Chapter 21: Night Disaster
This was the most baffling day in Da Jiang's life.
After spending a day as a corpse at home, he was resurrected, and the first thing he did after coming back to life was to throw himself into the glorious labor, from the bedroom and living room to the Hundred Grass Garden and then to the Sanwei Bookstore.
The latter refers to a spiritual cleansing.
As noontime passed and the gathering clouds obscured the sky, Da Jiang stood in the refreshingly clean living room, feeling purified both physically and mentally.
Is this...
Really his shabby little house?
No one is born liking squalor; a messy house is just an appearance, the essence being a helpless reality.
When Da Jiang scattered the books on the table, he also made plans in his heart for a major clean-up on the weekend, followed by the tangled charging cables on the power strip, then clothes and socks, and the bedsheets stained with potato chip crumbs. However, when the day of the major clean-up arrived, he had to face a terrifying truth.
By his own strength, it was no longer possible to clean up this room.
Just like when you're looking for the other lost sock, you can never truly know if it was kicked under the bed or stuck in the couch crack—there are always limits that human power can't reach.
But today, Mr. Mingyuan and Jiuyue stepped up and helped him get his runaway life back on track.
But could there really be such good fortune in this world?
Or was he actually already dead, and everything that happened today was just a post-mortem illusion?
He felt that he could still be considered a good person by and large, his conscience was clear on the road he has traveled. The older generation always said that accumulating good deeds in life meant your soul would be sent to a better world after death, a world without strife and pain, where every soul can find peace.
Da Jiang looked carefully at Duan Mingyuan and Jiuyue—the labor they had just shared felt like a battle, it was so real that the three of them had imperceptibly fostered an unshakable camaraderie.
"You really deserve to die!"
In the moment their eyes met, Da Jiang received his comrade's judgement.
Jiuyue, after putting away the bucket and mop back in the toilet, flopped directly onto the sofa, covering her waist with her left hand and curling up into a ball with her right hand holding her tail, looking as if she was about to die.
There was no more sorrow in her heart, only the desire to take off the socks that got wet while mopping the floor and stuff them into the mouth of this slob of a king.
Meanwhile, the tragic state of the room made her secretly relieved that the person living with her was Mr. Mingyuan.
"Human Life Energy dissipates very quickly."
Duan Mingyuan wiped the sweat from his brow, very pleased with his afternoon's work. To make this shitty world more bearable, it wasn't just Abilities that worked; labor was another way.
The built-up stress in his heart had vanished, and he felt like answering Da Jiang's questions. He put on the Energy Detector, "But you hung on for a while, until we came over."
After seeing ordinary people scoring zero along the way, Da Jiang's score of "2" felt outstanding.
However, the fact that he had died proved that a score of "2" simply couldn't keep up with the intensity of evil spirits. If an evil spirit targeted him, he would die.
"Who is the killer?"
Compared to investigating clues and gathering evidence at the scene of a crime, Duan Mingyuan felt that asking the victim about the identity of the killer was often the most direct and effective method.
Unfortunately, Da Jiang seemed like an Adou that couldn't be helped, and after pondering for a while, he awkwardly stated, "I tripped and fell by accident."
Another wimp who didn't even know how he died.
Seeing Duan Mingyuan's look of disappointment, Da Jiang suddenly said, "But, maybe, I mean maybe, all of this is the influence of the Night Disaster's Ability."
"Night Disaster?"
This was the first time Duan Mingyuan had heard this term. As the organization's liaison in Yunlong City, Da Jiang finally revealed some information that he was unaware of.
Upon hearing the name, Jiuyue's pointed ears on top of her head also trembled. She buried her head into her tail, concealing her expression very well.
"Before the accident occurred, I was investigating matters concerning the Night Disaster. A few days ago, I received a briefing that mentioned a monster named Night Disaster. According to the intelligence provided by eyewitnesses, it was heading in the direction of Yunlong City."
However, all information regarding the Night Disaster was fragmentary, because everyone who truly witnessed its existence had died.
Until now, they were unable to confirm the specific identity of the Night Disaster, not knowing whether it was an evil apparition or some kind of monster that had never been recorded.
Every time the Night Disaster was mentioned, Da Jiang's face would turn grave, "The corpses of the eyewitnesses were very strange. Some were pierced through by rainwater, some were run over by suddenly appearing trucks during pursuit, and there were those whose cars spontaneously combusted, exploding before the people inside could exit..."
Those who pursued the existence of Night Disaster all died, their deaths peculiar and varied.
The only commonality was that they all seemed to be marked by death, and anything they encountered in daily life could become the deadly weapon that claimed their lives.
"I was planning to go back to my bedroom to fetch my notebook when I tripped and fell on a steel nail."
Da Jiang felt a spine-chilling terror. He had only entertained the idea of investigating the Night Disaster when he met with a fatal accident in his own home.
No one had seen the Night Disaster, yet it seemed to be omnipresent, even possibly hiding somewhere and watching them as they conversed.
"To put it simply, everyone who gets involved with the Night Disaster ends up 'dead' due to misfortune."
"Then let's stop the investigation into the Night Disaster for now,"
Duan Mingyuan said.
If Da Jiang's words were not an exaggeration and the Night Disaster could kill from afar just at the thought of being investigated, then it was on a whole different level from the evil spirits Mingyuan had encountered thus far.
An evil spirit with a "high-level title," theoretically deduced, or perhaps even more powerful?
Regardless, this was not something Da Jiang, whose Life Energy was only at "2," could meddle in. Continuing the investigation would only result in one outcome: as soon as he left through that door, he would die from bizarre accidents.
At the same time, another ominous premonition rose in Mingyuan's heart.
If including Da Jiang, three colleagues had died within a short span of a day in Yunlong City, perhaps this time it wasn't them hunting the Night Disaster, but the Night Disaster hunting them.
Jiuyue had mentioned two others recently connected with symbiotic monsters who were also in danger. If he didn't wish to become the sole survivor in this industry in Yunlong City, he needed to find those two unseen colleagues as soon as possible.
"But Mr. Mingyuan..."
Da Jiang wanted to say something more, but he saw the other party raise a hand and suddenly sweep it across his own forehead. His fingers brushed over his skin and bone, reaching into deeper recesses.
Immediately afterward, Duan Mingyuan seemed to extract something from his brain.
Pale blue light points were placed into a glass bottle that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
"Don't be nervous, it's just some safety measures,"
Mingyuan pocketed the glass bottle, "In case you get killed by an apparition somewhere again, this energy might just save your life once more."
He abhorred the practice of hairpin embedding in fictional works, thus he had unique insights into the removal of blades.
"As the organization's liaison in Yunlong City, you should know how to contact the other two people."
The situation was more urgent than Mingyuan had anticipated. He had to act immediately.
Before the other two weaklings were sent blades by the Night Disaster.