Chapter 118: Blade in Hand, Slay the Workaholic
After getting the call, Ji Jue immediately stopped his Dissociation Technique practice for the day. He washed his face, asked Ye Chun for leave, and headed out.
Seeing Ye Chun personally walk him to the door, watching his departing figure while tearfully wiping away little pearls, it had to mean their bond was growing deeper by the day, and she simply couldn’t bear to see him go, right?
As Ji Jue watched Ye Chun’s wildly gesturing figure in the rearview mirror, he couldn’t help but make a silent resolution. Once he finished what he needed to do, he had to hurry back. There wasn’t much hesitation, nor much deliberation.
Favors worked like this. You help me, I help you. From Ms. Wen to Mr. Zhang to An Ran, no one had ever really shortchanged themselves. Even Tong Hua... well, she occasionally helped him offload some “goods,” and she was a sweet talker, too.
Now that they had called him for help, Ji Jue naturally couldn’t shirk responsibility. He stepped up without hesitation. Besides, after contributing DKP, when it came time to roll for loot, how could he possibly be left out?
There were no “couples” in couple’s beef slices[1], no “wife” in wife cakes[2], and even characters in gacha games had their own lives. So maybe the fact that alchemy always left him poorer with every practice finally made sense.
He’d only been practicing basic extraction for less than two days, and 800,000 had already vanished from his account! He’d been buying all kinds of materials gram by gram, testing and practicing also gram by gram. The moment he stepped into the workshop and pushed open the door, his account balance had already nosedived. It was dropping faster than his own training speed.
At this rate, who needed half a year? Even with the most careful budgeting, Ji Jue would be broke in four or five months!
He slammed the brakes, stopping Horsey in an alley of the shantytown area. He hopped off, and before Tong Hua could even speak, his face lit up with delight. He raised his left hand and slicked his hair back, deliberately showing off the ring on his index finger.
“Huh? How did you guys know my first time crafting a Blessed Creation turned out successful?”
Who the hell asked you?!
Tong Hua hadn’t even processed the question before she got hit full-on by the bragging. At last, she understood what Ye Chun had been complaining about in their private chat these past few days.
A workholic! There’s a workaholic here!
She decided that once she got back, she was renaming the group chat to “Girls’ Anti-Workaholic Squad!”
The moment the news sank in, she couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath. A Blessed Creation? You? Seriously? Counting the days since you started, it hadn’t even been that long, right? Four months at most? And you’re already forging on your own? Bro, you really know how to grind!
Ji Jue admired her expression and added another blow, completely sinking all her hopes. “And it got rated A-grade.”
“Congrats, Mr. Ji!” Even though An Ran didn’t quite understand what was going on, he still raised his fist enthusiastically. He didn’t get it, but one thing was clear: Mr. Ji was amazing.
Mr. Zhang, on the other hand, reached out and patted Ji Jue on the shoulder, praising him. “Kid, you got it, I knew you were cut out for this!”
Ji Jue was hardworking and cheeky, and his future was boundless.
“Thanks, thanks!” Ji Jue clasped his hands together, finally satisfied, then looked around. “Alright, let me see what’s going on.”
Tong Hua’s face went numb. She didn’t feel like talking anymore.
“Long story short, a bunch of outsiders were hired to come to Cliff City and got involved in an internal conflict within the Wasteland Assembly. Then they dragged innocent people into it. The scene’s... not pretty,” Mr. Zhang said.
Like a magician, he pulled out a thick stack of files from his oversized shorts, leaving Ji Jue wondering where on earth he was keeping those, but the moment Ji Jue opened the files and saw the photos and background information, he fell silent. The fingers gripping the paper slowly turned pale.
“Sorry, give me a second.”
He set the documents down, walked to the side, and made a call. “Feng, it’s me. Yeah, things haven’t been peaceful in Cliff City these past couple of days... Ms. Layla already told you? Good. Keep an eye on things for now. Want me to move back? Alright. If anything happens and you can’t reach me, call Ms. Wen and my teacher. Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
After hanging up, he noticed the approving look on Mr. Zhang’s face.
“Your family’s really close.”
“They’re family, after all.” Ji Jue grinned, didn’t waste any more words, and directly reached out, probing toward the camera from a distance.
“Hey, I’ve got a question.”
The camera immediately got excited. “Say no more, bro! I’ve shot some pretty wild footage lately. Wanna see? Real spicy stuff!”
After a brief exchange, Ji Jue withdrew his hand and shook his head.
“Damn it. Nothing got captured. It’s all just white static. These people were probably carrying some kind of professional signal jammer.”
Seeing him shake his head, Tong Hua puffed up, recovering from her earlier setback. “See? I told you, I told you! We were—”
“But we can still find them,” Ji Jue added, cutting her off mid-sentence.
Professional interference was, in itself, the most obvious clue. All he had to do was check, one by one, which cameras had experienced interference. By following the sequence over time, he could trace their movements.
After spending an hour circling the shantytown area, the trail Ji Jue mapped out pointed toward the far edge of the North Mountain District, to a rundown seaside residential block.
The other party was clearly a professional crew for arson and murder. Their methods were ruthless and efficient, and they carried jamming equipment. Even during their retreat, they had laid out misleading traces along the way to make sure no one could track them.
But even the most careful plan had its flaws. When camera footage was combined with aether record analysis, that very interference instead became a glaring clue.
With the leads Ji Jue provided, Tong Hua found it much easier to sift through the tangled aether records. She searched by keywords and quickly locked onto a van with swapped plates. It was the same damn model as the one Ji Jue had chased the first time, a cheap knockoff from Haian Auto Factory. It seemed criminals could always agree when it came to cost-effective tools.
