As the man kowtowed several times in succession, the flesh and tissue on the stone platter gradually degraded into a black, rotten sludge, while wisps of white smoke drifted from the sensory openings of the civet stone carving.
The man raised his head, knowing it had taken effect.
As a renowned cleaner, he did not rely purely on brute force to settle matters like other fighters did. Bound in his possession was an urban legend passed down from an ancient religion.
This entity proved far more dependable than face-to-face combat or firearms.
The conditions required to activate the urban legend were simple: as the master of the ritual, he had to be attacked by someone else.
In the old days, the master of the ritual had to take the field in person. With advancing technology, however, that was no longer necessary.
Because a person's biological field was regarded as an extension of the human body, all he needed to do was use field technology to project his biological field to the scene and cultivate an anomalous atmosphere. Once the target took action to dispel or attack it, the requirement would be fulfilled.
While the process seemed straightforward, it was not actually that easy. If the target simply shut down their boundary credential, for instance, every effect became useless.
To circumvent this, he had carried out three steps. First, he probed and observed whether a resonator was backing the target. When that proved true, he made sure to jam and block that resonator beforehand.
Second, he arranged for a patient suffering from functional disorder syndrome to make contact with the target. This allowed him to plant a powerful biological field signal onto the target's boundary credential at close quarters, ensuring that the next time they crossed paths, remote manipulation could prevent it from being deactivated for a short period.
With those two preparatory steps complete, he could proceed to the third.
According to his intelligence, the target visited the Haijing Grounds on a fixed day each month. Because of the location's remoteness, only one scheduled tram ran there every day, carrying very few passengers. He thus resolved to strike directly on the tram.
To amplify the urban legend's strength and kill the target as quickly as possible, he had even gone so far as to offer up a portion of his internal organs along with fragments of mutated tissue, performing ritual kowtows before the shrine.
Just then, an incoming transmission pinged on his boundary credential, and a wooden voice sounded: "Youxing, the client asks when the target of the commission will be eliminated."
In a dry, raspy voice, Youxing replied, "Tell the client: soon."
***
Meanwhile, the tram had arrived at the station. As Chen Chuan walked out of the station, he suddenly noticed that the persistent blurring of his Second Self had abruptly worsened, growing rapidly more severe.
Within just a few paces, the Second Self had become nearly indistinct, and even his boundary credential could no longer be accessed.
He had encountered a fair share of urban legends, yet he had never seen an invasion turn this intense in such a short window of time.
However, since its metamorphosis, the Second Self had grown several times over, battle-hardened by the duel against Wei Wusheng and nurtured by training that yielded palpable progress. Its overlap time had now reached two full days and four hours. Despite being steadily worn down, it remained capable of holding on.
Chen Chuan looked up toward the Xuan Palace Building ahead. Anyone exhibiting anomalous conditions was barred from entering the academy grounds.
He had no doubt the academy possessed ways to resolve the issue, but they might also investigate his personal condition in the process. After a brief consideration, he stopped advancing and turned away.
He made his way to the Jinwei Beverage Shop, where Instructor Wu had once treated him to a drink, and found a seat inside. The décor was pleasantly vintage. Outside, a gentle drizzle was just beginning to patter against the glass. Listening to a piano piece spinning on the gramophone while watching the falling rain created an exceptionally comfortable atmosphere.
He beckoned a server, ordered a hot beverage, picked up a newspaper exclusive to the establishment, and leaned back into his chair to leaf through it leisurely.
For now, it was simply a matter of who could outlast whom.
***
Inside the dim residence, Youxing repeatedly rose and threw himself down in heavy kowtows. Gradually, however, a sense of unease crept over him, for no result was forthcoming.
Which meant the target was not dead.
He could not help feeling shocked and suspicious. While fighters possessed immense vitality and could hold out for long stretches, over an hour had already passed. Furthermore, the opponent was merely a Wuyi cadet who had not even reached the third limit. By all rights, he should have been devoured by the urban legend long ago. Was it because… he had taken medicine?
He suddenly recalled from his gathered intelligence that this cadet had once relied on medicinal stimulants to defeat a third-limit fighter. If he had sensed something amiss, sustaining himself by swallowing medicine was entirely plausible.
In that case…
With a ferocious glint in his eyes, Youxing took a blade and sliced open his barely healed wound, carving out more fragments of mutated tissue to scatter across the platter before the statue. Then he bowed down in another series of heavy kowtows.
***
With a crisp rustle, Chen Chuan turned the page of his newspaper. The paper provided by the beverage shop offered rich contents, spanning everything from street gossip to anecdotes about influential figures, alongside critiques of various garments and drinks. It was never dull to read.
Though cut off from his boundary credential, he felt no boredom at all; it was a rare moment of relaxation.
Because the shop operated around the clock and actually saw its heaviest traffic late at night and into the early morning hours, he simply sat there through the night.
By daybreak, he noted that the encroachment was still underway, though it had weakened substantially. Even his boundary credential was gradually recovering its function, though he remained unable to connect with anyone.
Drawing on past experience, he judged that the urban legend had not necessarily dissipated; rather, this felt like an intermission, and further trouble might follow.
This was the first time he had encountered such a tenacious urban legend. It seemed certain precautions were still required.
