That golden light again.
Before Bai Long could even figure out what it was, she was jolted awake by an unusually intense stare.
The moment she opened her eyes, she found herself looking at a strange man with most of his face hidden behind black cloth.
Porcelain-white skin, mostly buried under wrapped black fabric. Sea-blue hair and sea-blue eyes, vast and boundless like the ocean itself.
He looked like some kind of deep-sea sea demon.
“An octopus spirit?”
Bai Long’s first reaction was that this guy was that octopus, turned into a spirit.
She found herself seriously wondering whether she’d transmigrated into the interstellar age, or into Journey to the West.
Right then, a fluffy little red ball squeezed into her line of sight from below.
“Cheep cheep!”
The fuzzball’s pair of gold-bean eyes stared at her without blinking.
Bai Long actually managed to read worry in those beady little bird eyes.
She really had transmigrated into Journey to the West, hadn’t she!
The octopus spirit folded his arms across his chest and drew himself up straight, those gorgeous sea-blue eyes like deep-sea gems under moonlight.
Beneath the black cloth, his lips parted:
“Good eve, my dearest friend.”
“I am the Dark Demon Emperor of the Eternal Night. I hereby grant thee permission to gaze upon mine brilliance.”
Bai Long: …
She’d been wrong.
The Emperor’s whole body was concealed within a black cape, paired with the cloth over his face, and that gaze that was three parts disdain, five parts cold arrogance, and seven parts nobility…
Bai Long thought she might have transmigrated to the homeland of chuunibyou. 🙂
“Right. Sure, Demon Emperor.”
Bai Long humored him, her gaze drifting toward the Emperor’s wrist.
“Demon Emperor, where’s your kiddie smartwatch?”
The Emperor looked to be about five foot eight, but kids these days developed early. Plenty of elementary schoolers hit six feet.
“Insolence! In light of the fact that thou art a warrior of mine own choosing, I shall overlook thine offense.”
The Emperor produced a pure-black greatsword from somewhere, looking quite weighty.
In the center of the sword’s hilt sat a white crystal stone that looked very familiar to Bai Long.
Wasn’t that the gallstone she’d dug out of the octopus’s brain?
This Octopus Emperor had some heavy tastes.
“I am most pleased with the holy, radiant gem thou hast offered up. I am willing to make thee my dearest friend. Henceforth, thou mayest stand at my side.”
The Emperor lifted his chin and cast Bai Long an approving glance.
He really was happy about that gallstone, apparently.
The more Bai Long thought about it, the more she figured he was that octopus.
There was probably more than one stone in his head, otherwise he wouldn’t be this far gone.
“With the holy, radiant gem, my Demon-Sundering Heaven-Cleaving Greatsword shall surely vanquish those despicable White-Robed Saints!”
Bai Long got up off the floor, brushed the dust off herself, and checked the time.
She’d been out cold for half an hour.
“Demon Emperor, do you have any more gallstones? Give me one, I need to deliver it for a job.”
She still had to trade a stone with Liangqiu for those 5,000 credits.
The Emperor frowned in displeasure, his eyes aloof. “Once thou hast offered it up, it is mine.”
So that was a no.
“Demon Emperor, thou art mistaken.”
Bai Long sighed, then turned serious. “You are the Demon Emperor, and this is a holy gem. It doesn’t match your identity. You should be looking for a demonic gem.”
The Emperor pressed a hand to his chin, pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Thou speakest with reason. In that case, I return this gem to thee. Next time, offer up unto me a Blood-Night Ghost-Scar Demon Stone instead.”
“Mm-hm, sure thing, Demon Emperor. I’ve got things to do, so I’ll be heading off now.”
Bai Long took the gem, no, the gallstone, and headed for the fresh-produce section.
She still hadn’t grabbed her fish-mint herbs.
But after a few steps, she noticed the Emperor was trailing along right behind her.
Bai Long: “?”
“Demon Emperor, what are you following me for?”
“Thou art the friend I trust most. My grand cause of saving the world requires thy strength.”
The Emperor was extremely committed to his persona.
It was just that listening to him talk was exhausting.
Having inexplicably acquired one Emperor as a “dearest friend,” Bai Long no longer had the energy to banter with him. Her whole body felt drained, and that familiar pain was already seeping out from the seams of her bones.
She had to hurry and find what her client wanted, then go back and recharge.
Right as she was thinking that, Bai Long looked up and saw a whole row of toilet plungers.
The Emperor had brought her straight to the household-goods section she’d been hunting for all this time.
Bai Long promptly grabbed ten toilet plungers and dumped them into the Emperor’s arms.
