I Am Your Natural Enemy

”Sir, please have a seat for a while. The late-night snack will be ready soon.”

The steward poked his head out from the kitchen.

Soon, the table was full of people again, each minding their own business, eating whatever they wanted. The theme seemed to be: eat whatever’s available.

Wen Yan had a satisfying meal, then slumped onto the sofa to digest. He felt like he’d finally come back to life.

The heavy-headed, light-footed feeling disappeared as well.

He checked over the things he’d gotten again. The bag containing the wondrous items was casually tossed on the sofa, and no one bothered to touch it.

Wen Yan closed his eyes and mentally sorted things out again.

The other stuff was easy to decide on—nothing to hesitate about. But that 10% general blank progress needed careful consideration.

Right now, Scorching Sun’s progress was at 63%. If he added it to Scorching Sun, it would be the highest return.

Besides, the higher a power’s progress is, the more valuable this 10% general blank progress becomes.

Wen Yan thought about it for a while and decided to hold off for now.

Using it now would feel like a waste.

The way to gain progress was all up to him to figure out on his own, and every big jump in progress was really tough and risky.

He figured that as the progress went higher, it would also get harder to raise it further.

If it’s not necessary, better save it for later.

Then he checked the Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman’s progress again.

This time he got a direct 20% boost to progress. At first, Wen Yan was surprised about why he got that, but thinking it over, it kind of made sense.

”Calamity Protector Water Official Talisman (Current Progress: 49%)”

”Innate Trait: Never drown.”

”Current Effects.

Blessing: Without needing to set up a ritual, you can bestow upon any other creature immunity to drowning, allowing them to freely breathe underwater (effect range increased).

Affinity: You have a strong natural affinity with any water-related artifacts, secret techniques, precious decrees, talismans, etc., making cultivation twice as effective (effect increased).

Deep Sea: With just your physical body, you can walk in sea depths of up to 490 meters, automatically balancing internal and external pressure, and are largely immune to the harmful effects of abrupt pressure changes.

Wave Calming: You possess the power to calm waves; the range and strength depend on your own power, buffs, etc.”

Wen Yan glanced at Wave Calming in the end. Compared to when it had been a temporary ability, the description was quite a bit different now.

He focused and sensed it carefully. He more or less understood—last time, the reason why it had such power was probably because of a pile of extra buff bonuses he wasn’t even aware of.

He picked up his phone and saw Feng Yao’s message.

Feng Yao said he had already come by twice; when Wen Yan woke up, he should call back. Of course, there wasn’t anything urgent.

Wen Yan checked the time. Figuring Feng Yao probably wasn’t asleep yet at this hour.

He called; sure enough, it was picked up in under a second.

”Hey, how are you?”

”I’m alright, just feel a bit foggy in the head. I’ll be fine after a nap.”

”We caught some people over here. The general director told me to let you know.”

”Who did you catch?”

”Besides the Doll Master and Scholar Tu, we got a few dozen others, but not many of them will get the death penalty.”

Most of them weren’t deeply involved—just got started doing stuff for money, and didn’t really know much about the inside details.

Of course, when sentencing, they look at actions. What they were thinking doesn’t matter much.

Also, some Ghosts were involved in a few things too.

The only troublesome bit is Scholar Tu—he led a bunch of tomb robbers, and they dug out a rift in the Qinling Mountains.”

”Hmm? Is it the rift I’m thinking of?”

”Yeah, that’s the one.” Feng Yao sighed.

”Scholar Tu is actually quite talented. Besides a family background, he also studied archaeology.

All by himself, he came to about the same judgment as our Scorching Sun Department analysts.

Plus, his luck was alright—he found the underground rift first.”

The last time, the Ghosts that came out of the rift were just about caught, and we hadn’t even finished catching them all.

This time, who knows what weird thing crawled out.”

When that rift was dug out, all the tomb robbers there were drained of blood and died.”

”Zombie?” Wen Yan’s first reaction was this.

”Probably not. Our people dug out the buried dried corpses.”

Maybe my words aren’t very precise—to be accurate, they died from being completely drained of body fluids.

But as their body fluids were drained, their whole blood was drained too.

We checked the dried corpses—there’s only a tiny bit of red blood cells left in the blood vessels.

And we don’t know if it was a Ghost or something even weirder.

The Qinling is huge, and it’s really hard to search.

If we rely on drones, at best we can scan the surface.

That environment is so complicated—trying to check underground is really hard, and we’re way short on manpower.

So, Guanzhong County over there is planning to start working with Lord Zhu.”

”Recruiting Ghosts?”

”Not exactly, you could call it outsourcing. It’s just the trial phase right now, and being given an official status or position will be handled very carefully.”

”It’s got nothing to do with me, right?”

”Nothing. The general director just said, since these are all follow-ups, I have to let you know. If you want to go meet any of those people, you’re welcome to come, no problem at all.”

”Anything else?”

”Nope. Anything else isn’t my place to ask about, and the general director said nobody’s allowed to talk.”

Wen Yan glanced at the bag on the sofa—so the meaning is, whatever trophies Wen Yan keeps are his own, and no one else is even allowed to ask about how he got them.

”Do you know what happened?”

”Not really. All I know is it’s a huge headache and the general director’s taking charge personally. Don’t tell me you don’t care—it might be fine for you, but we’ve got rules.”

”Alright, I’ll find a time to check in with that guy nicknamed Scholar Tu.”

Just as he was about to hang up, Wen Yan remembered something.

”I want to go check out some places that might be a little sensitive. Is that okay?”

”Just tell me. If I don’t have permission, I’ll ask the general director.”

”I saw on the news that the man-made sun experiment has made new progress. Next time they fire it up, I want to go check it out up close.”