◎ The Corpse Thief, and the Qi Substance Comes into Play ◎
The players were clearly whispering among themselves, and Jiang Qi wanted to hear what they were saying.
Earlier, she had triggered and fully completed a skill called [Eavesdropping on Passengers], which worked in a similar way to [Spying into Passengers’ Activities]. With these two projects stacked together, she was practically gifted with super hearing. Every move, every word, every action of the surrounding players could not escape her perception.
This skill was great for digging up secrets, so she activated both abilities at this moment.
Immediately, all kinds of sounds poured in, as if a thousand mouths were talking right next to her ears. She could hear breathing, farting, teeth grinding, even the sound of phlegm stuck in someone’s throat.
She was so startled that she hurriedly turned the skills off. It was terrifying. Her ears felt thoroughly polluted.
Still, in that brief moment, she noticed something. The players kept talking, but both openly and covertly their gazes kept drifting this way. Of course, they were not looking at her. They were eyeing the corpses of the dead players, with unfathomable light flickering in their eyes.
The bodies of dead players might still have something valuable on them. If luck was good and the player panel had not fully dissipated yet, there might even be something more to loot.
How could players not be tempted?
Jiang Qi pretended not to notice and continued talking with the manager.
The manager also seemed completely unaware. He scribbled records onto the registration form and handed Jiang Qi a receipt.
“All right. The funeral home will take these bodies. Leave them here for now. We’ll fire up a big furnace later.”
Jiang Qi finished her work, relaxed, and went to get some ginger tea. Before long, several more carts were pushed in, all carrying player corpses. Some of the bodies even had player items hanging openly on them, with a few train coins peeking out of their pockets.
Now the players in the lobby were even more restless.
At that moment, a shrill scream suddenly rang out. “Ah! Sando, has anyone seen my Sando? Is she here? Sando!”
Along with the shouting came a woman with yellow hair sticking straight up, as if her head were covered in yellow icicles. She rushed in and started yelling at everyone in the lobby.
Jiang Qi coughed.
She nearly choked on her tea.
After just a few days, Dong Shengfeng’s image had evolved again.
Dong Shengfeng scanned the crowd and quickly spotted Jiang Qi wearing her social worker mask. Then she shifted her gaze away and charged at the other players.
“Have you seen Sando? Have you seen Sando?”
“No, no!”
“Where did this lunatic come from?”
Dong Shengfeng rummaged through the players one by one. The players were wary of NPCs and did not dare to start a fight here.
Then Dong Shengfeng spotted the player corpses. She let out a howl and pounced over, lifting the cloths covering their faces one by one.
“Sando! My Sando! My precious Sando! You’re not here, right? You’re definitely not here!”
Jiang Qi had to admire her. The acting was really convincing.
She stood up at the right moment and shouted loudly, “What are you doing? Don’t touch the bodies!”
Dong Shengfeng kept shouting while lifting the coverings, and at the same time casually pocketed the player items from the corpses.
The other players exploded when they saw this.
This person was clearly pretending to be crazy just to steal the items.
How could that be allowed?!
They had been working hard here—shouldn’t they be the first to benefit? How could they let someone else snatch the good stuff?
So several players rushed forward first, righteously scolding her. “What are you doing? Don’t touch the bodies.”
In reality, they pounced in and swiftly started looting the players’ belongings themselves.
The other players refused to fall behind and also rushed in.
Dong Shengfeng naturally would not have it and personally shoved her way in, pushing one player after another.
No one knew who started the attack. In fact, it was Dong Shengfeng.
And no one knew who it was. Actually, it was still one of their own. A pile of train coins was suddenly scattered all over the floor. The players immediately started scrambling and fighting, grabbing and striking each other. The scene descended into chaos at lightning speed.
A conflict between players emerged as a matter of course.
The funeral home security rushed in to stop it. Jiang Qi also charged forward, pulling out the oversized energy storage electric baton that belonged to a social worker.
“Stop fighting! All of you stop! Listen to me! Stop right now, or I won’t be polite!”
She shouted while brutally jabbing the baton forward.
Zzz—one shocked, zzz—another, zzzzzz—yet another sent flying.
When all the players were down, she heard a buzzing sound from the train conductor panel:
[Ding! You resolved a conflict between players… 0.001 Internship Experience… This was truly a spectacular, kindergarten-level conflict.]
