I discovered a world bug.

Chaos?

Lin Shu's heart skipped a beat.

Before meeting Li Yu, he had actually considered this possibility.

Xu Changshun devoted his entire life to the study of rituals, and his main research focus was on the art of the sword.

At the time, I judged that he must have seen an outcome that could not be avoided by conventional means through divination using yarrow stalks and tortoise shells, and that was why he wanted to escape through ritual.

At that time, I couldn't understand what kind of death would make him so afraid.

And now it seems...

Could the "death" he saw be related to the chaos that Li Yu mentioned?

"What kind of chaos?"

Lin Shu looked at Li Yu, who shrugged.

"How the hell would I know? I've never seen it."

"But people always have intuition, you know?"

"This world is governed by rules; without rules, it would descend into chaos."

"Look, I've already discovered that the spell for raising corpse insects has suddenly become effective. So, there's a possibility that other spells in other places are also starting to work."

"These people keep popping up, and sooner or later this will cause big problems—aren't you the same? You only recently learned magic, right?"

...I'm different.

Although I only recently learned "magic," the rituals I learned have always been effective.

It has nothing to do with those "abnormalities" you mentioned.

However... the fact that a spell that was previously ineffective suddenly became effective is indeed a big problem.

According to Xu Changshun's summary of the four essential elements of rituals—location, method, time, and words—the other three elements remain unchanged, or at least there are no obvious or effective changes.

The only thing that can change is the "ground," or the "macro environment."

But what changes have actually occurred in the overall environment?

What's going on? Is the spiritual energy reviving?

If the spiritual energy truly revives, then major chaos is only to be expected.

It must be said that Li Yu has a very keen sense of smell.

only......

That's no excuse for you to kill me!

"You're going to kill me just because of this vague 'crisis'?!"

Li Yu's face showed a look of pain—the kind of frustrating pain of wanting to reason with someone but being unable to listen.

"How many times do I have to say it? This is just business!"

"It's not that I want to kill you, it's that someone else wants to kill you!"

"I just need money. I need money to escape to the world, I need money to save my life, I need money to live a good life!"

"Are you some kid who's going to keep bringing up the fact that I wanted to kill you? Can't we have a normal conversation?"

"Besides, I didn't even manage to kill him, did I?"

"Who knows how you found out... You're really something else, only taking 100,000 U, I was totally fooled..."

"I said, can we just let this go like this? I'll handle the online part myself."

"We became friends after a fight. Although we have different lineages, we are in the same profession."

"If anything happens in the future, we can help each other out—let me off the hook, and you'll get away with it too, how about that?"

Lin Shu looked at Li Yu as if she were an idiot.

"Are you kidding me?"

"If I wanted to kill you, even if I failed, would you let me go so easily?"

"...Indeed not."

Li Yu sighed.

"So what exactly do you want?"

Lin Shu held up three fingers.

"First, all the money you received belongs to me."

"Second, disclose your superiors and all information about them, including their motives."

"Third, turn yourself in and confess all the dirty things you've done before."

"......"

Li Yu fell into a long silence.

Their eyes met, neither willing to back down.

In the end, Lin Shu spoke first, but it wasn't a concession.

"Why don't you take another nap?"

"......never mind."

Li Yu's psychological defenses finally collapsed completely.

What do you mean by "take another nap"? Is that something a normal person would say?

Although I didn't feel any pain when I passed out, I watched helplessly as the snake lunged at me and bit me, and when I woke up, it was already seven or eight hours later...

This feeling is truly indescribably terrifying.

He was certain that if the young man opposite him wanted, he could sleep indefinitely.

If you really anger him, you might starve or die of thirst while you're unconscious...

This is truly... one of the most desperate ways to die.

"I'll also say three points."

"First of all, I have nothing to confess to -- this is the first time I've ever committed murder. Before, I only did trivial things like ruining feng shui or bad luck for others."

"I was genuinely terrified by that Kun corpse. I was afraid it would find me, and I was afraid something would happen to the village. I wanted to run away as quickly as possible, so I resorted to any means necessary."

"Secondly, the money... is here, but you have to promise that after you get the money, you won't cause me any more trouble."

"Third... I don't actually know anything about those people's backgrounds."

"I took the order in a public group, and no one would be stupid enough to tell me everything."

"The chat history has been deleted one-way, but the contact information is still there. If you want to hook them, then you'll have to do it yourself."

Public group?

Why does this feel so out of place?

A group of shamans, Taoist priests, and sorcerers who possess "traditional skills" communicate using the most "trendy" gray-market tools of this era...

Just imagining that scene is unbelievable.

But that seems to make sense.

Who says this isn't a gray market industry?

Since it's a gray market, they'll flock to where gray markets are...

Overall, the three conditions proposed by Li Yu were quite sincere.

Moreover, my control over him will not be weakened just because I agreed to his conditions.

The snake can still bite him, no matter where he is...

Seeing that Lin Shu's expression was somewhat relaxed, Li Yu pressed on while the iron was hot:

"Honestly, it would be troublesome if you really killed me. Let's compromise."

"I'll transfer the money to you right now, 10 USDT, but I need to keep the money in my card; I still need to live."

"I'll leave my phone with you from now on. I've changed the password for you. I promise I'll never do anything like this again, and I'll never bother you again."

"If my upline investigates me because of money, I promise I won't involve you, okay?"

"Can."

Lin Shu nodded decisively.

Killing him would be troublesome and unnecessary.

He held the phone up to Li Yu and made him transfer all the money in his encrypted wallet to the wallet address he used to buy Bitcoin. After confirming the transfer and making him change his phone password, he carefully unbound the phone.

Li Yu moved her numb limbs, her face showing a look of utter disappointment.

"This time I've really failed... I'm leaving now. May we meet again someday, though the mountains and rivers remain green and the waters flow on."

"Wait a minute."

Lin Shu stopped him, rummaged through the cabinet and found an unused spare phone, then inserted Li Yu's SIM card into the spare phone.

Here's a phone for you, keep in touch.

"...You're actually a pretty nice person."

Li Yu took the phone, nodded in acknowledgment, and then eagerly pushed open the door and left.

He probably sensed the "threat" in Lin Shu's words, so he didn't want to get entangled with her any further.

This person is terrifying... He himself is probably much bigger than his master's master, right?

So young...

That's a fucking monster...

Why did I provoke him in the first place?!

.......

Two hours later.

Li Yu has already boarded the train—he can't stay in Linchuan any longer and has to go back to the mountains of western Hunan to hide.

in addition......

Some of what that kid said actually made sense.

For example, he said, "Great chaos is an illusion."

Indeed, I haven't seen any real signs of chaos yet; it's just that one Kun corpse has disappeared.

What if it wasn't lost, but simply stolen?

No matter what, I have to go back and check...

Li Yu frowned as he pondered his next move, and just then, his phone suddenly rang.

It was an unfamiliar number.

Li Yu's heart skipped a beat, and she answered the phone.

"Feed? Who?"

"it's me."

The familiar voice of that young man came through.

"It's nothing."

Lin Shu's tone was calm and indifferent.

"I just want to ask where you are right now."

"I've boarded the train and am going back to my hometown. Don't worry, I mean what I say, and I definitely won't implicate you."

"A green train? How long will it take you to get there?"

As soon as he said that, Li Yu had a bad feeling.

"About 9 hours...what's wrong?"

"Well... the timing is perfect..."

Lin Shu paused for a moment.

"Go get some sleep."

next second.

Li Yu watched in disbelief as a silver-ringed snake, its tongue flicking, appeared before her.

"Fuck you!!!"

"Are you even human?!"