Chapter 304: The Banquet Begins

“Why am I so unlucky.”

The Puppet Master couldn’t help saying it out loud.

All those years of lying low, all those years of scheming; and the moment she finally made her move, things started going wrong one after another.

She took over the Butcher Alliance, and the Weeping Medium walked off with the Sun charm.

She went for the Sun charm, and her own butterfly fragment got dug out of her.

Seizing the Puppeteer’s headstone could at least be counted as salvaging something.

Except the headstone was a fake.

The moment she brought it back and started examining it, she knew something was wrong. Grievously injured and barely functional as she was, she still had basic discernment.

An Xuefeng, you thick-browed, honest-looking man; so you’re capable of deception too.

The headstone was fake, but the small items inside it that carried the Puppeteer’s aura were real. The Puppeteer had been inside the Inca Sun Gate for years, and An Xuefeng still had things on him that carried the Puppeteer’s aura? The Puppet Master was starting to seriously wonder whether the two of them were actually genuine mortal enemies.

Fine. All of that failing was one thing; the Puppet Master had prepared for worst-case scenarios and still had cards left to play.

But what she found most difficult to accept was that the Hair Ghost had betrayed her too.

Why had she even used the word “too”? Whatever. The Hair Ghost was someone she had resurrected and saved, he was supposed to be absolutely loyal. How had he been able to violate Agency rules?

The Puppet Master had often wondered whether the Agency was specifically targeting her because her orange title was puppet control.

“Silverfish, Silverfish…”

Deep within the white ant nest in the Abyss node, there was an enormous mass of writhing, fleshy-purple tumor tissue. It looked like a great heap of rotting gelatinous matter, filling nearly half the ant nest, pulsing and churning as teeth, hair, and eyeballs rolled to the surface and back under.

But orange-gold blade light wound through the massive tumor, and with each flash, great swaths of it simply ceased to exist. An Xuefeng’s Return Journey Saber was still working, endlessly severing the tumor tissue’s “return journey.” As the bulk of it dissolved and vanished, what had been buried deep within, the only part that still looked human, a face covered over by the tumor, gradually came into view.

The face remained with eyes shut, showing no sign of waking. The moment a large section of tumor disappeared, more grew back to replace it. The face and the tumor were symbiotic; the face was weaker than the tumor, but it was the true core of everything.

The blade light severing the tumor’s return journey had not harmed the normal face. As long as the face existed, the tumor would regenerate endlessly. But through the repeated cycle of regrowth and excision, the tumor tissue that had been on the verge of total loss of control gradually began to stabilize.

Perhaps I should thank An Xuefeng.

The Puppet Master thought with cold irony.

If the Return Journey Saber hadn’t kept cutting away the runaway tumor tissue, she would long since have lost all control and mutated into a mindless creature. It was precisely the repeated cutting away and regrowing, like draining contaminated blood and replacing it, that had gradually restored her reason.

But the injuries she had sustained this time were genuinely severe. Getting back to her current state had taken nearly half a day.

Half a day. Far too long. The world outside had certainly changed by now. And before her reason fully returned, she had been running on instinct. Nearly every Abyss creature in and around the white ant nest had been consumed by her.

So, there was only one person left in the ant nest now; no.

Two.

“Silverfish, Silverfish…”

The fleshy-purple tumor tissue sank and receded, revealing the person buried within; Silverfish, unconscious. His body was covered in tumor tissue, and thick strands of it connected to his face and neck, binding him like rope. He hung limp and sideways, eyes shut, responding weakly under the tumor’s control like a puppet.

“My lord…”

“Tell me, is the Hair Ghost still the same as before?”

The Puppet Master’s voice went softer, though that softness, accompanied by the thick, viscous sound of the tumor tissue shifting, echoed through the white ant nest and sounded deeply horrifying.

“Yes… my lord…”

Under her control, Silverfish could not lie. And it was his words that had caused the Puppet Master, before she had fully regained her reason and still operating mostly on instinct, to make the wrong call.

She had trusted the Hair Ghost. And then he had taken the headstone from her.

Even if that Puppeteer’s headstone was just a large rock, the fact of the Hair Ghost’s betrayal was what truly enraged and alarmed her.

If Silverfish hadn’t lied, then something had clearly gone very wrong somewhere. The Hair Ghost had been in contact with the Beekeeper the previous night. The Beekeeper, the Mutual Aid Alliance, Bing-1…

Bing-1. It was Bing-1. The Puppet Master felt as though every one of her recent misfortunes was somehow connected to this person. That inexplicable, invisible quality to her bad luck, everything going wrong in ways she couldn’t quite trace reminded her of certain things, certain people from the past, and sent a chill through her.

This place was no longer safe. She had to leave quickly.

“It’s not good to stay here any longer.”

The Puppet Master thought it through. She had always been the kind to prepare for rain before the clouds arrived, to move with caution. She was well aware of her current state and how many greedy vultures it would attract. Giving up years of careful cultivation was not beyond her; practically everything she had built was already gone anyway. But as long as she had that with her, everything else could be endured.

And it wasn’t an absolute abandonment either.

The writhing tumor tissue suddenly began to break apart on its own, collapsing inward, great heaps of it dissolving into dark, viscous fluid. But in the core of the tumor mass, the human face seemed to absorb some energy from the dissolution, and began to extend outward.

Hair. A neck. A torso. Arms.

Gradually she became humanoid again. If you ignored the patches of fleshy-purple tumor tissue still clinging to her body, she looked like a normal person. Early twenties, loose dark waves of hair, striking features; she looked like someone of mixed heritage.

