I Might As Well Quit This Lousy Wizard Profession

Chapter 149 - 149 141 Zou Wu Zou Yu

?Chapter 149: 141 Zou Wu? Zou Yu! Chapter 149: 141 Zou Wu? Zou Yu! Lin An didn’t hurry to leave the company.

After planning, he took action—being resolute did not mean being rash.

He told himself to stay calm. Now that he had handed over the first draft of the ‘Gray-Blue Hair Portrait’ to his subordinates, he had nothing else to do for the time being.

Sitting silently in his office chair, he frowned slightly as he gazed towards the center of the office.

Normally, that was where Mr. Liu’s Spiritual Grey Wolf would appear.

It hadn’t shown up for the past few days.

Lin An had some suspicions. Zhuang had told him that only he and Lu Tingyu knew about the ‘Heart-to-Heart Skewers Fragrance Witchcraft,’ and if he hadn’t told anyone, it was even more unlikely that Lu Tingyu had divulged it to outsiders.

But Lin An knew that Lu Tingyu had told Mr. Liu.

It was through Mr. Liu that he had learned of this witchcraft.

As to why Chen Xinmi also knew about it, Lin An couldn’t help recalling telling her that Mr. Liu had betrayed her sisters and led an attack on the yoga studio.

Did Chen Xinmi confront Mr. Liu, learn this witchcraft from him, and then track down the Witch Hunter Knights’ headquarters?

After organizing his thoughts, Lin An’s eyes suddenly brightened.

If Chen Xinmi knew…

He could go ask the black cat, about both the Heart-to-Heart Skewers Fragrance Witchcraft and Mr. Liu’s situation.

At the same time, he could make a comparison—Mr. Liu was Chen Xinmi’s uncle, simultaneously infiltrated the Witch Hunter Knights and Male Witch Organization as a spy for the Witch Organization, and had his own agenda…

Mr. Liu and he were too much alike.

He wanted to know what Mr. Liu was about to face so that he could understand what he himself might encounter in the future.

The young boss was right; in the Supernatural World, might was what counted, not organizations or allegiances. What one should observe was the actions and attitudes of the powerful individuals themselves.

In this respect, the young boss had insights far beyond most in the Supernatural World.

Lin An, always one to take good advice, had set his sights on Chen Xinmi, a powerful witch, early on.

He needed to be patient enough to watch everything that would unfold, to find a way out for himself.

“Hey~”
Thinking of these pressures, Lin An laughed lightly and relaxedly.

Licking his lips, he found an inexplicable thrill in moving between the two major powers, between life and death.

It made him feel more alive than ever, his inner being brimming with vitality.

This mindset…

Was a bit dangerous.

Lin An reflected for a second, chuckled, shook his head, and turned his attention back to the screen in front of him.

After some thought, he decided to open a web page and search for information about the Classic of Mountains and Seas.

The transformation witchcraft that Chen Shuyun had used on him was said to belong to the category of ‘Legendary Sorcery,’ meaning it was based on deeply ingrained legends to assume those forms, leveraging the power of the Spirit Realm, which might be a collective consciousness.

If that was the case, it should be easy to find information on the snow leopard-like creature he had turned into.

In fact, it really was easy. Simply by entering the keywords ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas snow leopard,’ an animal called ‘Zou Wu’ popped up on the page.

“???”

Lin An was momentarily stunned because the images that appeared on the search results page looked nothing like the snow leopard he had transformed into.

The head was indeed that of a ‘Nian beast,’ but the body was that of a yellow-brown tiger, and the tail was not as long as the body, but a long pink section that looked like many layers of fins stacked on top of each other, with eagle claws to boot.

After more research, he had his epiphany.

“Foreign movies?”

He shook his head and continued his research, only to find that not only was the image incorrect, but even the name was wrong.

‘Wu’ should be pronounced ‘Yu,’ so although the animal is written as ‘Zou Wu,’ its proper pronunciation should be ‘Zou Yu.’ Many versions of the Classic of Mountains and Seas refer to it directly as Zou Yu.

The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Volume 12 Inner North: “In the country of Lin, there is a precious beast as big as a tiger with all five colors present. Its tail is longer than its body, called Zou Yu. Riding it, one can travel a thousand miles in a day.”

Huai Nan Zi: “The white tiger with black patterns is kind. It eats only animals that die naturally, traveling a thousand miles in a day.”

…

After reviewing numerous sources, Lin An finally confirmed that this was the creature he had transformed into.

Striped in black and white, yet with all five colors present.

As big as a tiger, but with a white base and black stripes.

Modern enthusiasts have analyzed and posited that the Zou Yu from the Classic of Mountains and Seas might be a snow leopard.

The snow leopard is a unique species of leopard with a very thick and robust tail as long as its body.

This creature likes to travel along fixed routes on rocky cliffs and streams hunting for food, similar to the way it’s described in the tale as not liking to tread on flowers, grass, or trees.

It prefers to rest by day and roam by night, burying food in the snow, a natural refrigerator, and then taking it out to eat when food is scarce, similar to the Classic of Mountains and Seas describing it as ‘naturally kind, eating only dead animals.’
Whether or not these connections were far-fetched, Lin An was unsure.

But he keenly sensed the characteristics of the creatures from the Classic of Mountains and Seas—the kind beast.

This was extremely important for his painting of spiritual portraits.

