As the saying goes, when people meet, it’s either deception or performance, and Chen Guan figured his acting wasn’t half bad.
“The guy in the hat said to hold your position and report anything on the radio. I heard something went down in the southeast corner and called in, but nobody answered. Baldie over there said to wait until dawn, so I waited.”
The woman didn’t respond.
The two people standing behind her at the door—one watching Baldie, the other watching the short-haired woman—had faces frozen cold, enough to send a chill.
“What did you do before?” the woman asked.
“Watched venues, moved cargo, took the occasional freelance job cleaning up anomalous beasts.”
“Where are you from?”
“The southwest.”
“How long have you been in Rustport?”
“Less than a month.”
“Who referred you here?”
“No one. I hung around the No. 13 Warehouse cluster for a few days, heard there was work, and came over.”
The woman shifted her gaze from him to Baldie.
“What about you?”
Baldie sat up straight, answering succinctly.
“I was at the northwest corner, never moved all night. After the southeast went silent on the radio, I asked if I should check it out. The team lead told me to stay put. Then nothing.”
“And you didn’t see anything either?”
“The northwest corner faces the outskirts of the warehouse complex. I had my back to the berths and cold storage. All I saw were the road out front and a few stray dogs.”
The woman then looked at the short-haired woman.
“South side corridor. I was there the whole time.” The short-haired woman’s reply was even shorter.
“Did anyone pass through your area?”
“No.”
The woman fell silent for a moment.
“Last night’s job wasn’t the work of ordinary people,” she finally said again, her tone flat.
“The cold storage door was torn open from the inside. Both guards are missing—no bodies, no trace. No signs of a struggle at the scene. No blood.”
“To pull that off, you’d need to be at least five tiers, and it’s very likely a spatial ability user.”
Chen Guan blinked behind his mask.
Spatial type, five tiers or above—that was a spot-on assessment.
Though… Chen Guan thought back. Earlier, he hadn’t been able to sense Guan Jinyue’s strength at all. He had no idea what tier she was now.
“You three are the only freelance workers from last night’s perimeter who survived. By the rules, if a job goes south, freelancers are either dismissed or dealt with. There’s no third option.”
The woman looked at Chen Guan. “You said you’re a summoner.”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s your beast?”
Chen Guan tilted his head, his gaze landing on Leopard.
Leopard was lying nearby, chin resting on its paws, its violet eyes half-lidded like a sleepy big cat.
The woman’s gaze swept over the cheetah, lingering briefly on its purple fur.
“A variant?”
“Yeah.”
“What tier?”
“Third tier.”
“What’s its ability? And what’s your level?”
“It’s got some spatial ability. As for me, I’m a bit over third tier—almost at fourth.”
Chen Guan was trying to play weak. That level was decent for an eighteen-year-old student, but nothing special for someone He Chenguan’s age, since eighteen to twenty-two was a golden period for rapid growth.
She didn’t press further on the tier.
“The freelance jobs you’ve taken before—what levels were they?”
“Mostly low-tier, occasional mid-tier anomalous beast cleanups with a team. Nothing too tough.”
After listening, the woman briefly looked away, glancing at one of the people at the door.
The man gave a slight nod.
She turned back to him.
“How much do you want to earn?”
The question came out of nowhere, making both Baldie and the short-haired woman tilt their heads slightly.
“Depends on the job,” Chen Guan replied without naming a price.
“If there’s a steady gig—longer-term, three times the pay of freelance work—would you take it?”
“What’s the job?”
“Still watching a venue.” The woman’s lips curved just a little. “But a different place. You’d need to stick with us for a while and handle some matters more important than last night’s.”
Hearing that, Chen Guan already knew where this was going.
Guan Jinyue had unintentionally done him a favor.
What a good person.
Chen Guan looked down at Leopard sprawled at his feet, went through the motions, and reached out to stroke its head, like he was consulting his beast.
“Alright.”
Chen Guan agreed.
As for Baldie and the short-haired woman, they were dismissed by the woman, though she gave them some cash. They didn’t linger and left promptly.
Whether they actually made it out safely was none of Chen Guan’s concern.
The woman told him her name was Wang Dan.
Wang Dan led Chen Guan out of the No. 13 Warehouse cluster, taking a route different from the one he’d arrived on. They walked through several rows of abandoned factory buildings, turned two corners, and finally exited through a steel door that someone had cut open with a welding torch. Outside sat a gray box truck.
“Get in.”
Chen Guan opened the back door. Leopard jumped in first, and he climbed in after.
The truck bed was lined with a moisture-proof mat. A few empty iron crates were stacked in the corner, smelling of engine oil mixed with disinfectant.
Wang Dan sat in the passenger seat without looking back. The truck started moving.
About forty minutes later, the truck stopped.
Chen Guan climbed out of the back. Before him stood a three-story concrete building, its outer wall painted a faded white. The windows had iron bars, and several rusty antennas stuck up from the roof.
“This is a transfer station,” Wang Dan said, stepping out of the passenger seat and standing in front of the building. “You’ll stay here temporarily. Future jobs will be dispatched from this location.”
Chen Guan scanned the surroundings. To the left was a narrow alley, and to the right, a wall. Beyond the wall, he could see the silhouettes of a few crane arms—still within the port area, but a good distance from the docks.
Without giving him more time to observe, he followed her up to the second floor, down a dimly lit hallway, and stopped at a room at the end.
Wang Dan pushed the door open. Inside was much better than the sheet-metal room at the No. 13 Warehouse cluster—at least it had a window, a decent desk and chair, and the cot had been replaced with a single iron-frame bed with a thin mattress.
“You’ll stay here.”
Chen Guan walked in. Leopard followed, circled the room once, and chose a spot by the window to lie down.
Wang Dan stood at the doorway without entering, arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe.
“This time, I’ll be upfront too.” She uncrossed her arms, reached into the inner pocket of her trench coat, and pulled out a palm-sized iron box, placing it on the desk.
“Inside this box is a demon core.”
Chen Guan glanced at the iron box but didn’t reach for it.
“A fifth-tier mizuchi demon core, perfectly intact.”
Chen Guan blinked behind his mask.
He knew about mizuchi demon cores. They sold for an absurd price on the black market—not because of the tier, but because mizuchi themselves were incredibly rare.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
