Chapter 479: Hunting the Weird

Federation Time, six o'clock in the morning.

The public broadcast systems of all 67 administrative regions worldwide lit up simultaneously.

It wasn't news, it wasn't an alert.

It was a bounty notice.

The seal of the Federation Supreme Committee filled every screen, and the scrolling red headlines beneath were more glaring than any Weird Domain arrival alarm—

"Any live Weird or valid Containment Object that is turned in after verification, according to its danger level, can be exchanged for the corresponding Bao Chu. D Ji starts at five hundred thousand. C Ji starts at two million. B Ji starts at ten million. A Ji and above, negotiable."

Beneath the word "negotiable" there was a line of fine print.

"Including but not limited to: Federation privileges, Zaifang-level resource quotas, and social privileges of equivalent rank."

That fine print was the real bomb.

Within twenty minutes of the message going out, the Federation Official Information Platform's traffic crashed the servers three times.

The trending lists on all major social media were wiped clean, the top twenty entries all the same topic.

#Hunting Ghost Bounty Notice#

The comment section below had already gone crazy.

"Five hundred thousand? D Ji? That little thing that crawls in the Sewer? One showed up under my building last week!"

"Brothers, Zaifang-level resource quotas! Do you know what that means? Three generations of your family won't have to work!"

"I told you, in these times, working a job is worse than hunting ghosts."

"Already contacting retired comrades, forming a ghost‑hunting team, need a healer."

The last post spawned over eight thousand replies, all of them "Take me one."

No one thought it absurd.

Or rather, today, with Chicago erased by a bomb, Dongdao sealed off entirely, and the global Fake Person infiltration rate nearing a quarter, the word "absurd" itself is no longer sufficient.

Human adaptability to fear is far stronger than any biologist ever estimated.

Especially when fear can be priced in clear numbers.

Day three.

The changes came faster than anyone expected.

S Province, Western Suburban Industrial Belt. An abandoned military depot had been temporarily converted into an auction house.

A long line stretched at the entrance.

They weren't ordinary people.

They were private security in custom bullet‑proof vests, underground mercenaries with dog tags around their necks, and fugitives whose faces hid beneath hoods, exuding danger.

A few more blended silently into the crowd, yet no one dared approach within two meters.

Wild Yugui.

Those who had symbiotically coexisted with the Weird before the Federation founded the Investigation Bureau, yet were never incorporated—the hidden ones.

They crawled out of the shadows.

Not because of Awakening, not because of duty.

It was because of money.

The moment the warehouse doors opened, the interior was already packed with goods.

Custom glass‑steel crates, semi‑transparent with suppressive runes etched inside. The contents varied—some resembled a constantly writhing black viscous liquid, others a deformed hand nailed to the base still silently struggling, and one crate was empty to the eye yet, when approached, emitted faint, hair‑raising whispers.

Each crate bore a label.

Category, danger level, capture location, preliminary identification number.

And a price.

Around a C Ji Rules‑type crate stood seven or eight people, the bidding climbing from the base two million to fourteen hundred thousand.

The auctioneer was a bald, hulking man, his voice loud enough to shake the dust off the ceiling.

"One thousand four per unit! One thousand four for two! You, the boss in the gray jacket behind, see, this is a proper Rules‑type, not those street‑level concept fragments. Whether you feed it to your own Yugui or flip it to the Investigation Bureau, it's a sure profit."

"One thousand six." The gray‑jacketed man lifted his chin.

"One thousand eight." A woman beside him, wearing sunglasses, followed without hesitation.

The bald auctioneer grinned so wide his mouth wouldn't close.

Three months ago, these items were nightmares, death, the common enemy of all humanity.

Three months later, they were merchandise.

Some city, North City District.

A heavy rain had just ceased.

A four‑lane, two‑way main city artery was temporarily blocked, its sides packed with onlookers, some streaming live on their phones.

In the center of the frame, a two‑story‑tall gray‑white horror was emitting a mournful wail.

Three of its four arms had been severed, the stumps oozing gray‑green viscous fluid. The lone left arm flailed wildly toward the sky, trying to grasp something, but caught only the post‑rain damp air.

C Ji Longarm Horror.

Three months ago, if this thing appeared in any block, it would force residents within five kilometers to evacuate overnight. The Investigation Bureau had to dispatch at least a full tactical squad, working with containment experts for half a day to resolve it.

Now?

Three heavy armored vehicles blocked its retreat from three directions. Mounted on their roofs weren't military weapons but high‑priced Spirit‑energy Pulse Cannons bought on the Black Market—those devices do little harm to humans but continuously weaken the Weird's conceptual form.

What emerged from beneath the vehicles wasn't a soldier.

It was a civilian.

More precisely, a group of red‑eyed, sleep‑deprived civilians clutching an assortment of anti‑Weird gadgets, calling themselves "Ghost Hunters".

A middle‑aged man in a plaid shirt held a modified Spirit‑energy pistol with both hands, aiming the barrel at the lone arm of the Longarm Horror and firing three rapid shots—each blast jolting him with recoil, teeth clenched, yet he shouted, "Don't let it get away! This month's mortgage depends on it!"

