Act 2: One Must Fall · Alone, One Is Bound to Fall

Foreword:

A person's value should be judged by what they contribute, not by what they acquire.

[--Albert Einstein]

[Part 1 - Blood Butterfly Loan Shark, and Scavenger]

As Dale Carnegie said in "How to Win Friends and Influence People".

It's called "The North Wind Made the Vikings"—meaning that without a harsh environment, the powerful Vikings couldn't have been forged. The Norse Vikings transformed the cold sea winds into strong and savage physiques, turning adversity into advantage.

"I've heard that line in a manga!" Bu Liuxing crouched among the rocks in the wilderness. "In the manga <JOJO's Bizarre Adventure>, the protagonist's teacher said that line when encouraging his students! 'Viking Warrior North Wind!'"

Jason frowned in disapproval, "This guy's voice is as loud as thunder."

Wen Bucai and his four companions hid on the leeward side of the large rock, pointing towards the end of the secret passage.

"Bu Liuxing is right. The place we're going to is full of dangers and obstacles, as you can see."

At the end of the mine tunnel, the Skull and Bones Society built four walkways along the cliff face and erected four outposts relying on the walls of volcanic obsidian.

This is also the Morokhovvich discontinuity, the source of the Mimir Hot Spring, extending over a kilometer in depth. At its bottom are constantly churning lava flows and gleaming eclogite formations.

The outpost and Zero Platform are only five or six hundred meters apart, connected to the outside world only by an iron suspension bridge.

"Can we get in from another place?" Jiang Xueming pointed to the treacherous ravines on both sides of the cliff. "With a grappling hook, or a hang glider? Something else?"

Bu Liuxing immediately replied, "I can skydive! I'm good at that! I can also rock climb!"

Wen Bucai shook his head and moved his finger to the hard yet fragile obsidian mountain.

"These glass crystals are very hard, but not earthquake-resistant. If we want to choose another route to get to Zero Platform, we'd have to be able to fly—helicopters are too noisy. We only have one route, the most difficult, but also the simplest."

Jason glanced at the mine cart's cargo bin, where some simple windproof cloaks, long shirts and trousers, were patched up in many places and looked very worn.

"You want to disguise yourself as a scavenger and find an excuse to sneak in?"

Wen Bucai: "Yes."

Jason: "Scavengers are the lowest-ranking and weakest group in the underworld. What excuse are you going to use?"

Wen Bucai: "We were cooks disguised as a mobile dining car on the railway. We were on our way to the Mimir Hot Spring Market to make a living, and we walked along the railway for a very long time—but then some unknown robbers robbed us of our things and left us on the tracks to die."

"Is this excuse appropriate?" Jiang Xueming had never told a similar lie before. He was as innocent as a blank sheet of paper in the underworld and didn't know if this disguise could fool the cannibals of the Skull and Bones Society.

Jason lay down on the edge of the road, carefully sniffing the smell of the asphalt.

He used his fingers to collect the debris left on the road from the cart shaft and tires, then brought them to his nose and inhaled the smell.

His keen Inspiration led him to the judgment that this method was feasible.

"This method works." Jason gestured to the dimensions of the cart shafts on the road. "Judging from the tracks on the cart shafts, the wheel spacing is the size of a food cart. Other mobile food carts have entered the outpost."

"Are you sure it's a scavenger's food cart?" Jiang Xueming rallied her spirits and pressed on, "What are the characteristics of a scavenger? I need to write them down. What if I don't act well and give myself away?"

The young waiter, smug and self-satisfied, showed off his knowledge to Jiang Xueming: "Hey! You clueless newbie, just listen carefully as my master explains it to you slowly!"

Jason: "What are you so smug about?"

Waiter: "Yes! What are you so smug about?"

Jason: "No, I'm asking you, I'm talking to you, my dear girl. What are you so smug about?"

The waiter panicked. "Employer... it's me!"

Jason: "No baby in the world is born talking. That wasn't a baby; that was a time traveler, a monster resurrected from another body—is it strange that Jiang Xueming doesn't know these things? Is it something to be happy about? Something to cheer about?"

