Nuclear bombing: Did the world end?
To be precise, it was the world of human order that was destroyed, and the world itself became a scorched wasteland filled with radiation and ruins, seemingly just a change of skin with no other impact.
When the nuclear war first broke out, Hu Jiu knew what was happening outside, but he didn't meddle in it at all.
He hid in a labyrinthine, multi-layered ghost Ghost Domain formed by the interweaving and overlapping of dreams, Phantoms, and mirror images, slowly processing his gains from this experience.
The destruction of the world is nothing compared to his own efforts to increase his strength.
The first thing that Hu Jiu completely mastered was Number 3's "Purification Light". This thing, like the "Ghost-Drawing Talisman", is a ghost itself, but it can restrain other Fierce Ghosts.
Fortunately, Hu Jiu had experience in controlling "Ghost-Drawing Talisman," and the "Purification Light" seemed to be a complementary puzzle to the "Ghost-Drawing Talisman scribbles."
Now, when Hu Jiu throws out the talismans again, he really has the demeanor of a righteous Daoist priest. The talismans, gleaming with golden light, look particularly righteous and awe-inspiring.
The second person Hu Jiu controlled was the Beauty Goddess, whose extreme allure and mental control made her seem like an indescribable being of the Kree type, capable of driving ordinary people to madness with just one glance.
Hu Jiu himself has no personal charisma whatsoever; anyone who knows him will only feel fear and disgust towards him.
But things are different now; he can force others to worship him.
Number 5's main ability is "Yin Thunder". Like the Beauty Goddess, he has gathered almost all the Fierce Ghost related to lightning together, resulting in top-notch violent output.
Number 4's ability, "Supernatural Games," can forcibly send people into Supernatural scenarios.
However, her ability requires a certain prerequisite: the possession of an item belonging to a victim who died due to Supernatural event. The target will gain the victim's perspective and recreate the scene.
During this period, the target's electronic devices will malfunction, and their memories will gradually synchronize with the victim's, causing them to slowly forget themselves, until the target completely becomes the victim and dies in Supernatural scenario.
This ability is actually not very lethal; even if Ghost Tamer is forcibly dragged into a Supernatural scene, it is very difficult to kill them.
But this ability is a divine control skill. Number 4 contains all sorts of tricky, troublesome, and time-wasting Supernatural events, just to delay others.
"It's very entertaining; I can find more people to test it out." As he was thinking, Hu Jiu suddenly remembered that there had been a nuclear explosion outside, and he wondered how many people were still alive, enough for him to wreak havoc.
But surely the world leaders are all still alive?
Number 2's ability is "Paradox," which has a very abstract effect, causing the target to fall into a state where "attacking is self-destruction, and escaping is losing control."
As for Number 1, the person who single-handedly created the Time Management Bureau, his ability can be summarized as "Disaster," capable of causing massive earthquakes, floods, storms, etc.
It took Hu Jiu more than three months to control these powerful Fierce Ghosts and completely stabilize his state.
Besides the main Fierce Ghost on her, the Beauty Goddess and her five Executor also possessed many other S-class minor ghosts and Supernatural Items, but Hu Jiu paid no attention to any of them.
The real tough nut to crack is the Time-Type Fierce Ghost.
The five Executor each possessed Time-Type Fierce Ghost, but apart from the object-shaped "Hourglass," Hu Jiu was completely helpless against the other four. They were like indigestible objects; once swallowed, they would only serve as unusable, burdensome foreign objects within his body.
Left with no other option, Hu Jiu could only temporarily contain the four Time Fierce Ghosts using the Golden Container.
He then emerged from the labyrinthine Ghost Domain and entered the real world.
It's possible that he appeared in the epicenter of a nuclear explosion, where the silicates in the soil had melted and crystallized at high temperatures, causing the ground to exhibit vitrification characteristics. Stepping on the ground would produce a crisp sound similar to crushing bones.
Deadly, invisible radiation permeated every corner, but it had absolutely no effect on Hu Jiu.
Not far away in the city center, the once bustling high-rise buildings and commercial districts have now become ruins. Steel bars burst out of the concrete, melting and solidifying into eerie metallic thorns, like models carelessly ruined by naughty children.
Occasionally, one can see carbonized remains of bodies in the collapsed office buildings. Their movements before death seem to have been frozen in time at the moment of the nuclear explosion. When the wind blows, the calcium and phosphorus mixture from the incinerated bodies will drift away with the wind.