Next to him, a youngster with dyed Huang Mao hair held an iron rod engraved with a seal pattern in his left hand, while scrolling his phone for market data with his right.

"Bro, hurry up! The C Ji long-armed living specimen purchase price just went up!"

"How much?"

"Three million two hundred thousand!"

The man in the checkered shirt's eyes lit up on the spot, and his aim steadied by three points.

The Long-armed Weird let out a wail.

That sound was strange. It didn't resemble what a murderous supernatural entity would make. It was more like a hunted beast making its final struggle in a trap—desperate, terrified, and carrying some indefinable... sorrow.

No one cared.

The onlookers erupted in cheers, some clapping, some heckling.

"Kill it!"

"Don't kill it! Alive it's worth money! Alive it's three million two!"

"Got it, got it, this video will cover a month's data for me!"

The Long-armed Weird's body continuously shrank under the relentless spiritual energy pulse bombardment, its gray‑white skin cracking and flaking away, revealing a translucent, trembling Core beneath.

It was still struggling. But it could no longer move.

The man in the checkered shirt stepped forward, stamping his foot on the base of its last arm, then turned and shouted to his companion, "Where's the seal box? Bring it over quickly!"

Three people together lifted a glass‑reinforced steel box about half a person tall.

The Long-armed Weird was crudely shoved inside.

The seal pattern buzzed and vibrated, and the latch snapped shut.

A muffled thudding could still be heard from inside the box.

Growing weaker.

Growing weaker.

Finally it fell into silence.

The man in the checkered shirt plopped onto the ground, pulled out a cigarette to light, his hand shaking so the lighter had to be pressed four or five times before it sparked.

"Fuck." He exhaled a puff, muttering with lingering shock, then looked at the box and laughed again.

He laughed happier than someone who just won the lottery.

"Three million two hundred thousand."

He muttered the figure, tilted his head and blew the smoke toward the damp post‑rain sky.

The onlookers had begun to disperse. A few, as they left, were still calculating which nearby area had the latest Weird sighting report and where the next ticket could go.

Nationwide ghost hunting.

Those four words, within just a week, turned from an online joke into reality.

Across the street.

Jiang Yuan pulled the hood of his combat jacket down a bit.

He didn't go over. He simply stood under the awning of a closed milk‑tea shop, watching the group opposite load the seal box containing the Long-armed Weird onto a pickup, then drove off laughing.

Rainwater dripped from the eave corner, splashing into the puddle at his boot tips.

Jiang Yuan stared for a long time.

He recalled the first time he saw this Weird. Its single gray‑white massive palm could crush an adult's skull.

Now, a group of ordinary people with gear scavenged from the Black Market could trap the same thing as easily as catching a wild boar.

Cheering, clapping, livestreaming, calculating profit.

No fear.

Nor reverence.

Jiang Yuan turned and walked back along the water‑logged alley.

His steps were neither fast nor slow.

After about a hundred meters, he stopped.

He pulled out his phone and flipped through a few news items.

B City, three ghost hunters crashed while trying to capture a B Ji Weird, resulting in two deaths and two serious injuries.

K City, two ghost‑hunting squads fought fiercely over the same C Ji Weird on the street, endangering bystanders, with seven injured.

Along the East Coast, an unknown organization began mass‑purchasing low‑level Containment Objects, suspected of stockpiling to inflate prices.

Jiang Yuan slipped his phone back into his pocket.

Standing in that narrow alley, the sky above was a dull gray, not yet fully cleared.

From afar came car horns, the clamor of crowds, and an indistinct hum of a spiritual‑energy pulse cannon from an unknown direction.

He slipped his hand into his combat jacket pocket and brushed against the Card Bag hanging at his waist.

His fingertips brushed the edge of the Dark Playing Cards. A cold metallic glint flashed briefly between his fingers.

Jiang Yuan said nothing.

He simply stood in the alley, listening to the city's sound, greedier than any Weird.

A long while passed.

He turned and left.

His footsteps faded at the alley mouth.

Meanwhile, the window of the medical room on the Second Floor of Qiu Ce Yuan was half‑open.

Chu Che stood by the window, holding a freshly brewed cup of hot tea.

Steam from the tea swirled on his lenses, blurring his warm, gentle eyes.

The tablet on the table is playing the live stream of that Long‑Arm Monster Tale being hunted, and a dense barrage of comments flies across, all words like "Well done," "Three‑hundred‑two in hand," and the like.

Chu Che held his tea and watched for a while.

Then he smiled lightly.

He did not turn off the live stream.

He only extended his index finger, swiped across the tablet screen, and switched to another page.

That page had no barrage, no live stream.

It contained only a continuously flashing set of numbers.

The numbers were labeled—

Global indiscriminate homicide wild Weird inventory.

The value was decreasing at a rate of 0.3 percent per hour.

Chu Che blew on the tea.

He placed the teacup back on the table.

The tablet screen went dark.

Outside the window, a new batch of heavy trucks carrying sealed boxes had just entered the Qiu Ce Yuan Underground Passage; it was the second batch of rations delivered to Lu Yu today.

Chu Che pushed up his glasses, turned, and sat back at his desk.

He opened the next student's physical examination report.