Chapter 159 - 156: Unease
CLOMP... CLOMP... CLOMP...
The footsteps continued to recede, on the verge of leaving the church.
Blaise, his legs weak, tried to stand up, but fell right to the ground.
"Wait, what was that thing on me just now?"
But the mysterious person didn’t stop. Blaise immediately had his two underlings help him up to chase after them.
But when he got outside the church, supported by his two men, there was no one to be seen—only the silent, dark night.
He returned to the church, crestfallen. The shards of broken glass on the floor crunched underfoot.
"Father... what was that just now?"
Blaise didn’t really expect the priest to have an answer. After all, the old man had looked just as disheveled as he did a moment ago.
Being older, the priest regained his composure more quickly than the young men.
"I don’t know who that was, but I imagine they are not an evil person."
He recalled what the person had said while looking at him.
"Blaise, I know you aren’t a devout believer, and I’m aware you might do some unsavory things, but I still hope you can return to the right path soon. At least God has not forsaken you."
"As you’ve just seen, this world is not as peaceful as it appears on the surface."
Though the priest didn’t know who that had been, Blaise was undoubtedly a lucky fellow. Anyone not a complete idiot could tell he’d been afflicted by some terrifying entity, and the mysterious person who appeared had cleanly and efficiently eliminated it.
He must be under God’s protection to have such good fortune.
Normally, Blaise wouldn’t be annoyed by the priest’s sermons, but he would at most laugh them off, letting the words go in one ear and out the other.
But today, the mysterious person’s parting words bothered him immensely.
Harsh phrases like "people like you aren’t worth saving," "merely surviving," and "parasite" echoed endlessly in his mind.
The three of them rested for a long while before recovering. Once they left the church, the still-shaken underlings helped the somewhat dazed Blaise into the car.
"Boss, are we heading home?"
The car started, and the man in the driver’s seat asked for Blaise’s instructions.
"Yeah."
Blaise was preoccupied. As the one directly involved, the shock he’d experienced was far greater than that of his two underlings or the priest.
’The Faceless Shadow Ghost the mysterious person mentioned... that must have been the thing on me.’
’That terrifying negative emotion, that nauseating feeling... it was like a parasite grasping my very soul, a helpless, suffocating sensation.’
’Yes, my soul!’
’This was the first time in Blaise’s life that he had confirmed the existence of his own soul—not as a philosophical concept, but as a tangible, physical sensation.’
’People... people really do have souls. And the soul is so much more sensitive than the body.’
Although he had attended church with his parents since childhood and had a good relationship with the priest, he never actually believed in any of it. He only believed in the power in his hands and the profits he could secure.
However, people in the criminal underworld are, in some ways, more prone to superstition. Since they do things that ordinary people consider evil, the pressure they feel is much greater once they suspect that things like retribution actually exist.
The church wasn’t very far from his home, and the car soon arrived in front of Blaise’s detached villa.
There were a few bodyguards still in the house, so the lights were on.
"You two shouldn’t go back to your own places tonight."
The two men in the car readily agreed. The recent events had spooked them as well, and they didn’t dare go home alone.
"Boss!" "Boss!" "Boss!"...
Seeing Blaise return, the big men inside all greeted him, and nodded to the two brothers behind him as well.
Blaise responded distractedly, then sat down on the sofa to relax.
His underlings had been watching the news. On the table were open bags of chips, along with burgers and fried chicken.
He picked up a piece of fried chicken and took a couple of bites. A nearby underling tactfully handed him a bottle of cold beer.
Only after eating four or five pieces of chicken and downing the entire bottle of beer did Blaise’s heart rate gradually return to normal.
"Boss, here."
An underling suddenly handed him ten hundred-dollar USD bills.
"Hm? What’s this for?"
Blaise was baffled. ’I’m always the one giving my guys money. Since when did they start giving money to me?’
Of course, the money from selling their "goods" was always collected and turned over to him, but strictly speaking, that money was his to begin with.
The black man scratched his head, looking equally confused.
"I’m not sure what’s going on either. A little while ago, the doorbell rang. When I went to open it, I found a package. Inside was a note and a thousand USD, saying it was owed to you."
"Someone rang the doorbell and none of you noticed?"
