Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 470 Bottom Line
“Not a single person from the entire tribe was left alive. I became the only person in the world who knew of the existence of the ‘Ancestral Land’ and the ‘Sacred Relic.’ After silently memorizing the exact location, I dragged all the herders’ corpses into the cave and then rode back to the mining area.” Lin Lun continued, “Six months later, I returned to the ‘Ancestral Land’ with full preparations… However, what frightened me was that the saplings that hadn’t absorbed any negative emotions during those six months had withered severely and were almost on the verge of death.”

“I have to admit, I was terrified at the time. I was worried that the sapling would die during my transplanting process… If it had died, I probably would never have found another strange creature with similar abilities in my life,” Lin Lun said.

"So how did you do it?" Sun Hang asked curiously. "If you can perfectly control your emotions, then you should also be able to create some negative emotions for the saplings to absorb, right?"

As Sun Hang spoke, he looked at the "towering tree" planted in the pond... Since he could see this "tree" here, it meant that Lin Lun had successfully rescued this "tree" when it was still a sapling.

“I drove back to the mining area and then found four young women from the local tribes,” Lin Lun said. “There are many men from inland cities in the mining area. They are either bachelors or have left their families in the inland areas… Life in the mining area is monotonous and lonely, but this monotonous life will not only not quell the desires of these men, but will turn them into repressed beasts… Where there is demand, there is a market. Many attractive young women from the tribes have started to trade with these men—sometimes with money, and sometimes with interesting gadgets that can only be bought in big cities in the inland areas.”

Lin Lun continued, "I was in a hurry, so I didn't haggle. I bought their 'time' for three thousand yuan plus a smartwatch. On the surface, the deal was to hire four local girls as 'guides,' but the real details were known to both the girls and the middleman."

"You took them to the ancestral land?"

“Yes… I told them that I was tired of the mining area and wanted to find some excitement deep in the grasslands,” Lin Lun said. “I gave each of them an extra five hundred yuan, and they got into my car without hesitation.”

“I took them to the ancestral land and tied them up with ropes… They had served many guests, including some who enjoyed such games. At first, they thought it was just part of the transaction until I took them into that cave.”

"I ripped off their blindfolds, and the white bones and eerie fleshy saplings scattered throughout the cave made them scream in terror... Unfortunately, this place was more than a hundred kilometers away from the nearest mining area, and no one but me would hear their cries for help."

“I told them that the dying sapling was a man-eating monster, and that I would use their flesh and blood as nourishment to feed it. Fear and despair grew wildly in their hearts, and I could clearly see the black mist gushing out of their bodies and being continuously absorbed by the sapling.”

"The saplings are gradually recovering, and their negative emotions are gradually fading... They are gradually becoming quieter, and the amount and quality of negative emotions they 'produce' are decreasing significantly."

"There was no other way, so I resorted to intimidation and abuse, keeping them in constant fear and pain..." Lin Lun's expression was incredibly calm as he recounted this experience. "I tortured them in that cave for five whole days with extremely cruel methods. Three of them were tortured to death, and the remaining one went insane and went mad... Finally, the saplings recovered to a state where they could barely be transplanted."

"Aren't you afraid that the mining area's security officer will come knocking on your door because of the disappearance of these four women?"

"Only the intermediary knew that I 'hired' these four 'female tour guides,' and all my contact with him was done in private... During our last meeting, I gave him a bottle of fine wine laced with a slow-acting poison. He's a heavy drinker, and there's no reason he wouldn't drink such good wine, which is hard to find in the mining area... In just three or four days, he'll die of a heart attack—it seems reasonable to outsiders that an alcoholic would die suddenly from excessive drinking, right?"

"You really are ruthless when it comes to achieving your goals..." Sun Hang said in a low voice, "Have you ever counted how many people you've killed to get this thing?"

"If we only count those before the transplants were completed, there should be 175 people," Lin Lun said. "I will remember their sacrifices. Their deaths were not in vain, but rather contributions made for my great cause."

"That sounds nice, but you won't even give their families a single penny in compensation," Sun Hang said sarcastically.

Murder is murder, but why try to justify it with a noble and righteous excuse? Isn't that like trying to be virtuous while pretending to be innocent?
While true villains are certainly despicable, hypocrites disgust Sun Hang even more.

However, on the other hand, the person in front of him doesn't seem to be a hypocrite—judging from his behavior, he seems to genuinely believe that the people who were killed contributed to his research... This isn't a hypocrite, this is a madman, a complete and utter madman.

This guy probably has a lot in common with the group of "kindred spirits" in the Heavenly Pivot Tower.

"To ensure I remain undetected, I must erase all clues before my research is made public," Lin Lun said matter-of-factly. "The story isn't over yet. Do you want to hear more?"

"go on."

"Just as I was about to transplant it, I discovered another problem. I noticed that the place where the sapling was rooted was not ordinary soil, but a soft, reddish-brown substance that resembled rotten cotton."

“I immediately dug up the ground and found that under the roots of the saplings were hundreds of human skeletons, and the reddish-brown cotton-like substance was ‘seeping’ out of these skeletons.”

Upon hearing Lin Lun's words, Sun Hang looked down at the blood-red "soil" in the pool—he seemed to understand the origin of these things.

“I call these things ‘culture medium,’ but I don’t know how to obtain them. Perhaps burying the existing corpses in the ground could produce a similar culture medium, but I don’t have time to delay any longer.”

