Seeking and Searching
A stark contrast to [JoeStar's] leisurely holiday --
--The boss is still busy, even working overtime during the Chinese New Year.
It reviews documents and handles important matters at its desk, and even serves sticks to newcomers.
Upon flipping to the section about the pinky finger of the Hand of Omnipotence, the Black Cat suddenly perked up and muttered to itself.
"That's interesting."
The Cat Tree Lady leaned over and asked, "What interesting thing did you see?"
The BOSS's little paw swept across the document's details page. "He's a member of the Hand of Omnipotence, very young, and came to work at my station."
The Cat Tree Lady: "Is it a spy?"
BOSS: "Victor and the Special Tea Room have completed the verification process; this little guy is as innocent as a blank sheet of paper."
The Cat Tree Lady: "That's a good thing."
BOSS: "His abilities are quite unique, not suitable for combat. This little guy wanted to stay and work at Jiang Xueming's [JoeStar], but unfortunately—I was thinking of sending him to the special tea room so the VIPs could see another side of him."
The Cat Tree Lady: "Boss, not everyone is willing to change their gender."
BOSS: "Power takes countless forms. In their quest for divine power, the Madness Butterfly's derivative sect has even abandoned humanity. What does it matter if we become male or female? We must use magic to defeat magic!"
The Cat Tree Lady: "I suspect you're just obsessed with pay-to-win mobile games and want to change the card art on your old cards, add a new skin, and make it an SP variant or something."
BOSS: "Cough, you're overthinking it."
The Cat Tree Lady: "Really?"
The BOSS, with its large, watery eyes, replied, "Yes."
The Cat Tree Lady: "I'll tentatively believe what you say, but this special ability of gender switching isn't always a positive boost to combat capabilities; Bu Liuxing is a good example."
"Hmm," the BOSS pondered, "That's right, let's go along with His wishes and let Him stay at [JoeStar] as a therapist."
The Cat Tree Lady: "If the Hand of Omnipotence comes knocking..."
The boss opened his phone, displaying the missed calls, call logs, and barrage of text messages on the screen.
"Thumb is a very clever guy; he knows what to do. I settled a fee with him as a buyout commission for the little finger— the Hand of Omnipotence has survived to this day thanks to this opportunistic leader."
The Cat Tree Lady: "You're dealing with the spokesperson for the Madness Butterfly? How strange."
BOSS: "What you don't see often seems strange. These people don't have guns. They survive in the underworld by currying favor with the powerful and relying on the charity of various schools of thought. I only found out after investigating the whole story that Jiang Xueming was sent to me by mistake."
The Cat Tree Lady: "What do you think will be the ultimate fate of these people?"
The boss grinned slyly. "They don't eat people, nor do they give blood. They spread the Vita Imprint within a controlled area, blessing and connecting with people. They are, in themselves, purely human. If they don't come to work at my station, according to the business logic of modern society, they will eventually be acquired by other groups, becoming deformed vassals, turning into new pyramid scheme tools."
Cat Tree Lady: "Aren't you going to do something?"
The boss held up his phone. "Haven't we been in contact all along? This time, Thumb risked being kicked down and shot by the Blue Gold FBI to spread the Vita Imprint across the land—it was a last-ditch effort, like a cornered beast fighting for survival. Before long, the other fingers will see Little Finger living the high life at my station and will soon waver. It's just a pity that Jiang Bailu suffered physical pain and became a victim of this power struggle between the two sides by mistake."
Upon hearing this, the Cat Tree Lady fell silent.
-- Little Kitty can be quite mischievous.
At the same time, a young man, dressed in tattered clothes and covered in blood, walked in through the cabinet door.
We met this young man about two weeks ago.
In [Off-Screen Play], his name is Robert Tang Ning.
The lobby manager, looking very nervous, said to Mr. Tang Ning, "Please calm down. At least change into decent clothes and clean up the blood on your body."
