I finally managed to finish the Hunter in my garage and was getting ready to leave for Province Y. if I wasn't mistaken, Bu Fan's company should be able to produce the remaining Hunters by the next three days. Once that was done, we would train the soldiers in their use before sending them to Province Y. Before we began shipping the first of the completed Hunters over to base camp, they were training in simulations – I had built a simulated cockpit for them and the military programmers had taken care of creating a lifelike virtual reality for them to conduct mock combat trainings.
However, I – and the top brass of military agreed with me – wanted the soldiers to try piloting the actual Hunters first, to get them acclimatized to the real thing as well as spot any potential problems or design flaws before they took to the field. There was always something I missed out, I was sure, and thus I refused to send the men who would be piloting them out to the field without actually ensuring that everything was running as smoothly as possible.
As for my own company, everything was going fine. For the last few weeks now, I had been going to the shipyard to oversee the construction of ship-building equipment. We also began working on refitting old ships, removing their current reactors and replacing them with plasma reactors. That would be faster and easier than building a new ship from scratch.
That didn't mean I was going to give up on building my very own shield boat, but the navy wanted some of them within an impossible timeframe, and the only way to meet that demand was to refit ships that had been placed out of commission and retired from the service.
With my Hunter done, I decided to take a break and spend my free time resting. Not just that, but also because I realized I wouldn't have enough time to start another project before I left for Province Y next week. Bu Business was working on the last three Hunter war walkers, but the rest of the armored robots had already been sent to the army camp, and the soldiers of the mechanized armored platoon were taking turns to pilot the actual thing. As I said earlier, they were running virtual reality simulations beforehand, but when we began shipping the first of the models over, the soldiers had the chance to try them out.
Occasionally, when I wasn't in the shipyard, I would hurry over to the army base camp to supervise their training. For now, there were no problems. The technicians and combat engineers in the battalion were pleasantly surprised at how the war walkers operated.
"Of course they would in a controlled and safe environment," I agreed. "But we don't know what's going to happen under extreme conditions…in an actual battlefield. Will the Hunters still hold up then?"
"I guess we'll find out," one of the combat engineers responded. And that was that.
Fortunately, I had some free time after work, for it during one of these days when William Wang showed up with a Daoist priest in yellow robes, a yin-yang symbol on his back and that traditional hat. He held a peach wood sword in one hand, and an eight trigrams mirror in the other.
"This is Lam Ching Ying," William introduced him to me. "He's a Daoist priest, a very experienced one who had performed countless exorcisms. He's actually from HK City, so he traveled quite some distance to get here."
He then turned to Lam Ching Ying. "Ninth Uncle, this is Trevor Shen, my friend. Um, he's also my boss."
"I've heard of you." Lam Ching Ying nodded sagely. He was an imposing man, with graying hair despite only being in his forties or so. He also had quite the stylish mustache, and reminded me of a HK actor who played notable roles in the 1980s and 1990s. Man, those classic films…the golden age of HK Cinema.
"Nice to meet you." I bowed politely. Unlike Lam Ching Ying, I hadn't actually heard of him. Well, I did hear of the twentieth century HK actor who he was named after, but I hadn't actually heard much of Daoist priests. I was surprised that they still existed in this day and age. With robots, plasma technology, exosuits and all that…and here we were, with a Daoist priest in classic robes.
This was just…amazing.
"Thank you for coming all the way here. It must have been a difficult journey."
"No, not at all. So…I heard you need me to exorcize a wicked spirit?" Lam Ching Ying raised his thick, bushy eyebrows, which were silver in color.
"Yeah," I admitted. "I have a friend who is possessed by a spirit. I don't know what happened, but she almost drowned. When I resuscitated her, there was another person residing inside her body. I suspect it's a ghost, though the new person in question claimed that she reincarnated into my friend's body because she died."
"Reincarnation?" Lam Ching Ying snorted. "That's not reincarnation, that's possession."
"Is there a way to drive her spirit out of my friend's body? And if there is and you succeed, what will happen to my friend?"
"She should return to normal," Lam Ching Ying replied with an assuring smile. "Now where is she?"