“Demon Emperor, these are super-ultra toilet plungers. Hold onto them.”
She couldn’t even be bothered to half-heartedly humor him anymore.
With a flunky standing right there, she put him to use.
Surprisingly, the Emperor proved obedient, holding the plungers with an arrogant expression on his face.
Along the way, Bai Long came across several more items on her list, and after a sweeping haul she piled them all into the Emperor’s arms.
The Emperor kept catching them, arrogant but obedient.
And so the two of them, inexplicably yet naturally, walked along together.
Bai Long didn’t really mind.
She figured it was because the Emperor, weird as his speech was, turned out to be surprisingly obedient and useful.
…
By the time she reached the fresh-produce section, Bai Long didn’t see Liangqiu and his group, she wasn’t sure if they’d already left.
Figuring they were all espers and she could probably find them at the esper center later, Bai Long wasn’t worried about them skipping out on the debt. The IOU Liangqiu had written was still in her hands.
The commission was done, so there was no need for her to linger here any longer.
She still had plenty of supplies, so she wasn’t in a rush to take a lot of food back.
She could come grab more once she’d eaten through what she had.
Bai Long headed for the exit without stopping.
The reaction in her body was getting worse and worse. If she collapsed here, she’d be finished.
But when they reached the passage they’d come in through, they found, for some reason, a huge swarm of zombies had gathered there.
The narrow passage was packed wall-to-wall with bobbing zombie heads, she couldn’t even see the little exit door from where she stood.
“Tsk. This is a problem.”
Bai Long’s face had gone pale, the pain spreading through her body in fine, dense threads.
Just standing was taking everything she had now.
“Dearest friend.”
The Emperor called out to her.
But Bai Long no longer had the strength to answer him. She could only shoot him a weak glance.
“Art thou taking thy leave?”
The Emperor inquired loftily.
Bai Long nodded.
She had no idea why the Emperor was asking.
At her answer, the Emperor raised a hand.
In the air directly facing his palm, an oval-shaped cluster of purple mist appeared out of nowhere.
The mist cluster was a good two people wide and tall, hovering steadily in midair.
“This is the Soul-Reaving Gate of the Netherworld, linking the realms of mortals and demons. Pass through it, and we shall reach the far shore of death, my hall.”
The Emperor lifted his head and stepped into the mist cluster first.
Soul-Reaving Gate… Soul Gate… hmm…
Bai Long looked at the mist.
If she remembered right, “soul gate” was slang for… an asshole.
The Emperor’s taste really was extraordinary.
Seeing that Bai Long hadn’t followed, the Emperor looked back, displeased. “Dearest friend, what art thou doing? Make haste and reach the netherworld’s far shore with me!”
Bai Long: …
She didn’t know exactly what it was, but it had to be the Emperor’s esper power.
The purple mist she’d seen before passing out was probably his ability too, most likely this gate.
It couldn’t be any worse than getting eaten by zombies, at any rate.
Bai Long sighed and stepped forward to follow.
Passing through the mist was different from what Bai Long had imagined.
There was no swirling-fog sensation at all, it was just like taking a single step forward. In the blink of an eye, she was somewhere else.
A dim space. Eerie dark-purple bone lamps hung on the walls, and on a table sat half-melted, ghastly-white candles.
Skeletons were scattered everywhere, and she could faintly make out a low, mournful moaning.
And dead center sat an absurdly over-the-top throne.
A skull was carved into the middle of the black-and-gold throne.
And sitting on the throne was, the Emperor.
“Welcome to my Demon Hall.”
The Emperor lifted his head, his pride beyond words.
Bai Long shifted her foot and kicked a skull.
Bai Long: Demon Emperor, your Demon Hall is a little on the small side.
She gave a wry twitch of her lips and yanked open the handle of the door beside her.
Sunlight poured into the room, lighting up the whole space.
It looked like an ordinary residential apartment.
Bai Long pulled the door open, stepped out, and closed it behind her.
All in one smooth motion.
This had to be the Emperor’s home.
Otherwise Bai Long couldn’t imagine there’d be anywhere else letting him indulge his chuunibyou this freely.
Since it was someone else’s place, she didn’t feel right wandering around at random.
So she just stood in the hallway outside the “great hall,” eyes fixed straight ahead.
Right in front of her was a window.
Looking out, it seemed she was high up in a tower, she could only see half the sky and the rooftops of other buildings.
The sky was faintly dim, with just a few drifting clouds suspended in it.
She hadn’t seen a bright sky in a long, long time since the apocalypse began.
