The rain faded away

The rain did not stop until three in the morning.

Yang Jian had not slept.

He sat on the edge of his bed, holding the can of cola Satoru Gojo had left behind. The condensation on the aluminum had long since dried, and the can felt lukewarm.

It was still dark outside, but a faint gray-white glow had begun to show along the edges of the distant clouds.

He stood up and tossed the can into the trash. The sound of metal hitting the bottom of the plastic bin rang unusually clear in the quiet dorm room.

His phone vibrated.

The message from Shiu Kong contained only one line: "The Ichikawa site has been cleaned up, but Kusumoto's people changed shifts two hours early. The cameras might have caught a blurry outline when you made your move."

Yang Jian replied, "What did they catch?"

"Red light. It lasted less than 0.3 seconds. Kusumoto probably knows someone got in by now."

"So what if he knows?" Yang Jian typed. "Would he dare report it?"

The other end went silent for a while, then sent a voice message.

Shiu Kong spoke very quietly, with electrical static in the background. "No, but he'll speed up the relocation of the other sites. The Sagamihara site will probably be cleared out within the next couple of days."

Yang Jian did not reply. He knew the supernatural interference would have kept the cameras from recording anything.

He walked to the window and pushed it open.

The air after the rain was cool, carrying the scent of soil and plants.

A few birds called from the wooded hills of Jujutsu High. Their cries were brief, stopping after a note or two.

He remembered Suguru Geto's retreating figure when he had left last night.

Geto had stood below the dorm building, the hood of his black tracksuit pulled low, his shoulders tense.

Yang Jian had asked whether he wanted to come up and sit for a while. Suguru Geto had shaken his head and said he wanted to take a walk.

"A walk?" Yang Jian had found the idea rather amusing. "In the hills behind Jujutsu High, in the middle of the night?"

Suguru Geto had not smiled.

He had looked up at the sky, drizzle falling on his face. "Yang Jian," he had said, "what do you think about when you kill someone?"

"How to do it as fast as possible," Yang Jian had said.

"And then?"

"Then I kill them."

Suguru Geto had fallen silent for a few seconds. "So simple."

Then he had left, his footsteps quickly disappearing into the rain.

Now, standing at the window, Yang Jian thought Suguru Geto might not have meant that as a compliment.

But he could not be bothered to dwell on it. The guy would figure things out sooner or later, or he would not-and that was none of Yang Jian's business either.

His phone vibrated again.

This time, it was Satoru Gojo.

"Geto smelled of something when he came back last night." Satoru Gojo's messages were always direct. "Where did you take him?"

Yang Jian typed, "To eat."

"The cafeteria closes at midnight."

"A late-night snack."

"Your dorm light was on the whole time."

"I stayed up."

The other end sent an eye-rolling reaction image, followed by a line of text: "Jujutsu Headquarters is holding a review meeting about the Shibuya incident this morning. Kusumoto will be there. Want to sit in?"

Yang Jian replied, "Can I get in?"

"No, but you can listen outside the meeting room. The soundproofing's bad, and the Six Eyes can see through it."

"Then listen and tell me afterward."

"Why should I help you?"

"I bought that can of cola you drank last time."

"Cola is cola. Information is information."

Yang Jian laughed and typed, "That can cost two hundred yen. Work out how much your information is worth yourself."

Satoru Gojo did not reply.

About five minutes later, he sent a long voice message.

Yang Jian played it. Satoru Gojo sounded languid, with the rustle of turning pages in the background:

"Kusumoto said the Shibuya incident was caused by a special grade cursed spirit going out of control. Ten operatives died at the scene, and Sukuna's Finger is missing.

The higher-ups asked him for evidence. He said there was high-intensity cursed energy left at the scene, consistent with an outbreak involving a special grade imaginary vengeful spirit.

Then someone asked why all the surveillance footage went black. Kusumoto said the cursed energy field generated during the outbreak interfered with the electronic equipment."

Satoru Gojo paused, lowering his voice slightly. "But here's the interesting part. One old guy among the higher-ups-Miyamura, the one who retired last year-stood up and asked why there wasn't any cursed residue at the scene.