Jiang Qi shook the baton in her hand, its power completely drained, and paid no attention to the panel’s mockery. As long as it gave internship experience, that meant this approach worked.
She checked the time. From start to finish, the whole conflict was settled in less than fifteen minutes. That was pretty efficient.
She still had plenty of time to rush off to the next place.
Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly stopped. Her gaze snapped to the spot where the players’ bodies had been placed, and she stared in disbelief, briefly wondering whether she had overused her abilities and gone blind.
Where had the pile of corpses gone?
All that remained were the empty flatbed carts and gurneys. A gust of wind swept through, cold and whistling.
Jiang Qi froze for a moment.
The funeral home manager noticed something off about her. Following her gaze, he looked over as well and was stunned.
How had the bodies disappeared?
He did not know Jiang Qi’s true identity. He only knew that she was an extremely important figure, and that over the past half month, many seemingly inexplicable actions had all been carried out to cooperate with her.
Today, his superior had issued a strict order: during the time she was in the funeral home, her commands took priority over everything else.
So his first reaction was that Jiang Qi had made those bodies disappear.
But the next moment, Jiang Qi roared, “The bodies! The bodies are gone! This is cursed! They’ve risen from the dead!”
Manager: “…”
Jiang Qi jumped up and grabbed the manager. “They’ve risen! They’ve risen! Did you just see the corpses get up and run off on their own?”
The funeral home instantly erupted, like water droplets splashed into a pan of hot oil.
Seizing the moment, Jiang Qi lowered her voice and said to the manager, “Seal off all exits. They shouldn’t have gotten out yet.”
The manager snapped back to his senses and immediately complied, though his heart was pounding. “They” hadn’t gotten out yet? Did that mean the bodies had really risen and run away on their own?
While Jiang Qi put on a frantic act, circling around with the other staff as if desperately searching for the bodies, she swept her gaze across the entire hall. She glanced at the players in the distance who had not come closer earlier, then at those nearby who had been stunned by her and lay scattered across the floor.
Interesting.
Someone had actually taken advantage of the chaos right under her nose and stolen those players’ bodies!
She lowered her eyes and once again activated the two abilities, [Eavesdropping on Passengers] and [Spying into Passengers’ Activities]. This time, she was far more serious, pouring all her focus into them.
In an instant, every trace of player presence in the hall, every disturbance created by players, great or small, surged toward her.
It was as if her consciousness spread to envelop the entire hall. The hall was reduced to a gray-white sand table: all the natives were automatically filtered out, all miscellaneous objects vanished, leaving only one player after another marked on the sand table.
From loud footsteps and voices to something as small as the sound of fingers rubbing together or the blink of an eye, everything was clearly audible. Without even looking, Jiang Qi could tell what everyone was doing, what posture they were in, and even guess their facial expressions to some extent.
At this moment, within this space, she was almost an omniscient god.
She “saw” players exchanging looks and whispering to each other:
“Did you see it just now? The bodies ran off?”
“They didn’t run. They were just gone in the blink of an eye!”
“Someone turned invisible and stole the bodies?”
She also “saw” players eyeing each other suspiciously.
“You did it?”
“Bullshit. I never left this place!”
“Whoever did it, step forward. You’ve pissed off the NPCs. We won’t even have a place to work anymore!”
The players in the distance didn’t seem to be the issue, so Jiang Qi “looked” toward the ones lying on the ground.
One person’s breathing was abnormal. Oh, it was Dong Shengfeng. She had also pretended to be knocked unconscious by the electric shock and was lying stiff among the others. Hearing the talk of “corpses rising,” she was itching to open her eyes and take a look.
Jiang Qi’s awareness skimmed past her and quickly locked onto another player.
Everyone else was lying unconscious with relaxed muscles. Only this person had suppressed breathing and a tense body, clearly nervous. His heels pressed against the ground, his fingers digging into the floor, a posture that could spring up and flee at any moment.
So it’s you!
Jiang Qi drew her consciousness back. Light returned to her eyes as she turned to look at the player on the ground who was pretending to be unconscious.
An utterly ordinary, lean man.
The label above his head read: Second Class Carriage, Car 32, Seat 04.