After turning it over in his mind, he rose and paid the bill. Taking advantage of the subsided symptoms, he returned to the Xuan Palace Building and retrieved the last remaining ritual materials from his dorm room.
He had deliberately set these aside. They were sufficient to lay down a basic binding ritual, provided he found a suitable location.
After a moment's thought, he settled on the area around Instructor Wu's old residence. It was desolate and free from disturbance. Having made up his mind, he removed the boundary credential he had been wearing, switched to an older spare, picked up his duffel bag, stepped out the door, and headed straight for the tram station.
***
Inside the dim room, Youxing's ceaseless prostrations had worn a depression into the floor. He had been kowtowing all night, yet still no news had arrived.
A foreboding sensation began to gnaw at him. This ritual possessed an inherent drawback that was not quite a flaw: once initiated, a sacrificial offering had to be claimed.
If the ritual failed to kill the target, the backlash would very likely fall upon him, forcing him to take the target's place as the offering.
*What on earth is going on?*
An intense agitation surged in his chest, yet he dared not stop until an outcome was reached. The moment he halted, it would signify his surrender.
Even as he kowtowed, he tried to check for results. Yet the target seemed to have entered the Xuan Palace Building, whose biological field defenses were completely impenetrable to him. He had no choice but to carry on.
***
An hour later, Chen Chuan reached the wasteland. He selected a collapsed building sheltered from the wind, sketched a simple pattern on the ground, and positioned himself in the center.
He waited for a while, but nothing seemed to happen. Then, sensing a presence, he glanced toward a pane of shattered glass lying in the rubble.
Reflected in the broken glass, an entity resembling a civet was perched directly on his back.
His eyes flickered. Reaching backward, he seized the creature in a firm grip and slowly tore it from his shoulders.
The thing seemed composed of coalesced smoke. As he pulled, its four limbs clung desperately to him, but under his powerful heave, it finally reached its breaking point, abruptly dissolving into a cloud of vapor before vanishing without a trace.
At that exact instant, Youxing, still prostrated in worship, let out a bloodcurdling shriek. Claw marks tore across his abdomen and back, the flesh ripping open to expose bone and internal organs.
He scrambled aside in a panic and gulped down the medicine he had prepared beforehand. After a short while, the wounds gradually knitted together, but his eyes were filled with fury and terror.
The ritual had failed.
He had survived just now not because the urban legend had spared him, but because it would wait for his flesh to regenerate before returning to feast on fresher meat, repeating the process over and over until the target was dead.
His expression turned grim. If matters had come to this, only the most direct approach remained.
***
Once he could no longer feel any trace of the urban legend's invasion, Chen Chuan departed the wasteland and established contact with Wu Bei to recount what had happened. Wu Bei told him that he, too, had been unable to reach Chen Chuan since the previous day; initially, someone appeared to have deliberately jammed the biological field signal, and later Chen Chuan's boundary credential seemed to have malfunctioned.
"It was likely the influence of an anomaly," Chen Chuan said. "I switched to a spare boundary credential. The original one wouldn't shut down on its own—it seems someone tampered with it remotely. Brother Wu, is that technically feasible?"
Wu Bei answered, "Under normal circumstances, no, unless there was close-range… wait!" He suddenly caught himself. "That trance affliction patient! Yes, it had to be him!
"If there was close-range biological field contact to transmit a high-intensity field signal directly onto your boundary credential, Brother Chen, then it's possible. But that requires an extremely sophisticated technique, as well as an expensive biological field creature for assistance."
Chen Chuan said, "So given those conditions, it can be done?"
Wu Bei replied, "If it were me, with those conditions, I could manage it barely. For someone with greater technical skill, it shouldn't be difficult at all."
Chen Chuan nodded. "Brother Wu, you mentioned earlier that they likely transmitted a high-intensity field signal onto my boundary credential to seize control. Since they left a biological field trace, can you use that to trace the person in reverse?"
Wu Bei said, "As long as the high-intensity signal's trace hasn't been scrubbed, there's no technical barrier to doing so."
Connecting biological field signals required transmission through boundary points, which naturally left behind data for a certain period. Erasing all traces along the entire transmission path was an immense undertaking, so the standard procedure was simply to wipe the trace at the endpoint—the equivalent of closing the door on the path, making it impossible to locate.
Chen Chuan considered this and said, "It should still be intact."
At the time, his boundary credential had been completely disabled, leaving the culprit no opportunity to use it further against him. Afterward, he had returned to the Xuan Palace Building; no matter how skilled the perpetrator was, bypassing the building's biological field shielding to tamper with it was impossible.
Wu Bei said, "If it's still there, I can try to find him."
Chen Chuan agreed and immediately hurried back to the academy. Considering that carrying the boundary credential out in the open might lead to detection and the scrubbing of traces, he followed Wu Bei's advice and sealed it inside the original packaging case, whose specialized resin could block biological field encroachment.
Once the item was retrieved, he did not head to Wu Bei's residence. Instead, they arranged to meet at a temporary garage. Chen Chuan arrived first, and Wu Bei showed up a few minutes later.
After exchanging a few brief words, Wu Bei opened the case, promptly took the boundary credential into his hands, and inspected it. He broke into a delighted smile. "The signal is still here!"
Placing his hand on the credential, he said excitedly, "Let me track it down and see where this guy is hiding."
Chapter 288