Blaise was getting angry. This was his house, with surveillance monitoring the outside at all times. The way his man told it, it sounded like they hadn’t noticed anyone approaching at all. ’What if it was a hitman sent by a rival? They could’ve walked right up to the door!’
The large black man hurriedly explained.
"No, no, no, we were watching the monitors the whole time, but we didn’t see anyone approach. It was only when the doorbell rang that we noticed the package at the door. We never saw the person who delivered it! Seriously, we’re just as confused!"
Blaise stared at him suspiciously. Normally, he would never believe such a cock-and-bull story, but today was different. His underling’s description made his heart, which had just begun to settle, leap back into his throat.
"Where’s the note?"
"It’s on the table, under the fried chicken box."
He quickly moved the chicken box, revealing a grease-stained note underneath. A sentence was written on it in elegant handwriting.
"Consider this compensation for the raw meat and seafood."
Blaise was startled. He immediately thought of the empty container that was supposed to be filled with "goods."
His thoughts began to race.
’That strange kid... he must not be with the thing that was just pulled out of my body! Or maybe... it was because of that strange kid that the mysterious person from the church showed up in the first place?’
’When did that thing get inside me? What would have happened to me if none of this had occurred?’
As he thought about it, goosebumps broke out all over Blaise’s skin.
’No wonder that weird kid kept staring at me when he appeared. If we hadn’t all been pointing guns at him, he probably wouldn’t have disappeared so quickly, would he?’
’Thinking about it that way, does that mean I have Maki to thank for being saved?’
Clutching the ten large bills and staring at the note on the table, Blaise couldn’t help but feel bewildered.
’The mysterious person must have known what I do for a living before they left—that’s why their tone was so disgusted. But not only did they not confiscate the money or call the police, they even returned it and compensated me for the meat?’
It was a contradiction, but it was precisely this point that made Blaise feel like he was grasping onto something crucial.
"Bill, Liszt, you heard what the mysterious person said in the church. Tell me what you think."
"Yeah."
The two quiet underlings were drinking beer off to the side, their attention now also fixed on the note.
"They seemed to really hate us."
One of the underlings cleverly said "us," not "you."
"Yeah, we really are a bunch of bastards... That weird kid who returned the container must be with the mysterious person."
Blaise added, looking at the money in his hand.
"Saving me might have just been a side effect of them getting rid of that demon, but why send money to compensate for the box of meat?"
The other underlings who had stayed behind couldn’t understand a word their boss was saying, but they were smart enough not to interrupt.
People nowadays, especially the younger generation, have been steeped in modern literature, movies, and television. No one lacks imagination.
Though the two burly men of Mexican descent looked rough, they had a sensitive side.
One of them offered a suggestion.
"Maybe they had a reason they had to do it?"
The other added.
"Or maybe they just don’t want to get involved with people like us?"
"Could it be that they helped us because their kid ate the meat from that container?"
"That’s possible!"
The men continued to discuss among themselves.
The image of a mysterious faction that doesn’t interfere in worldly affairs, one that merely adheres to its mission of eradicating evil, gradually formed in the minds of Blaise and his men.
At the same time, their understanding of the entire world seemed to be reshuffling in their minds.
The other underlings, who had been listening for a while, seemed to finally understand what was going on, realizing they were discussing paranormal events.
"Boss, something like this happened back in my hometown. This guy who got possessed..."
"I’ve heard of stuff like that too! Near where my buddy lives in Ohio, they even had to call in the National Guard!"
"If we’re talking about that, the stories about what happened in Saint Louis a while back were all over the internet, and they sounded pretty convincing..."
As if they had found a fascinating new topic, the men began sharing all the miscellaneous rumors and stories they knew to prove that the world wasn’t as peaceful as it seemed.
This kind of group ghost-story session was common at gatherings, but Blaise’s mindset was completely different this time. A few of the stories sounded disturbingly real, especially since he himself had just had a genuine encounter.
Talk of the apocalypse had become popular again in recent years. Blaise, who had once scoffed at it, now found himself inexplicably worried.
’What do I do? This anxiety is making it impossible for me to calm down!’
PS: Second Chapter for Monday.
Some unfortunate news: things have been really tight lately, and I made a mistake at my day job. I have to fix it and rush out some blueprints and contact sheets, so I probably won’t be able to write the third Chapter for tonight.