So it was this man who, amid the chaos, had touched the bodies and then, without anyone noticing, stolen them away?
Where had he hidden them? In his backpack? And why steal corpses in the first place?
[Ding! A passenger has stolen something right under your nose. This is nothing short of a provocation against the Train Conductor. Fortunately, by following the faintest clues, you have identified the thief among the crowd, barely preserving the Train Conductor’s dignity.]
Now you must decide:
◆ Expose the thief on the spot and teach him a lesson.
◆ Play the long game and lure out a bigger catch. Perhaps there is a whole theft ring behind him.
The voice of the Train Conductor panel suddenly rang out.
Jiang Qi was startled. This was the first time the panel had given her two choices to pick from.
Would different choices trigger different tasks and lead to different outcomes?
Still, with these two options laid out, most people would choose the second.
After a brief hesitation, she decided there probably wasn’t any trap, and chose option two.
[You decide to play the long game and lure out a bigger catch. Now you need to place a mark on this despicable thief in order to track his future actions.]
Jiang Qi: ?
Put a mark on him?
What kind of mark? How?
Would drawing an × on his face count?
Or installing a tracking device on him… though in weather like this, tracking and positioning technology probably would not work very well, right?
She went through all her skills. There was nothing relevant.
She went through the player items in her backpack and found a tracking item: a powder that, when applied to the skin, gives off a special scent for 24 hours. By releasing a scent-tracking butterfly, she could follow the scent to locate the target.
Should I use this?
Jiang Qi frowned in thought when, all of a sudden, the phone in her pocket vibrated.
She avoided the crowd and took it out to check. The caller ID showed Dr. Xue.
Three days ago, she had drawn 400 milliliters of blood, which had been sent straight back to the command center. Later, Dr. Xue had called to say that the extraction of the Qi substance was going fairly smoothly, and that results would be available in the next couple of days. She would be notified immediately when that happened.
Could it be that the results were in?
Jiang Qi quickened her pace toward the lobby exit and found the manager.
Manager: “We have all the entrances and exits under watch…”
Jiang Qi cut him off. “I’ve already found the person who stole the bodies. It’s that guy lying on the ground, wearing a red and black padded jacket, a black hat, and a gray scarf.”
The manager reacted quickly. “That man is called Luo Shang. He came here to work just yesterday.”
Jiang Qi said, “Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him escape, but don’t let him realize he’s been exposed either. Then get me all his information: where he lives, which players he’s closely associated with, what he’s been doing recently, and whether he has any prior record of stealing corpses. I want to know everything. Oh, and also check whether any other crematoriums or funeral homes have reported missing bodies recently.”
Manager: “Understood!”
Jiang Qi added, “Find me a room. I need to take a call.”
“Okay.”
She was led to a lounge. By the time they arrived, the call had already disconnected, so she dialed back.
With communications being unreliable these days, the call had to be relayed twice before she finally got through to Dr. Xue.
As soon as the connection was made, Dr. Xue’s excited voice came through. Even though the signal cut in and out, her delight was unmistakable. “Xiao Jiang, we successfully extracted the Qi substance! Do you want to come back and take a look?”
Jiang Qi replied, “I can’t get away right now. What does the Qi substance look like? Have you figured out what it can be used for?”
In the command center laboratory, Dr. Xue looked at the sealed container. Inside was a purple substance the size of a droplet, like a tiny bead of sparkling paint. On closer inspection, it even seemed to wriggle slightly, as if it were alive.
She said, “Its use is still unknown. For now, we can only confirm that the Qi substance contains an extremely strange and enormous amount of energy. In the final few stages, it even blew up a lot of equipment. I think its application is something only you yourself can figure out.”
Jiang Qi leaned back against the wall. “How much is there?”
“Just one tiny drop.”
“Four hundred milliliters of blood, and you only extracted a single drop?”
“Some of the blood was lost when the equipment exploded midway. If there hadn’t been any losses, there should have been more, but at most only a little more.”
Jiang Qi thought for a moment. “I think I roughly know one possible use for the Qi substance. Is it convenient for you to send it over to me now? There happens to be an experimental subject here.”
…
The command center moved quickly. In just half an hour, Jiang Qi had received Luo Shang’s investigation file and finished skimming through it when the item was delivered.
