Buy a Can of Cola

Yang Jian switched off his phone and tossed it onto the bed.

Walking over to the table, he unwrapped the black cloth around the Chopping Knife.

The dark red rust gave off a metallic tang in the morning light.

He could still feel how it had been to slice through the flesh in the petri dishes last night.

There had been little resistance. The blade swept through, and the vein-like patterns carbonized straight into ash.

Then the system notification sounded, and the points came in.

The matter itself was simple.

Some people insisted on complicating it, wrapping it in the guise of protection and talking about the greater good.

Those were worries only people with overly comfortable lives could afford. For him, there was only one rule: cut down whatever got in the way; take whatever had value.

Yang Jian wrapped the Chopping Knife again and shoved it under the mattress.

He opened the door.

The corridor was silent. He couldn't even hear anyone breathing.

He went downstairs and crossed the field. Mist shrouded the distant wooded hills, and the air was cold and damp.

The lights were on in the Jujutsu High cafeteria.

Yang Jian stopped at the vending machine, inserted a coin, and pressed the red button.

Clunk.

A can of cola dropped down.

He thought for a moment, then inserted another coin and pressed the green button beside it.

Another can.

Satoru Gojo had swiped one from him yesterday. Today, he needed to take precautions.

He pulled the tab, and fizz spilled onto the web of his hand. The cold, sweet liquid poured down his throat, washing away some of his drowsiness.

He turned and saw Suguru Geto in the corner.

A cup of black coffee sat on the table, steam rising from it.

Yang Jian walked over, pulled out a chair, and sat down, pushing the unopened cola toward him.

"I don't drink that." Suguru Geto glanced at the cola, picked up his coffee, and took a sip, his brows creasing slightly.

"Figured it out?" Yang Jian leaned back in his chair.

"No." Suguru Geto set down his cup, his fingers rubbing its porcelain rim. "Maybe I never will."

"Then stop thinking about it. What are you going to do?"

"Keep being a sorcerer, keep saving people, keep exorcising cursed spirits. But I'll handle some things differently."

Suguru Geto looked up at Yang Jian.

"Take a place like Ichikawa last night. Before, I would've written a report and submitted it. Now..."

"Now what?"

Suguru Geto didn't answer directly. Instead, he asked, "What were you thinking when you cut those things?"

Yang Jian answered without hesitation. "How to cut them with the least effort."

Suguru Geto chuckled twice, sounding more lighthearted than usual.

"I won't cut things away as cleanly as you do, but I won't pretend I didn't see them anymore."

That was enough.

Suguru Geto had no intention of becoming Yang Jian, and Yang Jian hadn't expected him to.

They wouldn't follow the same path, but at least Suguru Geto would stop agonizing over those messes.

"Back to business." Suguru Geto's tone returned to normal. "Satoru sent word. Kusumoto is going to Ichikawa this afternoon for another inspection. He's bringing two people: a sorcerer who tracks traces, and someone whose identity is unknown."

"Couldn't find out?"

"Gojo checked the internal system. Highest-level encryption. Completely blank."

Yang Jian took a sip of cola.

Highest-level encryption. Even the Gojo Clan would have to put in some effort. Where had an administrative bureaucrat like Kusumoto gotten that kind of clearance?

"Are you going?" Suguru Geto asked.

"What for?"

"To see what they can find."

Yang Jian crushed the empty can, the aluminum making a shrill scraping sound.

"I left no traces. At most, they'll find that anomalous energy appeared there." Yang Jian stood up. "As for that classified person, he'll show himself sooner or later."

The empty can landed squarely in a trash bin three meters away.

Yang Jian turned and left the cafeteria.

Much of the mist had cleared.

Kusumoto.

He ran the name through his mind, breaking it apart and grinding it down.

An administrative bureaucrat who had climbed too quickly.

Someone with the authority to deploy a Kyoto sorcerer whose records carried the highest level of encryption.

Going back to inspect an abandoned laboratory that had already been thoroughly cleared out.

Inspect what? Look for traces?

No. He was confirming whether something was really missing, or who had taken it.

The operation was too practiced. It carried the calculating air of someone who had lived for hundreds, even thousands of years.

Kusumoto wasn't capable of this. He was merely the man handling things out front.

The person signing his classified documents and giving him the resources to rise through the ranks was the one pulling the strings.

A living fossil who could reach into the upper ranks of Jujutsu Headquarters, swap bodies and possess them at will by changing brains, and move everyone around like pawns.

