System, are you seriously messing with me?

The little building converted from a warehouse was really just an old, two-story Japanese house with a wooden frame. A faded sign still hung by the entrance, reading "Equipment room."

Yang Jian pushed the door open and went inside.

The floors had been cleaned, and a few potted plants sat in the corners. It looked like someone had hastily furnished the place.

The first floor held a living room and kitchen, while the second had a bedroom and a small study.

It was a considerable improvement over last night's dormitory.

At least it had a private bathroom.

Yang Jian sat down on the couch, finally able to let his mind go blank for a while.

Ever since arriving in this world, he had been wound tight-first nearly dying to a cursed spirit, then putting on a grand performance in front of Satoru Gojo, and finally dancing around Masamichi Yaga's questions.

He was exhausted.

More exhausted than he had ever been.

He leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes for a moment. His stomach growled.

Right. He hadn't eaten anything since arriving.

Yang Jian rummaged through the kitchen cupboards. Empty. The refrigerator did have two bottles of water, though.

He gulped down half a bottle and was wondering whether to go out for food when someone pushed the front door open.

Without knocking.

Satoru Gojo walked in carrying a convenience store bag, with Suguru Geto behind him.

"Do you not even know how to knock?" Yang Jian leaned against the kitchen doorframe.

"Someone bringing you food doesn't need to knock." Satoru Gojo tossed the bag onto the coffee table. Inside were two rice balls, a box of fried chicken, and a can of coffee.

Yang Jian glanced at the contents, picked up a rice ball, tore open the wrapper, and took a bite.

Pickled plum filling. The sourness made him frown.

"Two busy men like you, delivering my food personally?"

"We were passing by." Suguru Geto remained in the doorway. "We have a mission this afternoon. Before that, we wanted to confirm a few things with you."

"About that cursed spirit someone was feeding?"

"You certainly get straight to the point."

Yang Jian chewed his rice ball. "Less chatter, more efficiency. What did you find?"

Suguru Geto glanced at Satoru Gojo. Satoru Gojo was rummaging through Yang Jian's refrigerator. Finding nothing but bottled water, he gave him a look that said, "What kind of life are you living?"

"Jujutsu High pulled the mission records for that area from the past three months," Suguru Geto said. "There have been four incidents of cursed spirit activity near Tokyo Metropolitan Third Hospital over the past two months. That's far above the normal frequency."

"Four." Yang Jian repeated the number. "Any pattern?"

"Not much of one, but the intervals are getting shorter. Twenty-three days between the first and second, fourteen between the second and third, and only nine between the third and last night."

Yang Jian stopped chewing.

The shrinking intervals meant whoever was feeding them was speeding things up. Whatever his objective, he had already entered an accelerated phase.

"What grades were the cursed spirits in those four incidents?"

"The first three were all Grade 3," Suguru Geto answered without hesitation. "The fourth jumped straight to Grade 1."

From Grade 3 to Grade 1, skipping Grade 2 altogether. Natural development couldn't produce a leap like that.

An outside force had to be involved.

Yang Jian finished his rice ball and brushed the stray grains off his hands.

"What does it take to feed a cursed spirit?"

The question was directed at Suguru Geto. He was, after all, an expert at controlling cursed spirits. No one in Jujutsu Society understood their ecology better than he did.

Suguru Geto fell silent for two seconds.

"Continuously injecting cursed energy to accelerate growth is the most basic method. But injections alone aren't enough to take one straight from Grade 3 to Grade 1. You'd need a special cursed technique to assist, or-"

He paused.

"Or human sacrifices."

The house went quiet for two seconds.

Satoru Gojo closed the refrigerator door, rolling the lollipop stick around in his mouth.

"Geto, you can't just throw that out there."

"I'm not throwing anything out there. I'm stating a possibility."

Satoru Gojo said nothing.

Yang Jian noticed a detail-a tiny change in Suguru Geto's eyes when he mentioned "human sacrifices." It wasn't fear or anger, but something deeper.

Disgust.

Disgust at treating ordinary people as expendable materials.