When a special grade cursed spirit goes on a rampage, even if it's exorcised, it should leave traces of contamination that last at least seventy-two hours.

But the third basement level in Shibuya was so clean it looked as if someone had washed it down."

As Yang Jian listened, he tapped his fingers lightly against the windowsill twice.

"How did Kusumoto explain that?" he typed.

Satoru Gojo sent another voice message. "He said it might be a special property of the cursed spirit. Some imaginary vengeful spirits absorb their own cursed residue after death, storing the energy for rebirth. Miyamura didn't press him, but he clearly didn't believe it."

Yang Jian closed the voice message.

He could more or less picture the meeting room: Kusumoto standing at the front in an immaculate suit, his expression solemn, bluffing his way through with a barrage of technical jargon.

The higher-ups were skeptical, but none of them wanted to dig deeper. Doing so would mean admitting they knew nothing about what had happened beneath Shibuya, admitting they had allowed an experiment that could threaten hundreds of thousands of people to proceed right under their noses.

"What else?" Yang Jian asked.

"Well, Kusumoto also mentioned you. He said his analysis of the traces at the scene suggested an 'individual with anomalous abilities outside the jujutsu system' might have intervened.

The higher-ups asked what he meant. He said he wasn't sure, but recommended stricter screening of independent sorcerers and outsiders."

Yang Jian scoffed.

Screening? They couldn't even screen Satoru Gojo, and they wanted to screen him?

"Did he name me?" Yang Jian asked.

"No, but he glanced at me. It was quite a look. Like he was saying, 'I know you're behind this, but I don't have any proof.'"

"Did you feel guilty?"

"What do I have to feel guilty about?" Satoru Gojo sent a smug reaction image. "I never went to Shibuya. I was with Megumi all last night. The kid can vouch for me."

Yang Jian did not reply again.

He put his phone away, walked to the wardrobe, and took out his black jacket.

The fabric felt a little damp. Some of it must have gotten wet in last night's rain.

He shook the jacket out and draped it over the back of a chair to dry.

The sky outside had grown brighter.

The gray-white clouds had parted a little, revealing pale blue sky behind them.

The sunlight after the rain was gentle. It shone on the dorm building's red brick walls, making the wet patches glisten.

Yang Jian washed his face. The cold water splashing against his skin woke him up a little.

The person in the mirror looked no different from yesterday.

Ever since Ghost Shadow had become his primary vessel, two or three hours of sleep a day had been enough.

Sometimes he did not sleep at all, merely lying down to let his body rest while his mind remained perfectly alert.

Yang Jian saw nothing wrong with that.

Humans were too fragile. They fell ill, grew old, and died.

He no longer did-at least, not for now.

His phone vibrated again.

This time, it was Suguru Geto.

"Are you awake?" Suguru Geto asked.

"Didn't sleep," Yang Jian replied.

The other end went silent for a while, then sent, "Thanks for last night."

Yang Jian raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"For not asking why I agreed to go," Suguru Geto said. "And for letting me take action."

Yang Jian leaned against the window, watching the sky gradually brighten outside, then typed, "Did you actually do anything?"

"No. You were too fast," Suguru Geto said. "Watching from the side, I suddenly felt... it was all so pointless."

"What was pointless?"

"Those things in the petri dishes had cursed energy responses. They pulsed, as though they were alive. But one cut from you turned them to ash. They didn't even struggle." Suguru Geto's messages came one after another.

"I was thinking, if they really grew into cursed spirits, I'd absorb them with Cursed Spirit Manipulation. And then what? They'd become part of my power, driven by me to protect people who couldn't care less whether I lived or died."

Yang Jian did not reply. He waited for Suguru Geto to continue.

"Yang Jian," Suguru Geto sent one final message, "you were right. But spoiled food is still spoiled, no matter how much you reheat it."

Yang Jian stared at that sentence for a long time before typing, "So?"

"So I'm thinking maybe it's time to put something different on the table."

Yang Jian laughed.

This time, he actually laughed aloud, the sound a little jarring in the quiet dorm room. Then he typed, "What do you want to eat? My treat."

"No need. I'll find it myself."

The conversation ended there.