"I'm so sorry, sir." The waiter immediately wilted, his eyes welling up with tears. "I was just thinking that you could beat him! Be better than him! Win in every place, and keep winning! That way you'd feel better."

"Oh! Don't cry. Please," Jason pleaded, clasping his hands together. "Please spare my life."

Jiang Xueming pulled aside the waiter and asked earnestly, "Mr. Jason, please teach me how to play this role?"

"Teacher!" The little waiter stopped crying immediately. "Mr. Jason! He's calling you teacher!"

Jason's expression became complicated.

He saw the waiter's overjoyed expression, and then he saw Jiang Xueming's meticulous expression.

He finally spoke.

"Scavengers are the most pitiful and hateful group of people in the underworld. They have lost all their skills and no longer work for the station."

As he spoke, Jason began to change his clothes.

He removed his MOLLE, disarmed himself, tore his clothes to shreds, and smeared them with saliva and mud.

"These people come from diverse backgrounds and never reveal their real names, because they all have some kind of debt to repay to the Blood Butterfly Loan Shark's financial institutions."

Jiang Xueming had heard of this term before, and she changed clothes with Jason.

"Loan sharking? The boss has such a despicable side business?"

Several zippers on Xue Ming's clothes were open—the waiter blushed and kept hiding behind his employer.

Jason continued, "The BOSS's Universal Elixir alone can't support so many passengers. Each station has officially certified lending institutions. They take the physical essence of borrowers, and the payment is the Blood Butterfly Shopping Coupons used to redeem the Universal Elixir —they take the borrowers' organs with strong regenerative abilities, bone marrow, hematopoietic stem cells, etc., to cultivate White Lady and manufacture the Universal Elixir. You have White Lady coffee, right?"

Jiang Xueming: "Yes."

Jason: "White Lady Coffee is just a lowly byproduct of Blood Butterfly Loan Shark."

Bu Liuxing pondered, "Oh! So, if I take the medicine while taking out loans, wouldn't that be exploiting a bug? As long as my regeneration speed is fast enough, I can give them dozens of kidneys, then use the Universal Elixir to grow them back. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"

"If only things were that simple," Jason tossed the tattered clothes to the waiter, telling him to change where the men couldn't see him. "The body and spirit are interdependent and supportive. Suddenly taking away a part of one will leave terrible aftereffects."

Bu Liuxing immediately dismissed the idea; using a drug card bug to steal credit cards was something even a fool could not imagine.

"The Blood Butterfly Loan Shark can only solve immediate problems," Jason explained in detail. "Regular repayments require you to provide physical essence at the station every so often. At the Huge Mountain Station, 600 grams of fresh liver costs 8,600 Radiant Stones for a one-time repayment—the price is lower if you want to pay in installments, but interest will still apply. The station prefers to obtain complete organs, but the more physical essence they take at once, the greater the damage to the body."

Jiang Xueming asked, "Are these physical essences the raw materials for cultivating White Lady?"

"Yes. And the consequences of repeated borrowing are terrifying. The station has clear regulations on this matter and will not allow the same person to borrow frequently." Jason gritted his teeth, imagining a chaotic and indescribable scene. "A person who is both mentally and physically healthy keeps crippling themselves, their wounds keep healing, only to experience new traumas. The money they earn from this pain is used to indulge in a life of extravagance and debauchery in the city, spending money more and more recklessly—they can't help it, absolutely can't help it. The frequency of borrowing will only increase, and they will give away more and more."

Jason Megan covered her face, sounding nervous and her lips were dry as she spoke about it.

"The side effects of repeated borrowing damage the passenger's spiritual essence. Their Inspiration weakens, and their Madness Index rises—things they used to see clearly, things they could perceive, the ability to cry over a movie, the joy of a date that kept them awake all over—they lose these simple and pure emotions. They even lose the most important thing: the ability to live in the real world every single moment. I have many fellow passengers from that time, and a few of them have degenerated into scavengers, becoming empty shells, numb and indifferent, unable to sense the spiritual pressure of others! They can no longer travel by car!"

Jason clenched his teeth, furious to the extreme.

