Necromancer

The last Ni Ge had already collapsed, and Lin An stood behind the corpse, breathing slightly heavily.

[Why didn't you leave one alive? You could have captured that last Ni Ge; you were already behind him.]

"Couldn't capture him."

Lin An had a clear sense of self-awareness and didn't think he was some big shot just because he had single-handedly killed five people without taking a scratch.

[Yeah, the streamer is still a weakling. Being able to kill these five was purely down to using cheats. Plus, his marksmanship is terrible; he has to fire at point-blank range. Anything over five meters and he misses, and his hand-to-hand combat is even worse. One punch from these Ni Ge and he'd probably be down for the count.]

[Streamer, you're a bit frail. You need to pay attention to working out.]

[Exactly, exactly.]

"That is something I need to pay attention to, but not right now."

Lin An spoke to them.

"To work out, you need time and money. Right now, I only have time, no money."

"What do you mean no money? My bro!"

It was Daniel. He rushed in from the rolling shutter door, and after seeing Lin An inside the factory and the corpses scattered about, he was startled for a moment before shouting loudly.

"Wow, amazing, bro! You must be the most lethal hitman in New York!"

He spread his arms wide, as if trying to embrace the entire factory.

"I heard so many gunshots. Old Joe was so scared his legs went soft, saying you were done for, but I knew the ones who were done for were those morons. I knew you'd be perfectly fine and would wipe them all out!"

He paced back and forth in the factory, gesturing wildly like an ape trapped in a cage.

Old Joe poked his head out from behind the rolling shutter, shoulders hunched. He moved like a frightened cat, hugging the wall as if navigating a minefield.

His gaze lingered on the motionless figures on the ground and the shell casings scattered about.

"Sir."

"Yeah."

"Are... are you hurt?"

"No."

Lin An could see Old Joe's unease and cowardice, but that was to be expected. If he had been bold, he wouldn't have ended up in this state, nearly starving to death.

If a bold Ni Ge couldn't find food, he would certainly go join a gang.

Thinking of this, Lin An pulled a wad of cash from his pocket, peeled off a few bills—about seventy or eighty dollars—and handed them to Old Joe... all of it scavenged from the pockets of the Ni Ge on the floor.

Old Joe froze for a second, staring at the money in his hand.

"Take it."

"This is..."

"Go recruit some people. Five who don't use drugs, men or women are fine. Have them gather here this afternoon to clear out the shell casings and bloodstains. Don't worry about the bodies; I'll arrange for someone to take them away later."

Old Joe looked at the bills, hesitated, and then took them. His hands were still shaking, and the money rustled in his grip.

"But, sir... no, boss, this place..."

He looked up at the factory, then lowered his head again.

"Can people still live here?"

Lin An looked at him, his expression unchanged. The corners of his mouth still held that same smile, and his eyes remained calm and gentle.

"Everyone who came here was killed by me. Not a single one escaped."

Old Joe's breathing stopped for a second.

"No one nearby called the police, and no one heard the gunshots. Even if they did, no one on this street would care. As long as we clean this place up, it's as if nothing ever happened.

This place is still ours: your basement, my processing plant, the homeless man's shelter. Nothing has changed."

Old Joe looked at him, and many things swirled within those murky eyes... fear, unease, shock, hesitation. But in the end, those things settled down.

He gripped the money tightly in his palm, as if clutching a lifeline.

"I understand."

His voice still trembled slightly, but it was much steadier than before.

"I'll head over to the church entrance right now and find five people who don't use drugs. Men or women, it doesn't matter."

"No need to rush. Take your time. You need to choose carefully. It's fine if you don't find enough today. The most important thing is that they are reliable and, like you, still want to be normal people."

"Understood."

Old Joe turned around and walked toward the rolling shutter. When he reached the door, he paused without looking back.

"Boss."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

He didn't say thank you, and Lin An didn't ask. Old Joe walked out through the rolling shutter, disappearing into the gray daylight.

Darnell had been standing to the side the whole time without interrupting; only after Old Joe left did he walk over and stand next to Lin An.

"He's afraid of you, scared to death, just like a mouse afraid of a cat."

"I know."

"But he still does things for you."

"Because he has nowhere else to go."

Darnell turned his head to look at Lin An, who had his hands tucked into his coat pockets. His expression was calm, as if he were looking at a pile of clutter that needed cleaning up rather than corpses.

"Bro, the things you just said to Old Joe... that everyone who came here was killed by me, and not a single one escaped... when you said that, your tone was the same as saying the weather is nice today. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is?"

"I know."

"Aren't you afraid he'll go out and call the police?"

"He won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's more afraid of the police than I am."

Darnell was stunned for a moment, then slowly nodded, pointing at the people on the ground.

