I Am Your Natural Enemy

Wen Yan arrived at the edge of the beach, stomped his foot, and performed a soul-summoning. The sand beneath his feet gathered by itself, forming an altar.

A golden avenue of light extended from under his feet all the way to the sea, but when the golden light touched the water, it continued to stretch out across the surface.

Wen Yan frowned slightly. He sensed that his soul-summoning had encountered some kind of boundary, the golden avenue sticking to the edge as it reached out.

He already knew before that the land ghosts and water ghosts operated in completely different systems.

The ghosts who died on land had all sorts of different names, but water ghosts were basically just called water ghosts.

The golden light stretched out, floating above the sea, but for a long while, nothing happened.

Stomping his foot again, the sand altar collapsed with a rumble. He took his phone and other things from himself and handed them to Feng Wei, then kept walking forward, submerging himself entirely in the sea.

Below the surface, performing soul-summoning felt much smoother this time.

The golden avenue ran along the seabed, quickly reaching a patch of darkness below the water.

In the darkness of the seafloor, inside a cave at the edge of a cliff, the golden avenue led inside. Soon, it reached the feet of an unconscious ghost.

With a call from Wen Yan, the golden avenue rolled back, carrying the unconscious ghost away at speed.

The golden light illuminated the environment; one unconscious ghost after another stood in line within the cave passage, the line stretching deeper inside.

As the golden avenue carried away one of the unconscious ghosts, a cluster of bubbles churned deep within the cave, trembling as it slowly floated upward.

On the other side, Wen Yan looked at the ghost dragged before him—its eyes were empty, face numb. It had already become an unconscious ghost.

Judging by appearances, this was the one he was looking for—the company boss who, in the video, had rushed into the sea to save someone and was swept away.

By the looks of it, this one had definitely died in the water—a textbook case of drowning.

Wen Yan stretched out a finger and tapped it on the other’s forehead, blessing him with a bit of yang energy.

A haze of light spread across his whole body, that hollow, pale look of the dead gaining a touch of vitality.

The ghost’s empty eyes trembled slightly, and even his numb face began to show a hint of expression.

Upon seeing Wen Yan, he was still a bit lost, but as his awareness slowly returned, panic started to show across his face.

”Don’t be afraid—you’re already dead.”

Wen Yan comforted him with a sentence first. The man looked at his own body, then at his surroundings, relaxing a bit, but his expression remained tense.

”Who are you?”

Wen Yan sized the man up, his mind starting to form some guesswork.

”I summoned you because I want to ask, exactly how did you die?”

”I... was forced by an expert sent by my boss to jump into the sea, and I drowned.”

”Who killed you? Who’s your boss?”

The water ghost hesitated and said nothing.

”Yesterday, seven entertainment companies, including MCN companies and livestreaming companies—their people were all caught.

Boss Tao of Hundred Cities was also killed.

You’re already dead; what’s left to be afraid of?”

”I actually don’t know who that guy is. All I know is he’s the one my boss uses for dirty work.

I only heard his voice, and after that, I couldn’t control my body anymore.”

”Under your company’s name, there was one employee who died the same day as you—hit by a dump truck. That wasn’t an accident, was it?”

”Yeah, he broke the rules and recruited from Virtue City. I tried to protect him, but he died, and then so did I.”

”Hm? Rules like that? Who made them?” Wen Yan was a bit surprised. Good grief, even in dirty business, they were careful to cover their tracks.

”I don’t know either—I’m just following them.

Besides that one, there are a bunch of other people we can’t recruit.

Anyone with family or friends involved with martial arts schools, working in government departments, or connected to certain Taoist temples and so on…

Basically, all of those are strictly off-limits.”

Hearing about these restrictions, Wen Yan’s eyes immediately hardened.

If someone could set rules like that, it meant this wasn’t the work of an ordinary person.

From these companies’ point of view, even with such limits, there were more than enough people out there—the rules would only filter out a small fraction.

Or rather, anyone fooled by these companies probably doesn’t have friends or family linked to those places anyway.

Doing things this way was exactly their style—avoiding risk from the very beginning.

After all, if they screwed up even once, there’d be no good outcome for them.

”Keep going. Who’s your boss?”

”He’s from Central Plains County—also runs a big company there. Name’s Luo Liang.”

”Go on.”

”I heard he’s got ties to Mount Laojun, and he’s also connected to people from the Scorching Sun Department. One time over dinner, there was even someone from Scorching Sun eating with us.”

”Heh...” Wen Yan couldn’t hold back and laughed aloud.

Of all the Three Mountains and Five Ridges, Mount Laojun was the lowest-profile.

Also, they had the fewest people and the strictest standards for accepting disciples—Mount Laojun, again.

In over three hundred years, not a single black sheep had come out from among Mount Laojun’s disciples.

There was a time when Mount Laojun had so few members, they were nearly wiped out.

Three hundred years ago, during the Last Dharma, the disciples of Mount Laojun were nearly all slaughtered for the sake of their honor.

The last black sheep appeared during that time.

And then he was captured alive by the disciples of Mount Laojun, escorted up the mountain, and made to kneel facing the peak until he died.