On the phone screen, the words were displayed in plain sight: "The Cardinal wants to kill you."
It was from the stranger who had just received his 3,500 credits.
Ye Huan looked up at the girl in the white dress across from him.
The girl he had grown up with.
His childhood friend.
Should he trust that "her," or this "her"?
"An Qi, give me back my SIM card first," Ye Huan said.
"Why do you suddenly care so much about a SIM card, Brother Ye Huan? Fine, here."
The girl gave him a sweet smile, took the SIM card straight out of her phone, and tossed it to him.
Ye Huan caught the SIM card and examined it closely. It was intact.
"Give me a second."
He immediately took out his phone, opened his carrier's app, and reported the card lost.
—Otherwise, if some department investigated and found his SIM card in the hands of a cultist, it would be another huge headache.
Ding!
A crisp chime rang from his phone.
The card was reported lost.
Ye Huan let out an imperceptible sigh of relief, and a prompt surfaced in his mind:
"You have severed an extremely subtle thread, one that could ultimately point back to you and expose your connection to An Qi."
"Having reported this card lost, you will not be implicated in any internal investigation."
"Evaluation +1."
"Total Evaluation +4."
There really had been a problem!
Fortunately, the moment he noticed it, he plugged the loophole!
Still, his Total Evaluation had already reached +4.
Today—
When it came to matters of life and death, he had already faced four perilous moments.
...Hopefully there wouldn't be any more.
Ye Huan looked up at the girl and smiled.
"Thanks for returning my SIM card. If there's nothing else, I'll be going."
Above the girl's head, the label "Black Tide Cult Cardinal" still hovered, yet her eyes were bright, cute, and demure.
"Wait, Brother Ye Huan. Is work at the Bureau of Investigation hard?" the girl suddenly asked.
"I run around every day following those powerful martial artists—but they take good care of me, and I can slack off in plain sight, so it's not really hard," Ye Huan said with a smile.
"Interesting. Actually, I could take care of you too, Brother Ye Huan," the girl said.
"How would you take care of me?"
"Come with me. I'll take a look at you—maybe I can help you recover your memories."
"Not today. I'm on duty, and I have to head back to the office soon," Ye Huan replied.
"Brother Ye Huan doesn't trust me?"
"You're making too big a deal out of this. I'm really working. My location sharing is on, and I could be asked to report in at any moment."
The girl tilted her head, watching him curiously.
In the past, the moment she pressured him, he would immediately surrender and obey.
Had he actually grown up now?
The gentle affection in the girl's eyes vanished like mist, as if it had never existed in the first place:
"How strange. You're just an ordinary person, Brother Ye Huan, yet you managed to come back to life and survive up to this moment. Could the Great Being really favor you this much?"
"Come back to life? Wait, was I dead?" Ye Huan asked immediately.
The girl chuckled and shook her head. "You're too sharp—completely different from how you used to be. I'm even beginning to suspect you aren't really you anymore."
"How did I die?" Ye Huan pressed.
"Come with me. I'll take you somewhere, and then you'll understand," the girl said.
"No," Ye Huan said.
Whatever the original owner did, what did that have to do with him? Life was more important than memories. As long as he stayed in the Bureau of Investigation and grew stronger day by day, he could live well. Why on earth should he get mixed up with these cultists?
Hearing this, the girl gave a silent nod.
Refused on the final chance.
Then she would just take him by force.
She pressed her hand against the wall.
In an instant—
The entire alley turned into a writhing expanse of flesh and blood. The walls on both sides transformed into pale, weathered bone, and human heads bobbed up and down from the ground.
"This is the power you yearned for, Brother Ye Huan. Come with me, and I'll teach you new arts," the girl said softly.
"I studied this kind of stuff?" Ye Huan was stunned.
"You have amnesia, after all—it's fine. Come with me, and we'll learn them all over again," the girl said.
From the fleshy walls emerged monsters that were half skeleton and half raw meat.
They let out wails of sorrow, brandished blades of bone, and glared at Ye Huan.
Yet for some reason, they did not attack; they merely bowed respectfully and retreated back into the walls.
The smile on the girl's face froze.
Ye Huan, however, grew thoughtful.
The dark-green flame on his body resonated with the monsters in some way.
They could sense his Ritual Fire.
That was why they weren't attacking him.
"Stop pestering me, An Qi. I'm still at work. Call it off," Ye Huan said calmly, looking at the writhing flesh.
"Is work more important than me, Brother Ye Huan?!" the girl whined coquettishly, though her fingers clenched until her knuckles turned white.
"Of course it's more important than you," Ye Huan said with a smile.
The smile on the girl's face vanished entirely.
Her aura shifted completely, turning chilling and distant, her tone growing aloof and haughty:
"No one has dared speak to me like that in a very long time. I grant you permission to use the Ritual Fire to burn off his tongue."
Crimson flames flared from the hands of the two young men as they stepped toward Ye Huan one pace at a time.
But the fire in their hands suddenly snuffed out.
"I bestow upon you a stronger ritual flame," the girl said.
Flames ignited on their hands once more, pale white this time.