Which she was. East and West mixed heritage, though very few people knew it. When she fell gravely ill, she had been receiving treatment in a hospital somewhere in the West, and it was there, in the grip of critical illness and unconsciousness, that she had entered the Agency.

So, at the beginning, she had actually belonged to the West District as a Tour Guide. Yet the Abyss node that had given the Puppet Master her resurrection corresponded to Eastern soil.

After entering the Agency, whether someone was classified East or West District didn’t seem to depend solely on nationality or ethnicity; other factors played a role too, such as the location where someone had reached a point of critical need. For Tourists, that meant wherever their powerful desire had taken root.

Yun Tianhe, for instance, was an East District Tourist and ethnically Eastern, yet he carried West District titles; titles that made advancement in East District journeys difficult, while making it easier for him to pick up overseas journeys.

And the Puppet Master was someone shaped by the West but rooted in the East; a Western person with an Eastern tumor, and through a series of circumstances and coincidences, she had quietly maintained a hidden Tour Guide identity in the West District as well. That was how she had originally come into contact with Georges and Black Widow.

She had once given up everything in the West and returned to the East. Now, it seemed, it was time to go back.

A small clump of pale-purple tumor clung to her abdomen, barely alive, its energy deeply depleted. The Puppet Master had shed the vast majority of her Abyss-contaminated power, and what had forced this decision was the enormous sense of crisis and dread she had felt tonight, a sense of something dangerous closing in at terrifying speed, of needing to run now or never leave at all.

She couldn’t even flee directly; she had to find a way to slow down whoever was coming after her.

An eye grew on the pale-purple tumor clump, and through it something that still carried the Puppet Master’s bearing looked out. It swept around the space and finally fixed on the still-unconscious Silverfish.

“Let me do one last thing, Silverfish.”

The last remnants of the tumor tissue pushed into Silverfish’s body, appearing to draw on his strength. A Yi-5 Tour Guide’s energy would be enough to heal part of her injuries, and here in the depths of the Abyss, the Agency’s reach was still too limited to restrain her.

A sharp sound cut through the air.

The moment the Puppet Master moved, a flash of dark light came out of nowhere and split the woman’s body clean in two, tumor mass and all.

An expression of shock and disbelief was still fixed on the Puppet Master’s face as the tumor tissue writhed and seemed to reach for something. But the dark light was faster; when it fell a second time, the tumor’s lone eye caught a glimpse of what was descending, a jet-black, razor-sharp blade. And then—

A wet burst, like a water balloon popping.

The single eye on the tumor mass exploded, spraying thick, viscous fluid. The woman’s body with it shattered into countless fragments, something like minced meat, except, strangely, not a drop of blood flowed from it. There wasn’t even any cellular fluid.

And it was slowly fading away.

Only then did that quiet, brief sound of cold amusement come. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] A tall figure finally revealed itself, and only now did the tumor, nearly reduced to pulp, begin to tremble violently. She knew who had come after her.

A Principal. An actual Principal had come in person to finish her off.

How could it be a Principal? Surely it hadn’t come to this?

But then again, thank goodness. Thank goodness it was a Principal…

Her thoughts dissolved and gave way to darkness. The tumor pulp lost every last trace of life and energy, collapsing into a motionless heap of rotting flesh.

*** regarded the fading remnants of the Puppet Master with a quiet, steady gaze. The small white wolf pup poked its head out from inside his trench coat and looked at the scene before it with curiosity.

“Awoo?” Is she dead?

“She is dead, but not completely.” *** said.

“She won’t be coming back here.”

Hearing that, the wolf pup jumped down to the ground. Wei Xun shifted back into his human form, and in the next instant his bare body was wrapped in a trench coat that still held someone else’s warmth. Wearing An Xuefeng’s coat, Wei Xun walked over to Silverfish and crouched down to check on him. He had actually been here for some time already, he had hidden himself away when the Puppet Master said “why am I so unlucky” and stayed concealed from that point on.

An Xuefeng would have moved immediately, but *** had chosen to observe the situation first. The Puppet Master was a Jia-2 Tour Guide with more tricks than anyone expected, and she had Silverfish under her control too, she could not be underestimated.

Once Silverfish was fully visible and *** noticed the Puppet Master was about to move against him, he had struck the moment her attention was entirely fixed on Silverfish. But looking at things now…

“She’s gone to the West District.”

*** said. He pressed his lips together, his eyes dark and sunken, his expression carrying a faint shadow.

The East District’s “Puppet Master” had been killed by him. But the West District version of her had not died.

She had retreated to the West.

Principals were also divided between East and West; as an East District Principal, there were many restrictions on what he could do to West District people except during occasions like the Year-End Celebration. Getting around those restrictions was possible if he truly wanted to kill her completely, but…

*** moved to stand beside Wei Xun and the two of them looked down at the still-unconscious Silverfish. The Puppet Master had said let me do one last thing, Silverfish, and then sent the tumor tissue pushing into his body, apparently to drain his energy, which was why *** had struck immediately.

But looking at the situation now, it wasn’t what it had appeared to be.

“The tumor tissue has formed a bond with Silverfish.”

*** examined it briefly and understood at once, with a faint trace of surprise even for him.

“She gave Silverfish control of the tumor tissue.”

The vast majority of the tumor tissue had already been dissolved or cut apart by ***, but the tissue surrounding Silverfish still remained. It connected to Silverfish’s body and, unexpectedly, was quite calm and was gradually shifting to match Silverfish’s own aura.