"I can no longer find any trace of them. Perhaps they are still in the underworld, risking their lives to walk along the railway to other unfamiliar stations to try their luck, attempting to forge identities, deceive the financial authorities' auditors, and continue to obtain loans."

"Perhaps they've already returned to the surface world, used their last bit of money to get married, have children, and live a happy life like ordinary people. Who knows?"

"Perhaps they're still pushing food carts along the tracks selling snacks, occasionally asking the train maintenance crew for a cigarette, and when they rest at the station, they try to exchange a ticket from a passenger, hoping that Lady Luck will smile upon them again and that they can see the inverted pentagram emblem on the banknote."

"Even the strongest willpower becomes incredibly fragile in this superstitious ritual of repeated organ sacrifice. Without attendants to help them, the ultimate result is that they will inevitably fall into depravity alone."

Jiang Xueming casually sent a text message to his sister.

[Don't touch online loans, Bailu, my brother has money.]

"Are scavengers really this kind of people?" Bu Liuxing suddenly decided not to change his clothes anymore, because he Dadu experienced this kind of emotion since he was a child. He couldn't learn to fake it, he couldn't act it out at all, he just didn't have the right feel for it.

"Ordinary people are also willing to sell their bodies, providing passengers with the raw materials for the Universal Elixir." Jason had changed his clothes and lay back down by the roadside to double-check the accuracy of the information he had gathered. "But ordinary people don't suffer as badly as passengers. Their Inspiration isn't as intense, and they don't experience the thrill of falling from a high place to a low place, that inexplicable pleasure of depravity—it's just that their mania Madness Index rises, making them more vulnerable, easily startled, and prone to extreme highs and lows, increasing their probability of committing crimes. Unless they are introduced by a transfer order from the station, ordinary people can't get tickets or travel between multiple stations to commit loan fraud, so these side effects become insignificant. After paying off the loan, they recover in as little as half a month, or as long as six months."

Jiang Xueming sighed inwardly, never expecting that the high-interest loans at the station referred to the interest accrued on the blood and flesh debt between the station and its passengers.

The good cat went to great lengths to prepare ample Universal Elixir for the passengers' adventurous journey, but this was the result.

The life-saving medicine produced on this production line led many passengers to degenerate and become insane scavengers.

"Five years ago, the station stopped allowing any passengers to sell their physical bodies. Instead, the lending market bred more gray areas. Private banks and private loans, all sorts of bizarre financial projects emerged. That's another bloody story." Jason put these things aside for now, and lowered his head to lick the taste of the black mud from the wheel ruts.

The scene left Bu Liuxing speechless with amazement.

Jason said to Wen Bucai, "There's a chance to get in! Absolutely a chance, Wen Bucai!"

Wen Bucai: "Explain in detail."

"Using the name of a food truck is a perfect excuse," Jason explained. "These dirt tracks are full of fresh donkey dung. The cooks in the food trucks use animal power to transport goods, which is quieter and safer than wagons—the main components of donkey dung are ferns and moss, all goods from Huge Mountain Station, which I've eaten. If these donkeys are disobedient, they can also become warm clothing and food."

Jiang Xueming was also moved, and handed out a water bottle and a toothbrush from his bundle, saying, "Hero! You've worked hard!"

Jason took the toothbrush and water bottle, cleaning his mouth while giving a mumbled explanation.

"Just recently, within two days, a fleet of scavengers' mobile food carts entered the checkpoint. Judging from the direction of the cart shafts, they went in and out; when they went in, the tire tracks were deep, indicating they were carrying a lot of goods, and when they came out, the tire tracks were shallower."

Jason then drove in circles on the highway.

"There are no bullet holes or metal fragments on this road, nor any bloodstains. The outer outpost is loosely guarded, so it should be a place where we can talk."

He tilted his head back to rinse his mouth, eventually spitting out all the mouthwash.

"We need two scouts to go ahead and explore. They need to be resourceful and able to chat with strangers. These two scouts need to look out for each other, fill in any gaps in each other's lies, and find out how many people and how many guns are in this settlement. They need to subtly find out where the big boss of Zero Platform lives."