"Wait, I'll call her to come over." taking my smartphone out, I called Lily. When she picked up, sounding grumpy (because of the argument we had the last time), I got straight to the point. "There's someone I wish to introduce to you. He's a veteran HK actor, having played several roles in a few movies in the past. He actually specializes in martial arts movies."
"What?" Lam Ching Ying snarled, but William quickly silenced him by placing a hand over his mouth and dragging him back.
"Ninth Uncle, just let him lure Ms. Lily here," William whispered. "Otherwise the spirit won't come!"
"Ugh, whatever!" Lam Ching Ying scowled, but he obeyed for now. On the other end of the phone, Lily sounded pleasantly surprised.
"A HK actor? Really? Who?"
"You'll find out when you come here," I replied. "But he has acted in movies like The Prodigal Son and the Mr. Vampire franchise. Oh, and The Swordsman too."
"That sounds amazing!" I could tell that Lily hadn't really heard of any of these movies before, but she sounded impressed. "You're helping me establish connections? Thank you!"
Don't thank me yet, I thought silently, but outwardly I simply said, "Yeah. So come over now. William has managed to bring him over to my house and I thought this would be a great chance to let you two meet."
"On my way!"
And thus Lily hung up and hurried over. While we waited for her to show up, I served Lam Ching Ying some drinks.
"Coffee, Ninth Uncle?"
"No thank you." Lam Ching Ying shook his head. "I hate coffee. Too bitter."
"Uh, okay. Tea?"
"Certainly."
I did have tea, so I boiled some water, put the leaves in, allowed it to brew for a while and then poured the tea into small cups. Handing one to Lam Ching Ying and the other to William, I sat in my chair and sipped some of the tea.
While lounging about, I briefed Lam Ching Ying on the incident with Lily Ling and Lily Bai, including the final conversation we had where she went nuts just because I left, demanding that I help her. William shook his head when he heard that.
"Who the hell does she think she is? You're not obligated to help her. And she just wants to find a shortcut through the entertainment industry without working hard and climbing the ranks!"
"To be fair, if you want to become a famous star, you'll have to participate in such politics." I made a face. "I don't want to get involved in these backstabbing, corruption and politics, making use of my connections to get one over other people. That's just…ugh, dishonest."
"Agreed."
"I don't understand why people bother with all this acting," Lam Ching Ying remarked, leaning back in his chair. An irony, given his namesake. "It sounds so troublesome."
The doorbell finally rang, and I hastened to answer it. Lily was waiting outside, looking excited. I had barely opened the door when she rushed in, looking around enthusiastically.
"Where? Where is he? The veteran HK actor, I mean!"
"Are you talking about me?" Lam Ching Ying asked reluctantly from where he was seated. Lily brightened up when she saw him.
"My goodness! You're so dedicated to your role that you decided to remain in costume even after leaving the set!" she approached him, her attitude bubbly, and studied his yellow Daoist robes and hat. "Wow! This costume looks really authentic! The props too!"
She was staring at the peach wood sword, eight trigrams mirror and other mystical tools that Lam Ching Ying had brought with him. He responded with a smile.
"Not at all."
"You want tea?" I asked, out of being polite. Lily shook her head and frowned.
"I don't like tea. I would rather have coffee." She then went straight for my kitchen. "You store some coffee powder in the cabinet, right? And milk in the fridge?"
"Yeah…" I didn't like how she was making herself feel at home in my house. When she was out of sight and earshot, Lam Ching Qing quickly gestured for me and William to come over. He lowered his voice, glancing cautiously in the direction where Lily had disappeared to.
"This is bad. Very bad."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Your girlfriend, she's been possessed by a very powerful ghost. A very malevolent spirit…a vengeful spirit. I suspect that the ghost inside her died a violent death…"
"Didn't I already tell you earlier? She claimed that she was murdered by a fellow actress and so she wants to seek revenge."
"I know. I'm just thinking that she might be deceiving you, but the account she gave you at least has some element of truth in it. Most likely that is indeed what happened, for this ghost to possess this much resentment."
"What do we do?" William asked, his voice hushed.
"No choice." Lam Ching Ying was already opening his tools and going to work. He used blood, mixed it with ink quickly, and then dabbed it over a piece of yellow paper. Drawing arcane symbols, he produced a charm before holding it up. "We have to exorcize her and then destroy the vengeful ghost before it can do any harm to the living."