Before the apocalypse, this spot would have made a fantastic view.
Bai Long realized something.
The Emperor, it seemed, was actually very rich.
Just then, the Emperor opened the door and came out too, wearing his aloof expression.
And then… the black cloth fluttering behind him got snagged on the decorative spike on the door.
The black cloth fell away, and the Emperor’s face was fully revealed.
Surprisingly, it was a face that looked utterly gentle and kind.
Not at all like that of someone in the terminal stages of chuunibyou.
“!”
The instant the cloth dropped, the Emperor’s whole body gave a shudder, and he looked up to meet Bai Long’s eyes.
Bai Long witnessed firsthand the process of a person going from cooked to raw.
The Emperor turned completely red, in the literal, physical sense.
“You, you…”
The Emperor seemed to transform into a different person in an instant. So nervous he didn’t know where to look, he pulled the door open and ducked back inside, leaving just a sliver of one eye showing.
Hiding behind the door, he peeked out at Bai Long.
But Bai Long couldn’t spare a thought for whether his seal had been broken or whatever. She said weakly, “Demon Emperor, if there’s nothing else I’ll be going now. Either way, thanks for getting me out of there.”
She was about at her limit.
The pain in her body was nearly making her pass out.
Her vision went black. Dizzy and reeling, Bai Long caught herself against the windowsill with a thud, just barely keeping from collapsing.
“You! Are you okay?!”
The Emperor was frantic, staring at Bai Long helplessly, but still not daring to come out.
He seemed locked in an inner struggle, agonizing over whether or not to step out.
Bai Long no longer had the chance to answer.
She crumpled to the floor.
The little red bird tugged hard at the hem of her clothes with its beak, trying to hold her up, but it didn’t have nearly enough strength.
Fang Ling gritted his teeth and suddenly rushed out of the room, catching Bai Long’s collapsing body.
He found another clean room, settled Bai Long onto the bed, and then turned and left.
Bai Long only felt herself sinking into something soft.
She hadn’t slept a single good night since the apocalypse began. For some reason, for the first time, she let herself relax, drifting through her own consciousness as if floating in cotton-soft cushioning.
At some point there seemed to be some kind of delicious smell.
It smelled like meat congee…
The Emperor, that is, Fang Ling, had finished cooking a pot of lean-pork rice congee.
Tender pink shreds of pork lay clearly defined, heaped atop the soft, glutinous, cream-colored congee, garnished with a few sprigs of emerald-green scallion.
He set the congee on Bai Long’s bedside table, then, after agonizing for a while under the little red bird’s battle-ready glare, slowly sat down in the corner farthest from the bed.
Fang Ling curled up in the corner like a gloomy little mushroom.
Even in his own home, he was as quiet as a guest.
The little red bird stood by Bai Long, watching her with concern.
One person, one bird, and one mushroom, together they made for a strangely harmonious scene.
…
When Bai Long opened her eyes, what she saw was a bird’s head and, off in the corner, a person radiating an intense aura of gloom.
“…Demon Emperor?”
The moment Bai Long spoke, the gloomy mushroom shot to its feet, lowered its head, and stammered, “I, my name is Fang Ling.”
The Emperor’s real name was surprisingly plain.
How had this guy suddenly switched faces?
Split personality?
Bai Long fixed a probing gaze on Fang Ling.
Sensing it, Fang Ling shook the black cloth in his hand, deeply embarrassed. “I get a little weird when I put this on…”
Oh, got it.
Put on the mask, seal released.
Bai Long was pretty accepting of this.
Fang Ling’s two personalities could be summed up neatly as social anxiety.
It was just that one was a social terrorist, and the other had a social phobia.
“Thank you for taking me in. I won’t stay for free. If there’s anything you need me to do, just say so.”
Bai Long didn’t like owing people favors, it meant a lot of unnecessary dealings with others.
Fang Ling seemed to find it hard to spit out, hesitating and unable to get the words out.
“I don’t have any credits right now,” Bai Long reminded him flatly.
She was currently in the business of lending money out.
The thought made her crawl up off the soft, springy bed with a face full of misery.
Ugh, she really didn’t want to do odd jobs.
She had to go to the esper center to find info on Liangqiu’s group, and submit the commission too.
Thinking about the five thousand five hundred credits about to hit her account, Bai Long perked up again.
Time to collect!
The little red bird hopped of its own accord onto Bai Long’s shoulder, clearly intent on following her wherever she went.
“If it’s credits you want, you might have to wait until I run a few commissions.”
Bai Long instinctively assumed Fang Ling wanted credits.
