Roadmap to the Boundless Sky-Chapter 138: Butterfly

When Chen Chuan reached the company, he saw a man in his thirties, dressed in the uniform of the General Affairs Department. The moment he saw Chen Chuan, his eyes lit up, and he went forward to shake his hand.

“You must be Mr. Chen. I’m Wang Ban from Jia County’s General Affairs Department. You can just call me Secretary Wang or Xiao Wang.” He was really friendly and didn’t put on the airs typical of a government official. Instead, he was trying to flatter him.

Chen Chuan shook his hand and said, “Hello, Secretary Wang.”

After exchanging greetings, they sat down, and Wang Ban sighed. “This supernatural being has been making us all uneasy and scared, so we had no other choice but to come to Yangzhi City for help. A colleague of mine in the Department of Administrative Affairs here recommended your company to me. By the way, I heard that you’re the one who took down the source of the Flying Heads. You’re amazing!”

“Thank you. I heard the gist of your problem while coming here. Could you give me the details?” Chen Chuan said.

Troubled, Wang Ban said, “So, this is what happened...”

As he described the events, Chen Chuan, Ren Shu, and the rest of the company got a clear picture of the event.

Due to the local customs in Jia County, youngsters loved getting tattoos. Recently, some people noticed that they had gained a butterfly-shaped tattoo out of the blue on their bodies, and they couldn’t get rid of it no matter what.

The tattoo was really pretty. It had brilliant colors and looked almost alive. Whenever the person moved, the tattoo seemed to be flapping its wings. So, those who had the tattoo began showing it off to others, yet when they were asked about how they got it, no one could give a clear answer.

Soon, the youngsters realized that something was wrong. More tattoos appeared almost daily, and in no time, they were covered head-to-toe in butterfly tattoos.

The real horror started when the tattoos got packed so tightly that some of them overlapped with each other. When there was no longer any space left on a person’s body, the tattoos gained life and became real butterflies. They flew off the person’s body. It wasn’t just limited to the skin, though. Butterflies even flew off of their organs.

It was after the first case that they learned that the tattoos even covered their internal organs. Once they came alive, the person would become a pile of shredded flesh and bones.

At this point, terror flashed in Wang Ban’s eyes. He had seen the first corpse and emptied his guts on the spot. When he went back home, he was plagued by nightmares. The first thing he did the morning after he saw the first corpse was to check his entire body for any butterfly tattoos.

Then, in just ten short days, Jia County’s Department of Administrative Affairs received reports of more than ten such deaths. Who knew just how many had gone unreported in the meantime?

Perhaps they wouldn’t have cared if only the commoners were affected by this, but the government officials were worried about themselves, their relatives, and their friends getting infected, so they gave orders to capture all those with the butterfly tattoos. Yet that did not solve the root of the problem. Cases of new people getting butterfly tattoos just kept popping up.

What was even more troubling was that some people had to have been dropped on their heads when they were babies, because after they heard about the deaths, they got themselves fake butterfly tattoos, thus largely increasing the difficulty of solving the problem. This led to Jia County’s Department of Administrative Affairs deciding to look for a supernatural-extermination expert to take care of this matter.

After hearing about this, Chen Chuan’s expression grew more serious. He pondered over this and said, “I understand the situation now. I need to do some research first. I’ll give you a reply in the afternoon.”

“Alright. I’ll leave it to you. I’ll be waiting for your reply here,” Wang Ban said.

Once Chen Chuan went back to his room, he flipped through the stack of documents Cheng Zitong had given him about supernatural beings. Over the past few days, he had been reading whenever he had spare time to broaden his horizons and increase his knowledge, but since there were just too many different creatures, he had not finished reading through all the documents.

He checked the table of contents and came to the conclusion that there was no record about the butterfly tattoo among the supernatural beings. This meant that Cheng Zitong had never met nor heard about this supernatural being before.

Chen Chuan could choose not to take this mission, since he wasn’t sure that he could do it, but after some careful consideration, he decided to try it.

Now that he had seen more supernatural beings and read up on loads of cases, he could be considered to have some experience.

Most of the supernatural beings he met and read about stayed in one small place. They might cause mayhem there, but they usually didn’t cause enough turmoil to disrupt an entire society or unsettle the people, unless, of course, they were like the Flying Heads, which created cults that actively promoted the spread of their influence.

Supernatural beings that could do that usually had one source. If it was destroyed, the problem would go away.

There were compiled notes and conclusions about the supernatural beings others had taken out, allowing him to refer to their experiences, so until now all he had to do was act as he was told. He had never encountered a supernatural being no one had seen before.

But as the number of supernatural-related missions he dealt with increased, he knew that he would eventually run into such creatures, so he didn’t intend to avoid them. Instead, he was going to try and get rid of them.

While that was his intent, he remained cautious and called Cheng Zitong to ask for advice regarding this. He also told his mentor about his analysis.

After Cheng Zitong heard it, he said, “That’s the right train of thought, but only on the premise that the information your client gave you is accurate. Sometimes, the thing that’ll affect your judgment isn’t the supernatural being itself, but people.”

“I understand what you mean, Mr. Cheng. You’re saying that supernatural beings affect people, so the first thing to do is to address those caught in the situation. Such things are usually more complicated than the supernatural being itself, right?” Chen Chuan said.

“Exactly. That’s why you have to be mentally prepared for it. You won’t just be taking out the supernatural being itself. You must be especially careful when you’re outside Yangzhi City,” Cheng Zitong cautioned.