Bu Liuxing raised his hand. "I'm ready!"

Wen Bucai was about to speak.

Jason shook his head. "You're no good! Wen Luo, your name is too famous and too conspicuous in Mimir Hot Spring Market. Your jawline is broad and fleshy, a distinctive feature. Anyone who has spent a few days in Mimir Hot Spring Market can recognize your chin."

Jiang Xueming: "Me and Meteor together?"

Jason: "Can you act?"

Jiang Xueming: "I don't understand at all."

Waiter: "Let me risk it, sir! I can."

Jason, expressionless, said, "Bullshit."

The waiter, looking distraught, hid behind Jiang Xueming instead of Jason.

Jason sighed and began to explain the scene to Bu Liuxing.

"Kid, I'm a scavenger. My food cart got robbed, and you met a lonely soul like me, so you had to help me out. I was planning to ambush you, kill you, and steal your ticket and passenger pass, but somehow we ended up chasing each other and ended up at Zero Platform. You're a passenger looking for fun, so you have to play yourself. Do you understand?"

Bu Liuxing: "Oh! I understand!"

Xue Ming muttered under his breath, "I hope he understands."

The waiter muttered under his breath, "I hope he can take good care of my employer."

[Part ② - Boke Grand Hotel]

The first checkpoint at Station Zero is called [Bork Pass].

The name doesn't have any special meaning; it's a homophone of a Mongolian wrestling sport.

There were many refugees in the barracks and tents in front of the sentry post; it was a campsite for scavengers.

These scavengers pinned their hopes on Zero Platform, located outside the railway network of this station, hoping it would bring them great wealth and good fortune.

What a good cat can't provide, perhaps another boss at Zero Platform can add a brand new opening page to the life stories of these scavengers.

The security personnel at the outpost were fully equipped and highly professional mercenaries. Their military gear came from Miami, and they carried AK74U rifles, had IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) markings on their shoulders, and were fully equipped with radio communication equipment.

The armband's logo features a bright red ZERO logo and a silhouette of a blood-red butterfly in the background.

Right now, at this very moment.

Bu Liuxing hoisted Jason onto his shoulder as if carrying a trophy and Bu Liuxing inside.

He was immediately stopped by the guards at the outpost, their dark gun barrels all pointed at A Xing.

Someone asked.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

Meteor's smile was radiant, his porcelain-white teeth gleaming under the bright lights. His healthy energy almost infected the security guards, causing them to momentarily lower their guard. This kind-faced young man seemed easy to get along with, a real joy to be around.

A Xing raised his hands high, casually tucking Jason's waist and abdomen to his ears.

He said with utmost sincerity, "I've come to see the Skull and Bones Society!"

The mercenary leader at the outpost grinned from ear to ear. "Hahaha! Hahahahahaha!"

The patrolman beside him laughed, "He's found the right place!"

There were restless shouts and curses coming from behind.

"Is this brat Lapis Lazuli Guards?! Shall we kill him?! Let's have a gun-shooting contest! You shoot him in the head, I'll shoot him in the groin?!"

Meteor immediately pouted, looking innocent and helpless.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa! BRO! Oh! Calm down! Calm down! I'm not here to die! I'm here to find the Skull and Bones Society! Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So?"

The moment A Xing read out the code.

The good brothers at the outpost all sighed in unison.

"Is he a scavenger? He knows our code; we don't accept scrap here."

Meteor flashed his passenger ID: "I have a stick and a pyroxene, unlike that non-combustible waste behind me who's been taking out online loans through shady channels!"

Cheers erupted from the mercenaries as they welcomed their new companion; it was an exciting occasion.

"Unfortunately, this guy stabbed me in the shoulder." A Xing turned around, revealing a wound on his side, the bandage still stained with blood. "You must want to know who he is, right?"

The mercenaries then sighed, indignant at the misfortune that had befallen the meteor.

A Xing showed the mercenaries the Jason Megan on his shoulder.

