Chapter 217: Almost Missing Out |
Shortly after nightfall, in the outer parts of the suburbs.
A huge, dilapidated mansion rested within an overgrown garden, and in the huge mansion, only the study on the top floor was still lit.
Jiangli sat in front of the old-fashioned desk, carefully flipping through the files piled up on the desk. She picked up a pen from time to time, recording several notes in a notebook.
–
URBAN LEGEND 1624
CODENAME: –
THREAT LEVEL: C-
FIRST APPEARANCE: JULY 5TH
CASE OVERVIEW: URBAN LEGEND 1624 IS CURRENTLY UNCONTAINED. WORKERS FROM QINGSHIKOU TUNNELS HAVE REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF MYSTERIOUS FIGURES LURKING WITHIN THE TUNNELS.
Glancing through the file, she picked up the pen and wrote a line of characters in her notebook.
[Urban Legend 1624 is most likely an evil spirit—ominous energies, high-risk factor. Not suitable for newcomers.]
Putting down File 1624, she randomly picked up another file and opened it.
–
URBAN LEGEND 0784
CODENAME: The Moving House of Blood
THREAT LEVEL: B
FIRST APPEARANCE: JANUARY 1ST, 1999
CASE OVERVIEW: URBAN LEGEND 0784 IS A BUILDING THAT MANIFESTS IN CITIES. THE BUILDING HAS REPORTEDLY COME ALIVE TO ASK FOR HELP FROM PEDESTRIANS, CAUSING…
Jiangli put the file away again, writing in her notebook.
[0784, unresolved case, not suitable for newcomers.]
–
URBAN LEGEND 1105
CODENAME: COIN BOX
THREAT LEVEL: B-
–
She closed the file again.
–
URBAN LEGEND 0994
CODENAME: STRANGE MUMMIES IN VILLA
THREAT LEVEL: C+
After looking through seven or eight more files, Jiangli stopped and leaned on her chair, rubbing her swollen temples. Just as she was about to continue, the door to the study suddenly opened, and her maid, Hua, held a tray of tea and snacks.
Seeing the mountain of files on her desk and her mistress’ tired face, she pouted.
“Mistress, it’s been seven or eight hours. All this for that boy—do you need to be so concerned about him?”
Jiangli glanced at her and shook her head: “Hua, you don’t understand—since he has become my subordinate, it is my duty to ensure his safety. Do you know how high the mortality rate is for new Operators on their first expedition?”
Yibei’s situation is different from Du Sixian’s; Sixian’s runes held no special properties, so there will be a long period of learning.
Now that Yibei’s runes have been obtained, according to the internal records of the Night Division, he will be able to acquire special abilities, considering that his runes are sourced from a fiery being. It is almost certain that his abilities will be related to fire.
Of course, there are a small number of people who have more than one type of ability.
Therefore, according to customs, after he finishes adapting to the runes in his body, he will only have a week to adapt before he devotes himself to the work of the Night Division.
This is the Night Division’s best plan: to fight against urban legends, eliminate the fears of urban legends in the hearts of citizens, and master their own abilities.
However, kicking them out into the wild has its drawbacks.
A small part of this risk comes from their inherent fear of facing urban legends for the first time and more so from their superior’s error in terms of choosing a suitable case for them to deal with.
Chasing after urban legends is a cruel thing.
In fact, many new psychics die or become incapacitated within their first three missions due to their superiors failing to select a suitable case for them.
Jiangli knew how cowardly Yibei was—if his life was in danger, he would definitely give up and start running away.
But what if running away wasn’t an option? If he could run and escape with his life, then good, but what if the opponent was too strong? She didn’t want him to encounter too many dangers in the early stages of his career because of her negligence.
“Hua, you’re dismissed for the day. Go and rest, alright?”
“Mistress…”
“Go.”
“I understand, mistress.”
Hua placed the tray of tea and snacks down by her study and left, and Jiangli buried her head into the files once again.
2:55 am.
In a small park near the University, a figure walked quickly and briskly from the darkness and stood where the streetlight shone the brightest.
Yibei and Bai Kai made an appointment to meet here at three in the morning and then head over to the ghost market together.
However, because his house was too noisy, he went out early and came here to wait.
Jumeng’s favourite game had just been updated, and her addiction to her computer became more and more serious. She’s glued to it for more than 20 hours a day, and of course, she somehow found a way to funnel in-game currency into her account.
Looking at her, Yibei felt that the records about fallen gods in the Night Division Records might be a bit outdated. Apart from their beliefs being distorted over time or being corrupted due to excessive consumption of cores, maybe they should add a new section detailing how easy it was for them to succumb to Internet addiction.