But she didn’t know how much he’d want, if it was a lot, it might be a while.
Thinking about the team-size limits on a lot of commissions, Bai Long felt a little glum.
Maybe once she found Liangqiu, she’d ask if he had anyone to recommend.
Bai Long didn’t count Xu Yunyi in the picture.
Xu Yunyi was a Songdu local, and her parents were both still alive.
Esper commissions were for espers who needed to scrape out a living, and Bai Long didn’t want to disturb someone trying to get back to a peaceful life.
The one tricky thing was that finding a stranger to be her teammate would probably take her a while to get used to.
That would also drastically slow down her commission pace.
The mere thought of having to deal with troublesome interpersonal relationships gave Bai Long a splitting headache.
“I… I want… to join your… team…”
Fang Ling suddenly spoke up, but his voice grew smaller and smaller, he even shrank his whole body behind the curtain, leaving just a pair of eyes peeking out, darting around but never once looking at Bai Long.
If Bai Long didn’t have such good ears, she wouldn’t have caught it.
“You want to team up with me?”
Bai Long’s first reaction was to consider how their two esper powers could combine.
When she came back to herself, she realized she was actually pretty fine with the idea of Fang Ling teaming up with her?
Thinking it over: without the mask, Fang Ling barely talked. He looked even more afraid of talking to people than she was, so she wouldn’t have to spend extra energy managing the relationship. And once his “seal” was off, he was even easier to deal with, she could just go along with him and humor him.
And besides…
Keeping her distance from Fang Ling, Bai Long said mildly, “What’s your esper power? Is it that, soul gate thing?”
Forgive her, she only remembered the asshole part.
Clearly Fang Ling was deeply ashamed of his chuunibyou lines from after his “seal” released too. “N-no, it’s not!”
His denial was the loudest thing Bai Long had heard from him since she’d met him.
“…Black Hole Teleportation. That’s my esper power.”
Fang Ling just came right out and told Bai Long his ability.
Teleportation?
Bai Long shot him a surprised look.
So that black-purple mist cluster had been Fang Ling’s esper power.
It was like a teleportation gate.
Bai Long didn’t know what her own ability was called, so she just generously gave Fang Ling a little demonstration.
While demonstrating, she discovered that her control over her ability had improved another notch, and at the same time, her esper reserves seemed larger than before.
But she still wasn’t sure exactly how much esper energy she had, she planned to head to the esper center later and get it tested.
Water shield, water arrow, water sword, water rope.
These four were her main attack-and-defense skills for now.
Of them, the water arrow and water sword were offensive, the shield defensive, and the rope was for control.
You could pretty much call her an all-in-one offense-defense fighter.
What Bai Long was lacking right now was precisely a gap in mobility.
And Fang Ling’s esper power, you could say, perfectly made up for that weakness.
“I know what your ability is, I saw it when you fought the octopus.”
Looking at the water swirling in Bai Long’s hands, Fang Ling’s eyes glinted with envy.
Back then, while Bai Long was fighting the octopus, Fang Ling had been hiding not far away and had witnessed the whole thing firsthand.
It was the first time he’d ever seen an esper battle with his own eyes.
Whether it was the way she used her ability or the dashing way she moved in combat, it had drawn him in deeply.
That was simply…
That was exactly the kind of battle he’d imagined!
“I want to join your team! I want to save the world with you!”
Fang Ling got carried away and couldn’t help blurting it out, all worked up.
Bai Long met his sparkling, starry-eyed gaze and was momentarily stunned by his fervor.
When had she ever decided to go save the world???
Bai Long briefly fell into self-doubt.
But she quickly pulled herself together.
“All right, I’ll team up with you. But right now there’s only me in my team, you should think it over carefully.”
Bai Long didn’t want to crush Fang Ling’s enthusiasm, but she still had to lay out everything that needed saying before teaming up.
She didn’t expect that hearing this would make Fang Ling even more excited.
“You don’t have a team yet?! That’s great!”
Bai Long: ?
“That means when I join, I’ll be your first teammate, your vice-captain!”
Fang Ling was overjoyed, bounding out from behind the curtain on his own.
“Cheep? Cheep!”
For some reason the little red bird suddenly got worked up, flew up onto Fang Ling’s head, and pecked his forehead hard with its sharp beak.
Bai Long had to step in and grab it back, soothingly stroking its downy feathers.
She somehow understood why the little red bird was angry. “Okay, okay, you’re the first one, all right?”
The bird was tiny, but it had quite the temper.
“Come on, let’s go to the esper center right now and set up the team immediately!”
