Chapter 1 Returning Home

Back home, Li Ang opened the door to his room and turned on the light.

The room's windows were tightly closed, thick curtains blocking the outside pipes. In the lamplight, a person-sized glass fish tank lay horizontally in front of the shelves.

This glass fish tank was also bought online, costing Li Ang a lot of money. A glass plate was placed upside down on top of the originally open fish tank, the junction between the glass plate and the fish tank being glued together to ensure airtightness.

An airtight fish tank naturally couldn't raise fish. What it held was a corpse.

Zou Zhengze's corpse, soaked in formalin.

The originally tall, inhuman figure had shrunk a lot due to being burned. Its head was completely shattered, its limbs covered with bone spurs, large patches of its red-black skin were missing, and it showed signs of severe burns. The chest and abdominal cavities were open, and heavily charred internal organs could be seen through the wounds.

This twisted and grotesque corpse had been placed in the room for the past few days. This wasn't due to Li Ang's aesthetic morbidity or simple bad taste, but for another reason.

The reason why the Soul-Guiding Banner (Yin Hun Fan) could nourish spiritual bodies was because of its special effect of absorbing Yin energy. That day, Chai Cuiqiao had been greatly depleted. In order to supply enough Yin energy to the Soul-Guiding Banner, Li Ang made Zou Zhengze's corpse into a specimen and placed it at home.

Above the fish tank was the Soul-Guiding Banner disguised as a large black umbrella, and Chai Cuiqiao hovered above the Soul-Guiding Banner, legs crossed, holding a newly bought smartphone, intently reading romance novels.

She fully immersed herself in the female protagonist's world, biting her nails as she read, frowning and hating as she said, "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west, don't underestimate a young girl! When I one day enter the palace, I will make sure those wicked women who bullied my mother die without a burial place..."

Li Ang cleared his throat, "Ahem."

Immersed in the world of the novel, Chai Cuiqiao shivered and quickly tucked her phone under her armpit, turning around to look at Li Ang, as if nothing had happened. She said with a serious face, "Ah, you're back."

"Yeah." Li Ang nodded, "How's the recovery going?"

"Almost there." Chai Cuiqiao patted the glass fish tank below, pouting, "This corpse has quite a lot of Yin energy. If I absorb it all, I can not only recover from my injuries, but my cultivation can also improve another level."

In fact, drilling into the Soul-Guiding Banner was more conducive to the spiritual body's self-healing, but the inside of the Soul-Guiding Banner was empty and there was nothing to do except sleep, which was far less enjoyable than playing on a phone in the real world.

"Okay." Li Ang said, "There's another situation tonight, get ready."

"Another situation..." Chai Cuiqiao's expression became solemn, and she adjusted the font of the reading app to the smallest size, quickly flipping through the pages—this was Miss Chai's way of preparing, finishing this section of the plot before the mission came.

Ignoring Chai Cuiqiao, who had completely degenerated into a deadbeat otaku, Li Ang returned to his bedroom, turned on his computer, logged into the player luntan (forum), and found a forum user whose avatar was a beautiful girl with brown donkey ears, with the ID "Mule" (Luozi).

This "Mule" was an information broker in the real world, whose business scope included but was not limited to selling information, handling fake certificates, helping customers contact companies that could provide special services (such as assassinations, smuggling arms), and selling some not-so-illegal special items to customers (such as military-grade scopes, thermal imagers).

As long as the price was right, this "Mule" could even provide *peiliao* (escort), playmate services, and was quite dedicated, having a good reputation in the luntan (forum).

Li Ang contacted Mule in anonymous mode and typed:

"1. Find the construction, completion, and decoration engineering drawings and information for the Yin City Longheng Shopping Mall for me.

2. Collect all special events related to Longheng Plaza, including but not limited to homicides, suicides, accidental deaths, and send me the personal information of all those involved in special events in one package.

3. I remember you have a software package that specializes in hacking non-military-grade monitoring systems, right? Help me hack into the Longheng Shopping Mall's backend monitoring system and make the software package compatible with mobile phone screens.

Can you do it? The price is negotiable."

Within half a minute of sending the message, Mule replied:

"Yes. The mall's construction drawings are in the city construction archive, and can be accessed at will. I guess you're in a hurry now so you don't have time to go, so this item will only cost you 10 game coins.

Most places in the world have had people die in them, and shopping malls are no exception. In the ten years since Longheng Plaza opened, there have been five or six deaths. To be safe, I will collect as much detailed and reliable information as possible and send it to you, but this will take two to three hours.

Because some of the information are paper documents that are not circulated on the Internet and require special channels to obtain.

This item will cost you 20 game coins.

As for the backend monitoring software that can be adapted to mobile phone screens, it's quite cheap, only 10 game coins."

Adding everything together, it would cost 40 game coins, which according to the luntan's (forum's) prevailing exchange rate, was five to six hundred thousand cash.

Earning six hundred thousand in two or three hours, being an information broker really makes more money than robbery.

"Send me the construction drawings and backend monitoring software first."

Li Ang added Mule as a friend in the Killing Field game by searching for the ID, sent 20 game coins, and ten minutes later received the file package sent by Mule in the luntan (forum) chat window.

While looking at the architectural drawings of Longheng Plaza, Li Ang debugged the monitoring software, spying on the customers in Longheng Plaza on his mobile phone screen.

Two hours later, Mule sent over the relevant information on the six death events related to Longheng Plaza, and Li Ang transferred the final payment of game coins, typing in the luntan (forum) chat box: "Can I ask, has anyone else contacted you today with similar transaction requests? I am willing to pay for this answer."

The chat box went silent, and after a long time, Mule typed: "Within half an hour of you sending me the transaction information, two other people contacted me and made similar requests to yours.

However, out of professional ethics and self-preservation principles, I cannot provide you with their specific player IDs. This is a basic principle. By the way, there's no charge for the previous answer."

As an information broker, protecting users is both for career considerations and for one's own safety....

At the computer desk, Li Ang thought for a moment, said "Thank you" to Mule, and closed the chat window.

He received the mission at 4:00 PM, and the mission execution time was at 12:00 AM, and after he contacted Mule, the other two players also contacted Mule.

If he guessed correctly, then the players who triggered the hide-and-seek mission in Longheng Plaza must have also been to Longheng Plaza today.

This also meant that the players he encountered in this team cooperation mission were all residents of Yin City or the surrounding areas in real life.

Old friends meeting old friends, it's usually not tears in their eyes ah...

Li Ang looked at the time, it was already ten o'clock in the evening, so he called Chai Cuiqiao, put away the big black umbrella, and rode his bicycle to Longheng Plaza.