"We can't just leave them like this, right?"

"You move the bodies together first, bring them here. Move quickly; I still have to go to O'Brien's house this afternoon."

"OK."

Darnell started working. He wasn't afraid of the corpses, or the Ni Ge who was about to become a corpse; he was only afraid of the ones who were still alive.

[People in the United States are really used to the sound of gunfire; nobody nearby actually called the police.]

[Aren't you afraid that old Ni Ge will run away?]

[If the Ni Ge runs away, the protagonist doesn't lose anything. Testing his reliability for a hundred bucks is a great deal, isn't it?]

With nothing better to do, Lin An headed up to the second floor.

The hallway was dark, with only a sliver of gray light filtering in from the window at the end. He pushed open the first door—empty. The second, empty. The third... he paused as he pushed the door open.

The room was filled with clutter, and the dust inside indicated that someone had moved things here before. There was something beneath the debris.

[Call the Ni Ge over to do the work.]

[Looks like the streamer is about to strike it rich.]

"Darnell!!!"

Darnell ran over quickly and stepped into the room.

"What is it?"

"Move this clutter aside. There's something hidden underneath."

Darnell put his hands on his hips and looked at the pile of junk... a few broken tables, a stack of moldy cardboard boxes, some iron pipes, and other trash that was unrecognizable.

The clutter was piled up in a chaotic mess, covered in a thick layer of dust.

"Move it? Do you know how heavy this is? I still have five bodies to move downstairs, and you want me to move this now? Am I your friend or your slave? My mom said friends help each other, they don't boss each other around. You get what I mean?"

Lin An couldn't be bothered with small talk. He pulled out a hundred-dollar bill, a denomination rarely used by Americans, and waved it in front of Darnell. The latter immediately beamed, snatched it up, and stopped complaining, getting straight to work.

Darnell was very strong. A table that would normally take two or three people to move, he could lift by grabbing a single leg and tossing it aside.

He threw the other debris aside in a few quick motions, turning the already filthy room into a cloud of dust.

Lin An, who liked things clean, quickly backed away and left the room.

"Bro, was that hundred bucks worth it? Look at me, do I look like a professional mover?"

Lin An didn't bother listening to Darnell. Once the latter finished the job, he walked in to find a thirty-two-inch green suitcase lying on the floor.

Darnell ran over eagerly and opened the case.

As soon as it opened, Lin An leaned in and his face lit up with surprise.

The case was actually filled with the weapons Lin An needed most. He immediately crouched down to take the items out and began checking the inventory.

The thirty-two-inch suitcase was large. Inside were two Remington 870s with fourteen-inch sawed-off barrels, eight Glock 19s, and ten boxes of 9mm ammunition with fifty rounds per box, totaling five hundred rounds. There were also four boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells, twenty-five rounds per box, totaling one hundred rounds.

[Good stuff! Upload it to the store quickly!!!]

[My wallet is already starving for this.]

[Streamer, you should set these items to be non-redeemable. If you're really going to fight gangsters, these weapons and equipment can be used to deal with them.]

[Hey, kid in the front, whose side are you on?]

[Stop messing around. If the streamer dies, we won't have such good things in the future. The six handguns the streamer captured earlier can be used for us to redeem; they've been fired, so it's not a pity to trade them.]

[Streamer, later I'll use a 3D printer to print you some gadgets that can convert semi-automatic handguns into full-auto. That way your firepower will be stronger.]

Darnell crouched beside the case, his eyes wide as billiard balls.

Lin An crouched beside the crate, pulled a Glock 19 out, ejected the magazine, racked the slide, and checked the chamber for any rounds.

The magazine was empty, and the chamber was clear.

He set the gun down, picked up another, and repeated the same motions... well, the guns were fine.

After the inspection, Lin An placed his hand over the firearms and ammunition, and with a flick, they all vanished, along with the suitcase.

The suggestions from the live chat were excellent; Lin An set these new weapons as non-redeemable, while the six pistols and ammunition he had just obtained, along with the van, were set as redeemable.

Regardless, the tips from the viewers were hard-earned, and Lin An had to give back to them.

After stowing the items away, Lin An went down to the first floor, where Darnell continued his work, with five still-warm corpses lying together.

What now?

Lin An thought for a moment, then stepped forward, intending to store them in the Live Stream Store temporarily and find a place to dispose of them later; he had done the same with the corpse at the gas station.

Just as he stepped forward to collect the bodies, a comment floated past his eyes.

[Streamer, we can possess crows to act as secondary cameras. Can these corpses be possessed by us too?]

[Huh?]

[Hey, we could try it out.]

[Hurry, hurry, I can't wait!]

Try it out?

Lin An pondered for a moment and decided to give it a go.