“Traversing a thousand miles in a single day…” Lin An looked closely at the content described on the webpage, and then thought of his own teleportation ability that appeared after his transformation, clicking his tongue in amazement.

That’s right, he had not become Zou Yu, but had transformed into a spell crafted by a wizard based on the mythological tales of Zou Yu.

He diligently researched all the information available, even going as far as to watch several documentaries on snow leopards to confirm every observational detail about the Zou Yu transformation, becoming more and more confident.

Lin An closed the webpage, logged off the networked computer, and meticulously cleaned up every trace of his search. Only then did he lean back in his office chair, focusing his spirit as he contemplated every detail of the portrait he was about to paint.

For some reason, a chilling thought suddenly occurred to him.

If “legendary sorcery” used legendary images to pry into the subconscious of every creature in the spirit world, then Zou Wu, as depicted in that foreign movie with the incorrect pronunciation and image, was simply creating a mess.

Was it intentional, or an accident?

But after all, these were not concerns for a novice wizard like him, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t manage them.

The thought passed through his mind in a flash.

When noon came, and he got off work, he hitched a ride with the young boss to the slaughterhouse and even mooched a lunch with demonic Qi from the Witch Hunter Knights, rich with Stone Treasure. The afternoon was spent busily dismembering Sorcerer Zombies.

In the evening, Lin An took Master Fan’s Green Tea and a footbath to the ‘Mad Warlock’s Hollow’ Organization.

This was the only place Lin An could think of where it was safe to cast spells.

The Red Light Purgatory World still covered the entire city, with all the wizards in hiding, daring not to use even the least detectable innate witchcraft.

Yet, sometimes the male witches in the Tree Hole Organization would erupt in conflict due to overly repressed emotions, casting one witchcraft spell after another.

The Witch Hunter Knights active in the Purgatory World couldn’t find this place.

No one knew where the Tree Hole was, and it remained the best haven for the male witches of Shenhou City.

The Tree Hole Mall provided almost everything one needed for life.

With the cash he had prepared in advance, Lin An opened a room in the ‘hotel’ on the top floor of the mall.

After preparing the ink and carefully checking several spare brushes, Lin An cradled the ugly head he had brought specially and soon shifted his gaze towards a unique dimension.

The gap between the real world and the Spirit Realm.

There, he could distinctly see his own dull grey and gloomy self, which seemed to have grown larger again.

His body was covered with dark gold lines.

The lines on a pair of ears were particularly numerous, which seemed to be due to him absorbing Mr. Liu’s Spiritual Grey Wolf ears.

Of course, there were also pure dark gold areas: a pair of eyes from the Ugly Head and a pair of hands that he cultivated by himself.

His right hand held a paintbrush, and his left raised a picture frame, within which was a person by a bridge in a distorted scene.

These represented two witchcraft spells, ‘Spirit Drawing’ and ‘Oil Painting Vortex Vision’.

Three things floated around this body: a ‘Spiritual Platform,’ a ‘Portrait Shadow Wall,’ and a ‘Spiritual Plate.’
“What should I do?”

The Lin An in the real world asked in confusion.

The head in his hands just shook, “I don’t know, and if you don’t, I certainly don’t.”

He could only trust his intuition; this intuition was also an extension of the prophecy ability of the head.

He slowly approached his dull grey and gloomy self, feeling that this body was cultivating a dark gold statue, took a deep breath, turned around, and mimicked the body’s action of raising his hands and stepped back slowly.

Snap~
He felt his entire being shake, and instantly there was a strange sense of fusion.

Opening his eyes again, he could now control this body.

First, he needed to call upon the help of spirit.

With this thought, he naturally opened his mouth, and a multitude of dull grey tendrils stretched forth, sweeping toward the ‘Spiritual Plate’ floating nearby.

He did not move to absorb the meager remnants of spirit from Chen Xinmi, Chen Shuyun, Zhou Xiaoxiao, Zheng Miao…

The spirits of the ‘Rabbit Mask Male Witch’ and Da Susu were already exhausted from observing every detail of the Zou Yu monster.

The grey tendrils found no ‘food’ on the ‘Spiritual Plate,’ and so swept toward the adjacent ‘Spiritual Platform.’
There were only two ‘Spiritual Platforms’: one with a black cat, the other with an Ugly Head wearing a white wizard’s robe.

The tendrils quickly swept over, burrowing into the hood of the white wizard’s robe and coiling around the Ugly Head within.

Next, he needed to paint the spiritual portrait.

Moving in thought, the small picture frame in his hand suddenly floated up, appeared in mid-air, and expanded to the size of an entire wall.

Lin An gently flicked with his hand, and the image of ‘Distorted Wails by the Bridge’ in the picture frame suddenly disappeared, appearing on the ‘Portrait Shadow Wall’ that surrounded him.

And the ‘Green-Skinned Portrait’ originally on the ‘Portrait Shadow Wall’ now appeared in the frame before him.

Lin An had replayed the image he wanted to paint countless times in his mind; now, there was no hesitation as the dark gold right hand gently rose, and the tip of the brush in it suddenly dripped with ink.

In the real world, on the table in front of Lin An, the bottle of ink quietly diminished by a significant amount.

Lin An had no time to pay attention to this.

His eyes glazed, as if he were in an intriguing state, he lightly began to trace lines on the ‘Green-Skinned Portrait,’ his canvass.