But this was the Puppet Master’s tumor tissue, the product of a Jia-2 Tour Guide; it wasn’t something just anyone could absorb. Silverfish’s expression was already beginning to contort in pain. Fortunately, *** was there to suppress it with his presence.

This was also a form of leverage on her enemies, without *** present, Silverfish would eventually be unable to withstand the pressure and would simply die from the internal conflict.

But if all she had wanted was leverage, contaminating him with the tumor tissue alone would have accomplished that. There was no need to hand over control as well.

“She actually handed control of the tumor tissue to Silverfish?!”

Little Red, who had been brought along after his thorough lesson from ***, spoke with disbelief and barely concealed envy and more than a little sourness.

“Yes, master. I can feel it; this tumor tissue, or rather this contamination. Even the contamination inside my own body. It no longer belongs to the Puppet Master; Silverfish is controlling it now.”

What on earth was this?

Reverse-parasitizing the Puppet Master, seizing control of the tumor tissue, reviving himself through the Puppet Master’s body; that had been Little Red’s grand ambition.

And now not only was his ambition destroyed, but the control of the tumor tissue had been handed to someone else entirely.

Little Red couldn’t work it out, but Wei Xun already had a sense of what was happening.

The “Puppet Master” was the tumor, it originated from the person she lived within. As long as that person didn’t die, there was always a possibility of the Puppet Master returning. If she had prepared her retreat to the West District in advance, the Eastern identity could be temporarily abandoned.

But such an enormous quantity of power, the formidable tumor tissue of a Jia-2 Tour Guide, abandoning all of it was a terrible waste. If she kept it hidden herself, she would eventually be tracked down by An Xuefeng and the others in her injured state.

So, the Puppet Master had made a bold decision.

Transfer all of it to Silverfish.

The first reason was to tie down her enemies.

The second reason was that the tumor tissue’s power, once deeply fused with Silverfish, could not be stripped away cleanly without causing serious damage to him in the process. If he held this power, Silverfish’s strength would skyrocket; with Yi-3 Pinocchio now injured, Silverfish had a real chance of becoming the new Yi-3 Tour Guide.

With strong backing from Dreamchaser and the Fengdu Tour Team, becoming the new Jia-3 was even within the realm of possibility.

And once Silverfish rose to a high position, he would be even less willing to give up that tumor tissue.

In this way, the tumor tissue would be preserved.

“The Puppet Master must have some means of controlling the tumor tissue even at a distance.”

Wei Xun said with feeling.

Even if the tumor tissue currently belonged to Silverfish, who was to say the Puppet Master had no other tricks. The next time they met at the Year-End Celebration for instance, when the top Tour Guides of both districts would all be present, she might attempt to reclaim the tumor tissue in reverse, or seize control of Silverfish to reclaim her foothold in the East as quickly as possible.

It was an open scheme. If Silverfish could gain complete control of the tumor tissue himself, the Puppet Master’s calculations would come to nothing.

The problem was that there wasn’t much time. It was already October. If Silverfish rose to become the new Jia-3, they might see each other as early as November at the Year-End Celebration preliminary matches. Even if things moved slower, they would certainly meet again at the Year-End Celebration in December.

The Puppet Master was gambling; gambling that Silverfish would not gain complete mastery of the tumor tissue in such a short window.

She was also gambling that Dreamchaser would not strip the tumor tissue away from him.

Otherwise, Silverfish, severely drained and sharply reduced in power, would struggle to protect himself through everything that lay ahead.

But there was one thing she hadn’t accounted for.

They brought the still-unconscious Silverfish back to his Agency residence. It was already nine-thirty in the evening. An Xuefeng took his leave briefly; he needed to make another sweep of the Abyss node with the Tour Team captains who were departing at ten.

Wei Xun went to the Mutual Aid Alliance’s premises, to the most private room behind the main hall that belonged to him. The reassembled, cracked Sun charm hung on the wall. The Maine Coon kitten was curled up beside Wei Xun, its head resting on his leg and purring. Yu Hehui and Tong Hege sat across from him.

On the carpet in the middle of the room, laid flat and unconscious, was Silverfish.

The tumor tissue inside him had been temporarily suppressed by ***, and his surface wounds had been treated with tools, but he remained unconscious.

“Could he be part of the Evil Insect Master?”

Yu Hehui frowned as he asked. Hearing Wei Xun lay out the general picture, he thought Silverfish’s situation was genuinely precarious.

“There’s a great deal of this energy. It would roughly quintuple his current strength.”

Tong Hege examined Silverfish’s body carefully and arrived at his own assessment.

This was the strength of a Jia-2 Tour Guide. The Puppet Master had spent years in the shadows accumulating terrifying power.

Tour Guide rankings were based on points, and no matter how powerful you were, you couldn’t climb the ranks without leading tours and earning those points. For Jia-class and elite Yi-class Tour Guides, however, this rule wasn’t absolute.

At that level of standing, combined with overwhelming strength, a somewhat lower point count still allowed you to hold an elevated position.

“But he can only absorb one-fold of this power at most.”

Tong Hege shook his head all the same. All five-fold of it came from the tumor tissue, and Silverfish would find it nearly impossible to digest. If things reached that point, whether what remained was still Silverfish or had become something dominated by the tumor tissue would be a very open question.

Tong Hege carefully separated one small Silverfish from him, and sure enough, what had been a snow-white little fluff ball was now a sickly, fleshy-purple color, grotesquely misshapen and visibly warping further at a speed the naked eye could follow.