Yang Jian recalled how this man's story would end. He thought of the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons, of his declaration that he would slaughter non-sorcerers.

How ironic.

The man who would one day massacre civilians with his own hands was still disturbed by the possibility of civilians being sacrificed.

People never fell all at once. They were worn down, little by little.

"Have there been any missing-person cases near the hospital?" Yang Jian asked.

Suguru Geto shook his head. "We'd need to check police records for that. Jujutsu High's intelligence network doesn't cover ordinary criminal cases."

"Then check," Yang Jian said. "If there have been suspicious disappearances around the hospital in the past three months, that would pretty much confirm the sacrifice theory."

"Are you telling us how to do our jobs?" Satoru Gojo came closer, lollipop between his lips.

"I'm helping you save time."

"You're pretty nosy for a collaborator."

"A collaborator who nearly died in your jurisdiction." Yang Jian took a sip of coffee. "I have plenty of motivation."

Satoru Gojo stared at him for a while, then smiled and flicked Yang Jian's coffee can.

"All right, Mr. Yang Jian. You stay home while we go do the work, and we'll report back when we're done. How's that?"

"Preferably with a can of cola."

"Now you're placing orders?"

"Cold."

Satoru Gojo turned to leave. As he passed through the doorway, he looked back and said, "You really are asking for a beating, you know that?"

"That's the second time you've said that."

The door closed.

Once the footsteps faded, Yang Jian set down the coffee can and leaned back into the couch.

His smile disappeared.

Half the analysis he had just offered was genuinely deduced from information he had seen with the Ghost Eye. The other half was pure fabrication. But the direction couldn't be wrong-someone was secretly cultivating cursed spirits in Tokyo. The scale and purpose remained unclear, but the window of time was narrowing.

Something else concerned him even more.

In this timeline, were the seeds of Suguru Geto's betrayal already sprouting?

If this was before the Star Plasma Vessel Incident, there was still some time before Suguru Geto turned to darkness. But he wasn't sure how much "some time" meant. The original work hadn't covered this period in much detail.

"System."

[Here.]

"Can I open the points shop now?"

[Current points: 0. The shop is unlocked, but the host has no points available to spend.]

"How do I earn points?"

[Killing cursed spirits grants points. Grade 3 cursed spirit: 10 points. Grade 2 cursed spirit: 50 points. Grade 1 cursed spirit: 200 points. Special grade cursed spirit: 1,000 points. Participating in the main storyline grants milestone rewards.]

Yang Jian did a quick calculation. Last night's Grade 1 cursed spirit had been worth 200 points, but his system had only just activated, so that kill hadn't counted.

He had fought it for nothing.

"...You did that on purpose, didn't you? Are you seriously messing with me?"

[The system possesses no subjective intent. However, the host is advised to ensure system initialization is complete before the next cursed spirit kill. Imprison malevolent ghosts for exchanges, and complete supernatural invasion instances.]

"That's just doing it on purpose."

[◑.◑]

Yang Jian stared at the face that popped up in his mind, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Great. Even the system had learned to be snide.

"Then when do the supernatural realm instances open?"

[They unlock after the host earns points for the first time.]

So he still had to kill a cursed spirit first.

But killing cursed spirits required combat power. Combat power came from trial cards. And he got one trial card every twenty-four hours.

A vicious circle.

Unless-he found a way to pick up points without doing the fighting himself. For example, tagging along on missions with Satoru Gojo and the others?

Yang Jian thought it over. The idea was workable. Jujutsu High had no shortage of missions, and low-grade cursed spirits were no different from ants under Satoru Gojo's feet. He just had to be there and land the finishing blow once his trial card refreshed...

That was shameless.

But very practical.

Yang Jian got up and walked around the house. There were a few old books in the upstairs study, all in Japanese, covering basic jujutsu theory.

Masamichi Yaga must have had someone put them there.

He leafed through them. He already knew the basic concepts-he had read the Jujutsu Kaisen manga and novels before crossing over, and knew the setting inside out. But knowledge on paper and firsthand experience were two completely different things.

Take the way cursed energy worked, for instance.

