Self-Preservation X Reason X Cooperation

Jiang Ye stared into Chrollo's eyes without rushing to answer.

The air was so still that he could hear the sparse patter of acid rain falling again.

After a moment's thought, Jiang Ye gave his answer.

"Sorry, right now I only want to protect myself."

Chrollo showed no displeasure at Jiang Ye's answer.

"I respect your choice."

With that, Chrollo left a stack of Jenny, turned around, and walked away without another word.

The turn of events caught Jiang Ye off guard. He had even prepared himself to fight to the death.

Yet Chrollo had simply chosen to leave.

"Could this be the mutual understanding between kindred spirits?"

At that moment, Jiang Ye truly felt how complex Chrollo was.

Unlike the cold, ruthless man he had seen on a screen, what he felt was the kindness Chrollo showed someone else born in Meteor City.

Or perhaps it was a line he wouldn't cross!

At the edge of the junkyard.

Chrollo walked along a narrow path piled with scraps of sheet metal, the hem of his black coat brushing the ground with a soft rustle.

His pace was unhurried, as though he were taking a stroll.

"Aren't you going to deal with that kid?"

Suddenly, a voice came from the side.

At some point, Shalnark, with his blond hair and baby face, had appeared beside Chrollo. He played with an old-fashioned cell phone in his hand, its green antenna reflecting a faint glimmer in the gloom.

He tilted his head toward Chrollo, a curious smile on his face.

"His ability is valuable. If we don't get rid of him now, he might become a problem later."

Chrollo kept walking.

"We have no reason to slaughter him."

His tone was utterly calm.

"He came out of Meteor City, just like us."

"He knows what he's living for."

Shalnark raised an eyebrow but didn't argue.

He put away his phone and fell into step with Chrollo. Soon, the two figures vanished into the shadows of the crisscrossing iron frames deep in the junkyard.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the junkyard.

Jiang Ye stood where he was, his breathing gradually settling.

Chrollo had left, but Jiang Ye remained on guard, his palm pressed to the ground as shadows slowly swirled beneath his feet.

"The leader of the Phantom Troupe came in person to teach me how to use Zetsu."

He murmured under his breath, his tone a mixture of disbelief and lingering fear.

Chrollo hadn't attacked him. One could even say he had shown Jiang Ye more kindness than expected.

But Jiang Ye wasn't naive enough to think that meant he was safe.

Chrollo had never favored direct combat. His methods were often hidden out of sight.

Using others to kill, manipulating information, making use of every available piece.

He wouldn't gamble on Chrollo not coming back.

Jiang Ye took a deep breath. The shadow beneath his feet suddenly expanded, and he sank into its depths as though slipping beneath the surface of water.

Shadow Stealth!

He sped along the ground, through the junkyard, past collapsed iron frames and across muddy ground soaked by acid rain.

More than ten minutes later, he emerged from a pile of scrap metal at the edge of the outer district.

Looking ahead, he saw his former shelter, though it no longer looked like one.

The little shack built from scrap planks and sheet metal had been completely overturned. Its plastic sheeting had been torn into pieces and scattered across the ground, and the half bottle of murky water in the corner had been knocked over.

The ground was covered in jumbled footprints. More than a dozen different-sized shoe tread patterns remained in the dried mud.

Someone had searched the place.

And they had searched it thoroughly, inside and out!

Jiang Ye crouched down and picked up a crushed piece of cardboard.

Half a gray-black footprint remained on it. The sole had a deep, toothed tread found only on military boots.

The Rust Bone Gang.

He remembered the shout he had heard in the junkyard yesterday.

"The Rust Bone Gang is turning this whole area inside out today."

Without a doubt, what he saw now was their handiwork!

Jiang Ye tossed the piece of cardboard to the ground and stood up.

"Strike first and gain the upper hand. Strike later and suffer."

He really was weak right now.

He lacked aura, and his body was depleted.

But his advantage was that he possessed a Nen Ability ordinary people didn't have!

And it was the famous Ten Shadows Technique!

An open attack was easy to dodge, but an arrow from the shadows was hard to guard against. Right now, he was the shadow, the one hiding in the dark.

The information gap was his greatest weapon right now!

He took the stack of Jenny Chrollo had left before departing out of his shadow space.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to rent a room at the cheapest, dingiest inn in Central City and buy a few clean meals.

An hour later.

An old inn on a street in Central City.

Jiang Ye checked in under a false name and chose a room facing away from the street.

The room was small, its sheets yellowed and its window covered with old newspapers, but it was already the best place he had stayed in Meteor City.

First, he ate two bowls of hot noodle soup.

As the hot food settled in his stomach, his frail twelve-year-old body trembled with satisfaction.

It was the best meal he had eaten since transmigrating.

After drinking the last of the broth, he shut the door and windows, sat cross-legged on the bed, and entered Zetsu.

His presence fell completely silent, his aura nodes sealed shut, and the aura in his body began to regenerate and recover at the fastest possible rate.

The day's battle, Chrollo's instruction, and his hurried relocation-all his exhaustion surged over him like a tide.

But Jiang Ye didn't go to sleep immediately.

He sat quietly in Zetsu for an hour, waiting until his aura had recovered to over seventy percent before slowly lying down and closing his eyes.