She said to Cui He, who had brought it over, “You came to deliver it yourself? That was fast. I thought I’d have to wait at least an hour.”
Cui He had already obtained a player panel himself. No one really knew what he was busy with on a day-to-day basis, but the fact that he could deliver the item so quickly was presumably thanks to his player abilities.
Cui He explained briefly, “I happened to be at the command center, so they sent me.”
Jiang Qi paused. “At the command center? Are you preparing to receive a certain talent ability?”
Cui He was a little surprised that she could guess that much. “Yes. I was about to undergo evaluation and matching.”
“That’s an important matter. You should head back right away.”
“No rush. The commander told me to see if there was anything here that I could help with.”
Jiang Qi did not press the matter. “All right then. Sit down and rest for now.”
Jiang Qi began examining the thing in front of her. Inside the small sealed box was a tiny drop of purple substance. No matter how she tilted the box, it never clung to the sides. When she shook it apart, it slowly gathered itself back together. When left alone, it would even begin to wriggle on its own.
Jiang Qi could sense her connection to it. The sensation was thousands of times stronger than when she looked at her own blood.
At this moment, she was completely certain that this substance truly carried her mark. To put it dramatically, it was as if a fragment had been split off from her soul.
Of course, this was purely a material substance, a renewable part of her body. As long as it was extracted and consumed in moderation, it would not cause her any harm.
She murmured, “The train conductor… really is a wondrous existence.”
The further she advanced along the path of becoming a train conductor, the more terrifying the train conductor seemed.
Now she had only a little over thirty points of internship experience, yet she already possessed extraordinary power and this bizarre, miraculous Qi substance. It was hard to imagine just how powerful a true conductor could be.
She asked the Train Conductor panel, “Is this the thing you mentioned before, the so-called essence blood?”
The panel gave no response.
Jiang Qi frowned, unsure for a moment.
Dong Shengfeng, who had already recovered from her corpse-like state, leaned over to take a look, feeling a bit creeped out. “Good heavens. This is what’s in your blood? Why does it look like a worm? Does that mean your body is full of worms?”
Jiang Qi: “…”
She said flatly, “This is not a worm, and not a living creature either. It’s a form of energy. Because the energy is extremely active, it moves around.”
Dong Shengfeng said, “Then it moves around inside your body too? Wouldn’t that make you really itchy?”
Jiang Qi: “…”
She checked her body and felt nothing unusual.
Realizing what she had said, she shot Dong Shengfeng a glare. Everything had been fine, and she had made it creepy.
Jiang Qi opened the box and poured the drop of substance into her palm.
The moment it touched her hand, the substance immediately became still, like a truly docile drop of water.
Dong Shengfeng asked, “Can I touch it?”
“Sure.”
Dong Shengfeng carefully dipped a fingertip into it, and the droplet sprouted a tiny tail.
In the next instant, the Qi substance wriggled back at lightning speed, returning to a perfectly round droplet and nestling in Jiang Qi’s palm. It moved so fast that it was as if it were cursing under its breath.
Dong Shengfeng suddenly understood. “So only you can make this thing behave. That’s really amazing. What’s the principle behind it?”
“I can’t really explain the principle, but I do know that this thing can be used for tracking.”
Dong Shengfeng immediately got it. “You want to use it on that Luo Shang? Don’t we already have tracking powder? This thing takes four hundred milliliters of blood to produce a single drop. Isn’t that a huge waste?”
Jiang Qi shook her head and tapped the documents on the table. “Luo Shang has been stealing corpses for a long time, and he does it everywhere. He and his companions even ambush players, killing them just to obtain their bodies. They are definitely not doing this for player items or to loot backpacks. Their goal is collecting corpses.”
“Other than the train conductor, I can’t think of anyone else who would be this interested in player corpses.”
Dong Shengfeng and Cui He were both startled.
Cui He asked, “You suspect there’s a train conductor behind Luo Shang?”
Jiang Qi was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “Probably not, at least not directly. Luo Shang is stealing corpses because crematoriums are popping up all over Spring City. He knows that if he doesn’t steal some quickly, he’ll get nothing. If a train conductor were directly behind him, it wouldn’t be just one or two bodies. A train conductor wouldn’t be that petty.”