“Can it be peeled away? Remove the tumor tissue?”

“The Puppet Master bestowed this power on Silverfish. It cannot be extracted. Complete removal would destroy him.”

Tong Hege shook his head, rejecting the idea Wei Xun had just proposed.

“If it can’t be removed, can someone else absorb it?”

Wei Xun gave a slight nod and put forward another thought.

“She gave control of this power to Silverfish.”

Tong Hege repeated the sentence. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] How could anyone else absorb it? But as he thought it through, his expression shifted into something complex and intrigued.

“Exactly. That’s what I mean.”

Seeing that Tong Hege had caught on, Wei Xun smiled.

“Suppose when you were still in the process of dividing, the Puppet Master had given this power to the Tai Sui. Could the Fleeceflower Root Spirit and the Ginseng Spirit share in that power?”

Yes, the Puppet Master had given control to Silverfish, and no one else could use it.

But there were people to whom Silverfish was not “someone else” at all.

“This… in theory, it should be possible.”

Tong Hege considered for a moment.

“Though I find it hard to believe, in essence I am one person.”

“If four such people could share the burden, Silverfish’s mutation would be reduced to its minimum, and his power would still double without issue.”

But under normal circumstances, even after dying and being resurrected, who could fragment themselves this many times? This wasn’t fragmentation anymore, it was practically mincing.

But there was exactly one person who could do it, and that was the Evil Insect Master.

Wei Xun placed Boss Maggot’s cocoon against Silverfish’s body. The aura on the cocoon shifted rapidly until it was nearly indistinguishable from Silverfish’s. The tumor tissue on Silverfish probed at it experimentally for a moment, then attempted to envelop the cocoon as well. A surge of immense energy poured in, and the cocoon began to tremble faintly, showing signs of being on the verge of hatching.

So, it was viable.

Wei Xun allowed himself a small smile.

Boss Maggot had been stuck precisely because there wasn’t enough energy to break out of the cocoon. If Boss Maggot could hatch before they left for the Sahara, Wei Xun would have one more asset on hand. But he quickly noticed the signals Boss Maggot was sending him shifting from excitement to panic; the tumor tissue was invading aggressively, contaminating its energy at a rate Boss Maggot had absolutely no power to resist.

If this continued, what hatched from the cocoon would probably be a small tumor creature.

Wei Xun withdrew Boss Maggot, and sure enough it was exactly as Tong Hege had said. One or two people alone could not bear the weight of this contamination.

But that was fine.

Boss Maggot alone wasn’t enough but add the Beekeeper and Little Red to the mix, and perhaps together they could manage it. That was already three people. The Evil Insect Master had likely divided himself further than that; An Xuefeng had told Wei Xun that Boss Maggot and Little Red together only accounted for about one-eighth of the Evil Insect Master.

Even now with Little Red having absorbed the Hair Ghost, and even counting Boss Maggot in his complete form alongside Wu Laoliu, there were almost certainly other fragments of the Evil Insect Master still out there somewhere.

Besides Wei Xun and Captain Wu, the person who understood this best was probably Dreamchaser.

“Four would be safer.”

Tong Hege advised. Wei Xun thought it over and made his decision. He looked at Yu Hehui.

“Contact Dreamchaser.”

******

Dreamchaser had long since lost count of how many nights he’d gone without sleep.

Major events kept coming one after another. The Puppeteer’s possible return. A possible discovery of his fragment. The possibility that Bing-1 was carrying a pure Abyss aura. The butterfly fragment surfacing. An Xuefeng and *** possibly moving toward fusion. The Puppet Master disappearing from the Agency. Silverfish disappearing.

Dreamchaser was beginning to feel the early symptoms of dropping dead on the spot, especially when he looked at the Tour Guide rankings and saw the Puppet Master’s name go grey.

Jia-2 Tour Guide the Puppet Master was dead.

He was now the new Jia-2.

But the news of his promotion brought him not a single shred of joy. His vision went dark. He swore out loud before he could stop himself.

“An Xuefeng, you absolute bastard!”

It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. They had agreed on ten o’clock departure, and the Puppet Master was already dead at nine-thirty? Did anyone actually believe that wasn’t unilateral action on his part? Was he supposed to think she had just spontaneously dropped dead?

It was absolutely someone’s doing, and Dreamchaser had no trouble at all identifying whose.

“Captain Wu is coming; intercept him.”

There was no time for more. Dreamchaser called out a quick instruction to Zhang Xingcang and stepped out the door. The small fluff ball of Silverfish in his arms was making weak, plaintive sounds; this was the Silverfish that had been separated out earlier and entrusted to him for safekeeping, a part that carried no contamination whatsoever.

But now this little ball was starting to turn grey-violet, its surface fur shedding, beginning to resemble tumor tissue in its mutation. A blue-violet glow fell across it; Dreamchaser’s dream energy, barely enough to hold the transformation in check.

Something had clearly gone wrong with Silverfish. Dreamchaser was beside himself with worry. If Captain Wu found out about this, he would probably go berserk with panic, but Dreamchaser wasn’t comfortable handing the small Silverfish fluff ball over to Captain Wu right now.

He went directly to Return’s premises, but on the way he received a message from Yu Hehui and immediately changed course for the Mutual Aid Alliance instead.

When he arrived at the Mutual Aid Alliance’s premises, Dreamchaser finally saw the unconscious Silverfish for himself.