He slept soundly.

Jiang Ye finally woke when the first pale gray light of dawn shone through a gap in the old newspapers onto his face.

He sat up in bed, rolled his shoulders, and felt the aura in his body.

That abundant life energy flowed steadily through him, like a pool filled with water once more.

He looked down at his elongated morning shadow.

"Rabbit Escape."

His hands formed a shadow sign, and a black rabbit with a pattern on its belly leaped silently from the shadow. It landed at his feet and crouched, awaiting orders.

Jiang Ye looked at it, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.

Second Shikigami: Rabbit Escape!

"In theory, ordinary people can't see Shikigami."

Jiang Ye pondered aloud.

"The Divine Dogs and Rabbit Escape are conjured using my Nen as a medium. Essentially, they're Nen beasts."

"Ordinary people haven't opened their aura nodes and can't see Nen... so Shikigami should be invisible to them."

At a thought from him, Rabbit Escape's body rapidly faded until it became completely transparent.

In his own perception, Rabbit Escape was still there, its presence steady and its pattern clear.

But to the naked eye, the bed was empty!

"Ordinary people can't see it with the naked eye. Even Nen users who have opened their aura nodes will only see a blurry outline unless they deliberately focus aura on their eyes and use Gyo."

"Only with Gyo can they see a Shikigami's full form clearly."

Having established that, Jiang Ye nodded in satisfaction.

He then reached out and summoned the White Divine Dogs as well.

The White Dog lay at the foot of the bed, wagging her tail as she waited.

Her ears turned, picking up faint sounds from different directions around the room.

"Rabbit Escape and the Divine Dogs... the best intelligence-gathering combination."

"Unfortunately, I can only summon two Shikigami at a time, so Black Dog can't appear."

Jiang Ye began analyzing the differences between the two.

Rabbit Escape's advantage was numbers.

Thousands upon thousands of duplicates could cover a vast area at once. Sent separately into taverns, inns, and black-market trading areas, they would attract almost no attention.

But Rabbit Escape's duplicates had no independent sensory organs. Their movements were coordinated by the core original.

In other words, when gathering intelligence through Rabbit Escape, Jiang Ye could only see changes in the rabbit swarm's overall behavior. He couldn't receive images directly as though watching a movie.

The Divine Dogs were different.

The White Dog had a first-rate sense of smell, while Black Dog had first-rate hearing.

They could share their senses with Jiang Ye, allowing him to identify the smells the White Dog detected and the sounds she heard in real time.

More importantly, the Divine Dogs could transmit visual information over long distances, like living surveillance cameras.

"Rabbit Escape takes the lead."

"The Divine Dogs serve as my ears and eyes."

Jiang Ye got out of bed.

"Time to get to work."

He gave Rabbit Escape its first order.

The black rabbit leaped off the bed and landed in the shadow on the floor.

The next second, thousands upon thousands of translucent black rabbits poured out of the shadow. Silently, they slipped through the gap under the door, climbed the walls, and slid down through gaps in the stairs, branching out like black streams into the streets and alleys of Central City.

They threaded through the crowds, heading to different places.

Inns, taverns, street-corner gambling dens, black-market trading spots frequented by gangs, and streets the Rust Bone Gang regularly patrolled.

Jiang Ye closed his eyes and concentrated on the feedback from Rabbit Escape's original body.

He couldn't directly see what the rabbit swarm saw, but he could sense where each duplicate was, the direction it was moving, and the objects it touched.

Just then, the Rabbit Escape swarm stopped in an alley behind a tavern.

People were talking there. Footsteps crowded together, with more than a dozen people gathered in one place.

Jiang Ye immediately sent out the White Dog.

The White Dog passed through the window and raced into the alley along the route marked by the rabbit swarm.

The next second, the White Dog's vision connected to Jiang Ye's. He clearly saw gray-black military boots, cigarette butts scattered on the ground, and several men in dusty gray jackets standing together and talking.

"Lao Ba and the others were sent to search the junkyard yesterday, but they still haven't come back."

"Don't even bring it up. He's dead, and not just Lao Ba. More than a dozen brothers died there. Supposedly, some kid killed them."

"A kid? Seriously?"

"Seriously. I heard the boss gave orders to catch that kid himself and take him apart for his organs."

"What a waste that would be. I heard the Nostrade Family is putting pressure on the boss. They need a lot of children to train as bodyguards, and with that kid's skills, he'd definitely fetch a good price."

"Stop going on about things we can't control. Let's hurry back, or the boss will get angry."

Seeing that the men were about to leave, Jiang Ye immediately ordered the White Dog to follow them.

As she continued following them, she soon arrived at a large farm in Middle City East District.

But just as she was about to approach, the White Dog sent a warning: if she continued forward, there was a chance she would be detected.

Without a doubt, there was a Nen user in that place!

After ordering the White Dog to return, Jiang Ye slowly opened his eyes.

"A farm in Middle City East District. The Rust Bone Gang's headquarters."

He got up, threw on his worn coat, stuffed the remaining half stack of Jenny into his shadow space, and pushed open the inn room's door.

"Rust Bone Gang... your luck ends here."