Chapter 838: Graffiti Street

838. Graffiti Street

"Forget it, we'll deal with that when the time comes."

Lin Ye already had some ideas, but due to missing information, he couldn't be certain whether those ideas were correct.

"So what are we going to do next?"

Scarlatti couldn't guess the Lunatics' purpose either. She felt that Lin Ye shouldn't leave the train; as long as he stayed on it, nothing would go wrong.

"Someone commissioned me to deal with the city's graffiti next. Do you know anything about that?"

The train pulled up alongside the stop, and Lin Ye and Scarlatti stepped out of the private compartment and left the train.

"Are you sure you want to take this commission? Never mind, let me just take you there to have a look first."

Scarlatti opened a door, and on the other side was a somewhat gloomy street, its walls on both sides covered in all kinds of graffiti.

"This really is..."

Lin Ye passed through the door and entered that gloomy street. This time, Scarlatti didn't follow him in; she disliked the feeling of being in that street.

"Are you sure you're alright? Apparently some travelers killed themselves after only staying in there for a short while."

Miracle City only forbade travelers from attacking each other; it didn't stop tourists from committing suicide.

"I can indeed feel a certain hopelessness of losing all purpose, but that doesn't mean much to me. I already pondered this question when I was a teenager. Compared to the entire universe, compared to the vastness of time, life is tiny and fleeting, practically meaningless.

But for myself, it's those things that have nothing to do with me that are meaningless. So I choose to savor every moment of being alive, even if being alive isn't always a joyful thing."

Lin Ye felt the despair-filled graffiti around him, then took out a box of Concentrated Color from his loot space and began adding new colors on top of the graffiti.

Those despairing graffiti squirmed on the walls like living creatures, but in Miracle City, all they could do was make people feel despair. Beyond that, they could do nothing else.

Now they'd run into a problem: they couldn't make someone who had fully accepted despair feel despair.

"...What exactly are you painting?"

Scarlatti followed Lin Ye's movement from the other side of the door. The graffiti on the walls had already undergone obvious changes, but she couldn't make heads or tails of what those abstract colors represented.

"It's a man eating an apple. Since I hate apples, this man doesn't have a digestive system."

Lin Ye said casually.

"...Huh? Are we looking at the same thing?"

Scarlatti stared at the graffiti on the wall, completely unable to find the man or the apple. If Lin Ye hadn't said anything, she would have thought it was some kind of nightmare monster.

"Can't help it. That's the gap in artistic ability. You're not an Artist, so you wouldn't understand."

Lin Ye was a system-recognized Artist, after all. Ordinary people didn't even qualify to discuss art with him.

"...Are you sure this is alright? The client hired you to deal with this street of despair, not to turn it into a street of nightmares."

Scarlatti seriously doubted whether the client could keep up with Lin Ye's transcendent aesthetic.

"Don't worry, the other side already paid the deposit. Worst case scenario, I just won't collect the final payment. This is for art."

Lin Ye felt a rare surge of desire to challenge himself, or rather, a surge of passion.

"I hope the client won't regret commissioning you to handle this street."

Scarlatti walked briskly alongside Lin Ye, admiring the bizarre graffiti on the walls. After all, it wasn't her problem to worry about.

"If the client ends up regretting it, that only proves he can't understand true art and beauty."

Lin Ye accelerated his pace of transforming the graffiti. Fiery passion was driving him to complete this masterpiece. Half a box of Concentrated Color was already gone, and the commission fee might not even cover the cost of the dye. But to him, that wasn't something worth worrying about.

"It's already done?"

Scarlatti stepped through the door. The moment she truly stood in that graffiti street, she felt something that transcended despair... something else.

"Almost... now it's done."

Lin Ye added a line of text at the end of the graffiti street.

"Is that a signature?"

Scarlatti could slightly understand the part that concerned her.

"Yeah, consider it a record of what happened today."

Lin Ye put away the remaining half-box of Concentrated Color. After that attempt just now, combined with his previous experience of being dragged into the Color spiral, he had come to understand how to use this precious material.

"Next commission... looks like a guest has come looking for you."

Scarlatti turned to look outside the street.

An old man stood there, his hair as chaotic as weeds, wearing a tattered robe. In his hand was a Black Card.

A somewhat fanatical smile hung on the old man's face as he approached Lin Ye step by step.

"Someone sent you to snatch my Black Card?"

Lin Ye took out his Black Card, letting the two cards be connected by Black Threads.

"Someone published information about you, saying you carry many relics and several Rule Fragments."

The old man took out a Rule Fragment from his spatial item and placed it on the Black Card.

"And you still dared to come find me?"

Lin Ye retrieved the Cross Scripture from his loot space, and on top of the Cross Scripture lay a red book.

"Heh heh, I'm just here to test the waters. If you really have those things, other people will come looking for you."

The old man lowered his head to look at the Black Threads. He noticed that the mark on the thread was almost pressed right up against his Black Card.

"So you can actually back out? I thought I had to bet everything. What a shame. If I'd known, I would have reeled you in bit by bit."

The Red Sea Tome represented a portion of the Red Sea itself, and combined with the Cross Scripture, there was no way the other side could win even if they bet everything.

"How do you have something so valuable!"

The old man wore a look of despair. There was a precondition to interrupting the Black Card fusion: the value gap between the two sides couldn't exceed a certain threshold.

With such an enormous value gap, the old man could do absolutely nothing.

In an instant, the old man was sucked into the Black Card like liquid. That Black Card then traveled through the Black Thread and merged into Lin Ye's card.

The Black Card's value directly skyrocketed to 234,089 Trade points.

"Pretty wealthy. Just wondering if I can actually bring these Trade points back with me."

Lin Ye felt somewhat annoyed. That Rule Fragment and everything the old man carried had been converted into numbers on the Black Card. If the card couldn't be exchanged for Trade points, it would be just like someone stealing his loot.

No one could steal Lin Ye's loot and get away without paying a price.

'Hopefully whoever made these Black Cards knows what's good for them.'

Lin Ye put away the Black Card. He still couldn't determine the origin of these cards; maybe it was a scheme of the cult, or perhaps it was connected to some other faction.