After giving Cheng Hua a meaningful look, Ying Qiao said.” I will go to take a look.”

Jiang Lan was a little worried. It was true that the snake race was good at swimming. But Ying Qiao didn’t look capable enough to handle this job. So he quickly shoved the gadget Cheng Hua just gave him into Ying Qiao’s hand, just in case.

Looking at the worried looks on Jiang Lan’s face, Cheng Hua thought all the money, time, and efforts Ying Qiao spent on him were not wasted because the Little Monster was obviously worried about Ying Qiao.

So he reassured him.” Don’t worry. Nothing would happen to him. He would be the last person in this world to die in a job like this.”

Ying Dragon was the pioneer of all water sports. If he can cause endless headaches to those high monsters on land, you can imagine what he was capable of underwater.

Cheng Hua’s only concern was that Ying Qiao might scare off those Jin Pos if he wasn’t careful.

Hearing those words, not very thoughtful, but intended to be reassuring, from Cheng Hua, Jiang Lan became more worried. But he knew he couldn’t accompany Ying Qiao on this mission and watched him dive into the water with a worried look.

That Jin Po had just been beheaded by me, it might take a while before that thing returned. 

Ying Qiao dived into the lake under their gaze.

He kept going down until he could be sure no one could see him from the surface. Then he let his dragon tail come out. The Ying Dragon clan was famed for their powers underwater. He was no exception. After swinging his tail gently and feeling the reaction of the surrounding water, he moved north.

The Gold Dragon tail swung gently but didn’t generate even a slight current. The nearby fishes and shrimps did not appear aware of his existence and continued their life undisturbed. 

Ying Qiao swan north across the area where Jiang Lan met the Jin Po. He continued until he was well out of Qing Yang Lake and entered a tributary river of Xun Yang Lake, where he found a place where the undercurrents were strong.  

The lake gave way to a river. The space was more confined; more unpredictable undercurrents and rocks could be detected at the river’s bottom. Moving became harder in this part of water, which also offered a natural hiding place.

Ying Qiao could sense that one area had much lower temperature among those rocks, which contrasted sharply with the surrounding areas.

He sharpened his senses, and with the help of rocks, he concealed his approach to that area.

The closer he got, the more intense the feeling of cold became. He could feel the subtle waves generated by the movements ahead.

The waves were so subtle, but Ying Qiao picked it up. His stealth was so complete that he seemed to blend into his surroundings. Three Jin Pos ahead of him appeared entirely unaware of his silent approach.

In an empty slot among rocks, three Jin Pos with long hair and dressed in soft white clothing gathered there.

Their bodies were unquestionably perfect with shapely figures and pale white skin. Their hairs gently waved with the movement of the surrounding water. If not for the white skeletons underneath them, the whole scene had a bizarre sense of beauty.

Ying Qiao didn’t make his move right away. Instead, he remained hidden and observed them.

After the Police thought this case was extraordinary, they transferred the case to the Monster Bureau. Before he took charge of this case, the preliminary investigation had already been conducted to verify the facts. It was established that there must be more than one Jin Pos, based on the traces left on the corpses.

But no one would expect to find three Jin Pos in a single tributary river of Xun Yang Lake.

Jin Po lives in the South Sea, and most of the time, they were active only in South Sea Province. They are neither monsters nor ghosts, but a strange creature born out of fishes consuming too much rotted flesh and the essence of hatred. They don’t have human intelligence. Instead, they kept the beastly instincts. And they don’t live in a herd, preferring to live alone. As far as Ying Qiao knows, Jin Pos were vicious cannibalistic creatures who even ate their own kind if food grew scarce.

So it was extraordinary that they suddenly appeared in the rivers and lakes of Jiang City and moved about in herds.

After close observation, Ying Qiao could see that even though they all took the form of beautiful women, they were not the same. A clear class divide existed among them.

One of the Jin Pos appeared to be relatively weak. A very deep wound could be seen on its neck, and half of its face was rotting flesh. Compared with two other Jin Pos whose face remained intact, it was ugly.

And the other two Jin Pos seemed to be communicating with it. Instead of human speech, they made a snake-like hiss sound.

After a few moments of this hissing, that weak Jin Po suddenly attacked them with waving hairs. But the attack looked like a feint to gain time for its escape.

The other Jin Pos were not surprised by its attack. One of them pulled its hair, and easily ripped its head from the neck, and threw it away to a pile of rocks as if it was garbage. The headless Jin Po didn’t die right away. Instead, its eyes stared at them with intense viciousness while the two Jin Pos circled around its body, then they knelt down and started to eat its flesh and blood.

They were consuming their own kind’s flesh in a wild and bloodthirsty way. The dark, blood-like liquid was spreading with the currents. Ying Qiao could smell the stench coming from it. Furrowing his brow, he controlled his impulse to act now.

The behavior patterns of these three Jin Pos were very different from what he had learned from the files.

He sensed something unusual about these Jin Pos and decided to let them live a while longer to wait for their next move.