I have got to find a way to get her enough cores as soon as possible. If I let her stay, my electric bills will be off the roof.
As he was thinking, the sound of wheels rolling over the asphalt could be heard, and it was particularly loud on this silent night.
Turning around, he saw a bright purple beetle approaching from a distance, stopping in front of him.
Bai Kai rolled down the window and waved him over: “Bei! Get in! It’s almost time, and they’re about to open!”
He simply nodded and got in the car.
Soon, the beetle drove out of the University and headed towards Dongcheng and Huacheng.
In Dongcheng, there is an ancient street that was already known for its night market before the nights got longer.
It wasn’t known by anything, and even its scale was unpredictable—off-season, there would only be a dozen stalls open, but during midsummer or the height of spring, the stalls would stretch to almost infinite, stretching across for miles on end, bustling with people.
However, as the nights became longer, the size of the night market shrank, and most stalls would close before 12 a.m.
Rumour has it that if you remain open until 3, the ghost market will reopen at 5.
After the night market closed, some vendors did not leave. They simply packed up their food items, changed the signboards, and started a new round of business.
And Gu Qianqian was one of these unwilling-to-leave vendors.
It was just past three o’clock in the morning, so she hurriedly packed up her masks and hid in the corner of a deep alley, taking out a bamboo scroll from her backpack.
As she murmured a few words, a faint light flashed on the bamboo scroll, followed by two large rattan boxes manifesting out of thin air and hitting the ground in front of her.
She picked up the boxes and trotted back to the street. Like a nimble kitten, she scurried past the crowds of people and found an empty space, putting down her box and opening up shop.
As soon as she sat down, the system spoke to her.
“Gu Qianqian, I would like to remind you that we have sufficient funds. What we need now are materials, do you understand? We don’t have to work anymore! We have enough money now!”
“But, system…” she frowned. “This is the first time I’ve seen and earned this much money… that person yesterday, remember? He brought a whole box of gold bars, and I…”
“Stop, let’s focus on your potential,” the system interrupted. “The situation yesterday was still barely acceptable, but at least it was alchemy materials that could be used to make the [Copper Sphere of the Sun]…”
“Excuse me? Did you use my gold for that?” Her eyes widened.
“What do you think? You said you wanted to be a cultivating protagonist—not my fault! I need resources to help you out! From today on, we only collect materials, not money. Understood?”
Gu Qianqian defeatedly nodded.
As soon as she finished speaking, she looked up and saw a seductively dressed girl with a pair of bunny ears. Beside her was a fair-faced man.
“Excuse me, miss,” the rabbit girl smiled. “Is this bamboo scroll to craft this cleansing potion real?”
“Of course!” Gu Qianqian nodded. “If you consider buying it, you can try chanting half of the scroll first.”
The rabbit girl smiled and unfolded half of the bamboo scrolls, studying them carefully under the dim light of the street lamp.
Staring at the contents, she would frown and sigh before closing the scroll and glancing at the man beside her.
The man glanced at the scrolls and said in a deep voice, “It’s real.”
Unexpectedly, the key to their problems could be found beside a street in a market. Although it was of poor quality…
The rabbit girl raised the scroll, shook it at Gu Qianqian, and asked, “How much is this?”
As she spoke, a psychic wave of energy filled with bloodlust quietly enveloped Gu Qianqian.
Feeling the strange energy enveloping her, she frowned slightly, using her own mountain-like resolve to bounce the energy away.
Feeling her energy bounce back towards her, the rabbit girl turned pale as she took two steps back.
Why are all young people so powerful these days?
“Gu Qianqian,” the system whispered. “Ten aura mushrooms.”
Gu Qianqian nodded slightly, raised three fingers at the girl, and said, “Ten aura mushrooms.”
“You’re holding up three fingers, and aren’t these a bit expensive?”
Before the rabbit girl could finish speaking, the man beside her suddenly said, “We don’t have any aura mushrooms, but I can trade them for the tail of a copper-shelled firefly.”
As soon as the man finished speaking, the system yelled excitedly in Gu Qianqian’s mind.
“Yes! This man is an expert! He probably guessed what we were going to refine, so he told us about a higher-level material! Depending on the quality, we need at least two.”
Gu Qianqian nodded, stretching out five fingers towards the man.
“Five? That’s reasonable,” the man nodded, taking out a silk purse from his pocket and throwing it at Gu Qianqian. He then escorted the rabbit girl out of her stall with the bamboo scroll and walked out of the ghost market.
Looking at their departure figures, the system fell silent.
“System? Did I get scammed? I wanted two, but he gave me five!”
“Gu Qianqian, you are a business genius!”
Unexpectedly, Gu Qianqian’s horrid ability at math reaped profits.