She paused, realizing she had used the panel’s phrasing.
But the reality was indeed like that. If a train conductor were truly present here, they would at least do something to stop the cremations.
Even if Jiang Qi put herself in that position, she could think of many ways to change the situation, rather than sneaking around stealing a few scraps, which would be downright embarrassing.
“Then why is Luo Shang doing this?”
Leaning back in her chair, Jiang Qi looked at the two of them and said, “If there were someone whose abilities weren’t strong enough to change the overall situation, but who knew that the train conductor needed corpses, what do you think that person would do?”
Dong Shengfeng said solemnly, “Probably gather some corpses before they’re burned, then try to curry favor with the train conductor.”
Jiang Qi closed her eyes and nodded. “Luo Shang is only from a second-class carriage, and his abilities are limited. His only real specialty is stealing, which you can see clearly in the early surveillance footage. He doesn’t seem like someone who could know the train conductor’s secrets.
“There must be someone behind him. A player who knows that the train conductor needs corpses, and who hired others to collect them. That player would be at least on the same level as Wolf Sai. I don’t think something like tracking powder would be able to fool them.”
Of course, there was another possibility. That this entire affair had nothing to do with the train conductor at all, and that the player behind it simply needed player corpses for some other purpose.
But her intuition told her otherwise.
She looked at the drop of Qi Substance in her palm. If they let the thefts continue, sooner or later the truth behind the crematoriums would be exposed.
They had to drag the person behind it all into the open as soon as possible.
On her territory, sneaking around and stirring up trouble was not something that could happen without her consent.
She closed her hand around the Qi Substance and stood up to leave. Dong Shengfeng and Cui He immediately followed.
…
Luo Shang was locked in a room.
He wasn’t the only one being detained.
The funeral home manager spoke in a mysterious, superstitious tone, claiming that the corpses had come back to life and that perhaps the souls had possessed someone at the scene, so no one could leave.
It was a ridiculous excuse, but in this “weird city,” what couldn’t happen?
Anyway, the manager forcibly detained everyone, saying he would call a master to perform an exorcism.
Luo Shang felt both angry and helpless. That damn cowardly and superstitious manager—always spouting “weird” nonsense—why didn’t it just drive him crazy already!
He quietly sat in a corner, watching the other four people locked in the room: two players and two NPCs.
The two players whispered among themselves, debating whether the corpses had really come back to life.
The two NPCs clasped their hands together, bowing toward every direction while chanting, trying to keep any lingering spirits from bothering them.
Luo Shang looked down on these foolish people. Thinking of the corpses in his backpack, he felt a faint sense of pride. With just a move of his hand, he could toy with all of them.
Once he left and handed over the corpses, he could trade them for train coins and supplies…
Jiang Qi came to the window, looked at the man cowering in the corner who seemed so innocent, raised her hand, and lightly flicked it. The droplet of Qi substance flew in like a delicate butterfly, silently and invisibly entering Luo Shang’s forehead.
Luo Shang felt a cool sensation on his forehead, touched it, didn’t feel anything, and ignored it.
Jiang Qi only sensed that an invisible line had connected her to Luo Shang; even from a distance, she could sense his movements.
Even the “playing-dead” Train Conductor panel finally reacted.
[Ding! You discovered your essence blood (the essence in your blood, the “source marrow” the train conductor calls it, also known as your “Qi substance”) and extracted it. This is the train conductor’s original power and one of the train conductor’s great secrets. Well done. You’ve lowered the entry threshold for the train conductor even further. Congratulations! You gained 1 Internship Experience.]
[Ding! You instinctively used your Qi substance. From discovery to correct and efficient use is a major milestone. You’ve taken a big step forward. Congratulations! You gained 1 Internship Experience.]
[Ding! You placed the strongest and most secure mark on the thief. This thief is now completely under your control. The train conductor’s absolute desire for control and strong decisiveness has begun to manifest through you. Congratulations! You gained 1 Internship Experience.]
Friendly reminder: This tracking mark is too crude and energy-consuming, and needs improvement.
[Ding! You successfully placed a mark on a passenger. Tracking, locking, and controlling passengers is an advanced skill that an excellent train conductor should possess. Congratulations! You triggered the [Train Conductor’s Mark] project and gained 0.001 Internship Experience.]