The Scales Take Action

In July 2012, Bekeland was still far from peaceful. Although the "Antichrist," the "cultist," and the "Ripper" were arrested one after another, the story of the Demon Chef continued to echo in the city.

Almost every day, Housewife receive visits from the Demon Chef," and many of them greatly improve their culinary skills, even starting to become food vloggers on Online Platforms. The Tag"Disciple of the Demon Chef " has even become a money-making secret.

However, as this element became popular, many imposters inevitably emerged. In order to attract attention, they pretended to have encountered Demon Chef, and each of them could vividly recount their experience. For a time, it was difficult to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Only those Lucky Person ones who occasionally ate "Youth Cooking" and successfully turned back into children could be proven to be true.

However, as more beauty content creators discovered the secrets to wealth and joined the competition, the circle became increasingly difficult to distinguish between genuine and fake. The community forum that first published the legend of the Demon Chef" was even acquired and upgraded by capital. Even so, it is often overwhelmed by a massive number of visitors. Every day, there are a large number of messages from people claiming to be " Demon Chef," with each accompanying photo of their dishes being more and more exaggerated.

In the information age, traffic equals wealth. Mastering the secrets to wealth can lead to immense riches. A second-rate Newspaper Agency that used to publish all sorts of gossip seems to want to ride the wave of popularity and suddenly starts serializing a novel with "Demon Coin" as its premise.

The novel is told from the perspective of an interviewer, recounting a story heard from a friend. The story begins with the past and present of a coin and tells the entire process of an assassin organization from its birth to its rise, decline, and eventual rebirth from the ruins. The author's choice of words and writing style completely imitates the structure of an "interview," even giving the reader the feeling that this is not a novel, but a real interview with a legendary assassin.

It has to be said that the very existence of the term "riding the coattails" proves that popularity can be capitalized on. The Demon Coin, a hot topic in Bekeland, combined with its already good writing and a story that appealed to Victorians, led to a significant increase in newspaper subscriptions (including online subscriptions).

In fact, immediately after its completion, the novel went on sale on Amazon and major bookstores. At the same time, news about this book, titled "The Scales Covenant," began to appear online, on television, and even in mainstream magazines. Various pundits praised it wildly, and all sorts of praise and obviously trolling insults filled various platforms, as if one lacked confidence in speaking to others if they hadn't read the book.

Under this terrifying traffic promotion, some things are also quietly happening in the shadows:

Murders began to occur frequently throughout Victoria, with the victims mostly being repeat offenders who had received lenient sentences for the absurd reason of "giving them a chance to reform." Many of them were still serving time in high-security prisons. At the crime scenes, a card was often left behind, depicting a scale with a heart on one side and a gold bar on the other, and on the back was inscribed Sherlock Holmes' famous quote—

"When the law fails to bring justice to the parties involved, private revenge becomes justified and even noble from that moment on."

And this is precisely the method of murder used by the Scales Organization in that novel that sparked so much discussion.

If it were just one or two cases, one could call it copycat behavior. But in less than two months, hundreds of such cases have occurred, leading one to question whether this Scales Organization truly exists...

"Hey? Old man, are you crazy? I just published a submission, that's all! It was an anonymous submission, I don't even know the author."

"Huh? Why did I bother praising that book? Isn't that all your fault?"

"Nonsense! You want me to turn a tabloid into a top-tier newspaper? What else can I do but resort to shady methods?"

"This novel is popular, it generates buzz, and it's well-written. I'll spend a little pocket money to have someone promote it, and my newspaper sales will go up, right? Do you know how much my newspaper sales have increased?"

"Compared to the recent advertising profits and the royalties from that book, the money spent on promoting the book is negligible! Okay, okay, I understand. Pressure from above, right? No problem, ban it if you want. But is it okay if I skirt around the rules a little?"

"No, it's about creating a persona. Yes, that's right. As expected, experience counts. That's what I was thinking. After all, it would be too abrupt for a newspaper to suddenly switch from gossip news to war reports. I'll report on some controversial domestic cases first. Yes, ride the wave of popularity. What if the cases I publish actually involve Scales Organization's actions? Wouldn't I become famous again?"

