Special Lamp Oil, Fifty Jin of Pork

"Can I swipe a card here?"

Uncle Zhang: "What card? You come to buy a Soul Lamp without money? Little Gu Niao, what kind of customer did you bring me?"

"Shh! Don't say my name." Little Gu Niao quickly waved her hand. "They're outsiders. Just let them pay with something else!"

Uncle Zhang looked baffled. "If I don't take money, what can I take?"

Then, he quickly caught on, a knowing smile spreading across his face. "Ah, that. These guys are scrawny as it is. Even if they pay, how much can they really give?"

"Not that much Lamp Oil. Just enough to get them out of here."

Uncle Zhang addressed Hu Xingde. "I need to collect a price for buying the Soul Lamp. Don't worry, it won't be life-threatening. So, what do you say? Want to buy?"

Then he looked at Ji Wu and Xu Zhou. "All three of you together. That's more stable."

Ji Wu: "Uncle Zhang, what exactly is this 'price' you're talking about?"

Inside a Ghost Domain, you absolutely cannot accept an unknown price. Otherwise, you might die without even knowing how. Even as a Contract Anomalist, you have to be extremely cautious.

Sometimes, a particular anomaly isn't very strong in itself, but it possesses a rule that kills on contact. If you don't trigger that instant-death rule, it's very easy to contain.

But once you trigger it, even if the Contract Anomalist is stronger than the anomaly, it can still lead to the Anomalist's death.

Uncle Zhang stroked the beard on his chin. "Well, I don't mind telling you. The oil for the Soul Lamp is refined from special fats. It's extremely precious. That's why the lamp is so expensive. Since you don't have money to buy it, providing some raw materials can serve as an exchange."

Uncle Zhang had made it so obvious that Ji Wu, with his extensive experience handling all kinds of anomalous incidents, quickly understood his implication.

Ji Wu pointed at himself. "Twenty jin."

Then he pointed at Xu Zhou and Hu Xingde. "Ten jin, twenty jin."

Uncle Zhang sized them up and nodded in agreement. "Alright."

"For fifty jin, I can give you twenty milliliters of Lamp Oil. That's enough to get you out of here."

Hu Xingde looked completely lost. "Fifty jin of what?" It was like buying pork, weighing it out by the catty.

Uncle Zhang took out a sheet of dark yellow oil paper and wrote: Today, three customers come to buy a Soul Lamp—20 ml Lamp Oil. Self-paid price totals fifty jin. Fair trade, witnessed by Yama.

Below that, he wrote ten jin and twenty jin. Finally, he pressed his thumbprint onto an ink pad and stamped it on the paper.

"Come on, press your prints here."

Ji Wu read the contract text carefully first, confirming there were no tricks or verbal traps, before pulling Xu Zhou over and making him press his print under ten jin. Then Ji Wu pressed his own under twenty jin.

Hu Xingde followed their lead and pressed his print next to twenty jin.

Once they were all done, Uncle Zhang took the contract and lit it with a match.

As the oil paper burned, it released a strange odor—not exactly pleasant, but not unpleasant either. The longer you smelled it, the more it got to you, making you want to keep inhaling.

It burned quickly, gone in just a few seconds.

The smell faded with it.

Hu Xingde only then snapped out of his dazed expression. He probably didn't even realize what kind of look he'd just had on his face.

Ji Wu and Xu Zhou had stronger resistance. They just found the smell a bit unusual, but weren't drawn into it.

The contract took effect!

Hu Xingde scratched his fingers in confusion. What was going on? He felt noticeably lighter. He looked down at his stomach.

The beer belly he'd gotten from drinking and poor eating habits was now completely flat!

He grabbed a handful of his waist. The fat there had vanished without a trace!

It wasn't his imagination! He felt like he'd suddenly lost a ton of weight!

Hu Xingde had the most body fat, so the effect was most obvious on him. Ji Wu's body fat percentage was already low, so losing twenty jin affected him a bit. He'd need to eat well to recover once they got back.

Xu Zhou was already thin and still growing. Losing ten jin made him look like a bamboo pole, ready to topple in a gust of wind.

Ji Wu clicked his tongue. "Eat more meat when we get back, or people will think the Aberration Association mistreats you."

Xu Zhou touched his own arm. "So that 'ten jin' meant ten jin of my own flesh."

Thinking about it that way was a bit creepy.

But for people who struggled with weight loss, this was practically a miracle!

Just press a fingerprint and instantly drop twenty jin! What kind of paradise was this? Where's the morality? Where's the bottom line? Where's the address?

Maybe Uncle Zhang would even be worshipped as the God of Weight Loss.

"Flesh?" Hu Xingde grabbed his own body again, realizing he really had lost a lot of weight. He moved around a bit but felt no pain or discomfort.

Though he found it strange, he pushed the thought aside for the sake of getting out of here.

"Give me the Soul Lamp!"

Uncle Zhang: "Hold on, I'll get the Lamp Oil."

He went to the shelf and picked out a twenty-milliliter transparent bottle. Inside was a murky, yellow, pus-like viscous liquid. This was the Lamp Oil, refined from special human body fats.

"This bottle of oil is enough to keep the Soul Lamp burning for about an hour. You add it in here."

Uncle Zhang taught them how to refill the Soul Lamp with oil. His service could be considered quite thorough.

Hu Xingde wanted to snatch the Soul Lamp, but Ji Wu pressed a hand down on him, steadily taking the lamp from Uncle Zhang's hands. Xu Zhou also took the Lamp Oil.

"It's better if I hold onto the Soul Lamp, don't you think?"

Faced with Ji Wu's smile that didn't reach his eyes—a smile dripping with intimidation—Hu Xingde shuddered and didn't dare try to grab it.

He could only cower and stick close to their side.

Ji Wu's approach was a lesson learned from facing anomalies many times before. Ordinary people's emotions were too unstable; when confronted with the uncanny, fear drove them to thoughtless actions.

Sometimes they'd even destroy crucial items, or slide right into an anomaly's jaws—all kinds of wild moves, anything you could imagine and plenty you couldn't.

Over time, Ji Wu had developed a good habit: never let ordinary people touch important items, always keep an eye on their emotional state, and knock them out if necessary before their instability could drag everyone down.

Ji Wu poured half the Lamp Oil into the Soul Lamp, then lit it with the matches Uncle Zhang had thrown in.

The Soul Lamp's red glow faintly illuminated their bodies.

As the lamp lit, the vague sense of being watched that had been lurking at the edge of their perception vanished.

"Supervisor Ji, are we just leaving like this?"

Xu Zhou asked. They still had a mission to complete.

"This anomaly is beyond us. Unless Bai Zuo were here—no, even he'd probably struggle alone."