“…That’s the situation.”

Yu Hehui gave him the broad strokes, and Dreamchaser’s gaze finally moved away from Silverfish and fell on what Bing-1 was holding.

It was a cocoon, and whatever was inside it looked close to hatching. The surface of the cocoon was stained with smears of grey-violet contamination.

“This is Wu Laoliu.” Bing-1 said evenly.

“He can’t take on a share of the contamination from Silverfish.”

“But isn’t there still—”

Isn’t there still the Beekeeper?

Dreamchaser nearly said it aloud, but Bing-1’s tone made him understand.

This level of contaminating force was not something one or two or three people could simply divide between themselves. If the balance was off, they might all end up with the tumor power dominating them instead.

The Beekeeper and Wu Laoliu both appeared to be utterly loyal to Bing-1 at this point, but Silverfish’s situation was clearly different. He was a Yi-5 Tour Guide with a deep bond to Captain Wu, and a friend to Dreamchaser.

This wasn’t like a normal resurrection. For someone as suspicious as Bing-1, he would certainly weigh the costs and benefits before committing.

He had brought Yu Hehui and Tong Hege back.

But rescuing Silverfish, or rather, resurrecting the Evil Insect Master, was something he was still weighing. That was understandable. Three was a threshold number, and bringing him back would involve dangers and resistance far beyond the previous resurrections. Beyond that, even within Return there were people not yet resurrected; Tong Hele’s whereabouts were still unknown. So why spend energy on the Evil Insect Master first?

Boss Maggot and the Beekeeper were already useful enough. The Evil Insect Master was an unknown quantity. Did Wei Xun actually want to resurrect him?

There was the assistance Silverfish had provided before, and the fact that he had been rescued tonight, and that *** had personally stepped in to suppress the mutation inside him; *** and An Xuefeng were not the same, and Dreamchaser understood this perfectly well. *** having acted at all was almost certainly a favor done for Bing-1’s sake, and that debt could be considered settled.

Setting sentiment aside, looking purely at costs and benefits.

“Silverfish’s condition is quite serious.”

After a brief pause, Dreamchaser exhaled slowly and became serious.

“I imagine you’ve noticed, he is a Tour Guide recognized by the Agency.”

He could earn titles and had reached the Yi-5 position; Silverfish was unquestionably a Tour Guide operating within the Agency’s established framework.

“But he is also part of the Evil Insect Master.”

Dreamchaser began laying out the past.

“Compared to Tourists, Tour Guides accumulate points slowly, and rise in rank slowly. Especially at the mid-to-high levels, the rankings look as though they never change. But in his case, his rate of accumulating points was actually not slow at all.”

“In the Agency, many Tour Guides maintain puppets, or operate under two or even multiple identities; some can even run multiple journeys simultaneously. I’m one of them. This could be called a loophole in the Agency’s system, or something the Agency deliberately leaves open for Tour Guides to exploit.”

Tourists and Tour Guides were wildly unproportioned in number, and the higher the level, the smaller each group got; usually within ten people. There weren’t enough Tour Guides to go around, so the Agency turned a blind eye to this practice of running puppet identities.

But at the beginning, no one had dared try it. What if it violated Agency rules and you got killed for it? The vast majority of Tour Guides valued their lives considerably.

“The Evil Insect Master was the first person to do it.” Dreamchaser said.

“He possessed many Abyss nodes and formed bonds with numerous powerful Demonic Insect type Abyss creatures. He had, in effect, multiple distinct alienated forms.”

These were events from many years ago, but Dreamchaser’s voice still carried a note of genuine astonishment as he spoke of it.

“And then at some point, no one knows how he managed it, he actually peeled away one of his alienated forms and caused it to obtain independent recognition from the Agency, with its own established identity.”

Hearing this, Wei Xun’s interest sharpened at once. This was essentially a variant of the Puppet Master’s situation, except what the Puppet Master had done was clearly nothing as extreme as what the Evil Insect Master had pulled off. She had ultimately remained together with her original self; one person with two identities. The Evil Insect Master had literally become two separate people.

“This was all secret at the time, even Captain Wu, who was bonded to him, knew very little. I only found out myself through a particular series of coincidences.”

Dreamchaser shook his head. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] What had the Evil Insect Master been trying to achieve with all of this? Was it simply to accumulate more points, earn more ranks faster? Or was there some deeper purpose? But in any case…

“He violated the Agency rules.”Dreamchaser said.

This was different from using puppet identities. In theory the Evil Insect Master was one person, but in practice his alienated forms could become virtually identical to him in aura. Wei Xun understood at once. An Xuefeng had told him before that when a person’s identity was registered with the Agency, the Agency extracted a sample of their aura and that was the basis for everything from the posters to the Agency’s control over Tourists and Tour Guides.

So, what would happen if two people appeared with nearly identical auras?

And thinking even further; had the Evil Insect Master been trying to use this to eventually deceive the Agency entirely, and escape it?

“Whatever his goal, he failed.”

Dreamchaser said with a meaningful expression.

“But he also caused the largest single breakdown the Agency has ever experienced. The chaos from that event took half a month to fully settle.”

“My suspicion, and many people share it, is that the Evil Insect Master may have glimpsed something of the Agency’s true nature. He may even have left contingency measures.”

Otherwise, why hadn’t Captain Wu died when the Evil Insect Master died? Many suspected the Evil Insect Master was still alive somewhere, perhaps tucked away in some corner of the Abyss. Especially his alienated forms; by the end, they had become effectively indistinguishable from ordinary people.