"Don't be so serious. Even the Tasok Newspaper and Lieyang Newspaper are doing this kind of thing. I'm a little late to the game now, but I should be able to grab some profits by leveraging the name of the serialized novel <Scales Covenant>. Hmm, can you help me withstand the pressure? You don't want your daughter's first business project to collapse like this, do you? Okay, love you to death! Goodbye!"

Jessica slammed down the phone, then turned to Feng Xue, who was standing not far away, and said:

"My husband called. He said there was pressure from above to ban that book. It's not that I can't handle it, but I have no reason to. After all, I can't exactly say that I wrote that book, can I?"

Hearing Jessica's words, Feng Xue grinned and said:

"It's okay, actually banning it is a good thing. Think about it, which book that has been banned in history hasn't become a hit? Or rather, the more banned a book is, the more popular it will become! Just wait and see, before long, there will be a lot of private printings and pirated copies. Didn't you sell the overseas rights before? Maybe after a while, there will be some that were exported and then re-imported! It's just a loss of royalties, do you care?"

"That makes sense." Jessica thought about it carefully and realized that what she said was indeed correct. As long as the story spread and ordinary people knew about the existence of Libra as a Justice Partner, their goal would be achieved. As for the royalties, they wouldn't even cover her weekly allowance.

"Alright, you're already far behind your junior brothers. Let's begin training." Feng Xue interrupted Jessica's deep thoughts, clapping her hands to signal her to return to the center of the training room.

This used to be Jessica's family gym, but after she started training, the gym equipment was moved to the Miscellaneous Item room in the attic, leaving only an empty room with yoga mats for exercising.

"What do you mean by 'backward'? I still have to manage the Newspaper Agency and manipulate public opinion, unlike them who only need training..."

Jessica grumbled somewhat discontentedly as she walked to the center of the room, but before she could finish speaking, a strong sense of danger washed over her.

With a whoosh, Jessica, now blessed with "Robust Physique," immediately twisted into a pose that would be difficult even for a gymnast, dodging the invisible attack. But then, two more sharp sensations shot towards her from different angles!

"Hey, hey, I'm not ready yet!" Jessica protested loudly while dodging the invisible attacks with gymnastic movements, but Feng Xue didn't stop her "Sword of Killing Intent" at all, and just said seriously:

"There's no time to prepare in real combat. If you don't want to die from a bullet that comes out of nowhere, concentrate! Also, call me instructor during training!"

What is the connection between the "Libra" organization and demons...?

The answer is no, the protagonist is just casting a wide net.

He was a newcomer after all. Although he learned from Old Li that he needed to collect so-called "Supernatural Tale Entry," he didn't know how to do it. To increase the probability, he adopted a strategy of casting a wide net, expanding his collection around different [Element].

The Demon Chef was the first Weird Tale he created, and it achieved considerable success thanks to the influence of Housewife. It belongs to the traditional Weird Tale, and its foundation is [a chef].

The Demon Coin was the second Weird Tale he created to test Manufacturing Type professions, violating his principle of "never leaving behind physical objects," because he wanted to use it to test the power of crafted items. The basis of this Weird Tale was a [Money Printer].

After obtaining the ability to mass-produce the Phantom Object, the protagonist orchestrated the third Weird Tale, the so-called "Scales Organization".

In simple terms, it's a bit like a new content creator making videos. He doesn't know what kind of videos will go viral, so he plans to do everything he's good at. He starts with the lowest-cost mashup, earns some money, and then makes a hand-drawn animation that takes a bit of time. Once it goes viral, he updates the first two types of videos while also working on a bigger project like an unboxing review.

If you insist on asking what the connection is between these videos, then apart from being made by the same person, there really isn't any connection, nor is there any need for a direct connection, because they are not the same genre.

Of course, it's another matter entirely if bad people see Librans as demons.