After leaving the scene, they drove around in a wide loop with the jammer on, eventually reaching the South Ridge District. There, they switched to a white van, then unexpectedly looped back into the North Mountain District.
In the end, they settled in that residential complex.
“The developer went bankrupt, and housing prices crashed. Seaside buildings in North Mountain aren’t worth much, and hardly anyone lives there.” Ji Jue glanced at the weathered condition of the complex and added, “This should be the place. Hang on.”
With that, he got on his electric scooter and circled the area. He stopped briefly outside a few convenience stores and restaurants before finally pulling up in front of a print shop.
Pointing at the printer, it immediately whirred to life. Soon, a thick stack of slightly blurry color photos piled up. They were all faces Ji Jue had spotted in the surveillance footage from the stores and restaurants.
After sitting for a bit in the security booth at the complex entrance, he returned to the North Mountain team’s car and handed over the materials.
“They rented Unit 401, but they’re actually staying in Unit 101. There should be five of them, but only one goes out to buy things and show his face. They should all still be inside right now.”
They were all foreigners. On top of that, they were temporary tenants. The one who went out to shop had a tree-shaped tattoo on his wrist, one Tong Hua had noticed earlier in the chaotic records from the scene. It was the mark of the Holy Tree Sect, popular in the southern regions of the Empire.
This was a group of Imperials[3].
Mr. Zhang held the documents and nodded slowly. “Yeah, everything matches. That emblem and their skin tone... they should be from the Empire’s Mountain Dragon Corps. After the mutiny in the Central Lands a few years back, their unit was broken up. Most of the Imperials working as mercenaries these days came from that unit’s downsizing and reorganization.”
Only now did the slow-to-react An Ran finally catch up. His face filled with admiration.
“Mr. Ji, you’re amazing!”
“Hey, I contributed a lot too, alright?!” Tong Hua puffed in anger and pinched An Ran’s cheek. “I treat you so well every day, and you don’t remember even a bit of my kindness? Your face is getting softer and bouncier!”
“Okay, Hua Hua, you’re amazing too, you really are!” Mr. Zhang chuckled, ruffling her hair to stop the squabbling, as if humoring a couple of kids.
With specific traits and the appearance of the one who had been going out in public, all of their activity records surfaced from the Security Bureau’s database. There were three Swarm Chosen Ones, one Vortex Chosen One, and one Mirror Chosen One.
It was a standard Chosen One team setup. They had both offense and support covered, flexible tactics, and high efficiency. Before arriving in Cliff City, they had been active across the Northern and Southern Continents and Thousand Island. You could say they had quite a reputation.
This time, they probably came to Cliff City because they were drawn by the chaos and easy money. They hadn’t picked a fixed employer, clearly intending to side with whoever paid more.
At the end of the day, everyone was just here to make money. Going with the flow was the norm. Who would go looking for death for no reason?
They had no middleman. They took anonymous contracts directly from the Wasteland Assembly. The employer and the hired muscle never met. Full payment was made when the job was posted, and once completed, the Wasteland Assembly would release the funds.
Even now, the Wasteland Assembly’s bounty system was still running, even if it had already descended into a brutal, kill-or-be-killed bloodbath internally.
The one who had originally built the Wasteland Assembly was a true genius. From the very beginning, the design fully took into account and made use of White Deer’s loose, fragmented nature. Its core operations were split into many separate parts. Aside from communication routed through headquarters, there was little direct interaction between them.
Most of the people handling the work were just office staff, clocking in at nine and out at five. Facing ever-growing KPIs, performance pressure, and even bank loans, the Wasteland Assembly’s headquarters even provided them with local social security and housing funds.
In a sense, they were the real masterminds behind the scenes, gripping the channels of the world’s underground scene in another way. Even now, it still maintained its original stance, which was no stance at all. Anyone could come, any job would be posted. As for whether someone took it, or whether it could be completed, that was none of the Wasteland Assembly’s concern.
Coiled within the dark side of the world, this strange behemoth known as the Wasteland Assembly was born from the cracks outside of order. As long as humanity still needed that lawless wilderness, this force would never disappear.
Even now, Chen Xingzhou’s bounty was still posted there. As were the adopted sons and daughters of Lei Wuye, along with every other contender. Until one of them became the one in charge, this bloody struggle would not end.
But before that, some people were going to die, to pay for what they had done.
Standing in front of that somewhat dilapidated apartment building, the old man holding a teapot and a palm-leaf fan turned back, looking at An Ran beside him. “So, you go in first? Or should I do it? If you need the kills, how about I back you up?”
“No need, that doesn’t feel very challenging.” An Ran casually withdrew his gaze from the sky. “Let’s just do it like usual. You don’t need to treat me differently.”
“Heh, suit yourself.” Mr. Zhang grinned, pulling out a big plastic bag from his oversized shorts. He stuffed his teapot, palm fan, keychain, walnuts, and a bunch of odds and ends inside, then set it by the door.
He strode straight into the darkness of the apartment building.
Not long after, what followed was a thunderous roar, and the ground shook viciously.
1. “Couple’s beef slices” is a Sichuan dish made mainly from beef, along with ingredients like beef lung, heart, and tongue, mixed with seasonings. It originates from Chengdu. ☜
2. A sweetheart cake or wife cake or marriage pie is a traditional Chinese cake with a thin crust of flaky pastry, made with a filling of winter melon, almond paste, and sesame, and spiced with five spice powder. Here is a picture for your reference. ☜
3. I’ve decided to call the people from the Empire “Imperials.” ☜
Comments