"After a simple analysis of the characteristics of the 'culture medium,' I found that it was very similar to the flesh and blood of living organisms. So, I cut open the abdominal cavity of that crazy woman, poured all the remaining 'culture medium' in the ground into her stomach, and then used her body as a seedbed to transplant the saplings."

"Why not use those three existing corpses?" Sun Hang frowned slightly.

Although Sun Hang didn't care much about the lives of strangers, Lin Lun's incredibly calm expression and tone made him somewhat uncomfortable. "After I used those three corpses, could she still survive?" Lin Lun countered. "Moreover, on the return journey, I need someone to continuously provide the sapling with negative emotions as nourishment. Although she's gone mad, her brain still generates a lot of negative emotions in its chaos. So, in my opinion, this is a near-perfect seedbed."

"Her stomach was cut open... how could she still be alive?"

“I have some knowledge of surgery that I have taught myself. As long as the bleeding is stopped in time and sufficient hormones and antibiotics are injected, her life can be extended—at least, she can live for several more days before her organs fail completely due to infection. And there is another benefit to doing this: I will inject her with drugs that will keep her conscious for a long time, and she will provide more negative emotions for the seedling because of her pain.”

“...Even the King of Hell would get your name tattooed on his back,” Sun Hang couldn’t help but comment sharply.

“I am not a sadist, and I have no interest in torturing or killing my own kind.” Lin Lun shook his head. “Everything I do is only to maximize the success rate of the transplant.”

"And then you brought this thing back to Chunming City?" Sun Hang asked, somewhat puzzled. "But... how did you manage to bring a strange creature so openly into the city? Chunming City should have the highest density of strange creature surveillance equipment of all the cities in the Xia State Federation, right?"

Before Lin Lun could answer, Sun Hang suddenly realized: "Wait a minute... the pollutant treatment company... could it be the sewage pipes?! But to prevent the strange creatures from invading through the sewage pipes, Chunming City's sewage pipes are also equipped with memetic detection devices! Although the accuracy of those detection devices can't compare to those used in the laboratory, these strange creatures don't have the ability to conceal their aura!"

Sun Hang stood dozens of meters away from the "tree," the intense aura of the eerie creature almost intoxicating him. Even if the intensity of the aura was reduced to that of a sapling, it was still very noticeable—as long as this thing passed in front of those detection devices, the alarm would immediately sound throughout the offices of the corresponding district's Public Security Bureau and Anomaly Investigation Bureau.

“It’s very simple. I plan to wait until one of the sewage pipes is ready for renovation before I set off. By the time I return, the power to that sewage pipe will have been cut off, and those detection devices will naturally become useless,” Lin Lun said. “At that time, I will have real power over Fuxing Pollutant Treatment Company, and I can completely make the workers working inside the pipes ignore what I bring in.”

"Mastermind," Sun Hang said, not pressing Lin Lun with further questions, but instead gently tapping the screen of his bracelet, "Do you think this person needs to be kept alive?"

"If Lin Lun's story is true, then from any perspective, his abilities are outstanding, making him a talent that the Tian Shu Tower and the Federation desperately need to recruit. Furthermore, as a superhuman with irreplaceable special abilities, sentencing him to death under Federation law would be a huge loss to both the Federation and human civilization. However, considering that this person lacks any moral compass and acts ruthlessly, he needs to be under constant, 24-hour surveillance to prevent him from crossing our acceptable boundaries..."

“What is the bottom line? What is the bottom line?” Sun Hang asked.

"There is no standard answer to this question. The definition of the bottom line varies depending on the situation," the mastermind replied. "As things stand, although Lin Lun has violated more than ninety federal laws, and all the charges combined are enough to warrant more than thirty death sentences... in terms of his motives and research results, he has not yet crossed the line."

"You mean, this person shouldn't have died?" Sun Hang asked again.

"In the long run, his actions are beneficial to human civilization... In fact, even if he had not acted alone, but had reported the news to the Tian Shu Tower, the Tian Shu Tower's field operations department would have taken strong measures against the matter."

"You mean, if that nomadic tribe insists on refusing to hand over the 'sacred relic,' the Tian Shu Tower's field operations department will kill them all?"

“Tough measures are not just about killing, but if the other party takes the first aggressive action, then field agents have the right to use lethal force.”

"You're... communicating with your superior?" Lin Lun turned to look at Sun Hang, who was wearing headphones. Lin Lun could only hear the questions Sun Hang asked the mainframe, not the mainframe's answers. "From what you're saying, it seems your superior doesn't intend to try me according to federal law?"

Lin Lun had a faint smile on his lips. Although he had been smiling for most of the time since he appeared, Sun Hang felt for some reason that there was a hint of smugness in his smile.

“It’s not a superior,” Sun Hang shook his head, “but it is indeed an entity that can decide your life or death.”

"So it seems that at least... I can survive today?" Lin Lun's eyebrows twitched slightly.

"Perhaps." Sun Hang nodded. "Speaking of which, have you finished telling your story?"

“The story is over. What remains is what is happening now.” Lin Lun stretched out his arm. “As you can see, I not only successfully transplanted this ‘sapling,’ but I also nurtured it to this extent… I am now only a few steps away from my goal.”

"What is your goal? To absorb all of humanity's negative emotions?" Sun Hang turned to look at Xue Yue. "So...she's your research result?"

“One of the research results,” Lin Lun said, “is that she is still only a semi-finished product. In addition to her, I also have a relatively mature ‘problem solution’.”

"Those...human flesh containers?"

“I call them ‘Faceless Ones’.”

(End of this chapter)