The Second One — Please Vote

Vodka stumbled back several steps, his mind in chaos as he looked at Gin. "B-Big Brother!"

Gin silently walked over to the bag, crouched down, and yanked open the zipper.

A pale, bluish-faced child was revealed inside.

The child's eyes were closed. His head and body were bent at strange angles, and his limbs were positioned unnaturally, crammed haphazardly into the bag. He looked as though his neck had been snapped before he was forcibly stuffed inside.

A chill ran down Vodka's back, and he instinctively stepped back.

After only two steps, he suddenly sensed something wrong. Turning around, he saw Jiang Xia studying him with an indescribable look.

Vodka silently broke out in Goosebumps. He cleared his throat and casually edged back to Gin's side.

Gin looked at the "corpse" in the bag with satisfaction.

He fired a few more shots into the corpse, then tossed both the body and the bag into the blazing Incinerator.

With a sizzling crackle, Gin shut the furnace door and turned to Jiang Xia in the car.

"I'll let you off this time." Gin's voice was still grim, but it no longer carried that fatal pressure from before.

"However, if the missing child ends up in the papers, the police launch a massive search, and it eventually leads back to you, remember to 'commit suicide out of fear of punishment' in time."

The matter was resolved quickly.

Jiang Xia hitched a ride back to the city with Gin and Vodka.

When he left, he got all his belongings back—and brought an extra Ghost home with him.

It was already very late. Although he had just accepted a commission, Jiang Xia decided to leave it until tomorrow.

Today, he would go home and sort out his ghosts first.

On the way back, he briefly wrote up what had just happened in an Email and sent it to Amuro Tooru. Of course, he omitted nothing when it came to cuts, additions, and artistic embellishment.

If Jiang Xia did not tell him about something like this, Amuro Tooru would definitely ask. And if Amuro Tooru did not ask, then he was probably investigating it himself.

It was better to report it proactively and get a slight first-impression advantage.

Although Ghost Fetuses retained some memories, their way of thinking relied more on instinctive judgment than on logic.

...Simply put, they were more childish than when they had been human.

A year ago, Jiang Xia's parents had sacrificed themselves to save her younger sister. Rounding it off, Jiang Xia was the child of her saviors. Miyano Akemi's initial favorability toward Jiang Xia was clearly much higher than the Ghost Infant's had been.

That meant there would be less resistance to the Contract.

After returning home, Jiang Xia picked out a stalk of Ghost Mint and fed it to the two ghosts.

—Naturally, Xiao Bai had come back with him as well.

Puppets had Physical Bodies. Like humans, they could be burned by Flames.

However, once a puppet suffered excessive damage and collapsed into the metaphysical forms of a Ghost and Shikigami, it was practically invincible. It did not fear Flames, and it could even return to its respawn point with a single command.

The Ghost Mint was quickly sucked dry.

After Miyano Akemi had eaten her fill and lay sprawled on the ground, rubbing her belly under the moonlight—

Jiang Xia poked the top of her head and politely lured her in. "Want to sign a Contract? I can grant you one small request."

After they reached an agreement, Jiang Xia took the new ghost to the Basement. He expertly undid a button, pricked himself, and then expertly blasted the ghost with his blood.

The blood dripped onto Miyano Akemi, making a sizzling sound like roasting meat as it rapidly traveled over the surface of her body.

In the end, it slowly stopped beneath her Right Eye and gradually formed an intricate, "z"-shaped Pattern Seal.

As Miyano Akemi curiously raised a small hand to touch her face—

Some information about the New Ghost Fetus surfaced in Jiang Xia's mind.

—Like the Ghost Infant before her, Miyano Akemi had unlocked a skill.

Moreover, her skill sounded a little more impressive than the Ghost Fetus's "Forced Confession"—she could make her main body invincible for one second.

After using the skill, Miyano Akemi would be weakened for a while, much like an ultimate skill going on cooldown.

This weakness could recover naturally, or Jiang Xia could feed her Ghost Mint imbued with Killing Intent to forcibly shorten the recovery time.

After reading the skill description and calculating the amount of Killing Intent required, Jiang Xia let out a sigh that was both bitter and relieved.

The new ultimate was indeed very useful, but it also consumed a great deal of Killing Intent.

Fortunately, he had stockpiled plenty of rations beforehand.

And while he had been in Gin's car just now, he had gathered quite a bit more—Gin's Killing Intent seemed especially abundant tonight.

When Amuro Tooru spoke, Killing Intent poured from Gin like running water.

Then Jiang Xia secretly tugged it away, keeping it at a fairly mild level the whole time.

—As long as the producer of Killing Intent refused to give up on murderous thoughts, most of that Killing Intent could not be harvested.

But as long as the base amount was large enough, the amount that overflowed and could be harvested would naturally increase as well.

Thinking about the night's gains, Jiang Xia almost wanted to drag Amuro Tooru along to hitch another day's worth of rides.

Unfortunately, Amuro Tooru rarely went near Gin in ordinary times, nor was he constantly making sarcastic remarks...

Jiang Xia sighed regretfully.

Then he looked at the new ghost beside him, and his mood improved again.

He ruffled the new ghost's head twice, then carried both ghosts to bed.

Before turning off the lights, Jiang Xia released all his other Shikigami as well. Together with the ghosts, he pressed them onto the quilt and counted them twice before going to sleep in peace.