Settle the Score

The next morning.

Yu Xuan slipped into her younger brother's bedroom in a silk dress.

Her shoulders and neck were slender and graceful, her chest full. Her porcelain-white skin was smooth and delicate, like that of a young woman fresh from a bath. Her lovely figure was concealed beneath the hem of her dress, which only made her seem more alluring.

Yu Xuan quietly circled the foot of her brother's bed. With a casual sweep, she tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, revealing a profile that would make anyone's heart skip a beat, along with an almost perfect jawline.

She gazed tenderly at her sleeping brother.

The clock read 7:59.

The next second, the warmth in her eyes rippled, and a sly smile bloomed.

She reached out and pinched the corner of her brother's blanket. "Wake..."

Before she could finish, Jiang Qian's eyes snapped open.

Just as Yu Xuan was about to tug at the blanket, Jiang Qian suddenly clamped a hand around her wrist and pulled her toward the bed. Then he rolled over and sprang up, pinning his sister beneath him...

The thin blanket, which Yu Xuan had been holding by one corner, had wrapped around her when Jiang Qian rolled over... Yu Xuan blinked, startled by the sudden turn of events.

The alarm beside them buzzed!

This... Jiang Qian came to his senses, looking a little awkward as he released his sister's delicate wrist.

At the same time, he quickly withdrew the hand that was about to clamp around her throat! One hand braced beside her ear while the other reached over to silence the alarm.

The room fell quiet again.

Morning light dappled the room, and Yu Xuan's cheeks seemed to take on a rosy hue.

"Uh, this is a misunderstanding. I was dreaming that a hundred wild bulls were attacking me..."

Jiang Qian raised both hands. He hadn't finished explaining before he found himself swallowing... From this angle, Yu Xuan really did look especially enticing.

"Gulp... You believe me, right?"

"...You little pervert, you're pinning my hair!"

Smack—

Jiang Qian sat in a café across from the staff housing at Experimental Middle School, utterly baffled.

Why had his sister come to his room to pick a fight, only to fly into a rage and start hitting him after he'd captured her in bed?

Where was her dignity?

If there was one thing that made him swallow his anger, it was probably the compensation for emotional distress now sitting in his account.

No matter how you looked at it, she'd paid him generously.

Rich women were terrifying! She'd thrown money around and beaten me until I was completely stunned, and all I could think to say was, "Thank you, boss"... Jiang Qian thought, feeling more than a little humiliated.

Through the second-floor window, he kept an eye on the residents coming and going through the side gate of the staff housing complex.

Before coming upstairs, he'd already asked the old folks at the gate. The new teacher, Teacher Li, lived in the old Building Two, Unit Three, Apartment 302. The route to the apartment was easy to watch from the café across the street, where Jiang Qian was sitting now.

Teacher Li went home to cook lunch every day, then hurried back to school after eating.

Although it was the weekend, Teacher Li taught a senior-year class, so school was still in session. Meanwhile, the little girl didn't have to go to school today.

It was the perfect opportunity.

"Old Jiang, did you see the message in the class group chat?"

"An internship at Wanzhong Group? I don't have time." Jiang Qian didn't even look up as he continued watching the street outside.

There was a cup of milk tea in front of each of them.

"Oh, no! Why would Wanzhong Group be interested in our major?"

The slim young man sitting across from Jiang Qian muttered.

Then he animatedly began telling the story. "It's that millipede-loving content creator! A couple days ago, he posted that he'd stumbled across a huge spider in the forest park! The kind of thing you'd see in an evolved form of Beast Wars! Then yesterday, he took his team over there to film... And guess what happened?"

"..."

"I found this!"

Seeing Jiang Qian's lack of interest only made the slim young man more eager to share!

He bent over his phone, tapping away for a while before bringing up a short video and holding it right in front of Jiang Qian.

"Look! A giant spider attacking people, caught on camera!! Between us, I just finished screen-recording it. When I clicked on it again, it was already a 404..."

At that moment, a news bulletin interrupted the television on the café's second floor. "The city's special public safety hotline reminds residents that reports of unusual incidents can be submitted by calling the number below: XXXX-XXX..."

Only then did Jiang Qian slowly turn his head.

He'd already seen Teacher Li leave through the stairwell window with a bag of trash and head downstairs.

"Look, come on, take a look!"

The earnest young man holding out his phone like an offering was called Xue Yang. He was Jiang Qian's college roommate and a centipede enthusiast from South Island.

He dressed fashionably, with a tie clip, cuff links, rings, and earrings. Even his hair was dyed the trendy flaxen color.

He looked like a walking stalk of wheat.

Every time Jiang Qian saw Wheat strutting toward him, an entirely inappropriate piece of background music would start playing in his head...

"Let me see."

Jiang Qian took the phone.

He tapped the video to play it while activating Spirit Vision at the same time, keeping an eye on the little girl and her mother.