With that in mind, he reached out, grabbed a comment that read [Let me try], and flicked his hand to toss it onto one of the corpses on the ground.

The comment successfully latched onto the top of the Ni Ge corpse's head, sitting firmly, but the body showed no reaction.

After a while.

[Holy crap, repairing the corpse actually cost me over two thousand three hundred points. That's robbery!]

[Move aside, you don't have enough points. Let me... Streamer, grab me.]

Lin An immediately grabbed that comment and flicked it over.

Darnell watched from the side, observing Lin An's strange behavior without a word; in his mind, the latter was a wizard, and nothing bro did was strange.

Even so, when Darnell saw the corpse on the ground twitch and slowly crawl up, he still jumped in fright.

"Oh my god!!!"

Darnell subconsciously retreated behind Lin An, grabbing his shoulders and pointing at the swaying corpse.

"Quick, bro, hurry and take out a gun to kill this living Ni Ge, make him a dead Ni Ge again, quick!"

Lin An looked at the comment above the corpse's head and immediately understood the situation.

"Don't be afraid, this is my man... er, someone I control."

"What the f*ck!? Bro, you're a necromancer too!"

Lin An ignored Darnell and looked at the corpse to ask.

"How are you feeling?"

The corpse looked at Lin An and raised a hand to touch his chest. He wanted to speak, but after opening his mouth several times without a sound, he gave up, and the comment above his head began to refresh.

[Can't talk, feels bad. Repairing my chest cost me two thousand three hundred points, and it costs another hundred points per hour to maintain.]

[That's not bad, though. A hundred points can get you an hour in the streamer's world; that's only two thousand four hundred points a day.]

[Rich brother is loaded. Can you V me five hundred points? I'm still a bit short to redeem a pistol.]

[Aside from not being able to talk and the hundred-point hourly cost, this body only has 12 hours of activity left.]

[12 hours? Maybe it's hunger. Streamer, give him some food to eat.]

Lin An habitually reached into his coat, pulled out a can of Eight Treasure Porridge, and handed it to the viewer with [Ping Sheng Bu Yin Jiu] floating above their head. The latter took it, opened it, and began to eat. Once finished, the comment refreshed.

[No good. Eating just gives a feeling of fullness and more strength, but the countdown hasn't changed. It seems to be an issue with the injuries. Come on, Streamer, grab me, let's try another corpse.]

After the comment refreshed, [Ping Sheng Bu Yin Jiu] lay down, and the comment floated up, waiting for Lin An to grab it.

[By the way, remember to store the corpses. If they aren't fresh, the countdown will definitely shorten.]

Lin An took the advice, stored the possessed corpse, and grabbed the comment to flick it toward the second body.

[No good, this corpse requires seven thousand one hundred points to repair. It seems the injuries really do have an impact. Streamer, you need to be careful when killing people in the future.]

[Bro, we're fighting for our lives here. If you ask the streamer to be that careful, won't it be easy for him to get killed?]

[Exactly. Streamer, just fight however you need to. Don't worry about that; being too cautious leads to accidents.]

After watching the discussion in the chat for a while, Lin An waved his hand to store the remaining four corpses, then thought of the Ni Ge he had killed at the abandoned gas station. That corpse had been stabbed with a dagger, so the repair cost should be lower.

Thinking of this, Lin An opened the store, intending to take it out for the viewers to test.

However, after the store opened, Lin An froze.

"Hey, where is the corpse I put in the store? Why are there only five? Where did the one from the abandoned gas station go?"

[Ah, sorry about that, I redeemed it.]

[233, who redeemed the corpse!]

[Brother, why are you redeeming a corpse? What use do you have for that thing?]

[Wait, wait, wait, how many points did you spend?]

[Eight hundred. I redeemed the corpse to use as a cadaver for my students; I'm the president of a medical school.]

[Come on man, the cadavers you get this way don't have a source, that's not legal, right?]

[It's fine, I'm the president, no one is going to investigate me. Even if they do, I'm not afraid. This is Ni Ge's corpse, not a yellow person's.]

Since that was the case, the matter was dropped.

Lin An raised his hand to check his wrist.

"Let's go, Darnell. We'll head to the basement first to leave some food and sleeping bags for Old Joe, then go grab a bite to eat. We'll head to the cop's house in the afternoon, and later we'll need to prepare a few phone cases and some burner phones; those will come in handy later."

[Streamer, if you need them, I can donate my old-school feature phones to you.]

[What about walkie-talkies? How about those?]

[Right, streamer, I just took a look, the second floor of this factory is perfect for raising crows. You should remember to tell Old Joe to feed the crows so that even if the Crips send people to check the situation, we can notify you in time.]

[Good idea.]

"Hmm, I'll go do that right now."