He slumped backward.
He let out a long, weary sigh.
"Ahh~~"
"I'm exhausted."
He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, his limbs spread out.
"Making one special grade cursed tool took almost three days... Mei Mei's five hundred million really isn't easy to earn."
He reached out a hand and beckoned at the air.
The ball of purple vapor that had been hovering over the table slowly drifted toward him.
Like a tamed cloud, it hovered a few inches above his palm.
With a slight turn of his finger, the purple vapor began to disperse.
The mist peeled away layer by layer, like gauze curtains scattered by the wind, revealing the completed cursed tool within.
It was a loose, pure-black trench coat, its texture somewhere between fabric and feathers, its surface carrying a deep, dark sheen that almost seemed to swallow light.
The back was the most eye-catching part.
A pair of raven-wing patterns spread outward from the shoulder blades, their lines fluid and intricate.
Those lines seemed to flow faintly beneath the light, like something alive, with an extremely faint, dark-purple halo along the tips of the raven feathers.
Wangchuan looked at the trench coat and lightly traced a circle with his fingertip.
The trench coat slowly rotated in midair with his movement.
"Performance and looks..."
He muttered to himself.
"Mei Mei's taste really is impeccable."
"She's just too hard to please."
"But what can I do? I need her help with so many things."
Just as he finished speaking, his phone screen lit up again.
This time, it wasn't a message, but a call.
Wangchuan turned his head and glanced over, seeing Mei Mei's name flashing on the screen.
He raised his eyebrows, picked up the phone, answered, and held it to his ear.
"Moshi Moshi..."
"Wangchuan, did you really finish it?"
Mei Mei's voice came through the phone, half a pitch higher than usual and distinctly excited.
She even skipped the pleasantries and went straight to the point.
"I'm coming over right now."
Wangchuan blinked and leaned back in his chair. "In that much of a hurry?"
"Of course I am." Mei Mei's voice still held a smile, but her words didn't sound like a joke.
"There have been more and more cursed spirits lately, and more and more missions. They're getting stronger, too."
"I took a mission half a month ago. It was a special grade..."
She paused, the underlying amusement in her voice fading a little.
"If Ui Ui hadn't been there, I might have died."
A young voice came through from the other end, brimming with the irrepressible delight of being praised.
"Big sister!"
"I love-"
"Quiet, Ui Ui." Mei Mei's voice held a smile, but her words were blunt.
"We'll talk later."
Wangchuan listened quietly, his gaze resting on the ceiling as he tapped his knee twice with his fingers.
He remembered a few things.
Since crossing over, he had already changed the course of some of the plot.
The jujutsu sorcerers were growing stronger, especially those he had come into contact with.
Utahime, Yuta Okkotsu, Aoi Todo, and even Mechamaru were all growing stronger in different ways.
Meanwhile, the cursed spirits seemed to be growing stronger in step with them.
He had watched Jackie Chan Adventures in his previous life and understood its balance between good and evil very well.
He also knew that the world of Jujutsu Kaisen had an underlying logic similar to that balance between good and evil.
The stronger the jujutsu sorcerers became, the stronger the cursed spirits that emerged. It was a kind of inertia built into the rules, like weights being placed on both sides of a scale at once.
And now.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the ceiling.
His very existence was equivalent to throwing a weight heavier than anyone else's onto that scale.
The demon Tso Lan's template, the Moon Demon's power, the knowledge and cursed techniques that didn't belong to this world...
Could the presence of these things be causing this world to produce stronger cursed spirits in response?
He fell silent for a while, then raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Could the cursed spirits be getting stronger because I exist?"
"Then the plot down the line..."
He thought about the events in the original story that hadn't happened yet but very likely would, and his expression grew a little peculiar.
"There's really no telling how it'll go."
"But it doesn't matter. Demons are immortal."
Mei Mei's voice came through the phone, carrying a hint of urgency.
"Hello? Wangchuan? Are you still there?"
Wangchuan came back to his senses and gave a murmur of acknowledgment.
"I'm here."
"You should at least tell me about the cursed tool now, shouldn't you?"
Mei Mei's tone returned to its shrewd, smiling cadence.
"I'm almost there. You should at least let me know what I spent five hundred million on, right?"
Wangchuan leaned back in his chair and looked at the black trench coat hovering in midair, the corners of his mouth curving slightly.
"It's called... the Eternal Night Raven Coffin."
Wangchuan came up with the name on the spot.
"It has two core abilities."
He held up two fingers, his tone steady and clear.
"The first is called Undying Raven Flock."
"When the wearer suffers a fatal wound, this trench coat will automatically take that fatal damage for them."
"At the same time, it will break apart into a flock of ravens, carrying the wearer's consciousness and core cursed energy to a previously marked safe location in an instant, where they'll emerge from a coffin."
"You can mark one location at most, with no range limit."
"After the transfer, the trench coat will enter a repair state. How long the repairs take depends on the severity of the damage."
"But if the cursed tool is attacked while it's repairing itself, it will be ruined outright."
The other end of the line went quiet for a moment, followed by an extremely soft intake of breath.
Wangchuan continued.
"The second ability is called Raven Burial."
He raised his hand and pointed at the spread raven-wing patterns on the back of the trench coat.
"Once the wings on the back spread open, they can release large amounts of pitch-black mist."
"Within the mist, all your ravens' abilities increase by one hundred percent."
"The mist itself is mildly corrosive and can interfere with an enemy's perception of cursed energy."
"The wearer can also move freely through the mist without being affected, and gets a speed boost."
When he finished, the other end of the line fell silent for three seconds.
Then Mei Mei's voice rang out with an undisguised, delighted surprise she rarely showed.
"Chuan... I love you to death!"
The corner of Wangchuan's mouth twitched.
"Go say that to Utahime."
Mei Mei's trademark shrewd laughter came through the phone, followed by a breezy reply.
"Hahaha, don't worry. Utahime won't mind!"
"I'm almost there."
"Don't damage my cursed tool. Oh, and I've already transferred the money to your account. Check it."
"This thing is mine now!"
"You're not allowed to give it to anyone else!"
"Hey, you..."
Wangchuan wanted to say more, but the receiver was already sounding the disconnected tone.
Holding his phone, he looked at the screen, which plainly displayed "Call ended."
"What is wrong with her?"
"Did she really not understand, or was she pretending?"
"I explained all that because I meant you need to pay extra!"
He rubbed his temples.
"Forget it. If I want money, I'll have to squeeze it out of those guys in the Jujutsu Higher-Ups!"
"I haven't been out in days. I'll go check on Inumaki and the others."
With that, he picked up a mask-type cursed tool from the table and walked out.
Before you continue