Counting the Spoils, Bai Lan's Intuition

By the time Su Bai got home, it was already late at night.

He quietly washed up, made sure his mother was still fast asleep, and returned to his little cubicle.

He drew the curtains and locked the door.

Su Bai sat cross-legged on his bed and eagerly took out the silver spatial ring he had seized from Venomous Bee.

Storage artifacts like spatial rings were hot commodities on the market. Even the lowest-grade ring, with only one cubic meter of space, could sell for over 100,000 yuan.

Venomous Bee's ring looked finely crafted. It was clearly no cheap item.

"Let's see how much this peak second-tier killer saved up for a wife."

Because Venomous Bee was dead, the spiritual imprint on the ring had automatically dissipated. Su Bai easily sent a wisp of spiritual power inside.

"Holy shit!"

The moment he saw the space inside the ring, Su Bai couldn't help swearing.

He was rich! He had really struck it rich!

The ring contained a full ten cubic meters of space, packed with all sorts of goodies.

Most conspicuous of all was a small mountain of cash piled in one corner.

Each bundle of Great Xia Nation banknotes contained 10,000 yuan. Su Bai gave the pile a quick once-over. There had to be over two million!

"This killer really liked keeping cash. Probably because he was afraid transfers would leave a trail." Su Bai was grinning from ear to ear.

With these two million, he no longer had to worry about the cost of his mother's continuing care. He could even consider moving the family into a bigger home, away from the heavily polluted old district.

Besides the cash, the ring contained more than a dozen potions of various colors.

Su Bai took them out and examined them closely.

"Two vials of the third-tier healing medicine, Rejuvenation Liquid. Five vials of Frenzied Blood Powder, a second-tier potion for an instant burst of power. And these deep-blue ones... they should be the potent divine-power poison he used to coat his daggers."

Su Bai carefully put the potions away. They were all good stuff that could save his life or catch someone off guard at a critical moment.

Next came a pile of materials for building a divine kingdom.

"Is this... a second-tier miniature spirit vein core?"

Su Bai rummaged through a pile of odds and ends and pulled out a milky-white stone radiating dense spiritual energy. His eyes immediately lit up.

For a normal divine kingdom to develop, it needed a spirit vein to provide a constant supply of spiritual energy. If this miniature core went on the market, those false gods stuck at the second-tier bottleneck would fight tooth and nail for it. It was worth at least a million!

But as Su Bai held the stone brimming with spiritual energy, he found himself somewhat troubled.

"My divine kingdom is full of dark matter pollution. If I threw this thing in there, the black fog would probably corrode it to dust. They're completely incompatible."

Su Bai sighed. "Looks like I'll have to find a chance to sell it on the black market and exchange it for the corpses or resentment crystals I need."

Finally, Su Bai found a black leather notebook in the deepest part of the ring.

He opened it to find densely packed records of the assassination missions Venomous Bee had carried out over the years, contact codes for his liaisons, and even some secret channels into the underground black market.

The latest page clearly recorded information about the bounty on Su Bai.

"Bounty: three million. Employer's code name: 'A Grain of Millet in the Vast Sea.' Meeting place: warehouse three, abandoned chemical plant in the eastern suburbs."

Su Bai looked at the employer's code name and sneered.

"A Grain of Millet in the Vast Sea? Gu Canghai? The head of the Gu Family?"

"The Gu Family really can't wait to kill me, can they?"

Su Bai closed the notebook, a flash of cold killing intent in his eyes.

Now that he knew the meeting place, there was naturally no way he would sit and wait for death. It would be rude not to return the favor. The Gu Family had sent him such a grand gift; if he didn't repay them, how could he live up to his identity as a Ghost Story Creator?

"But before that, I need to improve my raw strength."

Su Bai pondered for a moment.

Although his divine kingdom had expanded to twenty square kilometers and the Thirteen Steps had risen to a three-level maze, he now faced a problem.

Both Hongdou and the Thirteen Steps were either "trigger-type" or "domain-type" ghost stories.

If an enemy didn't climb the stairs or look back, or possessed some powerful means of long-range divine-power bombardment, he would still be somewhat on the back foot.

"I need a mobile ghost story that can take the initiative, roam over a wide area, and even invade an enemy's divine kingdom or the real world."

Su Bai browsed through the system's blueprint library.

His gaze finally settled on a three-star ghost story blueprint called [Midnight School Bus].

[Midnight School Bus]

Required materials: a scrapped passenger bus involved in an accident with major casualties, at least fourteen souls of the dead filled with resentment, heavily contaminated fuel, and a bloodstained steering wheel.

Core rule: after midnight, anyone who hears the sound of brakes must board the bus. Once aboard, one person must get off at each stop.

