"First question: right now, is it me, the current one, who calls the shots, or you, the former one?"
"You! You call the shots."
"Good, you know your place. Now tell me, what exactly is this Spirit Intelligence? And what's this beginner task? Is there any shortcut?"
The cat-shaped relief looked troubled. "I really can't answer what the Spirit Intelligence is. Its usual form is a paper talisman, but once it enters your body, it seems like a living being with a mind of its own. And most of the time, it's also mean, picky, fickle, mischievous, and sometimes incredibly petty..."
He assigned the Spirit Intelligence every flaw he could think of.
It was only natural that a former holder wouldn't have anything nice to say.
"As for advice about the beginner task, all I can say is that you have to give it everything you've got. Otherwise, you really will be in trouble."
"Of course, if you complete the beginner task, the beginner's gift pack you get is usually pretty generous. This thing may have plenty of flaws, but at least it doesn't skimp when it comes to rewards."
"You said I'm the eighty-first. So the first eighty holders all had beginner tasks, right? How did you complete yours?"
"How we did it has nothing to do with your beginner task."
"This Spirit Intelligence is a real oddball. Every time it restarts, its settings are completely different. So everything it's arranged for you is brand-new and tailored to the times. There's nothing you can learn from the experiences of the previous eighty holders."
"To put it plainly, the first holder and the hundredth holder are no different. To the Spirit Intelligence, we're all just random choices."
This Spirit Intelligence really was a nasty piece of work. Every time it started up, it had a whole new set of settings.
It could do that?
Looked like he'd have to rely on himself after all.
"By the way, what's your beginner task?" the cat-shaped relief asked curiously.
Jiang Yue didn't hide it. He told the truth.
"Your beginner task is to go monster-hunting? That's no ordinary level of difficulty. I don't know what this Year Eater is, but from the name alone, it doesn't sound friendly."
"Also, knowing how the Spirit Intelligence usually operates, you need to think carefully about every name, every location, and every number it mentions."
"From my experience, those things often have several layers of meaning. They hide clues. Take this, for instance: twenty-four hours. There's definitely a clue in there."
"When I first received the paper talisman, it also mentioned twenty-four hours."
"That was a reminder that you had to get to Villa No. 9 within twenty-four hours."
"What if I hadn't made it in time?"
"Heh, then you'd be out. The shortest-lived holder would be born."
"That's brutal." Jiang Yue suddenly wished he could break the contract.
"It can be even worse. You'll get used to it."
"But going by the Spirit Intelligence's usual tricks, if it keeps mentioning twenty-four hours, it must be trying to reveal something. I'd guess it has to do with your beginner task."
"Of course, I'm not going to run my mouth about what exactly it means."
"This is your first interaction with the Spirit Intelligence. I can't interfere with your thinking. Otherwise, if everything goes wrong, we'll both be in trouble."
Jiang Yue understood that what the other had said was probably true.
He'd thought the paper talisman had summoned him to Villa No. 9 because it had some huge surprise waiting for him. At the very least, he'd expected a cheat ability, so he could take off and soar straight to the pinnacle of life.
Instead, he'd gotten no cheat ability, and somehow ended up with a beginner task.
He hadn't gotten to steal a fish, and now he'd come away stinking of it.
One more task would have been bad enough, but apparently failing it would have dire consequences. That was simply intolerable.
Jiang Yue was in despair.
But what was done was done. No matter how badly he fell apart, he still had to pull himself back together, accept reality, and accept the task!
The Year Eater?
What the hell was it?
So far, Jiang Yue didn't even know what kind of thing it was. How was he supposed to track it?
And even if he wanted to track it, he needed a clue, right?
Jiang Yue was at a loss.
As he pondered, his phone rang in his pocket.
"Little Jiang?" Officer Han's voice came through the phone, hurried and anxious.
"Officer Han, did you find a clue?"
"We've got a serious problem. Little Jiang, I need your help. Where are you? I'll come pick you up."
Officer Han was decisive and efficient, as befitted his profession.
Jiang Yue hesitated for a moment, then said, "I'm at the Elm Street night market."
The Daozi Lane Villa Area was within Elm Street's commercial district, not far from the night market. It was only a little over ten minutes away on foot.
"Okay. I'll pick you up at the entrance to the night market. I'll be there in half an hour."
Officer Han hung up as soon as he'd finished speaking.