Unfortunately, these flames also swiftly went out.
The two men suddenly froze stiff.
Splash—
Their bodies burst apart completely, flesh and blood scattering across the ground.
Immediately after—
A plume of dark-green flame erupted from the girl, transforming into the woman's head from the sky, which looked down into the alley.
With just a single glance, it understood the situation.
—Its subordinates were squabbling over power.
These were trivial internal squabbles, not worth wasting its energy on.
As long as the quota of souls delivered in the end was met.
In fact, watching these humans slaughter each other and compete to sacrifice one another's souls to it was a rare amusement.
"Forgive me. I did not know he was your contractor, or I never would have made a move against him," the girl hurried to say, bowing immediately to the woman's head.
"My Cardinal? ...Never mind." The woman's head gave her a deep look, turned back into flame, and vanished into nothingness.
A siren wailed in the distance.
The screech of tires scraping against pavement during hard braking reached their ears.
The girl looked back at Ye Huan, her expression conflicted.
The police were here.
In that case, could the Bureau of Investigation's martial artists be far behind?
Perhaps they were already completing an encirclement?
The girl grew somewhat annoyed and scolded with a pout:
"This won't do, Brother Ye Huan."
"You're an ordinary person, mediocre and impulsive, with no brains and no idea how vast the world is, destined for a life of obscurity."
"No matter how I look at it, I can't accept it—I don't want to work alongside you."
"Wait for me, okay? I'll arrange some entertainment and enjoy watching you die."
With that, she raised her hand and made a gentle beckoning motion.
All the blood from the two corpses on the ground was drawn forth, gathering together to form a scarlet spiral staircase rising into the air.
The girl stepped onto the staircase and soon vanished.
Only Ye Huan remained standing where he was.
The bizarre manifestation of flesh and blood on the walls gradually returned to normal.
But the crimson staircase was still there.
Where it led, he had no idea.
Ye Huan watched the crimson staircase. He didn't approach; in fact, he took a few steps back.
...This was something he had never seen before.
Better to be cautious.
Hurried footsteps sounded.
Two police officers rushed into the alley from outside, glancing between Ye Huan and the crimson staircase.
"Who called the police?" one officer asked.
"I did," Ye Huan said.
"We need to call the Bureau of Investigation for this. Get out of here, fast."
"No need to call the Bureau of Investigation. I'm a Rank-One Investigator from the Mysterious Affairs Section."
"You... called the police?"
"I thought it was just a few petty thugs, and I didn't want to use force on ordinary people. Who knew it would fall right under the Bureau's jurisdiction," Ye Huan said with a sigh.
The crimson staircase slowly condensed into a single line of blood, rose into the void, and vanished.
It was over.
"Then—we won't get involved in this," an officer said.
"Fine," Ye Huan said.
The two officers quickly turned around and sprinted out of the alley like sprinters in a hundred-meter dash.
The roar of a car engine rapidly faded into the distance.
They were gone.
Ye Huan took out his phone and dialed Song Fushan.
"Chief, I was attacked."
"What's the situation?" Song Fushan's voice came through.
"They claimed it was revenge for us killing the mutated martial artist last night... Just two henchmen. They were no match for me. Their bodies are in the alley."
"Bring the bodies back."
"Understood."
The call ended.
He had already called the police, leaving a paper trail, so there had to be a tidy conclusion.
There was no need to mention the girl.
For now, all he had to do was bring the bodies back and say two lackeys had attacked him and he'd dealt with them. That would close the matter.
As for the future—
Time was on his side.
As long as he stayed alive, he would become stronger sooner or later!
Ye Huan walked over, looked at the corpses on the ground, and felt troubled again.
How was he supposed to carry them back?
Wouldn't dragging dead bodies down the street all the way to the Bureau of Investigation cause a complete uproar?
Across the alley, several men in black suddenly stepped out.
Men in black appeared atop the walls as well.
Looking back, the path he had come from was blocked by seven or eight more figures in black.
—He was surrounded!
Ye Huan glanced around, scanning the status labels hovering above their heads: "Professional Hitman."
So that was it.
As a Cardinal, it wasn't appropriate for her to directly kill a newcomer favored by the Great Being. So she bypassed the cult's hierarchy and turned to worldly methods.
—Ye Huan was killed by professional hitmen; what does that have to do with me, An Qi?
Truly a simple and efficient solution.
"Mr. Ye Huan, we've been commissioned to pass along a message to you," the leader said, making a hand gesture.
Another man in black raised a phone and connected a video call.
The video turned on, showing the girl in the white dress lounging on a sofa, looking relaxed and languid.
"Brother Ye Huan, you didn't actually think you were out of danger, did you?" she giggled, covering her mouth.
"You work fast. No wonder you hold such a high position," Ye Huan commended.
"Thanks for the compliment."
"Now, twist off Brother Ye Huan's head for me. When I stick candles into it tonight, I can reminisce about him properly."
"Make sure I see his head fall off with my own eyes. Understand?"
Sitting on the sofa, she gave the command in the gentlest, sweetest voice.
Chapter 18