Kenjaku.

Yang Jian kept walking.

It all lined up: Tokyo Metropolitan Third Hospital, the laboratory in Ichikawa, the petri dishes in Sagamihara, and the special grade embryo beneath Shibuya.

Kenjaku was using Jujutsu Headquarters as a shell to conduct his own experiments.

Knowing who his opponent was actually made things easier.

Kenjaku didn't need Kusumoto to be competent. He only needed him to obey.

A greedy, mediocre bureaucrat made an excellent puppet.

Toss him a meaty bone of power, and he would push open every door without hesitation, never asking what lay behind them.

As for that classified Kyoto sorcerer, only a handful of people at Jujutsu Headquarters could authorize the highest level of clearance.

That meant Kenjaku had either infiltrated the decision-making ranks or left a back door through one of his former bodies.

An expired pass that had never been revoked.

Follow the trail, drag Kenjaku out, and topple Jujutsu Headquarters.

The process wouldn't be difficult. Even all of Jujutsu Society's current fighting power combined couldn't stop him.

Overturning the table took only one kick. Cleaning up afterward was a nuisance.

Most importantly, pursuing the Kenjaku lead wouldn't earn him any system points.

A losing deal.

Yang Jian picked up his phone and messaged Shiu Kong. "Stop pursuing Kusumoto. Don't touch that lead. Just keep up routine surveillance."

Shiu Kong asked, "Why?"

"Too little return for the effort. I don't need the truth right now."

An information broker didn't need to understand his employer's strategic intentions. As long as the money was right, Shiu Kong knew when to push and when to back off.

The screen lit up.

"Understood," Shiu Kong replied.

Other cursed spirit cultivation facilities were still hidden in Jujutsu Headquarters' blind spots. The flesh in those places was worth real points.

His phone vibrated. Suguru Geto had sent a message.

"Kusumoto is investigating what happened in Ichikawa." There were long pauses between his messages, betraying his hesitation. "The surveillance footage from the surrounding blocks was forcibly requisitioned. The red light on the old factory's first floor was caught on camera before dawn."

"And?"

"The higher-ups' Technical Department determined that the red light doesn't fall within any known category of cursed energy. Kusumoto used that as an excuse to request a special task force, specifically targeting 'anomalous individuals outside the cursed energy system.'"

Typical bureaucratic behavior.

When they couldn't find evidence of wrongdoing, they used drawn-out review procedures to harass people, pulling files and monitoring funds.

Killing Kusumoto would take no more than a twitch of his fingers.

But smashing a wall just to swat a mosquito was a waste of time and effort.

"What's Gojo doing?" Yang Jian typed.

"He's flooding the group chat with insults, saying Kusumoto is blaming Earth's lack of gravity because he can't take a shit. But the application has already been submitted. There should be a decision in the next few days."

"What are you going to do?" Suguru Geto asked.

"Nothing. Let him investigate if he wants. If he finds anything, good for him."

"What if he finds hard evidence?"

"Then he'll still need to live long enough to collect it," Yang Jian replied.

The typing indicator appeared on Suguru Geto's end, stopped, then appeared again.

After a long while, a lengthy message arrived.

"You always act without any restraint. Have you never considered what you'd do if one day everyone was pushed onto the opposite side from you?"

Yang Jian tapped the screen. "Take them all down."

"What if you can't win?"

"Won't happen," Yang Jian replied.

The chat fell silent.

Yang Jian tossed his phone onto the bed.

Suguru Geto's question was meaningless.

Rules were made for the weak.

When the resistance became enough of an obstacle, all he had to do was cut down the people making the rules, smash the table, and write new rules himself.

He hadn't done it only because they hadn't provoked him that far yet.

Yang Jian wound the black cloth around it, turn after turn, and put it back deep inside the wardrobe as it had been.

He picked up his phone and opened his chat with Shiu Kong.

"Keep a close eye on the people Kusumoto sends out."

"That'll cost extra." Shiu Kong typed extremely fast.

"Fine."

He locked the screen and slipped it into his pocket.

Yang Jian put down his phone and walked to the window.

Better do something useful.

Like buy a can of cola.

Yang Jian turned and left the dorm room. The door closed behind him with a soft click.

The corridor was quiet. Morning light streamed through the window at the far end, tinting the floor pale gold.

He walked forward across that patch of gold, his pace neither fast nor slow.