Gold prices were about to rise

White Ghost hung in midair, its swollen limbs dangling limply as slime dripped between Yang Jian's fingers.

The dorm room was a wreck. Blue's gravitational pull had ripped a gaping hole in the wall, the floor was covered in black fluid left by the disintegrated cursed spirits, and the doorframe hung crookedly from its hinges.

Satoru Gojo stood among the shattered wood, his eyes fixed on Yang Jian's hand.

It was deathly pale and stiff, with grayish-purple nails and joints bent farther than any living person's could.

"Is this your power?"

"One of them."

Yang Jian's expression remained blank. After the Ghost Hand trial card activated, most of his humanity had been suppressed. His brain worked like a precision instrument, processing only the most urgent matters.

Containment. He needed a gold container.

"Does Jujutsu High have any gold?"

Suguru Geto wiped away his cold sweat. "There are gold ritual implements in the Cursed Object Warehouse, but they aren't pure gold-"

"No." Yang Jian cut him off. "It has to be pure gold. Gold plating won't work."

White Ghost began to tremble faintly under Ghost Hand's suppression.

It wasn't struggling. It was more like an instinctive rejection response.

Ghost Hand could suppress only one target. With that capacity occupied by White Ghost, it would be useless if they encountered a second ghost.

"Jujutsu High doesn't have anything made of pure gold?"

"Do gold bars count?" Satoru Gojo suddenly asked.

Yang Jian and Suguru Geto both looked at him.

"I have two in my room." Satoru Gojo shrugged. "Won them playing cards last time."

Suguru Geto's expression turned awkward.

"Gold bars won't work. I need a sealed container. A box or a jar will do, but it has to be pure gold, with no gaps."

"So basically a golden coffin?"

"More or less."

Yang Jian glanced down at the system panel.

7 minutes, 42 seconds.

If he couldn't get a container, White Ghost would become active again. At the rate it was growing, even suppressing it by looking at it would probably fail the second time around.

"Melt the bars and cast a container," Suguru Geto said quickly. "Shoko has a furnace."

Satoru Gojo was already heading out. "I'll get the gold bars. Geto, go borrow the furnace."

"Wait." Yang Jian stopped them both. "Who's going to watch it?"

"Can't you just keep holding it?" Satoru Gojo looked back.

"I have less than eight minutes."

Satoru Gojo stopped in his tracks.

"What happens when time runs out?" Suguru Geto asked.

"Ghost Hand disappears, and it goes free." Yang Jian's voice was flat. "Then it kills everyone here."

The hallway fell silent for a moment.

"Then let's hurry."

Satoru Gojo vanished through the doorway, with Suguru Geto close behind.

Only Yang Jian and White Ghost remained in the dorm room. Its pale, featureless face faced him, with no eyes or mouth, just a taut layer of human skin. Slime fell soundlessly onto the floor.

Yang Jian tightened Ghost Hand's grip a fraction. White Ghost stopped trembling.

Three minutes later, Satoru Gojo returned first, clutching a gold bar in each hand, roughly four hundred grams in total.

"Enough?"

"Barely. Just make a palm-sized box. This thing can be compressed once it's suppressed."

Another minute passed before Suguru Geto rushed in with a portable electric melting furnace over his shoulder, Shoko following behind him.

Shoko wore a white lab coat and carried a Graphite Crucible and heat-resistant gloves, her expression somewhere between confusion and irritation.

"You dragged me here at noon just to smelt gold?"

She glanced at White Ghost in Yang Jian's grip. Her pupils contracted. She quickly looked away and began setting up the furnace.

"Don't look at it," Yang Jian warned.

"You don't have to tell me." Shoko's hands were perfectly steady as she dropped the gold bars into the crucible and turned on the heat. "I'm not an idiot."

The heating coils grew hot. The surfaces of the gold bars began to glow red.

4 minutes, 11 seconds.

The gold bars rapidly softened, collapsed, and flowed into golden liquid.

"Where's the mold?" Shoko asked.

There was no mold.

Suguru Geto pulled a metal cigarette case from his pocket-Shoko's.

"Let me borrow this."

He flattened the case, then bent it into a shallow dish with fingers reinforced by cursed energy. Shoko put on her gloves, lifted the crucible, and slowly poured the molten gold into the metal dish.

The golden liquid spread out, covering the bottom.

"We still need a lid."

Shoko repeated the process with the other half of the cigarette case, casting a second gold plate.

2 minutes, 3 seconds.

"There isn't enough time for it to cool."

Satoru Gojo used Blue. Its gravitational pull compressed the surrounding air, creating a localized low-temperature zone over the molten gold. A dozen or so seconds later, the gold solidified.