"This friend! He's a scavenger named Jason, Jason Megan —he lost his waiter and never recovered, so he started taking out loans to pay off more debts and became a scavenger. I was on my way to Mimir Hot Spring Market today when I was lured away by his mobile food cart—on the deserted railway tracks, he tried to kill me, cut off my kidneys, and take my documents to continue taking out loans. Luckily, I'm quick-witted and strong enough; he was no match for me."

The mercenaries erupted in enthusiastic applause once again.

The team leader, sneezing incessantly, exclaimed excitedly, "Well done! You did a great job!"

Meteor continued, "But his cooking was delicious, especially the mutton soup and milk tea, and the grilled steak. You've all had grilled steak, right? The grilled steak I'm talking about is very special, really special. After eating it, I felt so happy, even the pain in my back didn't hurt anymore—it was so delicious! It's such a pity, I think he must have practiced this skill to cook for the waitresses. What a shame."

The mercenaries then sighed, their emotions shifting very quickly.

The patrolmen took out their small handkerchiefs and started wiping away their tears.

Meteor said, "But the good news is! This chef is now on our turf! He's my pledge of allegiance to the Skull and Bones Society! We're in for a treat!"

Thunderous cheers erupted from the mercenary group.

"OHHHHHHH!!"

"OHHHHHHHHHHOH!! OHHHHHHH!"

"Quickly, summon the manager of the grand hotel! Invite this guest in! Let the manager personally investigate his background! If what he says is true, that would be great news!"

The manager of the Boke Grand Hotel.

It was a Mongolian woman.

She was eight feet tall and had a six-foot waist.

His face was covered in scars, and he sat in the center of the hall like a fierce god.

Bu Liuxing passed through the checkpoint, entered the alleyway inside the mountain, and walked to the lobby of the Boke Grand Hotel, where he saw the innkeeper resting with his eyes closed.

He was stunned, not quite able to react for a moment.

The head manager spoke slowly, without opening his eyes.

"If you want to join Skull and Bones Society, hand over the Shining Stone first."

Under the dim light--

--Two skinned corpses hung upside down on either side of the front hall.

The shopkeeper picked up a cup to collect the bloody liquid, which would be used as an ingredient in the butter tea soup.

Why aren't you saying anything? Are you scared?

Meteor pursed her lips and exchanged a glance with Jason. Both of them wore strange expressions reminiscent of "old man on the subway looking at his phone."

To be honest, the visuals are quite impactful; even the most humorous person feels a little uneasy.

Meteor whispered, "The boss guarding the gate is way too heavyweight! I didn't expect this kind of scene right after entering. Jason, do you have any clues? Are there more mid-level, final, and hidden bosses later on? What kind of amazing bosses are they?"

Jason whispered, "The fiercest and most aggressive dog in a house is used for guarding the house. Isn't that the most basic and obvious common sense? Viking Warrior North Wind. Viking Warrior North Wind."

The shopkeeper, unhurried, took a sip of the sweet yet bloody tea.

"Don't be afraid. The man on your left is the Xiao Bai I paid for, and the woman on your right is his mistress—they both died a worthy death, a natural end to their lives."

Her broad shoulders and thick neck trembled as she stood up from the chair.

She was neither angry nor threatening, and Bu Liuxing couldn't even sense any spiritual pressure.

Her voice was like the wind blowing through an iron kettle, like a deep, resonant bell.

"Those two bitches took so much from me. I'm heartbroken and sad, but I can't cry, and I dare not cry—I don't think life should be like this."

She gently teased the Xiao Bai's large hot dog, then cut it off with a knife and tossed it into a corner. Immediately, a monstrous beast lurking in the shadows snatched it away and ate it.

"A person's value should be judged by what they contribute, not by what they acquire. This is the opinion of the wisest person in the world."

She approached Bu Liuxing, still without opening her eyes, and bent over to smell his scent, recognizing the fragrance of Gucci perfume.

"It smells so good! You smell so good! Your scent is so strong and powerful!"

She leaned close to Meteor's ear, her breathing heavy, like a tiger.

"Give me your pyroxene? I'll only look at it once and then return it to you. We'll become family, like that Black Cat's ceremony with you to recognize your kinship through the stone. It's all about love. What do you think?"