Fang Ling didn’t mind getting pecked by the bird, he was even more impatient than Bai Long, and tugged her toward the door.
Only after Fang Ling led her out did Bai Long see just how high-end the place he lived in was.
It was a high-rise tower sitting in a bustling, prime area of Songdu’s main city district.
Even though it was the apocalypse, you could still tell how lively the surroundings had once been.
Thinking about that entire huge flat unit at Fang Ling’s place, Bai Long fell silent.
She thought, Fang Ling might really be an emperor.
…
“Hello, we’d like to form a team.”
Bai Long stood at the service desk, holding back Fang Ling, who was about to go hide.
It wasn’t that Fang Ling was having second thoughts, he just very rarely came into contact with this many people while in his conscious state, aaaaahhh!
The esper center was bustling with people coming and going.
Fang Ling shrank himself in beside Bai Long with all his might, nearly curling up into a ball.
The staff member handling the paperwork saw the state of him, and the look they gave Bai Long carried a hint of wariness. “You do know we don’t allow forced team-ups, right?”
Fang Ling really didn’t look like he was here voluntarily.
Bai Long looked at Fang Ling, speechless.
Fang Ling trembled as he braced himself against the service desk, his face deathly pale and his eyes blank. “I, I’m, here voluntarily…”
Buddy, you do not look the least bit voluntary!!
The staff member had already opened their star-ring, getting ready to contact a guard.
In the end, it took Fang Ling a whole stammering explanation before the clerk grudgingly believed he was here of his own free will.
“Who’s the captain?”
Fang Ling looked at Bai Long. He looked about ready to pass out.
Bai Long quickly said it was her, and handed over her esper certificate.
Fang Ling handed over his esper certificate too.
The clerk quickly entered both of their information.
Bai Long held the little red bird down for dear life to keep it from pecking a hole through Fang Ling’s forehead in front of everyone.
“Even if I wanted to make you first, you can’t register without an esper certificate. And besides, you’re just a bird.”
She did a whole round of consoling.
The little red bird’s gold-bean eyes welled up with bean-sized tears, utterly aggrieved.
“Unless you can turn into a person, let’s just behave ourselves, okay, son? I’ll find you some bugs to eat later, all right?”
Bai Long rubbed the top of the little red bird’s head.
What she didn’t see was that the little red bird, sitting in her hand, listened to her words, and in those golden bean eyes there flickered an unusually bright light.
Once all the information was entered, it came down to the final step of forming an esper team.
—The team name.
“Do you have any ideas?”
Bai Long wanted to ask Fang Ling’s opinion, but he’d already curled up into a gloomy mushroom beside the service desk.
Communication failed…
She looked at the bird in her hand, pondered for a moment, then said, “Be a Decent Person.”
“What?”
The clerk blanked for a second.
“The Be-a-Decent-Person Squad. That’s our team name.”
Bai Long repeated it crisply and clearly.
The clerk’s eyes filled with complicated feelings. They wanted to ask if she was serious, but then they glanced at her mentally unstable teammate and the bird squirming in her hand, and swallowed the words back down.
On the light screen, the four characters for “Be a Decent Person” were entered.
A transparent-backed esper team ID card with a one-inch photo was generated.
Looking at the ID card popping up on her star-ring, Bai Long nudged the crouching Fang Ling with her foot. “All right, let’s pull out.”
Fang Ling snapped back to himself and shot up. “Roger that, Captain!”
“Don’t call me Captain.”
Bai Long found it a little awkward.
“Got it, Boss.”
Fang Ling obediently switched to a different title.
Bai Long: …
Never mind. Suit yourself.
With the teaming-up business sorted out and a major weight off her mind, Bai Long set about submitting the C-rank commission she’d taken earlier.
The client was very surprised to receive her message.
【So you’re still alive after all. I thought you’d gotten trapped in the zombie swarm at Hemu.】
Bai Long: ? Client, sir, isn’t that a little impolite of you?
As if realizing they’d been too blunt, the client explained:
【Don’t get me wrong. A while ago someone posted footage in the Hemu activity group. For some reason the zombies in there rioted, and the only passage got completely sealed off by the swarm. A lot of people got trapped and died inside.】
After getting the lowdown on what had happened at Hemu from the client, Bai Long arranged a delivery point with them.
Once the client received the goods, they cheerfully transferred the credits to Bai Long.
One thousand credits landed in her account. Bai Long was very satisfied, and turned to the next payer.
There were a lot of espers at the esper center, so finding Liangqiu and his group wasn’t easy.