He knew cursed energy was the manifestation of negative emotions, but he couldn't sense it himself.

When the trial card activated, he used supernatural power, which operated on an entirely different system.

Supernatural rules took precedence over cursed energy. Last night had already proven that.

But the Ghost Eye was only a trial card. A ten-minute limit, and once it ran out, that was it.

He needed permanent power.

The points shop had a "Ghost Child" option-once redeemed, it would automatically fuse with his body and turn his flesh into a ghost's. That was the most important step ahead. For now, he would check the Ghost Eye.

"System, how many points does the Ghost Eye cost?"

[Ghost Eye (initial stage): 1,000 points.]

One thousand.

At 200 points per Grade 1 cursed spirit, he would have to kill five of them.

At 10 points per Grade 3 cursed spirit, a hundred.

Yang Jian silently closed the shop interface.

"Ah, a long road ahead."

He put the book back and walked to the window.

Outside was Jujutsu High's training field. Several uniformed students were training beneath the afternoon sun. Judging by the style of their uniforms, they were probably second-years.

One student controlled a snake-shaped cursed spirit coiled around an arm, while another channeled cursed energy into punches against a wooden post. Each hit sent a ring of ripples through the wood.

Ordinary daily training.

But watching them gave Yang Jian an idea.

He couldn't remain a freeloading collaborator at Jujutsu High. He had to get involved. He had to make himself valuable to the school so he could gain more resources, more mission opportunities, and more chances to kill cursed spirits.

And what value could he offer right now?

Information.

He knew the future course of this world. He knew who would die, who would betray them, and what disasters were coming. It was his greatest bargaining chip-and his most dangerous.

Use it too much, and he would expose his identity as someone from another world. Use it too little, and he wouldn't have enough leverage to change anything.

He had to deploy it precisely.

Yang Jian went back downstairs and lay down on the couch.

Fourteen hours.

The trial card still had fourteen hours left on its cooldown.

He closed his eyes and forced himself to get some sleep. During this window without power, rest was the best preparation for battle.

He had no idea how long he had dozed before a knock woke him.

At least someone had knocked this time.

Yang Jian got up to answer the door.

Shoko stood outside with a paper bag in her hand.

"Mr. Yaga asked me to bring you a few things." Shoko handed him the bag.

Yang Jian took it and looked inside-two sets of clean clothes, some daily necessities, and an envelope.

The envelope contained fifty thousand yen in cash and a temporary identity document.

"Is this a salary or a living allowance?"

"Hush money," Shoko said expressionlessly.

Yang Jian slipped the envelope into his pocket.

"Your physical is scheduled for tomorrow morning," Shoko added. "Come to the infirmary. I'll be handling it."

"What are you checking?"

"A full examination. Blood, bones, nervous system, plus a cursed energy aptitude test. Since you have an unusual constitution, we need to find out what's unusual about it."

Yang Jian nodded. The examination didn't matter. His body's readings were those of an ordinary person, so they wouldn't find anything.

"Your hand," Shoko said suddenly.

"Hm?"

"Let me see it."

Yang Jian hesitated, then held out his right hand.

Shoko turned his hand over and examined the back carefully. That was where the Ghost Eye had appeared last night. The skin was smooth, without a trace of anything. But Shoko pressed a finger lightly against that spot.

"The skin here is two degrees colder than the surrounding area."

Yang Jian withdrew his hand.

"Your sense of touch is that sensitive?"

"Users of Reverse Cursed Technique can sense the human body far more precisely than ordinary doctors." Shoko withdrew her hand. "A two-degree temperature difference wouldn't occur within such a small area on a normal human body."

She glanced at Yang Jian.

"When I examine you tomorrow, I'll pay special attention to this spot."

With that, she turned and left.

Yang Jian watched her disappear at the end of the stone-paved path, then lowered his head to look at the back of his right hand.

A two-degree temperature difference.

The trace left behind after the Ghost Eye disappeared. The trial card lasted ten minutes, but the imprint the supernatural power left on my body hasn't completely faded.

What does that mean? My body is remembering that power.

Yang Jian clenched his fist.

Interesting.