Afterlife Department

"Y-Yi Bing!" Huo Ling cried when they hid behind the wall, using the wall to block the bullets raining down on them. His heart is beating very fast in fear. 

"Can you run?" Yi Bing asked as he took out a gun. 

Huo Ling's pupils shook. "Y-yes." He answered. 

"Good.. Run. Don't look back." Yi Bing said as he shot a black-clothed man who is about to climb on the tree. 

The man wasn't given the chance to react and his body fell on the ground. 

"B-but… y – you…" Huo Ling said. 

"I'll come find you. I'll get rid of them first." Yi Bing said as he shot the man that was running. 

"AAAAH!!!" the man screamed when he was shot in the leg and he fell face first to the ground. He is also unlucky since, when his body was falling, his body lost its balance and fell to the direction of the bullets. So, when his body hit the ground, it was riddled with bullets like the wall. 

But, the assassins didn't stop shooting them even though someone of them was killed by them. Their only goal is Huo Ling. And it was confirmed when their leader yelled. 

"Give us Howee Jackson and our boss will pay you!" he spoke in English after they temporarily stopped firing at Yi Bing and Huo Ling. 

Huo Ling's face paled. 'Howee Jackson' is the name he is using as a teacher. So, they still found him. he just hopes his young students weren't implicated by him. He already told Lu Si and Jonathan to protect them. 

Just a group of thugs negotiating with him? Yi Bing thought and rolled his eyes at them. "Speak. Cha. Nis! Can't. Anda. Stand. And. Speak. Eng. Rish!" he yelled back to the assassins using an awkward accent. 

Huo Ling. "…" I don't know what to say… does Yi Bing really not know how to speak in English? He can't understand it? He thought, but suddenly remembered Yi Bing is an MI6. A smile formed on his lips and he suddenly wanted to laugh. He would've laughed at Yi Bing's antic if they were not just being rained with bullets. 

The assassins showed an awkward expression and looked at each other. "Who can speak in Chinese?" they asked each other. They were a group of notorious criminals hired by a bigwig in Hong Kong, so they don't know how to speak in Chinese. 

"F*ck them! Why didn't they give us a translator when they send us to China?!" the leader said, feeling frustrated. "Buddy! Just give us that person with eyeglasses!" he yelled to Yi Bing. 

Huo Ling's body trembled and he scooted closer to Yi Bing. Yi Bing immediately wrapped an arm around Huo Ling before he responded to the assassins. "'grass'? There. Many. Grass. Here!" he said in a broken and awfully-sounding English. 

"'grass'? What grass?!" they asked each other. 

"Yes, grass!" Yi Bing said as his comically strange accent slowly disappeared and was replaced by a fluent accent. "The ones that will grow ten feet tall after you were buried ten feet below the ground." He told them. 

It took a while before the assassins react. They were surprised that Yi Bing can actually speak English! And fluently! "This f*cker! How dare he mess with us!" the leader uttered a string of curses before he rained bullets towards Yi Bing and Huo Ling. His people also realized and they followed their leader. 

Yi Bing saw the falling dust from the wall and knew that the wall won't hold it any longer. "Run!" he told Huo Ling and pushed the other. 

Huo Ling, whether it was the assuring voice of Yi Bing or something else, really did run with all his might while his eyes wildly looked around for a place to hide. "Ah!" he exclaimed when a bullet shot past beside his leg and hit the ground. As if there is an oil beneath his feet, his speed increased and his eyes sharpened. 

Yi Bing knows Huo Ling won't improve if wasn't pushed to his limit. So, he let him run alone to give him more sense of danger. "Fellas. Where did you come from?" he asked them as he exchanged bullets with them. 

"Are you an MI6?" the leader of the assassins asked when he saw that each second, one of his people fell (died). He realized that their opponent – just one man, has a remarkable marksmanship. Within a minute, then of them have died. 

"Not really." Yi Bing answered. 

"Then, who are you?" the leader asked. "If you are not an MI6, how can you be so good? Being a bodyguard isn't your worth!" he told Yi Bing. 

Is this guy poaching me? Yi Bing thought. If he has the Life Note, he would have peered into this leader's life and see if he is worthy to be friends with in the afterlife. "Thank you for the praise. But, I want to be a bodyguard of someone named 'Huo Ling' and am enjoying it." He said before he shot another one and then ran to find Huo Ling. Then, he sent a message to Lu Si. 

He has to suppress his skills to not change the balance of this world too much. He also has to hide himself, since he is an outsider of this world. 

Meanwhile, the leader of the assassins was shocked and was taken aback. When he finally reacted, he felt furious. "He ran away! Go after him! He's just one person!" he told his people. 

"Yes, boss!" they answered and climbed the wall of the cemetery. 

Unfortunately, Yi Bing isn't even a person. He is a grim reaper. Thus, they ate dust when they entered the cemetery. They can't find even the shadow of Yi Bing, much less of Huo Ling who has ran away since long ago. "Boss, we lost them." The subordinates reported. 

"F*ck!" the leader cursed. "Find them! Continue finding them! Where could they hide?! And they are just two people!" he said. "Don't return if you haven't found them!" the added. 

Unfortunately, they would definitely not return since they are bound to eat a loss. And, furthermore, they are chasing only one person, because the other one is a grim reaper, which they do not know. So, they won't find Yi Bing and Huo Ling, unless Yi Bing deliberately would permit it – like what he did today. 

Yi Bing already noticed that Huo Ling, recently, has finally relaxed and forgotten the assassins chasing him. So, he really planned to let Huo Ling out of the house today to give him a reminder of his currently perilous situation, and make him feel a sense of danger. Huo Ling can't rely on him forever, and he also can't let Huo Ling rely on him always. 

Also, there's Huo Ling's upcoming death. Remembering this, Yi Bing's gaze lowered and his good mood earlier was dampened. Even if when the assassins appeared and rained them with their bullets, Yi Bing's mood was still good. But, after he remembered that Huo Ling will still die in his twenty-third birthday, he can't feel happy. It's not only because Huo Ling will die, but also… he has to convince Huo Ling to become a grim reaper like him, so he can be with Huo Ling forever. 

Although Huo Ling as a soul can make him still be with Huo Ling's side, but it's not enough for Yi Bing, for he wanted Huo Ling to be ALWAYS by his side. If he could, he wanted to tie Huo Ling to his waist so that both of them couldn't be separated by life again. 

Yi Bing, as a rational grim reaper, naturally has already noticed that he's slowly becoming irrational towards Huo Ling. He became interested with Huo Ling. Then, what triggered his attraction towards Huo Ling is the discovery that he and Huo Ling were entangled in their past lives. The life before Huo Ling's reincarnation cycle began, and the life before Yi Bing became a grim reaper. 

What happened to them before all this? What were they like? What was their life like? 

Yi Bing stopped on his feet and held his head when he felt it ached. "Huo Ling…" he muttered under his breath. He felt like this name, as time pass by, became more and more familiar… and more important to him. 

"Yi Bing!" he heard Huo Ling called. 

Yi Bing snapped back to his senses and raised his head. He saw Huo Ling was hiding in the crevice of a statue. "Come down." He spoke as he walked towards beneath of the statue. 

Huo Ling nodded, his face and lips pale from fright. Without any question, he unhesitatingly jumped down. His gaze on Yi Bing's face. He doesn't care about anything else in this world. All he wanted is to fall into Yi Bing's embrace. Because he felt an illogical trust, and dependence, towards Yi Bing. That anything Yi Bing says or does, it was all for him – his safety. 

Thus, he let himself fall… since he knows Yi Bing will definitely catch him.