Waiting around for them to show up wasn’t realistic, so Bai Long decided to take the initiative.
First she went to the service desk and tried asking about Liangqiu’s group’s information. Unsurprisingly, she was told that esper information was private and couldn’t be provided.
Bai Long wasn’t discouraged. Instead she went and wandered around the second floor.
Worth mentioning: Fang Ling was socially anxious to death, but he wouldn’t go back home.
The result was that he got his head pecked by the little red bird again.
Bai Long figured the two of them might just have incompatible auras.
After pulling the little red bird off Fang Ling’s frantically-pecked head for the umpteenth time, Bai Long reached the end of her patience and gave each of them a knuckle-rap on the head.
“Behave. Mess with my money-making again and I’ll throw you both out.”
The threatened little red bird settled down, obediently crouching motionless on Bai Long’s shoulder.
Fang Ling, looking wronged, covered his head and trailed behind Bai Long.
Bai Long reached the second floor and walked straight up to the service desk. “If I want to post a commission, how do I do it?”
The staff member explained it to her in detail.
Posting a commission was a lot more convenient than taking one, you just operated directly through the dedicated interface on your star-ring.
This was designed with the thought that most clients were probably ordinary people, and the risk of running into zombies on the way to and from the esper center was high. So the esper center had developed this feature, letting ordinary people post commissions straight from home.
Bai Long found a corner seat, sat down, and without hesitation posted a commission.
【Liang-Three-Thousand-Nine and Six-Hundred, the thing you wanted is in my hands.】
The espers who took commissions could contact the client directly through the platform, so Bai Long didn’t include any other personal information.
She trusted Liangqiu would understand.
Since the esper center wouldn’t provide information and Bai Long couldn’t find Liangqiu, she figured she’d just openly and boldly make Liangqiu come find her.
She had no patience to slowly comb through and hunt people down.
Posting a commission required setting a commission amount.
Bai Long set it straight to the minimum of 1 credit.
Even that one single credit pained her for a long while.
Fang Ling looked at the commission and felt like the second half of a sentence was missing from the end.
, If you know what’s good for you, hurry up and bring the money to exchange for the hostage. No wait, the goods.
This tactic was indeed very effective.
In less than an hour, a message came into Bai Long’s inbox.
【You’re actually still alive?! Where are you right now? We’ll come find you immediately.】
Bai Long, whose survival was being doubted yet again: …
Confirmed. This was definitely Liangqiu.
“Do I look like I’m dead?”
Fang Ling didn’t understand why she’d ask that, but answered honestly all the same. “You look like the very-much-alive type.”
Bai Long was in no mood to joke around with them. She sent Liangqiu her location and waited for them to come ransom the “hostage.”
Liangqiu’s group arrived quickly.
But for some reason, all four of them were badly injured.
Especially the short guy and the burly man, one was missing a leg, the other an arm.
Liangqiu’s complexion wasn’t great either, but he didn’t go back on his word. He transferred the 3,900 credits he owed Bai Long to her right away.
The burly man transferred over the 600 he owed her too.
Four thousand five hundred credits, straight to her account.
Adding in the one thousand credits from the commission.
Bai Long now had five thousand five hundred credits in hand!
She was very satisfied, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth and brows.
Bai Long handed the crystal stone over to Liangqiu, and learned that after she’d been carried off by Fang Ling, the four of them had paid a steep price to escape the zombie swarm. That was when they’d gotten their injuries.
“This crystal stone, what is it?”
While she’d been waiting for them, Bai Long had idly browsed commissions and seen a lot of them looking for crystal stones.
This white stone looked a lot like the one in her hand that she’d dug out of Zhao Xin’s brain.
Liangqiu was a little surprised, but didn’t find it strange.
Crystal stones weren’t common knowledge that just anyone would come across. For now, even in the lower districts, word had only spread among a portion of the espers.
What surprised him was that an esper of Bai Long’s caliber still hadn’t come across them.
But on second thought, remembering how strapped for cash she’d looked, Liangqiu quickly understood.
She’d probably been too busy earning credits to pay attention.
He didn’t mind sharing the information with Bai Long.
“You know that we espers and the zombies are both products of the abnormal changes triggered by the apocalypse, right?”
Seeing Bai Long nod, Liangqiu continued, “Some people have proposed that the essence of the mutation is actually a certain kind of energy being born and lodging itself within living organisms. Those who can take in and absorb this energy become espers. On the flip side, those devoured and corrupted by the energy become zombies.”
“A crystal stone, simply put, is an energy crystal condensed by the small portion of living organisms that have this energy lodged within them.”
