"What was going on? Why had my ranking suddenly gone up in the middle of the night?"
As the voice in his mind faded, Xu Yuan abruptly sat up, his consciousness swiftly sinking into his mind as he tried to find the reason.
Yet the Beast Ranking remained silent. Apart from a talisman wreathed in ghostly energy beneath it, nothing was out of the ordinary.
Xu Yuan did not rush to examine the talisman. Instead, he calmed himself and thought.
There were only three possible reasons for his ranking to rise.
First, his Sin Points had skyrocketed, surpassing those of the people ahead of him.
But clearly, that was not the case right now.
Compared with the last time he checked, his Sin Points had only risen by two. He did not know why, but he could not be bothered to investigate. As far as he was concerned, he had not done anything evil.
Whether those classmates thought the same was anyone's guess.
Second, some beast ranked ahead of him had done good deeds, greatly reducing their Sin Points.
Third, some beast ranked ahead of him had died.
The third possibility was his conjecture. Though he had never tested it, he felt quite certain.
So, was a beast more likely to suddenly turn over a new leaf and do good, or to suddenly die?
Xu Yuan chose the latter without hesitation!
But who had died?
At that moment, Xu Yuan suddenly felt a little regretful that he had not identified all the beasts ranked ahead of him beforehand.
Yes, he had been lazy.
The crooked names on the ranking were difficult to decipher, and he was in no hurry to deal with the next beast, so he had not rushed to decipher the names ahead of his.
"Sure enough, laziness always comes back to bite you."
Luckily, this bite had not cost him much. He simply could not know immediately who had died.
But even the smallest loss should not be suffered twice. Xu Yuan immediately got out of bed, turned on the light, and found a pen and paper. Then he began deciphering the top seven beasts in his mind, intending to write them all down first.
Soon, however, Xu Yuan was dumbfounded.
Seventh place, Lin Yuan?!!
"What the hell?"
Xu Yuan carefully deciphered it several times, but ultimately had to accept reality.
Seventh place on the Beast Ranking really was Lin Yuan, and his Sin Points were far from low, reaching 2,784!
"That shouldn't be..."
Xu Yuan's brows knitted tightly.
Though you could know a person's face without knowing their heart, and he should not have been surprised by anyone being a beast, Lin Yuan really had not seemed like an evil person during their time together.
"Could the Beast Ranking be playing me? It noticed I wasn't doing evil and was targeting beasts instead, so it started putting good people on the Beast Ranking?"
Xu Yuan speculated.
But he soon rejected that idea.
If the Beast Ranking had intelligence, it would have fled long ago. In a more serious case, it might even have slaughtered him.
After all, his behavior was practically defrauding the Beast Ranking.
In other words, Lin Yuan really was a beast...
Then what exactly has Lin Yuan done? Can I check? The thought instinctively arose in Xu Yuan's mind.
The next moment, four small, twisted characters actually appeared beneath Lin Yuan's name.
Delighted, Xu Yuan carefully deciphered them and discovered that they read "intentional homicide."
Now that was interesting. Intentional homicide should depend on whom he had killed, shouldn't it? What if all his victims had been vicious, heinous villains?
Given how the Beast Ranking worked, it probably would not distinguish whether Lin Yuan had killed good people or bad people. As long as he killed, it counted as evil.
Just as the Beast Ranking did not distinguish that Xu Yuan was forcing Sun Hao to do good deeds: the Sin Points deducted were all Sun Hao's.
Of course, Xu Yuan was not making excuses for Lin Yuan in his mind. It was just that, when he acted against Lin Yuan later, he would definitely need to spend some time investigating whether Lin Yuan was good or bad.
If he really was a villain who indiscriminately slaughtered innocents, Xu Yuan would not bother going to the trouble of making him reduce his Sin Points. He would simply kill him and be done with it.
If he was a good person, Xu Yuan would deal with that when the time came.
His mind made up, Xu Yuan wrote "Seventh, Lin Yuan, 2,784" on the paper, then continued deciphering the next name.
Then Xu Yuan was surprised again.
Because sixth place was another familiar face.
Zhou Ling, 3,216 Sin Points!
Crimes: kidnapping, abuse, unlawful imprisonment, intentional injury, intentional homicide...
"I thought he was a poser. Turns out he's a fucking death-row inmate."
Xu Yuan murmured calmly, wrote down the name, and continued deciphering...
Fifth, Yang Huifang, 3,257 Sin Points!
Fourth, Liu Yueling, 4,329 Sin Points!
Third...
"Huh? I can't make it out?"
When he reached third place, Xu Yuan suddenly froze.
The name in third place was not merely twisted. When he looked closely, it actually seemed to have been pixelated, making it impossible to read.
Second and first place were the same.
That was somewhat beyond Xu Yuan's expectations.
But he did not pay it much mind. He would see them sooner or later.
If another beast suddenly dropped dead, and it happened to be someone in the top three, then he could only... thank nature for its bounty.
Only then did Xu Yuan look at the talisman thick with ghostly energy.
The talisman was made of the same material as the scroll recording the Heaven-Shaking Art: some kind of skin.
As for what kind of skin, looking at those familiar patterns and pores, Xu Yuan actually already had an answer.
But the Beast Ranking had even produced a brain. Using human skin to record cultivation arts or draw talismans was hardly worth being surprised about.
"It seemed to be called the Spirit-Binding Soul-Control Talisman. Could it seize someone's soul and thereby control them?"
While Xu Yuan was pondering this, the talisman actually vanished from his mind.
"Huh? What's going on?"
Xu Yuan froze, then heard a series of thuds.
His consciousness returned to reality, and he saw that the talisman had actually appeared in the real world. It was banging against the door, as though it wanted to fly out and search for something.
Xu Yuan's face filled with astonishment. Was it really that miraculous?
Just then, the talisman suddenly stopped ramming the door and fell to the floor.
Xu Yuan thought it had exhausted some special divine power and could no longer fly, only to see it slide out through the gap beneath the door.
"Something's wrong!"
An intense sense of foreboding abruptly rose in his heart. Xu Yuan smashed straight through the door and charged out.
Amid the flying wood splinters, he saw the talisman drifting toward Zhang Yaying's room. It was already close to the gap beneath her door.
Was this fucking thing going to seize Mom's soul?
"Fuck! Stop right there!"
Xu Yuan roared, snatched up a broom, and swung it fiercely. Just as the talisman was about to fly through the gap, he knocked it away!
Explosive force carried the talisman through the glass window, smashing it, and sent it flying outside.
"Meow!!!"
The cry of a cat with its fur standing on end rang out. Immediately afterward, the phantom of a black cat flew back through the window and plunged into the space between Xu Yuan's brows.