“Got it,” Chen Chuan promised.

“Good. If you need my help with anything at all, just call me,” Cheng Zitong said.

Chen Chuan ended the call and gave the situation a proper consideration before calling the company, saying that he was taking up the mission, and that he needed to immediately go to Jia County to investigate the place.

Ren Shu went to Wang Ban to tell him about it. When the man heard that Chen Chuan was willing to set off immediately, he was delighted and declared that he was going to pick him up right away. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Half an hour later, Chen Chuan got into Wang Ban’s car and headed to Jia County. In order to make things easier, both of them sat in the back seat. Since Chen Chuan was heading to another county, Ren Shu had a car with no passengers follow them so that Chen Chuan could come back without problems.

Jia County was located at the northernmost point of the southwestern area and was the smallest county surrounded by mountains on three sides. It was originally quite difficult to travel to and from the place, but since one of White Riverbank’s branches curved toward the county and was positioned directly at the entrance, maritime transport was easy, so it was not exactly closed off from the world.

After they left Yangzhi City, they drove for a little more than two hours before they started going up a winding mountain road. Around ten minutes later, they entered a canyon, and it turned abruptly dark because the cliff faces blocked the sun.

Wang Ban introduced the place to Chen Chuan. It was called the Hollow Screen Canyon. In the days of old, it was infamous for being dangerous. During the Great Expansion, the military widened the canyon. After all, if they did not travel via the river, they had to take this path to enter the county.

Chen Chuan looked up and saw outposts and cliffside paths made during the Great Expansion.

Just then, multiple motorbikes zipped past their car. One of them even swerved around in front of their car before racing down the path.

Feeling awkward, Wang Ban said, “Those are some rich kids that love racing down this path. They’re from various counties, not just Jia County.”

After about two and a half kilometers, they left the canyon, and it grew brighter once again, making Chen Chuan feel as if he had returned to the surface of the earth.

Gradually, he saw shops and residential buildings around him, along with tons of people walking down the street. Perhaps the fact that the county itself was not big made it seem like the place was densely populated.

“I’ll get a place for you to stay. It’s going to be pretty simple, but I hope you won’t scoff at it,” Wang Ban said.

Chen Chuan held up the map in his hands and said, “We can set that aside for now. I was looking at the map just now. The first sightings of the butterfly tattoo were at Cang Street, Lake Street, and this place...”

He circled a few places on the map with a pen, then drew a large circle around all of them before handing it to Wang Ban. “Secretary Wang, could you bring some men with us while we travel along this path?”

Wang Ban took the map and observed it. His expression turned a little more stern, and he said, “I’ll make a call.”

Once the car came to a stop, he went to a phone booth to call the Security Bureau. After around fifteen minutes, two cars from the Security Bureau came over, and Wang Ban got into the car again. “They’re here. Should we go now, Mr. Chen?”

Chen Chuan nodded and instructed, “Not too fast.”

“Alright.”

The driver only took about ten minutes to reach the street at the perimeter of the circle on the map. Chen Chuan saw lanterns and streamers hanging on both sides of the street. There were also lanterns hanging high up in the shops. The pedestrians, too, had red marks on their cheeks. He asked, “Are they celebrating something?”

“Yes. It’s going to be the Craftsman God Festival in two days. It’s tradition to make woven and knotted textiles and put on celebratory colors on your face. Our county’s Department of Administrative Affairs is worried about things going wrong during the festival and wants this problem solved as soon as possible.”

Chen Chuan turned to his second self. Since he always blurred out near supernatural beings, Chen Chuan intended to use the simplest method possible to locate it—go around the places where more butterfly tattoos had appeared. It would be easy to notice anyone who got infected by this supernatural being.

Then, he would trace the person’s tracks over the past few days. If everything went smoothly, he would be able to find the source.

The area he drew on the map was not big, and they finished going round the place after a little more than an hour, but they found nothing. Chen Chuan said, “Let’s cover a smaller area.”

Wang Ban didn’t know what Chen Chuan’s goal was, but since Chen Chuan was an expert in supernatural extermination, he had to have his reasons. So, he asked the driver to continue driving according to Chen Chuan’s requests.

They continued patrolling over increasingly smaller areas. While the driver never said anything, the people from the Security Bureau behind them grew impatient and came over to complain. Wang Ban quickly appeased them and gave Chen Chuan a troubled look.

Chen Chuan then asked, “Do you have a night market here, Secretary Wang?”

“We do, and it’s especially lively close to the Craftsman God Festival. Some of the youngsters love coming out at night during this time, so the night market has been bustling over the past few days,” Wang Ban answered.

“Tell the men that we’re going to continue searching at night if we can’t find clues now, but we won’t bother them later on, so please bear with it for now,” Chen Chuan said.

“Alright.”

After Wang Ban passed the message, the people from the Security Bureau stopped complaining. When they thought about the colleagues who would have to work at night, they thought that they had gotten the better end of the deal.

Just then, they arrived at the innermost street of the marked area. After they passed it, they would have finished going through all the places marked on the map.

Chen Chuan suddenly saw his second self blurring out, though the effects soon disappeared.

He turned to look at the roadside and saw a bald man with a rather dull look, but firm muscles walking past them. A flicker of emotion flashed in Chen Chuan’s eyes, and he said, “Wait. Stop. Stop that person.”