Tang Ning, dressed in the new spirit robes, walked forward like a walking corpse, his eyes lifeless.
He lifted the iron birdcage with one hand and gripped the black jade collar with the other. Having just completed his first mission, he had come to the cabinet to collect his payment.
The boss remained silent, hidden in the shadow of the Cat Tree Lady. In the dim light, only a pair of bright green cat eyes stared at the impetuous visitor.
The heavy birdcage was thrown onto the table with a jarring crash.
The Cat Tree Lady quickly gathered all the documents on the table to one side to prevent them from getting stained with blood.
Tang Ning was steaming, as if he had just gotten off the train and rushed here immediately after receiving the Radiant Stone and Spirit Robe.
His once blond hair had been dyed dark red, and his handsome features were now just empty and blank.
I brought what you asked for.
Tang Ning handed out the passenger logbook.
"--I retrieved the head of a beast-like crow-man along with it. Give me the medicine; you said the Universal Elixir could cure all diseases in the world."
When the BOSS saw the black gemstone in Tang Ning's hand, his expression also turned serious.
"Young man, I never said that."
Tang Ning's body trembled slightly, the scratches on her shoulder revealing the exposed, tender flesh, and her blood-red face showed a deep-seated hatred.
"Then why is its name a panacea that can cure all diseases?"
The BOSS's expression was cold and stern. "When we first met, I told you that the first task should be safe and comfortable, a simple investigation—I don't understand why you brought this head back. The task I gave you should have been a simple exploration and investigation."
Tang Ning gritted her teeth. "Stop talking nonsense, give me the medicine."
"Give him the Universal Elixir." The BOSS instructed the Cat Tree Lady, then climbed onto the cat tree's shoulder, looking down at Tang Ning like an elder, and said, "Why don't you give me the brilliance stone, open your heart to me, and tell me your story in detail?"
Without a word, Tang Ning immediately handed over the black jade necklace. "What are you asking? I don't understand."
The boss explained, "It means exactly what it says—every passenger who comes to this station has a clear goal, a wish that must be fulfilled, and an inner demon that must be defeated. When I first met you, I could vaguely sense a strong sense of hatred."
Tang Ning retrieved the syringe and, like a wounded soldier receiving a sedative, forcefully plunged the Universal Elixir into his neck.
Immediately afterwards, his eyes turned blood red, and his body recovered completely, without any further injuries.
But Tang Ning's emotions grew increasingly agitated, uneasy, and disappointed.
"Why? Boss, why do I still feel so much pain?"
The BOSS frowned. "Hatred is the most difficult disease to cure in this world; there's no Universal Elixir for it."
"I feel like a piece of my heart is missing!" Tang Ning threw down the syringe, his body covered in the stench of beast blood, and lunged at the BOSS, demanding an explanation. "Why... why am I in so much pain? Is it because I killed Masha with my own hands?"
Boss: "Who is Masha?"
Tang Ning grabbed the Cat Tree Lady by the collar. "The one I love."
BOSS: "Why did you kill her?"
Tang Ning's expression twisted into a terrifying grimace. "Because she's not human. I discovered it a very, very long time ago, but it's been incredibly difficult for me to let go of her."
Boss: "If she's not human, what else could she be?"
Tang Ning covered her head with one hand, as if to reopen her most painful wound. "I'm not sure. She's probably a vampire bat from a ghost story. I bought tons of exorcism tools; she knows all this, she just watched me mess around."
At this point, Tang Ning's hands fell limply to his sides, like a child who had committed a grave mistake, and his eyes began to flicker.
"She definitely knows, she must know, she absolutely knows. How could I possibly lie to her? We share a bed, how could she not know what I want to do?"
"I fantasize, is there any possibility! Is there any possibility!"
Tang Ning knelt before the cabinet's platform, pleading with the BOSS.
"She's just sick, that's why her temperature is so low. She just has a strange illness, so the blood I smelled when I kissed her was just the medicine she drank. She can cure this illness."