This kind of watching only focused on large life forms, so it took far less effort than yesterday's thorough search of every corner of his home. All he needed to confirm was that Teacher Li had left and that the little girl was still at home.

The video shook.

The view was from above. It was hard to tell whether someone had filmed it on a whim or whether the camera had been set up in advance. Either way, a group of six or seven people carrying filming equipment could be seen cautiously approaching a spot beneath a bridge.

At first, the footage was quiet. The person filming only screamed when a man carrying equipment suddenly fell. He shoved the equipment aside, then struggled as an invisible force dragged him into the darkness!

Jiang Qian watched intently.

The others in the video hadn't even reacted when another woman with long hair was dragged into the darkness!

Everyone near the underpass panicked and scattered, abandoning their equipment. The footage began shaking more violently, and the camera kept losing focus.

Then a murky, monstrous shadow flashed out of the darkness!

It moved incredibly fast!

It attacked the person who was running slowest and dragged him back into the darkness...

The video ended with the camera swinging wildly. The whole time, the person filming had been screaming, drawing curious glances from the other customers.

Jiang Qian dragged the progress bar back to where the shadow appeared, paused the video, and zoomed in... The image wasn't clear, but he could make out the shape: eight slender legs connected to a round abdomen. The shaky footage obscured any further details.

Jiang Qian exited the video and opened social media, heading to the content creator's public comments.

The moment he opened the page, he was greeted by a flood of comments!

As far as the eye could see, everyone was asking whether the creator was still alive...

"Well? What do you think?" Xue Yang's eyes shone with excitement as he eagerly waited for his friend's opinion.

Jiang Qian handed the phone back to Xue Yang and said bluntly, "Delete it. It's fake."

"Huh?"

Seeing the disappointment on Xue Yang's face, Jiang Qian looked away and turned his attention back to the street.

If this had happened before, he probably would have started with the video quality and continuity errors, then analyzed the filming costs, difficulty, and return on investment in detail, before reaching a conclusion that left his friend thoroughly impressed.

But this time, he didn't feel like doing that.

Jiang Qian suddenly found himself intensely curious. Did Identity Cards only correspond to "divine beasts" invented in works of fiction, or could they also correspond to species that existed in the present-day world?

What exactly was the super-species population?

"Hey, don't leave me hanging! I thought it looked pretty real!" Xue Yang leaned closer to Jiang Qian and lowered his voice. "Besides, think about it. If it were fake, why would it get taken down? There's nothing forbidden in the video..."

"Why not join Wen'an's fan group and see if the creator makes it back alive?"

"Yeah, right. If I knew the guy, I'd have gone along to see the excitement myself!"

Xue Yang looked so blissfully unaware of the world that Jiang Qian couldn't help envying him.

"All right, I should get going. Remember what I told you to do?" Jiang Qian suddenly said, his tone serious.

Xue Yang froze for a moment. A suspicious blush spread across his face, and he immediately focused. "No problem! I'll call you in fifteen minutes. When you pick up, I'll follow the code phrase. If I hear 'I'll call you back,' I'll call every five minutes to make sure you're okay. If I hear 'You have the wrong number,' I'll call the police!"

"Good. Don't lose track of time scrolling on your phone."

"How could I? Do you really think I'm that unreliable? Heh, and don't forget what we agreed on. Once you get it, you have to let me keep it for a few days~"

"Fine. If I get it, it's yours to look after. I don't like taking care of pets." Jiang Qian stood up and headed straight down the stairs.

He'd told Xue Yang he was going to meet a smuggler dealing in Peruvian giant centipedes, and that he was being cautious because the seller might try to take advantage of a student.

"Got it!" Xue Yang eagerly scratched his scalp.

He could already picture it... On his dorm bed, a giant centipede would coil around his chest, its abdomen pressed against his chest hair, its glistening little feet resting gently on his belly. Everything would be so peaceful and beautiful!

The friendship between humans and nature, primates and centipedes, would shine brilliantly.

By the time Jiang Qian reached the bottom of the stairs, Teacher Li had already wheeled her bicycle out of the complex.

They nearly passed each other.

Jiang Qian went straight to Building Two, Unit Three, following the directions he'd been given. He kept Spirit Vision active as he went, ready for anything.

Little girl, big brother's here... Jiang Qian had seven stand-in talismans to save his life and the escape technique Snake Shadow Stealth. Those were what gave him the confidence to come here alone.

Before long, Jiang Qian was standing outside the little girl's apartment.

An old security door, mottled with rust, blocked his way.

Jiang Qian rang the doorbell.

"Coming!"

With a light patter of slippers, the little girl opened the door without a moment's hesitation...

When she saw that it was Jiang Qian, the girl froze for a moment. Her slender arms instinctively folded across her chest, covering the faintly visible details beneath her thin pajamas. A complicated look flashed across her face!

As she hesitated, Jiang Qian's hand was already on the door. He leaned straight inside.

"What, surprised to see me alive?"