Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 535 Betting on Dogs
“These cavities should all be spaces for storing oil. After the oil was pumped out, the rock strata lost their support, so it is reasonable for them to collapse,” Zhulong analyzed.

“According to current standards, secondary mining is strictly prohibited in this type of rock formation…” Zhulong continued, “In order to recoup their losses, those people truly don’t value the lives of their workers…”

"It's not necessarily to make up for the losses." Sun Hang shook his head.

"Is it because of that strange object?" Zhulong asked seriously. "Could it be that after three years of mining, that person still hasn't unearthed the strange object?"

“Maybe that thing is hard to dig up, or maybe…” Sun Hang murmured.

"Or perhaps what?" Zhulong asked.

“I only have a vague guess, but I can’t really explain it. You can think of it as a feeling that can only be understood but not explained…” Sun Hang laughed self-deprecatingly, “Sigh, they say that people become the kind of person they hate the most. I hate riddle people so much, but I never thought that one day I would become a riddle person myself.”

“It’s been less than an hour since you were criticizing that ascetic riddle-solving genius.” Zhulong laughed, and the previously somewhat oppressive atmosphere immediately eased considerably.

"Let's get back to the main point. Don't you feel like something's missing from this mine?" Sun Hang asked.

"What's missing?"

“The aura of eerie memes…” Sun Hang looked around. “In the Gobi Desert, you can feel the residual aura of various eerie creatures everywhere, but here, it seems a little too ‘clean’.”

“Indeed.” Zhulong nodded. “Even if the target monster is well hidden, it shouldn’t leave no trace at all… Moreover, this monster wants to remotely control the ascetic monk’s behavior; it’s simply impossible to do so without leaving a single trace…”

"When was the last recorded disappearance near Nanhua Town?" Sun Hang asked.

“It’s been a year already.” Zhulong took out his phone and glanced at it. “If the missing person has already died, the memes in his body should have completely dissipated by now, making it difficult to leave any clues.”

“Hmm…” Sun Hang nodded.

Once an infected person dies, the memes in their body will undergo apoptosis, but even faster than the apoptosis of the memes is the memory information carried within them.

Back on the nameless island, Sun Hang had already discovered that unless the memories stored in the memes of the deceased were collected immediately after the infected person died, the memory information in the memes would become fragmented and the memory images would become blurry and distorted, and some misleading and confused memories would even appear.

The elevator car continued to descend, the surrounding light grew dimmer, and the cavities on the pit walls began to grow larger—in some of the reinforced rock cavities, traces of human habitation could even be seen.

"This is a completely illegal coal mine," Sun Hang exclaimed. "If it gets caught, everyone from the company CEO to the mine manager, every single one of them, will be arrested and imprisoned, right?"

"In those days, communication was very underdeveloped, and Nanhua Town was geographically isolated from the world..." Before Zhulong could finish speaking, the sedan chair had already stopped.

"Are we... here?" Xue Yue asked in a very low voice, as if she was worried that speaking too loudly would cause an echo in the cavity of the rock strata.

"should be."

The current depth is about two hundred meters. The cavity in this layer has been specially reinforced. A large amount of steel and concrete has been filled between the fragile rock layers as if it were free. The ground is covered with anti-slip steel plates with stamped patterns. If you lift it up, you can vaguely see the yellow and black stripes painted around the entrance with a warning meaning.

A wooden board is atop the reinforced concrete wall next to it, depicting a miner wearing a helmet. Below the board, written in both Chinese and English, is the message: "Safety helmets must be worn when entering and exiting the mine shaft."

"If something happens here, even wearing a helmet won't help," Sun Hang said, but he still used liquid metal to mold a safety helmet and put it on Xue Yue's head.

Sun Hang looked down and saw that the bottom of the pit was blocked by a large amount of gravel. Above the gravel layer, there seemed to have been a layer of reinforced concrete, but now the concrete layer was broken into pieces, and the large and small concrete blocks had become part of the gravel layer.

“It seems the elevator can only take us this far.” Zhulong stepped out of the elevator car. “To get deeper into the mine, we have to go down this shaft.”