"I was driven insane by this terrifying pressure, so I took her to the Portsmouth coastline to sunbathe—and then she died in front of me."
"There's nothing left."
As he said this, two clear tears streamed down Robert Tang Ning's bloodshot cheeks.
"Boss! Boss! Boss! She's a living, breathing person, isn't she?"
"I love her, I miss her, I think about her all the time."
"I want to cook with her, make blueberry pancakes, cook oatmeal, make simple but delicious things. She said she learned her cooking skills from her grandmother."
"She's thirty-three, but looks so young because she takes good care of her skin and goes to bed early and gets up early every day, right?"
"Her Instagram account hasn't had any new posts since. The last one was about her vacation in Portsmouth with my sweetheart, accompanied by a funny tongue-out emoji. She called me 'sweetheart.' She called me 'sweetheart.'"
"Her red hair could steal my soul, and her eyes held the shimmering light of a silver lake."
"She was a human being, and I killed a living, breathing human being."
"I killed the person I loved most."
Robert Tang Ning kowtowed violently before the BOSS, as if possessed. His blood and tears splattered on the carpet on the platform, forming an almost bright red heart shape.
"I feel like a piece of my heart is missing, and something warm is flowing out of it continuously."
"Bang--"
"Bang--"
"Bang--"
The repeated impacts caused Tang Ning's forehead to crack open, revealing her bare white bones.
"Boss! Boss! You said it! The Universal Elixir can cure all diseases! You said it, didn't you! You must have said that! But why? Why can't it fill the hole in my heart?"
The Little Kitty pursed its lips, and its eyes became watery.
It jumped off the Cat Tree Lady, ran to Tang Ning's side, tilted its little head, and clutched a handkerchief, trying to comfort the boy.
"I'm sorry, I can't do that. Perhaps time can heal the wounds in your heart, but I can't. I don't have that ability."
Tang Ning growled, his face streaked with tears and snot. "Boss! These past few days, I've been having dreams every day, dreams filled with Masha's image. I'm going crazy."
The boss gently patted Tang Ning's shoulder and asked the Cat Tree Lady to bring some Universal Elixir, which he then rubbed on a handkerchief and applied to the boy's wound.
"According to the station's investigation, your Masha should be a member of the Madness Butterfly Sect, actually."
Tang Ning gripped the BOSS's claws tightly, not wanting the wound on her forehead to heal so quickly.
He was punishing himself, as if only in this way could he alleviate the pain in his heart.
"I know what she is. Other passengers have told me too, she drinks human blood and eats human flesh! So I have to kill her, right!?"
The boss nodded.
Tang Ning clenched her fists, pounding her chest fiercely against her heart. "But I truly did kill the person I loved most."
The boss forcefully pressed the handkerchief against Tang Ning's forehead.
"No! Robert Tang Ning! That's not right!"
Tang Ning was taken aback and didn't know what to say.
His mental state was extremely unstable; the demons within him were whispering slanderous words. He could hear a voice telling him to shoot himself and immediately go to hell with Masha to continue their past relationship.
The BOSS's face was contorted with rage as he solemnly declared, "You're wrong, you're mistaken, Tang Ning, you're terribly wrong—your lover wasn't killed by your own hand. To be precise, her death had nothing to do with you."
"It wasn't me?" Tang Ning knelt stiffly, as if she had found a lifeline. "If it wasn't me, then who could it be?"
In that instant, a thick shadow emanated from the BOSS's body, and an invisible Inspiration Pressure tightly enveloped Tang Ning, almost crushing all of the boy's negative emotions, leaving only pure fear.
Tang Ning's eyes widened, his heart pounded, his blood pressure and heart rate skyrocketed, his temples bulged, and the capillaries in his nasal cavity burst rapidly, sending a burning pain through his nasopharynx. He almost fainted from shock. All he could hear was the BOSS's booming voice.