Hu Jiu noticed that one of the corpses was in the position of holding an infant, with the mother's skull and the infant's ribs firmly embedded together in a carbonized state.
It's unlikely that any civilians survived at the epicenter of the explosion, but in a sense, they were lucky; they didn't have to endure pain and despair, dying quickly and easily.
For those who survived by sheer luck due to various accidents, their tragedy has only just begun.
Hu Jiu searched for quite a while before finding any trace of a living person.
In the ruins of a residential building, a middle-aged man is using rusty scissors to cut open his son's shirt.
As the festering skin, still clinging to the fabric, was torn away, a hissing sound, like air leaking from the throat, escaped the young man's throat.
Just before the nuclear explosion, a middle-aged man was taking his wife and children to an amusement park when a sudden burst of scorching light shone in the sky, nearly blinding everyone, followed by a mushroom cloud rising into the air.
When the shockwave caused the building to collapse, the middle-aged man instinctively saved his son, ignoring his wife and daughter.
The mother and daughter died on the spot, while the father and son survived by chance, but both were seriously injured, especially the son, whose body was covered with broken glass on one side. Some of the tiny glass shards cut fine wounds in his blood vessels as they circulated through his blood.
Even more deadly is the invisible radiation, which has seeped into the bone marrow through respiration.
A smell of roasted meat wafted on the wind, but the smell didn't come from food. Instead, it came from a person whose half-body had melted away, revealing hideous muscles. Black blood kept flowing from the person's nose, and the person had been deprived of even the strength to commit suicide. The person could only eke out a living until they starved or died of disease.
The middle-aged man hugged his dying son tightly, wishing he had just died on the spot during the nuclear explosion.
In the extra days they survived, besides suffering and torment, they felt no joy whatsoever as survivors. It was merely that the process of dying was prolonged, like being slowly sliced to death instead of being beheaded.
"Wailing cries everywhere, devastation everywhere, I can't believe I've witnessed such a scene in my lifetime..." Hu Jiu admired this vivid picture of starving people stretching for miles. Kindly, he didn't mock the survivors but instead sincerely wished them a long and healthy life.
After admiring the desolate scenery of the apocalypse, Hu Jiu vanished on the spot and headed straight for the Headquarters in the Capital.
In the event of a global nuclear war, capital cities would be prime targets, turning once-prosperous cities into ruins.
But Hu Jiu saw that a Ghost Domain had risen above the ruins, like a giant gray bubble.
Ordinary people cannot see inside the Ghost Domain, but that cannot stop Hu Jiu's gaze. He discovered that there are many living people moving around in this Ghost Domain.
Hu Jiu swaggered in, looked around, and spotted a familiar face lounging alone, looking ecstatic.
"Hello," he greeted kindly.
Upon hearing the voice, a pale, thin, and disheveled young woman turned around in shock, "Mr. Hu?!"
Hu Jiu wore a human-like smile; the woman before him was none other than Xiao Mei, his former operator.
This operator never caused him any trouble and always provided him with positive emotional value, so Hu Jiu's attitude was unusually not so harsh.
Of course, it doesn't matter if he's sarcastic or mean, since he's already mastered the Beauty Goddess. The twisted charm brought by the Supernatural is something most people simply can't resist.
"Xiao Mei, what happened here?" Hu Jiu, as always, skipped all the preamble and went straight to the point.
Xiao Mei seemed to instantly smell the familiar scent of her workplace, and immediately regained the feeling of being at work. She answered succinctly:
"An unknown cause led to the outbreak of nuclear war, catching everyone off guard. Most of the civilians perished in the nuclear explosions, Ghost Tamer at Headquarters managed to maintain a stable Ghost Domain, saving a portion of the population."
"Nuclear weapons cannot eliminate the Fierce Ghost, nor can they interfere with the interior of the Ghost Domain. Survivors live in the Ghost Domain, but the supply of living materials is a huge problem."
"In order to maintain this Ghost Domain, the Ghost Tamers are constantly being depleted, and the conflict between ordinary people and Ghost Tamers is becoming increasingly serious. This temporary shelter is almost at its limit."
At this point, Xiao Mei couldn't help but feel a surge of sadness.
She was lucky because she worked at Headquarters, so she was rescued along with the others when the disaster struck.
But she was also unfortunate, as almost all of her relatives and friends had been castrated.
