Changchun Association and the Company

"Ding-ding... Ding-ding..."

At seven in the morning, the alarm rang. Xiao Ran reached out and slapped it off. He was already awake, but he still lay in bed with his eyes closed, replaying everything that had happened the night before.

In a straight fight, he was no match for Xue Hongling. If he'd let the dogs loose from the start, she probably would've run off immediately.

Only when Xue Hongling was focused entirely on him would she fail to notice the pack of dogs lurking around her.

Still, it had been pretty dangerous, especially when she summoned that Red Skeleton at the end. If he'd taken a hit from it, he probably wouldn't have come out unscathed.

Opening his eyes, Xiao Ran sat up in bed. Suddenly, he felt something beside him. Turning around, he found a dead mouse lying on his bedside table.

"Meow!"

The White Cat was perched on a nearby table. When it saw Xiao Ran was awake, it meowed at him a few times, lifted its head proudly, then pranced off the table and out of the room.

Xiao Ran frowned at the dead mouse beside his bed, feeling both amused and a little touched.

The cat was a bit skittish, but it seemed pretty nice after all.

At least it cared about him a little.

Of course, he'd prefer it to show a little less concern. Nobody liked opening their eyes to find a dead mouse beside their pillow.

He put the mouse in a plastic bag and took it downstairs with him.

He rolled up the shop's shutter and, as usual, checked the delivery box outside. For some reason, no one had been leaving any requests in it lately.

"Xiao Ran, have you eaten?"

Turning around, he saw Grandpa Wang approaching with his fishing rod. Grandpa Wang handed him a bucket containing a few little fish. "I didn't catch any big ones. You can feed these little fish to your cat."

This time, Xiao Ran didn't refuse. He took the bucket with a smile. "Sure. Let's go fishing together sometime. The fishing rod I bought just arrived, too."

"Sounds good. I'll help you chum the water. I guarantee you'll catch a big one."

"Sure, sure."

After Grandpa Wang left, Xiao Ran carried the bucket inside.

"Meow!"

The White Cat leaped onto the counter and stared at the bucket in Xiao Ran's hand. Seeing the little fish inside, it licked its lips hungrily.

Xiao Ran picked up one fish and offered it to the White Cat, trying to pet it. But the cat was far too wary. It snatched the fish and jumped onto the counter, leaving Xiao Ran's hand hanging uselessly in the air.

"Fine, I won't pet you."

Pouting, Xiao Ran took the little fish out of the bucket and put them in a small basin. Then he locked up the shop and went out for breakfast.

Small cities had their advantages. The breakfast might not be as refined as what you'd find in Shenzhen, Guangdong, but it was cheap, plentiful, and filling.

A bowl of tofu pudding, two fried dough sticks, and four pan-fried buns cost just seven yuan, and filled him right up.

Xiao Ran had a good appetite, but even after finishing, he still felt he could eat more. On the way back, he bought a meat pie, too.

When he got home, Xiao Ran rolled up the shutter and hung a sign on the door saying the shop was closed for the day. Then he locked up, went to the backyard, and entered a side room, where he took Xue Hongling's body out of Micheng Space.

The strong stench of blood soon filled the room.

Xue Hongling's face was a bloody mess. In many places, the flesh had been torn away, exposing the white bone beneath.

Her throat had been ripped open in particular, leaving a truly gruesome wound.

There were countless other wounds across her body. Xiao Ran couldn't help it, but they weren't much of a problem for him.

First, he removed Xue Hongling's belongings.

The ring and the cloak she'd been wearing were both Cursed Objects. They'd be just the thing to boost his combat power.

He didn't spare the rest of her clothes, either. He carefully stripped off every last piece until she lay completely naked in front of him.

He examined Xue Hongling's corpse.

Her graceful figure was nothing more than a pile of rotting flesh in Xiao Ran's eyes now.

After carefully inspecting the wounds on Xue Hongling's corpse, Xiao Ran took out his needle and thread, along with the Calamity Suppressing Token.

"Corpse Stitcher, activate!"

At a thought from Xiao Ran, dark red curse patterns emerged from his body and flowed into the [Calamity Suppressing Token]. That familiar feeling returned, and Xiao Ran began stitching up Xue Hongling's body.

Xiao Ran had two reasons for stitching up Xue Hongling's corpse. He wanted to see what abilities he could gain from her, and he also wanted to find out whether he could learn anything else about Micheng from her memories.