"It was the Madness Butterfly and the Blood Ceremony that killed your lover."
"The moment Masha became a vampire, she was already dead."
"It's just a lingering phantom of her in the human world that makes you mistake her for a living, breathing person."
"Your beloved Masha may have been buried many years ago, turned into a handful of yellow mud."
"She lived on human blood and flesh for a very, very long time, perhaps so that the remnants of her soul could meet, know, accompany, and love you. Without a doubt, your affection for her, and your vows of eternal love, are absolutely true and cannot be questioned by anyone."
"But Robert Tang Ning, you are not the murderer."
"You shouldn't use your hatred to hurt yourself."
"When you were secretly collecting ritual items, Masha didn't blame you, nor did she guard against you."
"When you took her to the Portsmouth coastline and she saw the most important sun of her life, she overcame her instincts and didn't harm you."
"But now you're torturing yourself repeatedly, how dare you betray her love?!"
"You should hate the Blood Bat Cult, hate the priests of the Blood Ceremony. They turned Masha into a monster. They sent Masha to you to make you indulge in pleasure, to make you suffer, and to turn your heart into a wormhole riddled with holes."
As darkness faded, the BOSS's expression became complex, a mixture of hope and sorrow.
"Robert, go for revenge, crush your inner demons, and I'll show you how. Pick your club."
Tang Ning's eyes regained their light. He wiped the blood from his mouth and nose, trying to heal the wounds in his heart.
"Can I? I... can I? I must do it."
He wiped it with his coat, but the blood kept increasing. He then turned the lining inside out and found that it was already soaked with animal blood.
The bookshelf flips over, and the BOSS takes a silver stake from the third row of weapons cabinets on the right side of the cat climbing frame.
BOSS: "You can—you can definitely do it with this."
Tang Ning took the silver stake and hurriedly asked, "What do I need to do?"
The BOSS handed over a sapphire card. "Have your servant guide you to the Grand Archives to learn hunting techniques from the Lapis Lazuli Wolf Mother and discover the Blood Bat's Gate of Death."
Tang Ning simply nodded. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
He stood up, stepping back as he nodded his thanks.
Thank you, thank you.
He retreated step by step, bowing as he went.
"Thank you, thank you, Boss."
Finally, he disappeared outside the cabinet doors.
The boss raised its little paw and instructed the Cat Tree Lady, "Prepare two more Universal Elixir for this newcomer."
The Cat Tree Lady: "Boss, your methods of winning people over are truly ruthless."
The boss wiped away his tears. "No, no, no, you must have met me someday. When I see Tang Ning, it's like seeing a lost child. They've fallen, their knees and arms are bleeding, and they might never recover. They might never dare to walk forward again, and can only crawl on the ground, giving up on themselves. These things worry me—I can't just do nothing and ignore everything."
The Cat Tree Lady: "I'll just have to believe you for now."
The boss curled his lip. "I'm not a good actor. Maintaining an air of authority and inspiring awe is as difficult as climbing Mount Everest for me."
Cat Tree Lady: "Jason Megan too?"
BOSS: "Yes, I hope he can pull himself together. There's a very important matter I need him to accomplish."
The Cat Tree Lady placed the iron cage back by the fireplace. She returned to the large table, cleaning up the mess, and suddenly said something.
Happy New Year, Boss.
The Little Kitty was about to pick up its pen and continue working when it suddenly froze. "You remember this day?"
The Cat Tree Lady nodded, staring expressionlessly at the ferocious beast.
"I remember you always scolded me for having a bad memory, so I specifically went to check the almanac."
The Little Kitty perked up. "Is there a present?"
The Cat Tree Lady took out a small gift box, opened the lid, and revealed a pink bow.
The boss pursed his lips in disgust. "Oh! No! This won't do!"
The Cat Tree Lady smiled, a rare sight on her face. "You said that the forms of power are ever-changing and should not be confined to gender."