The Hair Ghost that the Puppet Master had resurrected from the Abyss had, upon resurrection, quickly obtained Agency recognition and established its own official identity within the Agency. It was from that observation that the Puppet Master’s suspicions had grown.

She hadn’t been entirely certain about Silverfish, because his rank was genuinely high; he operated almost directly under the Agency’s eye. But Silverfish’s bond with Captain Wu served as a kind of confirmation.

The Hair Ghost’s stubborn, persistent hostility toward the Beekeeper also suggested the Beekeeper might carry a similar possibility.

The Puppet Master had ultimately remained preoccupied with the Sun charm situation and hadn’t investigated this side of things deeply. Dreamchaser knew roughly as much as Captain Wu at this point. “Silverfish, the Beekeeper, the Hair Ghost, Wu Laoliu, and a West District A-4 infected individual; they’re all him. That’s what I know, though I can’t say with certainty whether that’s all of him.”

So, there was also an A-4 infected individual.

Wei Xun was genuinely impressed. The Evil Insect Master had truly penetrated everywhere; the East District, the West District, the Abyss, and multiple journeys. His reach was everywhere.

How would someone like that be resurrected? Could he even be resurrected?

“Setting everything else aside, Silverfish saved my life, and I owe him one. As for resurrecting the Evil Insect Master, that’s not something I have thoughts on either way.”

Coming back to the matter at hand, Dreamchaser said plainly.

“My original promise to him was to deal with the Puppet Master and help him leave the Shepherd Alliance.”

But there was no longer a Puppet Master or a Shepherd Alliance.

“I’m going to save him. That’s certain.”

Dreamchaser said with conviction, then fell into thought.

“I can take you to the Death Sahara tomorrow, or the day after, either works.”

They were departing for the Death Sahara tomorrow, but Dreamchaser was considering that Bing-1 might not have time to prepare in too much of a rush, so he was leaving the window open a little wider.

“But right now, the problem is that there aren’t enough people.”

Wei Xun said it plainly. Boss Maggot, Little Red, and the Beekeeper alone could not fully absorb Silverfish’s contamination, they might even end up being contaminated in reverse. After all, each of their individual strengths was below Silverfish’s, and their capacity to endure was lower.

As Tong Hege had suggested, four people would be more reliable, and Wei Xun was inclined to think even that might not be enough.

If the balance tipped the wrong way and the tumor tissue ended up dominant, they would effectively be breeding a reserve force for the Puppet Master.

But if this problem could be solved, Wei Xun genuinely wanted to try. The tumor tissue was, after all, extraordinary nourishment.

Having the Beekeeper, Little Red, and Boss Maggot all double in strength was a tremendously appealing prospect.

“If the Hair Ghost is also on your side, one more person would make it work.”

Hearing that Bing-1 was willing, Dreamchaser smiled immediately, a look of sly satisfaction crossing his face.

“There’s one more person I can bring here right now.”

“The A-4 infected individual?”

Wei Xun was curious, but Dreamchaser shook his head.

“That person is a bit of a complication. But that’s not who I mean.”

A quarter of an hour later, Captain Wu appeared inside the Mutual Aid Alliance.

The person Dreamchaser had been referring to was Captain Wu himself. Captain Wu had a deep-level bond with Silverfish, which made their auras essentially identical at the core. He could take on a share of the contamination too, and as a Tourist, he could absorb considerably more than any Tour Guide.

After paying out a substantial quantity of points, local specialties, tools, and materials, Captain Wu signed a series of contracts with the Mutual Aid Alliance with a stony face, and finally became a Knight. Once he was one of their own, the conversation was easier. When he saw the group of “people” Bing-1 produced, Captain Wu’s eyes went briefly blank.

The unconscious Silverfish was propped against his shoulder, his state concealed by a mask and cloak so no one could see he was out cold. The young and handsome Little Red, the Hair Ghost, wore an expression of guileless curiosity, smiling at him. The Beekeeper had golden eyes and a cold expression, examining him with a measured look. Boss Maggot’s cocoon sat in Captain Wu’s hands, carefully cradled.

Wei Xun, Dreamchaser, and Captain Wu had reached a quiet understanding among themselves; they were keeping the Beekeeper in the dark about his own true identity for now. Silverfish too had always been kept in the dark about this; knowing it offered him no real benefit, and only added the risk of drawing more scrutiny from the Agency.

This was, as Wei Xun framed it, a gathering of Demonic Insects and Demonic Insect-type Tour Guides.

He even released Little Jade, the Responsibility Demonic Insect, and Baby Corn. The Beekeeper understood at once and released his own Abyss Insect No. 1. The greedy Baby Corn, for the first time, was visibly far more interested in No. 1 than in anything else, nosing around it with shameless curiosity. Since it was too large and getting in the way, Wei Xun simply let it go off to one side and do as it pleased.

Then Wei Xun produced the Abyss Bell, and turned the lights off.

On the surface this was explained as the Puppeteer having appeared and bestowed a gift of pure Abyss energy. But in substance, under the cover of that Abyss energy, in the impenetrable darkness, they were gathered around Silverfish having a proper feast. Midway through the feast, Silverfish woke up.

Silverfish: ?

What had happened? His last memory was of being knocked unconscious by the Puppet Master, and that had still been during the day. How was it dark now? Was it already night?

“That’s enough for now.”

Dreamchaser was keeping track of things, and when everyone had eaten their fill, he called a stop. No one objected, especially the Beekeeper, who was unusually quiet.