Liangqiu held up the white crystal stone in his hand.
Under the lights, the pure-white crystal stone shimmered faintly, refracting a soft, iridescent glow.
“Your esper reserves are very large, so you might not have noticed yet. The fact is, espers can’t use their abilities endlessly. Take me, for example, when we fought the octopus, those earthen walls were already every bit of esper power I could put out at the time. Even now my ability still hasn’t fully recovered. If you hadn’t been there, the four of us would’ve been turned into little fish balls by that octopus.”
Liangqiu still had it in him to crack a cold joke.
But hearing his words, Bai Long quietly turned things over in her mind.
What Liangqiu didn’t know was that, over the course of several battles, she’d already discovered that esper power had a quota.
Including the escape from the fire and the fight with the octopus, both times her esper power had been pushed right to the brink of running dry. If a battle dragged on any longer, she couldn’t guarantee she’d still come out on top.
Listening to Liangqiu’s explanation of crystal stones, could it be…
“You’ve probably guessed what crystal stones are for.”
Liangqiu lowered his voice.
Bai Long looked up. “Replenishing esper power.”
Liangqiu snapped his fingers. “Exactly, replenishing esper power. In ordinary times it’s no big deal, but in the middle of a fight with zombies or the like, running out of esper power is an absolute death sentence. And crystal stones can be used on the battlefield to replenish an esper’s power.”
Bai Long touched the crystal stone from Zhao Xin’s brain, tucked in the hidden inner pocket of her cape.
“A white one like this is the lowest grade, a tier-one crystal stone. But just this one is enough to instantly restore all of a B-rank esper’s power.”
Equivalent to dragging someone from a sliver of health straight back to full.
“More and more espers are awakening now, and having a crystal stone is basically like having an extra life. It’s an extra layer of insurance for taking commissions, so a lot of espers who take high-risk jobs will pay a premium to buy crystal stones.”
Liangqiu carefully tucked the crystal stone away.
“Not all zombies have crystal stones, right?”
Bai Long phrased it as a statement.
Liangqiu nodded. “Right. Only a small portion of zombies, or mutated animals and plants, will have them.”
Bai Long didn’t ask whether it might be connected to esper-zombies.
That question was too sensitive, she planned to slowly gather information and confirm it later.
Liangqiu sent his three teammates off to go look at new commissions, keeping Bai Long back to chat a few words.
The three teammates didn’t suspect anything, and since they didn’t feel like listening to stuff they’d long since known anyway, they happily slipped away.
Once they’d left, Liangqiu lowered his voice and said with a smile, “By the way, you do know that quite a few esper bases have already been established in the middle districts, right? What do you think, are you interested in taking a shot at it? Want to team up with us?”
The fact was, the combat ability Bai Long had shown earlier was just too impressive.
Liangqiu wasn’t exaggerating, he figured she was at B-rank level or above, maybe even A-rank.
In such a tense situation, she’d been able to keep her composure to the extreme, make the most of the conditions at hand to resolve the crisis, and pull off a clean retreat without a scratch.
That kind of ability wasn’t something just any esper had.
There were plenty of espers who’d been beaten and eaten by zombies.
It wasn’t as if espers were invincible.
Taking all the various factors into account, Bai Long was the most likely person Liangqiu had seen in all his time in Songdu to meet the requirements and make it to the middle districts.
This was the first Bai Long had heard of any of this.
From the sound of it, did that mean lower-district espers also had a chance to move up to the upper districts?
But Liangqiu had sent off his three teammates. Either they didn’t know he intended to recruit her, or else…
He simply hadn’t told those three teammates about this chance to go to the middle districts at all.
Meeting Liangqiu’s smiling eyes, Bai Long felt this guy was far from as easygoing and natural as he’d let on before.
Then again, it was the apocalypse, there were no purely good people left anymore.
A genuine all-around nice guy couldn’t survive in the apocalypse.
Bai Long had never been the type to settle for the status quo. If there was a chance to get better living conditions, she’d seize it.
What’s more, the gap between the interstellar middle districts and lower districts wasn’t small, not by one or two points.
Just look at those armed personnel and you’d know.
At the end of the day, even the upper-tier star regions among Songdu’s lower districts couldn’t compare to a lowly star region in the middle districts in terms of safety and wealth.
“I think those conditions are a little too harsh.”
She probed Liangqiu for information without giving anything away.
“They are a bit. But you’ve already met the B-rank esper requirement, and all that’s left is the ten tier-one crystal stones, which is a little troublesome. Personally, though, I think the crystal stones are just a matter of time and luck for you.”
