Opportunity City's Lower District reeked of depression and poverty; on his way, Chen Ke looked out the window and saw many closed factories, most of which were automobile manufacturers.
"Buddy, are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital to get that checked out?"
Chen Ke's blood-stained shirt was indeed too eye-catching, and the driver had stared at it for a long time when he got in the car.
"I got it while drinking wine." Chen Ke replied casually.
"You must have been drinking grape juice…" The driver shook his head.
Perhaps mistaking Chen Ke for an out-of-towner or simply wanting to smoke, after a moment of silence, the driver struck up a conversation.
"Buddy, if you'd come to Opportunity City twenty years ago, I would have welcomed you sincerely, but as you can see, there are no opportunities in Opportunity City now."
As he spoke, the driver casually took out a cigarette pack, lit one for himself, and then extended a hand to offer one to Chen Ke.
Chen Ke waved his hand in refusal.
"Opportunity City used to manufacture cars for the whole world; our cars were powerful, durable, and beautiful. But it seems like the whole world prefers the cheap cars from Sunrise Country now. These workers are forced to find livelihoods in other cities, and those factories have become territories of Spiritual Beasts," said the driver.
"Why not demolish these abandoned factories? Wouldn't the authorities object to these monsters nesting in residential areas?" Chen Ke asked.
Even if no longer manufacturing cars, they could still demolish the factories to build office buildings and malls, right? That would be better than letting monsters run wild.
"Heh, you'll have to ask the CEOs of the Spiritual Power Industry. They've bought up all the wastelands with abandoned buildings in the city, waiting for them to undergo a Spirit Explosion effect…" The driver said amidst puffs of smoke, leisurely explaining the interests involved to Chen Ke.
Mystical events had been occurring throughout the world for a long time, and since 1910, countries had established the Spiritual Ability Administration to deal with indescribable anomalies and incidents. To ordinary people, these had long become part of everyday life.
After World War II, with the increase of Spirit Explosion Spaces caused by Spirit Explosion effects, the spiritual departments of various countries met for the first time and established the World Spiritual Power Bureau, which began to specifically train agents who could use Spiritual Power to deal with Transcendent situations and manage supernatural events worldwide.
In the 1930s, the latest scientific research discovered that Monster Corpses and the Diamond Holy Relics they dropped within Spirit Explosion Space had immense utility. This spurred related application research, whether for military or civilian use, and became a key research topic for all countries in the world.
Monster Corpses were the best raw materials. They could be mixed with any other material to make medicines, food flavorings, agricultural products, daily chemical products, and even military equipment.
The development of the Spiritual Power Industry in civilian sectors was even hotter than the internet.
Decades of research and observation showed that the monsters within Spirit Explosion Spaces could never be completely eradicated. If wiped out once and left alone for a while, the corpses would disappear on their own. Then, more monsters would emerge.
If a Spirit Explosion occurred somewhere, the Spiritual Ability Administration staff would intervene immediately to calm the situation and then rate the area based on severity and scale.
Then, the Administration Bureau would use its unique technology to cover the area with a black building and open it up to all Spiritual Power Industry companies.
It was like a series of instances; countless Spiritual Power Industry companies trained their own investigators—people like Parker—to enter these instances for exploration.
The area was called "Black Box Space," and if nothing unexpected happened, the building that Chen Ke had just escaped from would also become Black Box Space soon.
These investigators were categorized from D to S across five levels of licenses based on the amount of Spiritual Energy within their bodies, with Parker being a rookie D-level investigator. These investigators used the spiritual energy in their bodies to power a type of Spiritual Gun specifically designed to hunt Spiritual Monsters, which were very effective.
Anything brought out of the Spirit Explosion Space would be supervised by the Spiritual Ability Administration, and Spiritual Power Industry companies were allowed to take only Monster Corpse materials; the Diamond Holy Relics were uniformly recovered by the Administration.
Any company that dared to privately hoard these Holy Relic diamonds would suffer severe consequences, ranging from having their spiritual industry licenses revoked to having their management staff thrown into prison to rot.
Black Box Spaces could be bought out from the Administration Bureau; when a company purchased a particular Black Box Space, it effectively had a stable "material collection hunting ground." Many large consortia didn't just buy up Black Box Spaces; they also purchased abandoned properties, waiting for Spirit Explosion effects to occur naturally.
Buying wasteland and nurturing investigators was standard operating procedure for these companies. Chen Ke couldn't help feeling that behind this street full of desolation and decline was the manifestation of the will of capitalist power.