“Alright! We can stop for today,” the system announced. “Let’s head back quickly and refine the [Copper Spheres of the Sun] so that we can start planting crops in the bamboo scrolls.”
A moment later, in a remote alley not far from the ghost market.
Miss Rabbit eyed the man next to her, who stared at the bamboo scrolls with strange eyes and asked, “Why do you want to help me?”
“I’m just helping the organisation collect useful things, not helping you,” the man tilted his head. “I never said anything about showing the scroll to you.”
“Plus, if you really wanted to see it, you needed to deal with the urban legend inside the Qingshikou Tunnels and obtain its core.”
Miss Rabbit bit her lip, “Deal. I’ll deal with it within three days.”
As long as I can get that formula, I can absorb all the cores I’ve collected during this period; although it’s not as powerful as the Night Division’s formula, I can only bite the bullet!
Not long after Gu Qianqian closed up shop and left, Bai Kai led his godson to the vicinity of the ghost market.
In late autumn, it was chilly at three o’clock in the morning, and there was a light fog in the air.
There are a lot of things for sale on both sides of the dilapidated streets, which is dizzying, but the items include fake-looking antiques that could be bought at any night market.
“Shui, are you tricking me? This place looks no different from the ghost market down Mudan Street.”
“We haven’t reached yet,” Bai Kai smiled meaningfully, raising his hand as he pointed down a deep and narrow alleyway. “Once we pass through this alley, we’ll enter into the real ghost market.”
Looking in the direction of the alley, Yibei tilted his head and said, “That’s where the snack vendor is, no?”
And Gu Qianqian’s plastic masks, he thought in his heart.
This was exactly the place where he found out that Gu Qianqian was selling her masks.
“Just come with me.”
Walking into the alley, the surroundings became quiet. Under the dim light, it made Yibei feel as if he were travelling through time and space.
After walking for a while, the alley seemed to suddenly open up into a lively street, and the noise returned to their ears again.
It seemed no different from when they entered the alley, but the things sold at the stalls were creepy to look at.
Fresh corpses, weaker urban legends sealed in glass bottles, psychic items of incomprehensible shapes, and some stalls that hung signs like [SEEKING CHILD], [CURSE], and [POISON].
As soon as he entered, his attention was attracted by a strange stall.
It had large jars, but it was engraved with strange-looking talismans and seals, which made it seem very powerful.
The most eye-catching thing was the placard, [LIFE CHANGING], in bright red.
The stall was run by a skinny old man, and his dark, emerald eyes intertwined with Yibei’s.
“Do you want to change your life?” he grinned. “Come, take a look.”
“What kind of change is it?”
To be honest, changing his life sounded great. He had encountered many bad things because of his bad luck, so maybe it’s good to introduce change.
The old man walked over and cryptically said, “It’s simple—you get to change your life. One life. Your one life. All you need is…”
Before he could finish, Bai Kai stepped in and stood in front of his godson, saying, “Shut up, old man! You want his life, don’t you? These jars, coupled with your life, are not enough to trade with his.”
Bai Kai hurriedly pulled his godson away into the depths of the ghost market, leaving the old man to giggle on the spot.
“S-shui, thank you.”
“What?”
“I didn’t expect you to save me back there,” he said. “B-but don’t think that you impressed me by doing that.”
Bai Kai glanced at Yibei and pouted, “I was just telling the truth.”
And your life is valuable to me, Bai Kai thought.
Bai Kai led his godson through a small half of the market, and soon, they stopped in front of a store that was one of the few with an established front.
The owner was an exaggeratedly fat man, and when he saw Bai Kai walking in, he immediately got up to greet him, but the mounds of fat on his body made it difficult for him to get up.
Seeing this, Bai Kai pushed Yibei in and said, “You go and take a look. I’ll talk to the owner.”
He glanced at the fat man and nodded, walking deeper into the store.
The fat man, Fu Er, narrowed his eyes as he studied Yibei, and his eyes widened as Bai Kai approached him and asked, “Is he… that child?”
“Good that you know,” Bai Kai smiled as he patted his shoulder. “So, you gonna give me any discounts?”
“Twenty per cent,” Fu Er nodded. “No, thirty! Yes! Thirty per cent off!”
Venturing deeper into the store, the boy stopped.
When he passed a shelf, a chill rose up his spine without any warning, and he couldn’t help but shudder. His eyes doubtfully swept across the shelf, and he saw a large crystal bottle that contained a dark liquid, and his pupils shrank.
Gently brushing the dust away on the bottle, sure enough, it was the same black liquid that seeped out of his body during every transformation.
What’s this black liquid, and why does he have it? He thought.
He thought of disposing of all of the black liquid before, but now he feels that he has almost lost at least 100 million bucks.