He was still reeling.

Jia-1 the Puppeteer had appeared. Jia-2 the Puppet Master was dead. The former Jia-3 Dreamchaser was now the new Jia-2.

The entire Agency forum was in an uproar. The private Tour Guide group chats were flooded with messages. No one in the Agency would be sleeping tonight; every single person was discussing who the new Jia-class Tour Guide would be.

The perpetual Yi-1 Weeping Medium? Yin-Yang Butterfly, who had publicly defected to the Mutual Aid Alliance today? Or Pinocchio? But the latter was unlikely. The eternally fourth-place Yi-4, Rune Guide? Yi-5 Silverfish?

Theories were flying everywhere, the debates nonstop. But the Beekeeper’s mind was somewhere else entirely. When Bing-1 had summoned him to the Mutual Aid Alliance earlier, every muscle in his body had been wound tight. Tense with nerves, buzzing with excitement.

He had been completely convinced that Bing-1 was going to tell him: I’ve reached Jia-3.

Which would have meant he could have started organizing a ceremony tomorrow to celebrate the Vice President’s promotion to Jia-class, and then collected another handsome round of tribute.

Well. Clearly that had been wishful thinking. Bing-1 hadn’t jumped three ranks in one go after all. The invitation had been for a meal. And while the Beekeeper had started eating with little enthusiasm and a distracted mind, he was quickly shaken to his core by the sheer, overwhelming force of what was being consumed.

What, what was this?

Pure Abyss energy? No, it wasn’t. This was not pure Abyss energy.

The Beekeeper was someone who paid close attention to his surroundings, and the moment he focused his senses, a cold shock ran through him.

This wildly proliferating, uncontrolled energy. This terrifying, formidable Abyss aura. This contaminating force that felt impossible to resist.

And then he thought about the Puppet Master, freshly dead…

He, he wasn’t eating the Puppet Master, was he?

What other kind of “meal” would require Dreamchaser, Captain Wu, Yu Hehui, and Tong Hege all simultaneously holding the line?

Even if it wasn’t the Puppet Master herself, it was absolutely energy directly connected to her.

After the initial shock passed, a blazing, almost feverish light broke through the Beekeeper’s eyes. Eat; it could all be eaten. He could feel his own strength surging upward at a visible rate. Before long, his power had nearly doubled compared to what it had been.

At his current strength, he could go through the top twenty Yi-class Tour Guides and not break a sweat.

The Beekeeper’s heart was full to bursting. Before joining the Mutual Aid Alliance, who could have imagined that he, the Beekeeper, would ever reach a day like this? Women fear marrying the wrong man; men fear choosing the wrong path. Joining the Mutual Aid Alliance was the single most correct decision he had made in his entire life.

The Hair Ghost, the Puppet Master, the Shepherd Alliance, the Truth Alliance; in the Beekeeper’s eyes right now, none of it was worth worrying about. Bing-1 was Jia-1’s little brother, his linked Tourist was the number one Tourist, and his good friend was the new Jia-2. Following someone like this, the future was something worth looking forward to.

Thinking of Silverfish sitting with his head propped against Captain Wu’s shoulder throughout the meal, the Beekeeper’s chest swelled with feeling.

So, what if you’re a Yi-5 Tour Guide? So, what if your linked Tourist is the captain of the fourth Tour Team? You still needed Captain Wu to pay his way into the Mutual Aid Alliance as a Knight just to get Silverfish a taste of the Puppet Master. Small thinking. Narrow ambitions. The future was with Bing-1, with this Mutual Aid Alliance.

Maybe Baby Corn and No. 1 were meant for each other. Should he look into bringing them closer? Either way, investing in Bing-1 was a guaranteed return. The Beekeeper walked away with a light, confident step, full of optimism about what was ahead.

Captain Wu walked away with equal confidence.

Everything that had been conjecture before was now more or less confirmed. The Beekeeper, the Hair Ghost, and Boss Maggot; all fragments of the Evil Insect Master. Add in Wu Laoliu in the Tusi King Tomb, the West District’s A-4 infected individual, and possibly a few smaller odds and ends, and the majority of the Evil Insect Master had now been found.

Bing-1 really was something.

Not only had he brought back Tong Hege and Yu Hehui, but he had located this many pieces of the Evil Insect Master in such a short time; efficiency that rivaled years of Captain Wu’s own efforts. It was enough to make Captain Wu genuinely, wholeheartedly impressed.

“Bing-1 is really something.”

On the way back, Captain Wu said to Dreamchaser with feeling.

“What a shame he bonded with An Xuefeng.”

Was the name “number one Tourist” really that powerful? How did all the most outstanding people end up gravitating toward An Xuefeng? A Tour Guide as exceptional as Bing-1; it absolutely wasn’t his fault. The blame lay entirely with An Xuefeng for being so irresistible.

“If only Bing-1 had gone to Metaphysics.”

Captain Wu sighed. Fengdu had Silverfish; Bing-1 going there would be an indulgence. Metaphysics was the better fit; back when the Evil Insect Master was still around, Metaphysics had been number one, and the Evil Insect Master was always pushing Captain Wu to work harder and climb to the top.

But what was the point of being number one? The number one Tour Team had no resident Tour Guide and was constantly under the Agency’s watch and supervision. The Evil Insect Master had too many small secrets to make going for the top worthwhile. Captain Wu had never been interested in it, and he still wasn’t; though he did have a faint, complicated feeling toward Metaphysics.