Chen Ke occasionally checked the time. The constraints of his limited lifespan tightly circumscribed his range of action. This made Chen Ke realize for the first time that traveling by car was a waste of life.
Fortunately, in the middle of the night, the roads were clear. The taxi sped along, arriving at White Street in about 20 minutes.
A series of decrepit six-story residential buildings came into view, instantly reminding him of the old house where his family lived during his middle school years, and a sudden wave of homesickness washed over him.
The car slowly stopped at the curb, and the driver snapped down the taxi meter with a "click."
"Seven union coins, buddy."
Chen Ke's gaze withdrew from the window, he rummaged in his Black People branded wallet, handed over a 100-union coin bill to the driver, and waited for the change.
No matter where, without money, one could hardly make a move, and right now, Chen Ke needed money more than most. He just could not afford to take buses or subways.
Chen Ke took a handful of small bills and coins, counted them briefly, and tucked them into the inside pocket of his wool coat, then opened the car door and got out.
"Good luck, buddy," the driver nodded toward Chen Ke and drove off.
Chen Ke looked up at the dilapidated apartment building, flipped off the safety on his M1911A1 in his pocket. This gun was a Spiritual Gun, and each shot fired would shorten his lifespan by five minutes, plus he only had 11 bullets left.
If his Glock 17 hadn't run out of bullets, he wouldn't want to use it lightly.
Chen Ke strode into the pitch-black staircase, glanced at the numbers on the doors in the corridor to estimate that apartment 13 was on the fourth floor, and then quietly slipped into the stairwell.
Standing in front of the door to apartment 13, Chen Ke did not knock immediately, but instead pressed his ear against the door to carefully listen for any sounds inside.
He heard the sound of boiling water, the burning noise of a gas stove, and the sound of someone wearing slippers walking from one end of the room to the other.
The footsteps were light, sounding like those of a girl. She was on the phone, repeating "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm."
Chen Ke tried turning the doorknob—it was unlocked.
The door opened with a "click", and Chen Ke walked into the room to see a curly-haired woman standing in front of the kitchen stove, looking like she was of Eurasian descent.
"Ah!"
The woman glanced at Chen Ke and immediately screamed at the sight of his bloodstained shirt.
"You've bled a lot!" The woman took the cloth next to her and quickly walked towards Chen Ke.
Chen Ke waved his hand and said, "It's someone else's."
The meat broth boiling on the gas stove was still bubbling, its aroma wafting through the air.
The woman pointed at the torn areas of Chen Ke's shirt with her finger, and her tense expression suddenly relaxed. She smiled and returned to the stove.
Chen Ke closed the door and walked straight over to the sofa to sit down, beginning to quietly examine the layout of the whole house.
There were two rooms in the small corridor opposite the semi-open kitchen, a bathroom to the right of the small living room, and an old external drainage pipe outside a window... The window was open; anyone could climb into the house along the pipe.
"Is everything going smoothly? I made some borscht; do you want some?" The woman asked while tending to the soup.
"I just ate at Blue Road; I won't have any," Chen Ke replied.
"Huh?" The woman paused.
"Then I'll have some," Chen Ke looked up at the woman and said with a smile.
The woman turned her head back to continue stirring the soup, casting furtive glances at Chen Ke.
"+2 seconds"
"+2 seconds"
"+2 seconds"
...
Chen Ke's smile subtly grew.
The woman served a steaming bowl of borscht, placing it on the coffee table in front of Chen Ke. The thick soup was still roiling, with chunks of beef and sweet potato mixed with an assortment of vegetables, bobbing in the amber broth.
Although the bowl of soup looked tempting, Chen Ke did not feel an appetite. He wasn't hungry, thirsty, or tired; he felt like he was an everlasting engine.
"Tired?" The woman sat next to Chen Ke and tentatively wrapped her arm around his left arm.
Chen Ke said nothing, simply turning to look into the woman's eyes—they were blue, very pretty. In her pupils, Chen Ke saw the face of an unfamiliar man.
"Go take a shower, then let's play something exciting. Go on," the woman suggested with a smile.
She planted a gentle kiss on Chen Ke's forehead, then gave him a push.
Chen Ke smiled, playing along, standing up to prepare to enter the bathroom.
"Hang on, are you going to shower with your coat on?" The woman caught Chen Ke's hand, helping him remove his blue woolen coat.
Chen Ke's brow furrowed—his gun was still inside.
"Go on, go on, we'll have the soup together when you come out," the woman nudged Chen Ke, her actions intimate.
"Then wait for me, don't sneak any bites," Chen Ke said with a smile, walking into the bathroom.