“There are…negative emotions in the well…” Xue Yue grabbed Sun Hang’s sleeve, her voice trembling, “It’s approaching…I can feel it…it’s very strong!”

"Negative emotions? Are they human or a monster?" Sun Hang asked.

He could also sense the aura of a strange meme emanating from the depths of the well—for some reason, after discovering the aura of a strange creature within the well, Sun Hang's unease lessened considerably.

"I'm not sure." Xue Yue quickly shook her head.

"Zhulong, protect Xue Yue." After handing Xue Yue over to Zhulong, Sun Hang rushed forward.

Soon, the source of the eerie aura came into Sun Hang's view.

He is a human male, or more precisely, a human male infected person who is on the verge of complete transformation.

He hasn't turned into a monster or a monstrous corpse yet, but his mind has completely collapsed—according to the Tian Shu Tower's standards, out-of-control infected individuals like him would be "de-infected."

He seemed to have been starving for a long time; his emaciated body, with pale skin covering his bones, made him look like a running skeleton. His long, gray hair hung down, and among the dirty strands, a pair of eyes that gleamed with a green glow stared intently at Sun Hang.

Before Sun Hang could even speak, the infected person pounced on him like a wild beast, opening his mouth to bite at Sun Hang's throat!
Sun Hang immediately raised his arm, and liquid metal instantly condensed into an arm shield on his arm, protecting his vital points.

"clang!"

The infected person's teeth slammed into the arm shield, making a sharp cracking sound.

Almost instinctively, Sun Hang raised his leg and kicked the infected person away.

Retracting his arm shield, Sun Hang quickly followed, and before the infected person who had been kicked to the ground could get up, he stepped on the person's torso.

The mycelium of the Tai Sui surged out wildly, and in the blink of an eye, it bound the other party into a rice dumpling.

"Can you understand me?" Sun Hang used a military dagger to brush aside the messy hair on the other person's face and demanded.

"Aww... Aww... Uh... Ah..." The infected man's face was extremely distorted, his eyes, emitting an eerie green light, stared at Sun Hang, and he kept making unintelligible growls from his throat.

Sun Hang realized that this guy had probably lost the ability to speak.

Sun Hang used his mind-reading ability on his enemy without hesitation. However, a few seconds later, he discovered that his opponent had not only lost the ability to speak, but also the ability to think.

The infected person's actions were entirely driven by biological instinct—the reason he pounced on Sun Hang was simply because he saw Sun Hang as prey to be eaten... In his mind, the only emotion Sun Hang could detect was hunger.

Hunger, once it reaches a certain level, can also generate negative emotions—this is how Xue Yue felt the intense negative emotions she just experienced.

“This man has completely gone mad.” Sun Hang turned around and said to Zhulong and Xue Yue, who were standing by the elevator.

This guy has even forgotten how to use his abilities and weapons...

A tattered belt hung from his waist, with a multi-functional dagger tucked into it. However, when the infected attacked Sun Hang, he didn't pull out the dagger. Instead, like a wild beast, he bit at him with his not-so-sharp teeth. Most of his teeth were knocked out by the hard arm shield, and his mouth was full of blood. The only remaining canine tooth on his jaw was about to fall out.

Normal communication and mind-reading techniques failed, so Sun Hang had no choice but to resort to this last resort.

The mycelium binding the infected person began to wriggle, like some kind of nimble parasite, penetrating the infected person's skin and burrowing into his body.

The infected person's body stiffened abruptly, then all the muscles relaxed instantly, and the screaming and struggling ceased.

This is a neurotoxin ability that Sun Hang absorbed from the old snake. Although its toxicity cannot compare to that of the crimson spores, it is still very useful for paralyzing prey after being diluted. The toxicity of the crimson spores is too strong. Even if diluted tens of thousands of times, it can still kill the target in a very short time. In addition, it will cause very serious "environmental pollution".

As the memes within the infected person were gradually devoured by Sun Hang, his memories began to play in his mind like a slideshow.

Since the consumed individuals are not yet dead, the memory information contained in these memes is very complete, with almost no loss, and the clarity can fully reach the 1080P level.

"This seems to be... a cheap hotel? Is this Dragon City?" Sun Hang muttered to himself, looking at the dimly lit scene before him.

