Chapter 49: Proposal for Cooperation

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: Proposal for Cooperation

Xiang Yi retrieved the dagger from Shi Tie and sent it back to stand against the wall.

He turned to Ning Ye with a sudden question: "So does that mean anyone who comes into contact with a Black Stone and absorbs its power can control all Abnormalities?"

Ning Ye just smiled and said nothing.

Xiang Yi didn’t push it. Everyone had their own unique abilities.

His ability to control Shi Tie was something no one else could do, just as Ning Ye’s ability to know things he didn’t was a skill entirely her own.

"So the way it went was: I touched the Black Stone and blacked out, you happened to pass by and carried me here, then you went and deliberately led the Shuffling Monsters away, and by the time I woke up, you’d just gotten back."

"That’s right."

"Why bother?"

"Two reasons. One, because you were worth it. Two, because someone once did the same for me."

"Your team leader?"

Of everyone in the scavenger crew, Wang Wu had left the deepest impression on Xiang Yi.

He fit Xiang Yi’s idea of what a seasoned team leader looked like to a tee. If it weren’t for Sun Yifei, Xiang Yi would have been more than happy to get to know Wang Wu better.

Ning Ye nodded. "Yeah. I just don’t know if he’ll make it out. Hope so."

And just like that, the reason Ning Ye had shown up was glossed over.

Xiang Yi had his doubts — he didn’t buy that she’d simply been passing by. Given how worked up she’d seemed, she’d probably been trailing the Corpse Ghost he was controlling, which was to say, Shi Tie.

But when he’d come to, the Shuffling Monsters were gone, and she had given him a lot of information he hadn’t known — especially about the Black Stone, which was critical to him right now.

Xiang Yi never stinted when it came to people who helped him. He didn’t have many friends, and he valued every one of them.

Even if Ning Ye had only helped him for her own gain, he’d still want to return the favor.

It was just that his friends rarely ended up doing well in the end. He hoped this one... could stick around a little longer.

"So, what did you have in mind?"

Xiang Yi brought up repayment on his own, and Ning Ye caught his meaning. "You’re a Spiritual Ability User, aren’t you?" she asked.

She pointed at his face, then at the Blood Crystals visible on his exposed skin. "These crystals — they’re a manifestation of your ability?"

Xiang Yi said nothing, which was as good as confirming it.

"That’s almost certainly what it is. Without an ability, you shouldn’t have been able to handle the Black Stone at all — Shi Tie is proof of that. He tried to touch it without any ability, and look what happened to him."

"Are you taking him with you?"

"No. He’s not a person anymore, and nobody’s going to treat him like one. It’s not unusual for scavengers to head out of the city and never come back — nobody’s going to care."

Ning Ye shifted her gaze from Shi Tie back to Xiang Yi. "I have zero interest in Shi Tie. But you? And that dead thing? You’ve both got my full attention."

"I want to study them. I just don’t have the means to do it on my own."

"Are you a scientist?"

"Just someone who’s very curious about Abnormalities and Black Stones."

Xiang Yi didn’t say a word, but his silence made his thoughts perfectly clear — he didn’t believe her.

Ning Ye acted like she hadn’t noticed and pressed on. "I want to work with you. You take me to study different Abnormalities up close, and I give you everything I know about them."

"Study them? That’s pretty vague. And what makes you so sure I can even take you anywhere near an Abnormality?"

"Hmm... that’s actually a bit complicated to get into. Let’s change the subject for now — you need money, don’t you?"

Xiang Yi frowned. "I do. And?"

"I know people in the city. They’re willing to pay serious money for Abnormality Materials."

Xiang Yi didn’t respond. He went quiet, thinking it over.

Ning Ye seemed to grow a little tense, something uneasy flickering across her face despite herself.

After a long stretch without any reply from Xiang Yi, she broke the silence. "I know you’ve committed a crime. A serious one."

The moment those words landed, the temperature in the room felt like it dropped to zero.

"What kind of law-abiding person shows up in a place like this in the dead of night? And I can see plain as day that you’ve got nothing on you."

"You need money, and right now any transaction with anyone else is going to be a risk for you. I can help you with that."

Xiang Yi shot back, "What if I was sent here by someone?"

"Since when does anyone send their people out in a busted spacesuit?"

Xiang Yi instinctively glanced down at the tattered protective suit he was wearing.

That was a fair point — it would raise a lot of questions with anyone who saw him. He had nothing to say to that.

Still, he was curious what Ning Ye was really after. He gestured loosely toward the city beyond the room and said, testing the waters, "If it’s research you want, there are Shuffling Monster corpses over at the hospital. You could go pick through those."

"Those are useless. The Dead Spirit Dust has already dispersed — without special preservation, those bodies will rot fast."

"Same goes for the materials. The buyers I know are after rare, hard-to-get things — a Shuffling Monster’s heart or brain, fully intact. Something like a fingernail is worth maybe a few meals at best."

"On top of that, Shuffling Monsters never show up in small numbers, so their materials are never in short supply."

"What those people really want are rare Abnormality Materials — or even the Abnormalities themselves."

"Rare Abnormalities, huh..." Xiang Yi mulled it over, then asked, "Killing Abnormalities isn’t that hard, is it?"

"For you, maybe not. But for ordinary people, taking down an Abnormality is a massive undertaking."

"A lone Shuffling Monster is already considered one of the weakest Abnormalities out there, and even then, an unarmed civilian’s only option is to run."

Xiang Yi thought about it and said, "With a gun, one or two people could take out a Shuffling Monster."

"Sure — give one or two people enough firepower and they can drop a Shuffling Monster no problem."

"But then what? What about the others?"

When the conversation touched on her area of expertise, Ning Ye grew visibly more animated. "You’d go out into the middle of nowhere to hunt Shuffling Monsters and not worry about running into other Abnormalities?"

"Do you know what kind of Abnormality you might be dealing with? Do you know how to handle it?"

"Some Abnormality Materials can only be harvested while the Abnormality is still alive. Do you know how to effectively contain one?"

"Extracting Abnormality Materials is far harder than just killing an Abnormality. That’s why those materials have value — even the ones that look like nothing more than a rock on the side of the road."

"That part I actually understand."

Xiang Yi thought back to what he’d seen inside the prison, and mentally finished her sentence himself: That’s exactly why some people breed Abnormalities.

Ning Ye cleared her throat, reining herself back in, and picked up where she’d left off. "When ordinary people run into an Abnormality, they usually get killed before they ever figure out what it can do."

"I’m one of those ordinary people. If Shi Tie had locked onto me instead of you, you’d never have seen me again."

"But I can’t bring myself to walk away from the Abnormalities, so I need someone in my corner."

"You need money and you have the ability to take Abnormalities down, so I can connect you with people who’ll pay you well. And I need to study Abnormalities — with your ability, you could try to capture them alive when we go after materials."

"Our goals don’t conflict. This could work out well for both of us."

"I did help you out just now, and I know I can’t expect you to keep doing this for nothing. I’ll make it worth your while in other ways down the line."

"What kind of ways?"

"Everything I discover through my research — you get half."