Those who are alive can only endure pain and despair day after day, living in the Ghost Domain and constantly in contact with the Supernatural. The Supernatural is inherently harmful to normal people, and their future is bleak and hopeless. Every now and then, some people cannot bear the pressure and end their own lives.
Hu Jiu then asked, "Why did you suddenly stop being my operator?"
Xiao Mei frowned and said, "I'm not quite sure either. I only remember that all the alarms at Headquarters went off that day, and all communication with the outside world was cut off, but it was back to normal after a short while."
"However, many of the Ghost Tamer stationed at Headquarters died that day. Afterwards, a person wearing a black robe whose face could not be seen appeared next to Minister Fu treated him with great respect."
"Later, Minister Fu and that mysterious person met with me in person and asked me some questions about you. Then, it seems they copied my voice and isolated me."
Hu Jiu nodded. At that time, it must have been the Administration's Executor invaded and took control of the Headquarters. Fortunately, both the Headquarters and the Administration are gone now, so there's no need to dwell on what happened in the past. When people die, everything is over.
"It's a miracle you're still alive. Cherish this moment. I wish you a long and healthy life," Hu Jiu said sincerely.
Xiao Mei smiled wryly. These words didn't sound like a blessing, but she always had high emotional intelligence, so she just muttered a few complaints to herself.
When she was forcibly quarantined by Headquarters, she knew she might be involved in some trouble. Fortunately, she was usually cautious enough to never say what she shouldn't say, never listen to what she shouldn't listen to, and never pry into what she shouldn't pry into, wishing that all secrets were far away from her.
No one could get any extra information out of her because everything she did was open and transparent.
Actually, she was able to survive partly thanks to Hu Jiu. Her identity as "Hu Jiu's operator" and her relatively harmonious relationship with Hu Jiu meant that even in this resource-scarce Ghost Domain, as long as she didn't cause trouble, no one would bother her.
Hu Jiu stopped talking to Xiao Mei because Fu Youhua arrived.
In this Ghost Domain, there were only makeshift shacks. Hu Jiu walked in openly and spoke to Xiao Mei. Fu Youhua arrived at this time, which was already considered late.
"Minister Fu, it's been a long time." Hu Jiu greeted him with a polite smile.
Fu Youhua couldn't be polite. The moment he saw Hu Jiu, the veins on his forehead throbbed uncontrollably. He was torn between two opposing emotions, feeling extremely uncomfortable.
Fortunately, Hu Jiu did not deliberately interfere with his mind, and his willpower was relatively strong, so in the end, the raging anger in his heart prevailed.
"The world has been destroyed, why are you so nonchalant? Why can you still laugh!" he said through gritted teeth.
"Because I'm a beneficiary!" Hu Jiu's tone was somewhat cheerful. "I've received tremendous benefits, of course I have to laugh."
"You!" Fu Youhua felt a surge of anger, his vision blurred, and he almost suffered a stroke on the spot. "Almost all of your compatriots are dead, and this is your attitude?!"
"Compatriots? Heh, don't overestimate yourself. I don't even consider you human beings." Hu Jiu blurted out contemptuously.
He maintained a "player" mentality from beginning to end, viewing everything around him as mere NPCs in a game, or even less valuable than game NPCs, because game NPCs at least provide some emotional value, while real-life people only evoke hatred and annoyance.
As for why he developed this mindset?
Let's just assume he's a born bad guy...
Fu Youhua gasped, "How could there be someone like you in this world? Why did my country and my nation give birth to such a scoundrel and a menace!"
He didn't know what words to use to describe Hu Jiu; he had absolutely no empathy and couldn't find a trace of positive humanity in her.
"Don't ask me this question. Ask the world, ask society, ask heaven and earth, ask them what they did to cultivate such an outstanding talent as me." Hu Jiu never engages in internal strife, never blames himself, and always blames others.
"This nuclear explosion is related to you!" Fu Youhua took a deep breath, suddenly calmed down, and seemed to have abandoned all his anger in an instant. He said this unexpectedly but decisively.
"You can eat anything, but you can't say anything." Hu Jiu refused to be blamed.
Fu Youhua sneered, "You yourself said you're a beneficiary of the system, so what's there to deny?"
"If the Minister insists on slandering me, I don't know what to say. I'm truly speechless." Hu Jiu looked helpless, as if he were looking at an unreasonable child.