The boss glanced sideways, reluctantly sitting down at the table, his paws mimicking the motion of scooping up dried fish. "Alright. I'll wear it for a few minutes, but no outsiders can see it. If they see it, they'll laugh at me, and if they laugh at me, they won't respect me anymore, and it'll cause a lot of trouble."
The Cat Tree Lady naturally stepped on the footrest, and the cabinet door locked itself.
Tang Ning stepped outside and saw the waiter's anxious expression.
During his meeting with the BOSS, the sorrow in his heart gradually faded, transforming into a strong desire for revenge.
The experiences along the way replayed in my mind, but they became terrifying.
After passing through the spiral staircase of the Sky Station, you arrive at the deep, dark underground, and guided by strange staff, you reach the Nine Realms.
During the review process of the Polarized Sextant, Tang Ning's mental state was extremely unstable, and he had a strong tendency to self-destruct.
Having finally passed these entrance tests, in order to obtain the Universal Elixir to heal his heartbreak, he took a train to an unknown border region of District 21 to investigate a hybrid human-beast monster.
After regaining her senses, Tang Ning recalled her experiences along the way, and fear gradually filled her heart, especially regarding that strange waiter.
Unlike other passengers--
His attendant was quite special; he was an Earth Dragon who had gained sentience.
This Earth Dragon lady had just received her license and started working. She was wearing a crew hat, a long and fitted dress with a scissor tail, and a bulky skirt.
Seeing her employer emerge from the cabinet, she shook her delicate pink scales to greet him. As she opened her mouth to speak, her two rows of fine baby teeth rubbed together, producing a strange, spine-chilling sound.
She has a pair of bright red eyes, comes from the Mimir Hot Spring Market, and is a very rare Earth Dragon juvenile. She is only six months old, 211 centimeters long, and her tail is 165 centimeters long when she stands up.
"Employer? How is it?"
Tang Ning ignored the terrifying monster and simply kept walking forward.
The Earth Dragon girl immediately followed, relentlessly trailing behind.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. But the BOSS is a good cat! It even accepted a man-eating monster like me, so it certainly won't stand idly by while the tragedy that happened to you occurred."
Tang Ning paused for half a step, finding it all too noisy.
The little Earth Dragon continued, "Oh? Are you angry? Oh dear, don't look at me like that, as if you can beat me—I'm so scared!"
Tang Ning: "Have you ever eaten people?"
"I grew up in the Skull and Bones Society's Mu Yuan," the little Earth Dragon girl said with a grin. "How could we not eat people? What did they feed me? Did I have a choice? Was I supposed to tell these cultists, 'I don't eat meat, I just want to drink milk'?"
Tang Ning: "I noticed that most of the other passengers' waiters were human."
The little Earth Dragon patted her chest with her claws, looking quite smug. Her claws were neatly trimmed. "I'm just smarter, or rather, luckier. In the same Animal Pen, I'm not as strong as my brothers and sisters. They can compete for the delicious protein—while I only get the medulla oblongata and brain, which are rich in spiritual essence. I don't know if it's lucky or unlucky, but this diet has given me intelligence. Otherwise, I'd probably be a specimen of an Earth Dragon by now."
Tang Ning didn't reply, completely baffled by the boss's arrangement.
According to other passengers, the waiters were very compatible soulmates to them.
The Blood Bat Cult, a derivative of the Madness Butterfly, robbed Tang Ning of the most important thing in her life.
The Skull and Bones Society, though an evil organization, bestowed upon this Earth Dragon the most important thing in its life.
They simply couldn't see eye to eye; they were not on the same wavelength, or rather, they were not even the same kind of beings.
The little Earth Dragon followed behind Tang Ning, displaying the elegant gait taught to her by Foreman Yang Chun, her tail swaying gracefully as she chatted wittily with her employer.
