I'll Go Meet Them

"You only get one life."

Cao Ya sighed softly.

Even if versions of him existed in other worlds, their experiences differed. Though System Space allowed them to share memories, he had not lived through those experiences himself. There was still a layer between them, and that layer might as well have been the distance between heaven and earth.

Who wanted to die when they could live?

Cao Ya inspected the safe house. Nothing was wrong with the gold rooms containing the ghosts, and the several large gold coffins were all intact.

That put him somewhat at ease. He had to inspect them every two or three days, or he could not rest easy.

Ghosts had classifications as well. S-class, the destruction level, meant they could wipe out the populations of several cities. If not contained in time, they could even destroy an entire country.

A-class was the disaster level, B-class the danger level, and C-class the restricted level.

Although these classifications existed, they were primarily based on a ghost's destructive power and did not fully reflect how terrifying it was.

Take Ghost Call, for instance. It killed only one person at a time, unless it happened in a public place. But once the ringtone sounded, death was certain.

It did not even matter whether someone had a phone. That ringtone would always sound.

An unsolvable ghost like that might not have the killing power to wipe out a city or a country, but Ghost Call was absolutely no less terrifying than any other ghost.

A threat rating did not represent a ghost's true terror level.

The ghosts Cao Ya had imprisoned were all relatively ordinary ones. Whenever he encountered a truly terrifying ghost, he retreated immediately.

Other Ghost Controllers were different: they controlled ghosts, which could not be killed and might also undergo unexpected changes.

He relied entirely on his own strength to imprison ghosts. If he could do it, he could. If he could not, he could not.

Forcing himself to play the hero would only get him killed.

As he stepped out of the villa, Cao Ya received a call from headquarters. It was not even his assigned operator, but Deputy Director Cao Yanhua, asking him to attend a meeting at headquarters in Great Capital City to discuss the captain positions.

Cao Ya had handled quite a few supernatural incidents and imprisoned several ghosts. He carried some weight and had earned something of a reputation.

Many people also speculated about his strength, but no one could get to the bottom of it.

Even headquarters found him extraordinarily mysterious. He operated alone and seldom contacted many people, yet he handled supernatural incidents flawlessly. He could even rival Yang Jian, "Ghost Eye" of Great Prosperity City.

The official in charge of Great Sun City, "Ghost Gold" Cao Ya!

That was also what people found most intriguing. Gold was clearly the bane of ghosts, so why was the ghost Cao Ya controlled a gold-type one?

Cao Ya had never explained it to anyone. All sorts of theories cropped up, but every one of them was wrong.

In fact, it was entirely because of the Indestructible Diamond Divine Art.

Cao Ya said coldly:

"I'm not going to Great Capital City. Just give me the captain position, delegate the authority to me, and send over everything I'm owed as soon as possible."

He had rendered meritorious service, and his contributions were plain for all to see. Headquarters could not shortchange him on anything he was due.

Whether it was the captain position or headquarters' supernatural items, he would not accept a single thing less than what he was owed.

With ghosts appearing everywhere, he never felt safe without a few things to protect himself.

Once their rules were understood, even ordinary people could use supernatural items.

Cao Yanhua said with some anger:

"No. This is the first major conference headquarters has held. You must attend, or you can forget the captain position."

Cao Ya could not be bothered to say more and hung up.

He was not bargaining. He was stating facts.

Besides, he had not asked for anything extra. Everything he requested was commensurate with his contributions.

They could not expect people to do all the work without paying them, could they?

At headquarters, Cao Yanhua was furious too. Every last one of these Ghost Controllers was no easy customer. Dealing with them made him feel as though he would lose at least ten years of his life.

Beside him, Cao Ya's operator looked helplessly at the deputy director.

She was the operator headquarters had assigned to Cao Ya,

and she answered only to Cao Ya. Familiar with his temperament, she had known things would go wrong the moment the deputy director said those words. Sure enough, Cao Ya had hung up on the spot without even bothering to threaten him.

Cao Yanhua called again. This time, he changed his attitude.

He had no choice. Cao Ya simply refused to play by the usual rules. If he was bargaining, hoping to get more supernatural items out of headquarters, then surely they ought to haggle a little. Who hung up on the spot over a single disagreement?

The female operator's verdict was that the deputy director was overthinking it.

After handling Cao Ya's calls for so long, she felt she was beginning to become like him: cold, decisive, and unsmiling.

Cao Yanhua ultimately agreed to Cao Ya's terms and said he would arrange for someone to deliver the items as soon as possible. It would take a few days, however, because headquarters was busy with the Ghost Controller conference and could not spare anyone.

Cao Ya said that was fine, then hung up.

"What kind of person does that?" Cao Yanhua muttered in frustration.

The female operator said helplessly:

"Deputy Director, that's just how Cao Ya is. Now you know how hard my job is, right?"

She took the opportunity to air her grievances.

Cao Yanhua laughed and, sure enough, agreed to raise her salary.

Great Sun City.

Cao Ya had no intention of going to Great Capital City. If he remembered correctly, two extraordinarily terrifying ghosts would appear during this headquarters conference.

Ghost Painting!

Ghost Messenger!

He did not want to deal with those things, nor could he.

He would leave them to the others. Handling ordinary ghosts was enough for him.

Everyone should do what they could. There was nothing embarrassing about that. Charging in despite being outmatched was simply throwing one's life away.

Then there would be no one left to handle even the ordinary ghosts.

Although Cao Ya did very much want to meet headquarters' expert Wang Xiaoming in person, when it came to ghosts, Wang Xiaoming was an undisputed expert-a master-even though he was not a Ghost Controller.

The whole world acknowledged it!

Still, even if Cao Ya was not going to Great Capital City, he could warn headquarters about the appearance of Ghost Painting and Ghost Messenger.

Well, headquarters probably already had intelligence on them.

Cao Ya made a call and told his operator a few things, asking her to notify the others. Then he left everything else alone and focused on studying ghosts.

He had dealt with most of the ghosts that appeared in Great Sun City and the surrounding cities. The few he could not handle left him with no choice but to evacuate the affected areas.

There was nothing else he could do.

He could not be bothered to regulate independent Ghost Controllers. As long as they did not disrupt things, he left them alone. If they disturbed the peace in Great Sun City or the neighboring cities, he paid them a visit himself and sent them straight to the Western Heaven.

Dealing with ghosts was difficult. Dealing with people, on the other hand, felt easier.

That was also because his abilities were different from those of Ghost Controllers.

He could carry out an assassination from several thousand meters away.

Once the Ghost Controller died and their ghost revived, he could simply imprison it.

It took a little extra effort, but he could always resolve the problem.

Thus, on the whole, Great Sun City and the surrounding areas remained fairly peaceful and relatively safe.

Apart from the Cao Ya of [Mysterious Revival], the Cao Ya of [Dragon Raja], who had recently joined them, had also taken some new steps during this period.

[Dragon Raja].

Cao Ya picked up the phone.

"Reporting!"

"Go ahead."

"Goodman, Chen Motong, Ye Sheng, Sake Tokiko, and others from Cassell College have entered our country. Should we arrange to arrest them?"

Cao Ya chuckled:

"Arrest them for what? They haven't broken the law. Hold off for now. I'll go meet them."