind and grabbed his shoulders in a deadly grip ……

———————

“Well, it’s done.”

Bei Quan put the gunman who broke into the master bedroom down and clapped his hands.

Being familiar with Bei Quan’s actions by now, Wei Fuyuan no longer needed to be instructed, he dutifully tied up the intruder who had been struck unconscious by lightning. He then started to drag him in the direction of the bathroom.

“Wait!” 

Bei Quan called out to his little assistant and slowly rubbed his chin as he spoke.

“I suddenly thought of a good idea.”

Wei Fuyuan stopped moving and looked up, “What do you want?”

Bei Quan glanced in the direction of the hospital bed. 

Chen Dafa was lying on the bed, motionless, if not for the trace of lingering breath, he looked like a corpse.

“If I guessed right, what the scarecrow owner wanted yesterday was the ‘Prisoner God’ in the house.”

Bei Quan narrowed his eyes and smiled, “In that case, he will certainly come to Chen Dafa, the only one who knows the whereabouts of the ‘Prisoner God’.”

Bei Quan smiled at Wei Fuyuan and crossed his hands, “Here, switch the two of them.” 

Wei Fuyuan initially froze before suddenly understanding the meaning of his words.

Wei Fuyuan took the dying Chen Dafa from the hospital bed. He wrapped him in a quilt, hid him in the bathtub and then threw the bound gunman onto the bed and covered him with a quilt.

Although Chen Dafa and the bandit’s body shape were very different, once the quilt and various layers were applied, from afar the bulging mass was a good disguise and there was no obvious difference.

“All right.” 

Bei Quan flicked his wrist and summoned the Qingguang Vientiane Brush.

“Now, let’s wait for the next one to come to us by himself.”