Demons Beside You

“Rinse these.”

“David, throw these into the bin.”

All the guests except David and Leonardo had left.

As Chen Zhao cleaned the place up, he asked, “Leonardo, can you tell me why you failed again?”

“I was holding her hand, sitting by the waterfall.”

Both David and Chen Zhao stopped what they had been doing. In their opinion, if a woman was willing to follow a man to a waterfall when it was dark and quiet, something ought to happen.

“And then for some reason, she kept staring at me.”

“And then?”

“I asked her if she was tired.”

“A bit, she said.”

“And then?”

“I said, if you’re tired, you can go and rest. I’ll continue to sit here,” Leonardo said with a long face.

Chen Zhao and David dashed toward Leonardo and showered him with their fists.

“Stop, why are you punching me?”

Just then, Fali who had been in the living room also walked out. She gloated, “She hoped that she could sleep with you in the guest room.”

“But I wasn’t tired.”

“That’s why they’re hitting you.”

Suddenly, Leonardo slapped his forehead. “Oh… I get it… Ah! I missed such a good opportunity!”

“It’s too late, unfortunately.”

“Oh, there’s a snake here.” David suddenly used a pole to pick a snake up. “Is it Raymond’s relative?”

“No, throw it into the lake.” Chen Zhao shook his hand.

“Huh, I think it’s a saw-scaled viper,” Leonardo said.

“What about it? Do you recognize the snake?”

“Recently, two people in our police area have died to this venomous species,” Leonardo said.

“You should be careful. Try not to go out at night, especially the wild,” David said. “Chen, you and Fali should be very careful. Your house is kind of in the wild.”

“No, the two victims died in their homes.”

“Did the snakes climb into their homes?”

“Saw-scaled vipers are only found in Asian tropical regions, mainly India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, and they’re most abundant in the Indian subcontinent. They’re venomous and very aggressive,” Leonardo said.

“You mean, there shouldn’t be any of them in America?”

“Yes. Also, you should have killed the snake instead of throwing it away. It’ll be really troublesome if there’s a species invasion, and people might get hurt, given how aggressive they are.”

Chen Zhao squinted. Coincidence?

He hoped that it was just a coincidence.

…

“Huh? My snake died.” Some coldness flashed across Jacia’s eyes. “Seems like I’ve still underestimated him, but he won’t be so lucky again.”

When Pierce South saw Jacia release about a dozen venomous snakes onto the ground, he frowned. “With so many snakes, you’ll kill him. If he dies, how should we find the nautical dairy?”

“It doesn’t matter whether he’s dead or not. We can go into his house and search for the dairy ourselves.”

“Fine.” Pierce found the plan sensible.

Anyway, he was not going to be the murderer, so he was not worried at all.

…

After showering, David and Leonardo went to sleep. Chen Zhao cast Banshee’s Charm on them to give them a better rest.

On the other hand, Chen Zhao and Fali sat by the lake with their feet in the water. It was a rare period of peacefulness.

Just then, a few heads surfaced from the lake.

Little Nine could finally bring its heads out of the water. Immediately, Hellhound did the same.

They had such a boring time in basement two and could not wait to breathe some fresh air.

Hellhound began to run wildly in the darkness.

Woof, woof!

Suddenly, Hellhound started to bark loudly at some grass.

“Huh? Did they see something?” Fali asked.

Chen Zhao could hear the violence in Hellbound’s barking. Then, he saw Hellhound slap the ground with their paw, and something was thrown toward him.

“Huh, it’s a poisonous snake.”

It was a deadly many-banded krait.

However, the many-banded krait was only found in Asia, mainly central and southern China and Southeast Asia.

Why would there be a many-banded krait here?

Swish! Suddenly, one of Little Nine’s heads seized the snake that had just been killed by Hellhound and swallowed it.

Unlike normal snakes that would swallow their prey whole, Little Nine would chew its food.

Chen Zhao’s face darkened. He could confirm that someone was causing all this.

The most suspicious person was the Indian named Jacia!

Given that he was a friend of Pierce, he was very likely a wizard too.

Chen Zhao would not be surprised if he had been controlling all the snakes.

Nevertheless, the ability was really impossible to guard.

“Fali, you should go in first. I think there might be quite a lot of venomous snakes around. I’ll ask them to clean all the snakes up before they start to affect our quality of life.”

“Sure, be careful,” Fali nodded.

After Fali went into the house, Chen Zhao’s face darkened and he summoned Raymond, Beelzebub, Carrie, Walter, the Silly Twins, and Princess.

Carrie was instructed to protect Fali, while Beelzebub and Raymond were asked to watch David and Leonardo.

Chen Zhao was unsure if any snakes had already entered the house, so he had to be careful.

At this hour, it was clearly impossible for Chen Zhao to search for all the snakes by himself.

Walter, the Silly Twins, and Princess all had very high resistances against poison, so they would not die even if they were bitten.

“Go and find every single snake around here.”

Just then, Blackie floated toward him. “That’s too much work. Let me point them to you.”

Chen Zhao slapped his forehead. Blackie could see souls, including those of snakes.

Even in the darkness, Blackie could still pinpoint the snakes’ souls.

“Blackie, check if any snakes have entered the house.”

“I already did that. There was none.”

With Blackie’s promise, Chen Zhao could finally heave a sigh of relief.

…

“Shit! All my babies are dead! F**k, f**k, f**k! How dare he?! How dare he hurt my babies like this?!” Jacia roared madly.

“Jacia, is that all you have?” Pierce South was very unhappy. The two of them had already been standing in the darkness for a few hours, with mosquitoes everywhere. Pierce would not have stayed with the manic wizard if not for the nautical dairy.

For the entire night, Pierce had been listening to Jacia’s roaring.

“Do you want to see my true power? Fine, I’ll show it to you.”

Suddenly, Jacia grabbed the cobra, which struggled in discomfort.

However, Jacia pulled the cobra with more and more force. Snap! The cobra was torn into two.

Jacia stuffed the two pieces into his mouth and chewed them.

As Pierce watched, he was utterly disgusted.

Then, Jacia’s stomach suddenly became bloated, after which he began to vomit. His abdomen, neck and mouth all somewhat enlarged.

Soon, a large python was spat out of his mouth. Covered in some kind of viscous liquid, it looked really nasty.

After vomiting the python out, Jacia became very weak.

“Go, eat every single person in that house!”