Jiang Yue put away his phone and thought over the case from beginning to end. Suddenly, a spark of inspiration seemed to flash through his jumbled thoughts.
The Year Eater?
Eater meant to consume.
Year meant years, time.
"That's it!" Jiang Yue slapped his thigh. He really had searched high and low in vain, only to find what he sought without even trying.
The nurse at Star City Second Hospital, his neighbor Sister He, the taxi driver...
And San Gou's bizarre pair of trousers...
Every detail shared one striking feature: years and time seemed to have been stolen from them in an instant.
It matched the words Year Eater perfectly. They fit together seamlessly.
So, had those twenty-odd years the three of them lost been devoured by Ke Yunshan, the ICU patient?
What kind of terrifying ability was that?
Was this some kind of demon-king-level monster showing up right out of the gate?
Jiang Yue had already been mentally prepared for the world's transformation, and his family background had taught him about such things. He was far more capable than the average person of accepting them.
Otherwise, if someone had suddenly told him that something this horrifying was happening, he would have been just as scared.
As the eighty-first successor, there were still some perks.
For example, Villa No. 9 had been left behind by the previous holder. Under the rule that the successor took over all assets, the villa naturally became Jiang Yue's property.
Of course, Jiang Yue didn't have time to be happy about it now.
The twenty-four-hour deadline hung over him like a tightening curse.
He couldn't afford to slack off. Though he had a head full of questions he wanted to ask, he still hurried out.
Now that he had fully merged with the Spirit Intelligence, he could come and go from the villa freely.
He'd barely reached the entrance to Elm Street when Officer Han pulled up.
"Officer Han, next time you come looking for me, could you not use a police car? You're making it look like I've done something. People might get the wrong idea." Jiang Yue joked.
He could tell that Officer Han was extremely tense and needed something to ease the mood.
"Little Jiang, I've got a headache. We've had four more calls come in one after another. That makes seven victims so far."
"This has already started causing localized panic among the public."
Information spread far too quickly these days. There were all sorts of technical measures to block it, delete posts, and ban accounts, but it was still impossible to stop it from spreading in small circles.
"Officer Han, let's get straight to the point. Has the police narrowed down where it might be?"
With surveillance cameras all over the streets, as long as the initial lead hadn't gone cold, they could follow the trail and narrow down its general area of activity.
The figure in the footage was unusual, so they couldn't make out its full appearance or use facial recognition.
But Star City Second Hospital would definitely provide information about the patient, and the police had plenty of ways to look it up.
Officer Han handed him a folder.
Only a few hours had passed since Officer Han took San Gou's trousers and left that afternoon, yet four more victims had turned up.
The police had already gathered information on all the victims and recorded their statements.
Jiang Yue couldn't help but feel impressed by their efficiency.
If this had been an ordinary case, they'd have solved it already at this rate. Unfortunately, what they were facing this time wasn't some vicious criminal. It was an unknown evil that ordinary people couldn't even imagine.
The folder was very detailed.
The first page was a screenshot from a surveillance video.
The timestamp was 11:44. The taxi carrying the ICU patient Ke Yunshan had stopped at White Deer Park.
Ke Yunshan got out of the car—or so it seemed. Whether he really was Ke Yunshan was another matter.
The second page showed the taxi driving around for six or seven minutes before Jiang Yue and the others got in.
The third page showed Ke Yunshan entering White Deer Park from behind. As usual, he looked bizarre: in the footage, Ke Yunshan was always a blurred mass.
There were six more pages of screenshots, showing Ke Yunshan appearing in different areas at various times between noon and 7 p.m.
The rest were written documents. They recorded the statements of the four new victims and analyzed the areas they had been in.
The problem was that these victims had been caught up in this completely by chance. They themselves had no idea where exactly they'd run into this bizarre incident.
According to their accounts, they'd spent the entire day going about their usual business. They hadn't felt anything unusual and hadn't encountered anyone strange.
Two words summed up their reactions to everything that had happened: utterly confused.
After reading all the documents, Jiang Yue didn't rush to comment. He sorted through the information in his mind.
A rough picture of the areas where it had been active gradually took shape.
Jiang Yue knew those areas particularly well.
Star City Second Hospital and the area around White Deer Park weren't far from his home. They were within a twenty-minute drive, even with traffic lights included.
It would only take thirty or forty minutes on foot.
Seeing Jiang Yue fall silent, Officer Han couldn't help asking, "Little Jiang, any thoughts?"
Before you continue