Those two Jin Pos greedily consumed all the flesh but chose to leave the chest intact. After that, they straightened up and wiped clean their bloody faces. One of them made a string of short sounds, and then its pointed fingers pierced the chest…

Ying Qiao noticed the expression of the discarded head had changed from viciousness to fear and pain. Apparently, the chest was its most vulnerable part.

A Jin Po dug out a dark heart from its chest. But it appeared to be more like a pile of dark rotten meat. That pile of meat seemed to be still alive, shaking slightly while the discarded and forgotten head had already died the moment the heart was dug out.

These two Jin Pos then left with the pile of meat, carefully holding it in its hands.

Ying Qiao looked at the head with its eyes still open, and then he wrapped it up and took it away with a disgusted look.

This head might prove to be something of interest for the Research Department.

He followed those two Jin Pos through the tributary river of the Xun Yang Lake and crossed into the northern part of the Xun Yang Lake.

***********

Jiang Lan and Cheng Hua had been waiting by the lake from morning to nightfall.

After nightfall, there were no visitors left in the park except for them, waiting in the darkness.

Cheng Hua was not worried about Ying Qiao. To while off the time, he tried to start a conversation with Jiang Lan.

Gradually the topic moved to Ying Qiao.

He knew how much Ying Qiao cared about this Little Monster. In the thousands of years since he first met Ying Qiao, he had never seen this fussy dragon make many concessions for a monster. Now he was even willing to conceal his identity to be an ordinary snake monster and started to take charge of cases he considered beneath him.

Ying Qiao was the deputy director of the Jiang City Monster Bureau in name only. In the years since he assumed this position, the number of cases he handled personally hadn’t exceeded a single digit.

It was not because he was lazy. He just didn’t hold the humans in high regard.

In the years since Cheng Hua started to work for him, a kind of deep friendship had developed between them, which went far beyond mere colleagues. He knew that because of Geng Chen’s death, Ying Qiao was angry at humans.

Despite Ying Qiao’s accusation that Geng Chen had been obsessed with being a saint for humans, Cheng Hua knew Ying Qiao respected and loved this uncle who was not much older than him, even though Ying Qiao had never called Geng Chen uncle, preferring to address him directly with his name.

Now to indulge the Little Monster, he was willing to let go of his prejudice against humans. Which everyone loves to see.

At one point, Cheng Hua even suspected that Ying Qiao would act on his anger towards the humans, and he even had the evidence pointing to this likelihood. But considering their fragile friendship, he didn’t call the Police.

Luckily, Ying Qiao didn’t do anything unpleasant to the humans. Instead, he stayed in his villa with his gemstones, not caring what happened to the world.

Thinking about his gemstones, Cheng Hua felt his lingering friendly feeling towards Ying Qiao had vanished.

Our friendship was just that fragile.

Couldn’t even withstand a blow of wind.

With jealousy in his heart, Cheng Hua still tried to extract some nice words praising Ying Qiao from Jiang Lan, which would be useful to gain some advantages from Ying Qiao.

He began by telling some stories about the high monsters in the Special Service Branch. Then he returned to his main topic.” Do you know the story about the establishment of the Jiang City Monster Bureau?”

Jiang Lan nodded, then shook his head. “I only heard a thing or two.”

Hearing this, Cheng Hua’s smile became wide.” The Jiang City Monster bureau was organized not long after the Central Monster Bureau was established in Peking. Peking is the capital. On the other hand, Jiang City is located in the center of the central plain. Linked with nine Provinces via railway, motorway, and airway, Jiang City is the main traffic hub of Hua Nation. ^[1]TL’s note: Jiang City is Definitely Wuhan. With a sizable population, this city is restless.”

The bigger the size of the population, the more the undesirable elements chose to hide among it. There is no shortage of unruly monsters here.

“There was a heated debate on who was the perfect candidate to lead the Jiang City Monster Bureau. In the end, the Auspicious deity Tai Feng was chosen to be responsible for Jiang City Monster Bureau.”

Cheng Hua was watching his face intently while telling this story. Seeing his curiosity was piqued, he continued.” Despite Tai Feng being an ancient high monster, he wasn’t a good fighter. Because of that, many high monsters weren’t satisfied with this choice.”

Jiang Lan was curious.” But I see now everyone respects Director Tai Feng.”

Cheng Hua.” The situation is different now; everything is in place and properly organized. When the Monster Bureau was still in its infancy, most monsters were preoccupied with power struggles and fighting for turfs. Only the powerful had everyone’s attention, and no one followed the direction of the Government.”

“How were they made to follow the direction of the Monster Bureau?” Jiang Lan asked.

Looking over the silent lake, making sure Ying Qiao would not appear anytime soon, Cheng Hua continued.” It was Ying Dragon who made them obey the rule of the Monster Bureau. Ying Dragon was Tai Feng’s old friend. So Tai Feng invited Ying Dragon repeatedly to assume the position of Deputy Director. Those high monsters always lived in awe of the Ying Dragon. It was natural that they chose to obey after that.”

Then he closely watched Jiang Lan’s face.

But Jiang Lan didn’t show admiring looks or the look of fear. Instead, he had a quizzical look, not what Cheng Hua had expected.

Then Jiang Lan said in a hesitant voice.” What I heard seems to be a little different from your story…….”

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