The original owner glanced out the window, where the fortress-like city walls in the distance confirmed Sun Hang's guess.

The phone rang again. The original owner picked it up, glanced at it, and then quickly hung up, muttering under his breath, "Damn it, it's another debt collector call. How annoying!"

As other memories flooded his mind, Sun Hang gradually understood why the original owner had ended up like this—although this guy was a free hunter, he was also a gambling addict.

Every time he completed a mission and earned a reward, he would go to the casino and gamble away a fortune. As a result, after so many years in Dragon City, he not only failed to save a single penny, but also accumulated a mountain of debt.

"Gamblers don't deserve a house," Sun Hang silently commented to himself.

The phone rang again. The original owner glanced at it again. This time, it wasn't a call from a creditor, because the phone screen displayed a contact's name—"Mom".

To Sun Hang's surprise, the original owner still hung up the phone without hesitation.

After a few seconds, the original owner seemed to remember something, opened the messaging app, found the profile picture with the nickname "Mom", and clicked on it.

The chat history showed several missed calls, all from the other party.

The original owner thought for a moment, then typed in the chat box: "Do you have any money left? Send it over."

"Mom has no money left either." The reply came almost instantly.

The next second, another message came in: "Mom just wanted to ask how you're doing, whether you're hungry or not..."

The other party seemed to be using speech-to-text, and the message contained many homophones and typos, but it wasn't too difficult to understand the original meaning.

"Don't bother me if you don't have money! I'm really short on cash right now!" the original owner replied immediately. "You don't even have money to give me! What's the point of asking me how I'm doing? If I'm starving, can you buy me food?"

The original owner, somewhat annoyed, turned off the communication software and tossed the phone aside.

A few minutes later, the phone suddenly rang with a transfer notification. The original owner picked up the phone in surprise and found that he had received a transfer of 2.27 yuan.

Mom: "This is what I saved up from grabbing red envelopes in the group chat, it's all here..."

The original owner exited the chat software with a disappointed look, curled up on the bed, and turned over.

"..." For some reason, Sun Hang felt very uncomfortable about this memory.

Although these are not his memories.

A few minutes later, the original owner started pulling at his hair with his fingers. After pulling for a while, he suddenly sat up and slapped himself twice hard.

"Damn it... I'm such a beast," the original owner cursed viciously. "What have I done...?"

"This guy... seems to have a conscience after all?" Sun Hang couldn't help but mutter.

"No, I have to find a way to get some more money... I've borrowed from everyone I can..." The original owner got out of bed and paced around the small single room like a headless fly. "As long as I can get some money, I'm sure I can win this time! As long as I win the money, I can... I can make my mother live a good life, instead of having to live like this anymore..."

"Damn it, never mind." Sun Hang mentally gave countless middle fingers. "A gambling addict is a gambling addict. This guy is hopeless."

Just as the original owner was starting to become hysterical, the phone he had thrown aside rang again and again.

The original owner immediately pounced over, just like he had pounced on Sun Hang—like a hungry wild beast.

The caller was someone whose contact name was "Brother Lei." The moment the call connected, Brother Lei's voice came through: "Xiao Qi, I heard you're a bit short on cash lately?"

"Yes, yes, Brother Lei, you finally remembered me..." the original owner said hastily.

"I also heard that you owe Boss Chen a lot of money, oh, besides Boss Chen, there's also..."

"Brother Lei, could you put in a good word for me with Boss Chen? I'll definitely pay it back by the end of this month... next month, by the end of next month!"

How do you plan to pay it back?

"I……"

"Money doesn't fall from the sky. You have to work, understand?" Brother Lei said in a deep voice. "I have a mission here. It requires a trip to the no-man's land. If you can do it, the reward is 200,000. Are you in?"

"Do it! Of course I'll do it!" The original owner agreed without even listening to the details of the mission.

"Two hundred thousand, I'll take half as a brokerage fee, no objections, right?" Brother Lei said again.

"half?"

“If you don’t do it, I’ll find someone else,” Brother Lei said nonchalantly. “Dragon City has no shortage of hunters.”

"No, I'll do it!"

(End of this chapter)