"I know, I understand. You've mentioned Masha so many times, so many times. I think she must be a good woman. My employer, keep it up! I'm different from you. I don't have so many worries. I just want to survive—that's all. If anything happens to you, my brain won't be able to keep up with new passengers. I guess the boss will either turn me into a new research specimen or make me do hard labor! Please?"
Tang Ning didn't think much of it; she simply walked forward toward the boardroom counter and asked for a ticket to the main library.
The Earth's surface at an altitude of 17,000 meters.
Inside the Bu Family--
Jiang Bailu's face was deathly pale, as if she had suffered a great shock.
She burst into Xue Ming's room through the hidden doorway and slipped out from under the bookshelf.
Xue Ming immediately jumped up. "What is it?"
Bailu: "It's haunted! Brother! It's haunted!"
Xue Ming asked in confusion, "Haunted?"
Bailu held up her phone and grabbed Xue Ming Ge's clothes. "Look!"
The apps on my phone screen have all grown arms and legs and are fighting each other, as if they've been affected by Spirit Calamity.
Baidu gave the phone security software a severe beating, while Quark watched the show and laughed heartily.
Meituan and Ele. me have started a melee involving UI components on their desktops, resulting in a lot of bloodshed and turning the entire phone screen into a bloody mess.
BILIBILI, wielding its volume bar, had already sliced ACFUN in half. The small blue TV was covered in blood and was searching for its next target.
Jiang Xueming pointed at a trembling pink app. "What's this?"
Jiang Bailu was both embarrassed and anxious. "Never mind what that is! Brother! Look carefully!"
The blood spurting from these apps left four words in the center of the screen.
[Remember to get on the bus]
Xue Ming looked puzzled. "So, BOSS doesn't experience any creative blocks when it comes to art?"
This is how the BOSS summons the passengers.
--It's very simple and brutal, the more supernatural the better.
Bailu winked and said, "There's more, there's more!"
He then pulled Xue Ming to the bathroom, where the two siblings looked at themselves in the mirror again and again.
Xue Ming: "What's going on? Why is there no sound?"
Bailu, with a serious expression, turned the light off and then back on.
The two siblings in the mirror became a bloody mess, their bodies pierced by glass, and the splattered blood formed four characters.
[Remember to get on the bus]
Xue Ming didn't quite understand the BOSS's strange sense of ritual, which reeked of a perverse sense of humor, like a box of frights.
But upon closer reflection, it seems quite reasonable.
--Paranormal phenomena can tell new passengers that these are not things that can be explained by science.
The threat of death can make them obey and follow the waiter's guidance to venture into the underworld.
Xue Ming was curious to see what other tricks the BOSS might pull.
Bailu grabbed her brother and ran to the TV, turning it on.
"And this! This and this! Someone might crawl out of here!"
Xue Ming: "What classic scene is this now?"
The brother and sister waited, but halfway through the normal TV commercials, the screen turned into static.
A girl of about seventeen or eighteen years old appeared on the screen.
--This is exactly what the Bailu season looks like.
She silently combs her hair in the black and white image, without uttering a sound.
Then I saw the person with lifeless eyes, muttering to himself.
"Get on the bus."
"Get on the bus."
"Get on the bus, get on the bus, get on the bus, get on the bus."
A plume of black smoke condensed into mist, gathering in front of the television screen, and then a figure slowly crawled out.
The bizarre, monstrous joints were twisting and cracking; the scene was incredibly intense.
It raised its head and glanced at Jiang Bailu, its face pale and terrifying, feigning a fierce expression that conveyed a threat.
"Get on the bus."
The spirit turned its head again and looked at Jiang Xueming was sitting perfectly still.
It blinked, its expression returning to normal, and then said—
"--Oh, so you're here. I thought you weren't! Never mind, I'm heading back now."
Then the two siblings watched as the spirit crawled back to the TV along the same path and turned off the power.
Xue Ming took a deep breath.
"The boss should have given up watching horror movies a long time ago."
Jiang Bailu was filled with curiosity.
"They're quite polite, aren't they?"