Many of Xue Hongling's wounds were tears, and the damage was extremely severe. An ordinary person would have had no chance of stitching them up, but they caused Xiao Ran little trouble.

There was also shape-forming to deal with. Some parts of her body had lost flesh and needed to be reshaped. That called for specialized techniques beyond the reach of ordinary people, such as dough sculpting or clay sculpting.

Put simply, dough or mud could be used in place of the missing flesh. It wasn't enough to just slap it on; the contours had to be shaped, the color matched, and everything stitched in place so it would look natural.

Xiao Ran had heard that modern technology offered even more advanced ways to shape a body, such as using a 3D printer. Some techniques even involved enclosing the entire body in a shell that looked exactly like a living person from the outside.

There had once been a case in Hong Kong where a victim had been murdered, dismembered, and cooked. Her husband spent two million yuan to have her remains restored using this sort of technology.

Unfortunately, a huge job like that was beyond Xiao Ran's reach.

He used dough to repair Xue Hongling's face, then skillfully stitched up the wounds elsewhere with his Master-level Suturing Technique.

The repair went smoothly. There was no reanimation and no strange phenomena.

It took Xiao Ran only fifteen minutes to complete the entire repair.

[You have met the conditions to activate your special ability. Would you like to use Spirit Seizing?]

"Spirit Seizing!"

As Xiao Ran activated Spirit Seizing, Xue Hongling's memories began to appear before him.

Most of them showed Xue Hongling sleeping with different men every day. Things got so intense that even Xiao Ran couldn't stand watching, so he skipped through those memories.

He also saw her killing Guo Lingfei. But she was holding a wooden doll, with Guo Lingfei's name and Birth Numerology written on it.

"That thing must be a Cursed Object, too. Too bad I couldn't find it. It must be in her Micheng Space."

Xiao Ran felt a pang of regret. After all, he'd really wanted a Cursed Object that could kill people from a distance.

Then the scene shifted. The phone beside Xue Hongling rang. She answered, and a very strange phrase came from the other end.

"Shuke, Shuke, this is Beta!"

Xue Hongling's expression turned serious at the voice. In the same peculiar tone, she replied, "Potato, potato, this is Sweet Potato."

The two spoke in secret, as if exchanging a code. After hearing Xue Hongling's response, the person on the other end paused for a moment before speaking. "You were behind that case where the gym trainer died, weren't you? What's wrong with you? What if the Company finds out?"

"I already killed him. What else is there to do?" Xue Hongling replied carelessly.

"Keep the impact to a minimum. Don't let the Company find out. In three days, go to the password-protected lockers on B1 of Jianye Mall. There'll be a plane ticket, cash, and ID documents you need. Take them and leave as soon as you can."

"You want me to leave already? I just got settled."

Xue Hongling frowned, clearly unhappy with the instructions. "Last time we killed someone, people from the Company were watching. They didn't do anything then, either."

"Idiot. People in the underworld settle their own business. When newcomers fight each other, the Company not only leaves them alone, it even helps clean up afterward. But you killed an ordinary person. If the Company finds out, they'll investigate it to the end."

Hearing that, Xue Hongling seemed to understand. She crossed one leg over the other and said, "So as long as the Company doesn't find out, it's fine."

"In that case, I don't really want to move."

With that, Xue Hongling hung up and grumbled, "Boring. The Changchun Association? They're all a bunch of cowards, if you ask me."

The memory ended there. What followed was just a jumble of scraps, and Xiao Ran couldn't be bothered to look any further.

What really caught Xiao Ran's interest, though, were the Changchun Association and the Company.

"Could the Company be an organization dedicated to policing newcomers?"

As for the Changchun Association, Xiao Ran vaguely remembered hearing about it.

His grandfather had once told him there was an organization in the underworld that gave all kinds of artisans and all sorts of people from the fringes of society a place to gather.

But what was with those nonsensical code phrases?

Then Xiao Ran thought it over and realized it made sense. People kept up with the times, and slang did too. You couldn't call Southern Spring Northern Canon the only kind of secret code. What about "Chicken Stewed with Mushrooms," "Palace Jade Liquor," and "Heavenly King, Earthly Tiger"? Weren't those popular internet phrases just the secret code of the younger generation?

Xiao Ran gradually withdrew from Xue Hongling's memories, and a notification sounded right after.

[The corpse of Xue Hongling that you repaired received an A-grade rating. You gained 30 Energy Value.]

[Spirit Seizing with the Calamity Suppressing Token succeeded. You gained Xue Hongling's ability: [Blade Draw Slash]]