Chapter 557: An Overactive Mind
=Our lord is a giant bundle of stress that over thinks everything?=
=Well, physically, he’s fine. In fact, he is now laying in his bed.=
=Not able to sleep because he’s worried about tomorrow=
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“Godsdammit…I can’t fucking sleep,” Zhen Liu muttered to himself as he stared up at the ceiling whilst laying in bed.
The bed in question was actually incredibly comfortable and if Zhen Liu was in any other state of mind, he’d probably fall asleep in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately, his overactive mind wasn’t going to let him.
As Zhen Liu continued to stare at the ceiling, arms folded at this point for no reason other than to stop flailing them about, he began to think about the reasons why he was still awake.
While he had no idea if doing so would help, it was better than just laying there and being miserable…mostly.
“Okay, so…I lost about twenty or so zakos due to a scouting/spying mission gone wrong, I still need to figure out an opportunity to find my predecessor’s lost tomb, wherever the fuck that is, and…tomorrow morning I am going to have to march up to the home of a bunch distant relatives that probably hate my ass for merely existing and wish I was buried eight feet deep in the middle of nowhere…great…”
Evidently, that last thing may have been the main reason why Zhen Liu couldn’t sleep…at least, that’s what he thought.
“Why the fuck would you tell us now and not in the fucking morning…,” Zhen Liu grumbled as he recalled the conversational moment that lead to him stressing out like this.
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Shortly after resolving the issue with the slave girl’s health, Zhen Liu and the rest of his cousins had decided to sit down in the kitchen and enjoy a rather late dinner of stew and bread, as provided by their generous bloodliner host. They would’ve gone into the dining hall, but the atmosphere of their grandfather and respective fathers bonding felt a bit too impenetrable for them to get through.
Of course, they made sure to move the girl into a private room so that she could recover in peace. Apparently the hotel had a staff break room that was under utilized due to Gao Ren being the only employee. He used to have several maids and even an assistant chef, but had to place them all on leave due to lack of funds.
But now that he had some business again, maybe it was a sign that he could bring them back…hopefully.
Either way, Gao Ren decided to take it upon himself to watch over the healing slave girl as the scions of the Zhen Clan ate their late night supper.
While this was happening though, one of the elders of the Zhen Clan had decided to walk into the kitchen.
“Oh! Hello young ones.”
“Hello Fourth Elder.”
“Hi father.”
“Have you guys seen our host? I wanted to see if he had any alcohol tucked away that we could drink this evening.”
“Uh…no,” Zhen Xing lied.
“Really? Dang.”
While the Zhen Clan scions were fairly certain their parents would be okay with them suddenly bringing in a badly beaten slave girl for the sake of healing, they were damn certain now wasn’t the time to do so.
Causing trouble the first night in one’s ancestral homeland was usually considered a very bad idea, especially when that trouble involved picking a fight with extended family members.
Zhen Xi looked around the kitchen for a bit, looking mildly miffed at not being able to find Gao Ren or possibly an unopened jug of wine to bring over to the main dining hall, before deciding to walk over to his niece, nephews and son for some conversational small talk.
Granted, this short conversation would be the reason why Zhen Liu was going to be stressing out later.
“So…you kids have fun checking at the festival?”
“Yeah, lots of tasty grub,” Zhen Feng answered, “reminds me of the festivals back home.”
“Yeah, except we have to use Hoof Speech if we want to talk in secret instead of Tide Tongue,” Zhen Hai added, “which is a bit of a trip, not going to lie.”
“Yup. A bit of a culture shock, right?,” Zhen Xi nodded in understanding.
The scions all nodded in agreement with this statement, but the culture shock they were thinking of didn’t involve language.
“Yeah…oh!,” Zhen Xi trailed off for a bit before suddenly exclaiming.
“By the way, I suggest y’all finish eating soon and get ready for bed as soon as possible.”
As soon as this statement was made, the scions all shot inquisitive looks at the Fourth Elder.
“Uh…why?”
“Because we just heard back from Zhen Wang. We’ll be meeting up with the main branch clan tomorrow morning.”
“Wait, what?!,” the scions all exclaimed in shock.
“Well, not bright and early in the morning, so we’ll have time to get some breakfast in beforehand,” Zhen Xi said as a means to sooth the scions’ temper, unaware that their exclamation of shock didn’t pertain to food.
“Anyways, I will leave you kids to your evening and head to bed myself. Don’t stay up too late now.”
“R-right…”
The scions watched Zhen Xi leave through the kitchen door before turning towards each other with strange looks on their faces.
They all simultaneously hoped that they wouldn’t run into a certain young lady relative of theirs that would definitely have a grudge against them or a surprisingly helpful guard captain relative that may or may not kill them in some form of retaliation…or at least, they hoped that neither of them remembered their faces…
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‘And the worst part about this is that I can’t scramble that girl’s or that guard captain’s memories without knocking their asses out and dragging them into the library or shooting them in the face with a kai-wait a minute…’
The moment Zhen Liu thought about tracking down those two distant relatives of his and blasting them with the Possesstol to try and mess with their memories, a sudden realization smacked him in the head like a ton of bricks.
‘Oh fuck…right.’
There has been a task he has been neglecting for almost this entire trip, and it was something that he probably should’ve done way, way earlier.
That task being, blasting his Second Uncle in the face with a “good ole fashioned” kaijin Possesstol power boost.
But better late than never, right?
‘Alright, I need a fucking planner or something at this point…or maybe make a kaijin in charge of planning and management?,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself as he got out of bed and summoned his Possesstol to make sure it was ready to go.
It may be a construct created by his mind, but he still couldn’t but look it over at least once.
‘Wait…no, is it fucked up just creating a lifeform who’s only purpose is book keeping?’
As Zhen Liu’s mind began to stir over the moral quandary of his abilities, again, the ones who were born because of his abilities began to stir as well.
[Mmmmilord? What’re still doing up for? I thought you wanted to sleep early because of the meeting tomorrow.]
[It…is…late…]
‘I do Nepherage, I do and I know, Frosttusk. I just remembered there is something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now and have been putting it off.’
[That you haven’t blasted your Second Uncle in the face yet despite having planned to for a while?,] Razorstella chimed in.
‘Yeah, that. Exactly that,’ Zhen Liu agreed.
[Why have you been putting that off? I mean, you got four of us ready to go whenever, so why the wait, maestro?,] Hurricroak asked.
Thankfully(?), Zhen Liu had an answer for her.
‘To be fair, as easy as it sounds to just randomly pick one of you guys to go inside my uncle’s head, I’ve been thinking more thoroughly about it as of late since y’all kind of leave a lasting impression wherever you go. As is the case for literally the other three uncles I had possessed by you guys.’
[That’s…fair,] Hurricroak conceded, [so…who you settle on finally going inside of Bear Uncle’s noggin?]
‘You guys are about to find out…right now. Lacerage, is now a bad time?’
[About fucking time I actually get called upon for something. As much fun as it is chop up aether beast corpses all day, I still like to actually fight on occasion. Who do you need me to slice into pieces?]
‘No no, nothing violent today…maybe. You’re going on possession duty.’
[Oh shit, no fooling? Alright, who’s the lucky pupil? That hot-headed cousin of yours? The other hot-headed one?]
‘No, but you will be helping a bear of a man that has been hibernating for far too long to get violent again.’
[Ah…alright, I’m still ready to go. Just open the gate whenever.]
‘Sweet.’
With all preparations made, Zhen Liu just had one more question to address.
‘Which room was Second Uncle in again?’