The edges were rough, the shapes irregular, and the thickness uneven-but they were indeed two pure gold plates.

"That'll do."

Yang Jian pressed White Ghost toward the floor.

Ghost Hand's power poured into it. White Ghost's body shrank violently, as though vacuum-packed, compressing from the size of an adult into a fist-sized lump of white flesh.

Suguru Geto handed him the gold dish. Yang Jian stuffed the lump into it and covered it with the gold plate.

"Hold it down."

Satoru Gojo pressed a hand onto the lid, using Blue's gravitational pull to force the two gold plates tightly together.

The edges deformed and locked together, forming an ugly but sealed, flat gold box.

Yang Jian released Ghost Hand's grip.

The pervasive stench of decay and icy chill vanished abruptly the instant the box was sealed. Extremely faint vibrations passed through its golden surface, growing less frequent until they fell still.

Notifications appeared on the system panel-

[Ghost Hand suppression capacity used: 1/1.]

[Target: unnamed White Ghost (C-rank). Status: contained.]

[Containment vessel: makeshift sealed pure gold box. Stability assessment: moderate. Recommendation: replace with a high-strength gold container.]

Yang Jian placed the gold box on the coffee table and sat back down on the sofa.

Forty-seven seconds later, his right hand returned to its normal skin tone. His humanity returned, bringing emotions and sensations flooding back with it. His back was drenched in sweat.

"Is it over?" Shoko leaned against the doorframe and lit a cigarette.

"It's over."

"Your hand was about minus ten degrees just now. Your whole arm, actually."

"You measured it with a thermometer?"

"Occupational habit."

Satoru Gojo sat on the floor, his back against the half-demolished wall, staring up at the ceiling.

"Limitless was useless. Blue was useless too. I threw everything I had at it, and it was like tickling it."

There was no discernible emotion in his voice. But Yang Jian noticed that he still hadn't lowered the hand pressed against his chest, where White Ghost had left its palm print.

"Shoko, take a look at him."

"I'm fine." Satoru Gojo stood up.

"The way that mark corrodes the body is different from cursed energy. Shoko's Reverse Cursed Technique might not be able to repair supernatural damage," Yang Jian told Shoko.

Satoru Gojo paused.

Shoko had already walked over and pulled his collar open.

The skin beneath the palm print was pale and unusually cold.

It was similar to the cold mark on the back of Yang Jian's hand, but larger, with less clearly defined edges.

"No tissue necrosis, and it hasn't spread yet," Shoko said after a preliminary examination. "But it needs a more thorough check."

Satoru Gojo fastened his collar and put his sunglasses back on.

"Yang Jian, have those 'ghosts' you mentioned already started invading from your hometown?"

Yang Jian looked at the gold box on the coffee table.

"They aren't just starting. They're already here."

No one answered.

Suguru Geto crouched by the doorway with his head lowered.

His stock of cursed spirits had been almost completely wiped out, and the backlash from those severed connections had left his face pale.

"Yang Jian, you said only ghosts can fight ghosts. Then if more and more of these things appear-will jujutsu sorcerers become useless?"

Yang Jian glanced at him.

That question carried too much weight.

Suguru Geto's beliefs rested on the principle that jujutsu sorcerers protected ordinary people. Today, he had watched every means at his disposal become worthless against a ghost with only low-to-moderate supernatural strength.

Yang Jian offered him no comfort.

"There won't be too many for now. Today's ghost was a probing incursion. But I can't say what will happen later. That's one of the reasons I came here."

Suguru Geto nodded and asked nothing more.

Shoko stubbed out her cigarette and surveyed the room. Half a wall was gone, the door was shattered, and black water and broken bricks covered the floor.

"There's an empty room next door. Only one set of bedding, though. Work it out yourselves."

Yang Jian took the key and picked up the gold box. It sat heavy in his palm.

He walked out of the ruined dorm room, pausing as he passed Satoru Gojo.

"Don't try to force that mark on your chest to heal with Reverse Cursed Technique. Let me take a look tomorrow."

Satoru Gojo took off his sunglasses and gave him a sidelong look.

"Aren't you just an ordinary person now?"

"Ordinary people can diagnose things too."

Yang Jian left with the gold box. The lock on the room next door clicked open. He set the box on the bedside table and fell onto the bed, faceup.

The ceiling was blindingly white.

The system panel appeared over his retinas. In one corner, a line of small text he hadn't noticed before was flashing-

[Activated coordinate anchor for the Supernatural Land detected.]

[Countdown to first Supernatural Instance incursion: 71 hours, 59 minutes.]