This thing was practically the ultimate divine artifact for mass abductions and cross-region combat!

Once he built the bus, he could even drive it straight into someone else's divine kingdom to pick up passengers!

"A scrapped bus and fuel are easy to get. As long as I have money, I can buy them at the black market or a scrapyard."

"Fourteen souls filled with resentment... the souls of those Shadow assassins I just killed had plenty of resentment, but the Thirteen Steps sucked them dry. Looks like I'll have to go find some more 'kindhearted people.'"

Su Bai mulled over his upcoming shopping plans and gradually drifted off to sleep.

At the same time.

In an office on the top floor of the Abnormality Division building at the Linhai City Appearance Bureau.

Bai Lan stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, looking down at the city's nightscape.

She held a cup of coffee that had gone completely cold. Her brows were tightly furrowed, as though she were pondering some deeply perplexing question.

"Captain, reporting in."

A knock sounded at the office door, and Zhang Lei strode in.

"Speak." Bai Lan didn't turn around.

"As you instructed, we set up concealed pollution detectors along the route Student Su Bai had to take home through the old district."

Zhang Lei looked at the report in his hand, his tone somewhat grave.

"Just half an hour ago, the detectors picked up an extremely intense spatial fluctuation and a dark matter leak. They disappeared in less than two seconds, but the nature of that fluctuation was very similar to the peak second-tier Anomaly we encountered at the unfinished Sunshine Waterfront building..."

"Not only that, our informant reported that Venomous Bee, the Shadow Guild's second-tier gold-medal killer, took a contract on Su Bai tonight and lost contact in the old district. His life tablet... shattered at guild headquarters."

Hearing this, Bai Lan spun around.

"Venomous Bee is dead? Where's the body?"

"We didn't find a body, or any signs of a fight. The scene was as clean as if it had been washed with water." Zhang Lei swallowed. "Captain, do you think... could Su Bai have..."

Zhang Lei didn't finish, but his meaning was clear.

A high school student had silently turned the tables on a peak second-tier killer who specialized in stealth on his way home from school, and even disposed of the body and erased all traces, without leaving a single drop of blood!

Was that something a fucking high school student could do?!

Bai Lan took a deep breath and set her coffee cup on the table.

"Looks like my intuition was right."

Bai Lan walked over to her desk and opened an electronic file classified as top secret.

The file was titled: "Investigation report on the mutation of Su Bai's divine kingdom and his suspected mastery of high-level spatial rules."

"There's definitely more to Su Bai than an unlucky fellow who awakened a wasteland divine kingdom. Inside him is a terrifying monster capable of devouring, even assimilating, other Anomalies and false gods!"

An extremely complex glint flashed in Bai Lan's eyes.

Half wariness, half curiosity.

"Captain, what should we do now? Should we send people to take him into custody and subject him to a compulsory investigation immediately?" Zhang Lei asked.

"No." Bai Lan refused without hesitation.

"First, we have no conclusive evidence that he killed Venomous Bee. Venomous Bee was a wanted criminal who deserved to die. We can't arrest a high school student over a wanted criminal's disappearance."

"Second, Principal Chen Tianxing is protecting him. Without absolute certainty, we can't openly fall out with a true god."

Bai Lan considered for a moment and made a decision.

"Cancel the covert surveillance on Su Bai and withdraw all the detectors. Ordinary surveillance will only anger someone who has mastered spatial rules at this level."

"Since he's shown such formidable ability to turn the tables on an attacker, we'll treat him differently."

Bai Lan looked at Zhang Lei, a meaningful smile curling her lips.

"Zhang Lei, go to Linhai No. 3 Middle School tomorrow as a representative of the City Appearance Bureau. Formally assign Su Bai an official task in the capacity of an 'external consultant.'"

"What task?" Zhang Lei was taken aback.

"That abandoned Benevolent Heart Hospital in the western suburbs has been acting up again lately. I heard a few underground exploration streamers who didn't know the meaning of death went in and never came out."

A sharp light flashed in Bai Lan's eyes. "Since he likes dealing with this sort of 'illegal structure' and 'trash,' let him give it a try. I want to see whether he can handle a long-established composite ghost story domain as easily as he devoured that unfinished building!"

Zhang Lei sucked in a cold breath.

Benevolent Heart Hospital in the western suburbs!

That was one of Linhai City's most notorious forbidden zones! The pollution index and the strength of the Anomalies inside were more than a single level more terrifying than those at the unfinished Sunshine Waterfront building!

Was Captain Bai trying to kill someone with a borrowed knife? Or was she probing his limits?

"Yes, Captain! I'll take care of it first thing tomorrow morning!"