Liangqiu didn’t catch Bai Long’s probing.
He really did want to recruit her.
Having gotten the information she wanted, Bai Long told Liangqiu she’d think about it, then left the esper center with the bird and a nearly-fainting Fang Ling.
She’d originally meant to find a hotel to stay at first, then discuss the matter of going to the middle districts with Fang Ling.
After all, since they’d teamed up, she couldn’t just casually ditch him.
But she didn’t expect that, hearing she wanted to find a place to stay, Fang Ling would ask with a strange look on his face, “Do you have some special lodging requirement? Why can’t you just stay at my place?”
He said it perfectly naturally, as if he’d intended all along for Bai Long to stay at his home.
Bai Long was very surprised to hear it.
No one had ever taken the initiative to invite her to their home before.
As a child she’d had no friends, and as an adult she wasn’t close with her coworkers. Most people felt her work was bad-luck and didn’t want to associate with her.
“I… I think I’ll pass.”
She fidgeted with the strap of her backpack, uncharacteristically tongue-tied.
“Why? We’re… teammates, aren’t we?”
As Fang Ling spoke, a few people passed by, and his social anxiety flared up again, his voice dropping a little.
But thinking of how Bai Long was the first person to accept him, he still worked up his courage. “You’re the first person who didn’t mind that I’m… that my personality is weird. I hope I can be friends with you.”
If they were friends, then staying at a friend’s place was a perfectly normal thing, wasn’t it?
Saying those words had taken enormous resolve for Fang Ling.
After he finished, his whole face flushed crimson, nearly dripping blood.
Friends…
It was the first time Bai Long had ever heard anyone say that word to her.
The people in her previous world hadn’t accepted her, and afterward, although she had Chi Wan and the others, what they felt for her was more reverence and admiration.
None of that was friendship.
Somehow, looking at Fang Ling working up his courage to invite her, Bai Long couldn’t bring herself to say the words about keeping her distance.
“Then… all right.”
She accepted.
Maybe she could give it a try.
Fang Ling wanted to smile, but there were too many people around and he was about to pass out, so all he could manage was a smile that looked nearly indistinguishable from crying. “Then let’s hurry back! I’m about to lose it, sob sob…”
…
Back at Fang Ling’s place, Bai Long sat down with him to talk about going to the middle districts.
According to the information Liangqiu had given, there were only two conditions for going to the middle districts, but actually meeting them was extremely difficult.
“First is a B-rank esper level.”
Bai Long was a C-rank esper.
But even that was a level only one in ten thousand could reach.
B-rank espers were even rarer, only one in a hundred thousand.
This first step alone already weeded out more than ninety-five percent of the people in the lower districts.
“I should qualify.”
Fang Ling had gotten tested right after awakening as an esper. “I’m B-rank.”
Bai Long felt Fang Ling was giving her too many pleasant surprises.
She didn’t expect that the Fang Ling who’d come knocking on her door of his own accord was not only rich, but also a B-rank esper!
By rights, a B-rank esper would already be a person of consequence in Songdu.
But because Fang Ling was so excessively socially anxious, and his other personality was too over-the-top, he hardly ever went out, so almost no one knew he was B-rank.
Then there were the ten tier-one crystal stones on top of that.
This tested not just an esper’s strength, but their information-gathering ability and a measure of luck as well.
It wasn’t hard for a B-rank esper to obtain a tier-one crystal stone.
The hard part was getting news of a crystal stone’s appearance faster than other competitors, and coming out on top among that pack of competitors.
Bai Long looked at the recent commissions, posts about buying crystal stones cropped up endlessly, with prices climbing higher and higher.
There was no one who didn’t want to go to the middle districts.
It was a world utterly different from the lower districts: no more discrimination and unequal treatment, with more advanced and complete technology and environments…
And right now was the only chance for lower-district people to change their class!
But before that, Bai Long still had to find a doctor to deal with her strange illness first.
Before coming back, she’d asked the esper center staff about it.
Espers could also set up a portable commission-taking window on their star-rings.
This was a feature that had just come out recently, which could, to some degree, ease the problems of overcrowding at the esper center and unfairness in the order of taking commissions.
Knowing Bai Long was about to take a commission, Fang Ling was extremely excited.
This was the first commission since he’d joined the team, the first step toward saving the world!
He had no objections at all to Bai Long taking commissions, in fact, he was even more eager about it than she was…
【You have successfully accepted a C-rank commission.】
【Please gather at the Kangsandia Pharmaceutical Company before seven o’clock tomorrow.】