Every time he encountered an exceptional Tour Guide, he had the urge to tell them: go to Metaphysics. Hurry up and fill that spot before someone else gets any ideas about the resident Tour Guide position.

Dreamchaser, for his part, had absolutely no interest in listening to Captain Wu ramble on. Years ago, when Zhang Xingcang disappeared, there had been a rare chance encounter with Captain Wu after several years apart. The man had said with a completely straight face that a Tour Guide didn’t need to keep vigil for a Tourist, that Zhang Xingcang surely wouldn’t want him to live like this, and why not go to Metaphysics; and Dreamchaser had been so furious he had given him six months of nonstop nightmares.

He honestly had no idea how Silverfish put up with him.

“If anything comes up, come find me.”

Before they parted ways, Dreamchaser gave Silverfish a final reminder.

“Ideally tonight. Tomorrow I’ll be gone, and if anything happens after that… you can go find Bing-1.”

Whether absorbing the Puppet Master’s contamination would cause other problems down the line, even with Captain Wu added to the group, the contamination each of them had taken on was within a manageable range, even slightly below what Dreamchaser had anticipated, which suggested it was safe. But he still wasn’t fully at ease.

If it weren’t for the Sahara departure tomorrow, he would definitely have kept Silverfish with him.

Telling someone to go find Bing-1 if anything came up, and saying it from Dreamchaser’s mouth, felt completely natural. Bing-1 was nominally a Bing-class Tour Guide, but Dreamchaser had already placed him on an equal footing without thinking about it.

Bing-1 really is exceptional.

Dreamchaser thought. This generation’s rising Tour Guide was genuinely in a class of its own, a cut above everything else. Even Wei Xun, who had joined Return as a rising Tourist, was very good, but compared to Bing-1, there was still a subtle gap in a certain quality.

Logically, a rising Tour Guide and a rising Tourist tended to be well-matched. Under ordinary circumstances, if Bing-1 hadn’t entered any major Tour Team but was instead looking for a Tourist to bond with, there was a very real chance Bing-1 would have ended up bonding with Wei Xun.

And then An Xuefeng had wedged himself between them.

Just thinking about An Xuefeng put Dreamchaser in an inexplicably irritable mood. Setting aside his strength and his other qualities, when it came to matters of the heart, Captain An was truly, genuinely… ah.

He had heard from Qi Le’chen that Wei Xun’s eyes were red when he came back today. Dreamchaser made a mental note to keep a closer eye on Wei Xun once they reached the Sahara. Honestly, he still wasn’t entirely sold on bringing Wei Xun along, especially after what had just happened.

Young people were most prone to recklessness when their hearts were unsettled. But in a Latitude 30 Degrees journey, not even a moment of carelessness was acceptable.

******

Wei Xun made his way back to Return, his expression a little odd. Little Red was perceptive; he had noticed Wei Xun’s coolness toward him and the warmth Wei Xun showed toward Boss Maggot and the Beekeeper throughout the meal, and had been carefully observing all evening. Something had clicked into place for him, and he finally understood.

But Wei Xun had no attention to spare for Little Red’s attempts to show loyalty. Because Dreamchaser had been right about something.

The Puppet Master’s tumor energy should have been enough to be divided evenly among Captain Wu, Silverfish, Little Red, Boss Maggot, and the Beekeeper; but a portion had gone missing.

That missing portion had been absorbed by Wei Xun.

Wei Xun genuinely hadn’t expected to be able to absorb any of it. He wasn’t a fragment of the Evil Insect Master; his aura was nothing like theirs. What quality in him had allowed him to take in the contamination from Silverfish?

Tracing it back, Wei Xun thought of the butterfly fragment he had taken from the Puppet Master.

Back in his room, he handed the nearly-hatching Boss Maggot over to Yu Hehui to watch, then took off his shirt.

Sure enough, the butterfly tattoo surfaced on his chest; the blue-violet butterfly, strikingly beautiful, and this time it lingered unusually long, still present after five minutes.

Wei Xun examined it for a while but came to no particular conclusion. While the tattoo was still visible, he drew several vials of blood and set them aside for future use. By the time An Xuefeng came back, Wei Xun was visibly paler in the face and drinking down a recovery agent in large gulps. A single glance told An Xuefeng exactly what Wei Xun had been doing.

“Drink this instead.”

He produced a higher-grade blood recovery agent, and the moment Wei Xun drank it his color flooded back.

“Get your body in order. Once we’re in the Sahara, a lot of tools won’t work.” An Xuefeng said.

“Wang Yushu can only replicate a few kinds of medicine.”

“Can he replicate motion sickness pills?”

Wei Xun said it with a teasing lilt.

“Honestly, I do get a little motion sick.”

The team briefing that normally would have happened tonight at Return had been pushed back; the news of Jia-2 the Puppet Master’s death was simply too enormous to compete with. The briefing was moved to tomorrow morning, October 3rd.

Once the briefing was done, they would head to the airport at around nine in the morning to board a flight to Marrakech in the Kingdom of Morocco in North Africa, a journey of roughly twenty-seven hours, after which they would make their way to Dreamchaser’s safehouse in Merzouga, a small desert town near the Sahara.

It was Wei Xun’s first time leaving the country through such conventional means since entering the Agency, and he found it oddly novel.

“You don’t have an Agency passport yet.”

An Xuefeng explained. Wei Xun had joined Return, but he hadn’t participated in a single journey with them yet, so some of the associated benefits would only be finalized after they completed a journey together.

“Is Dreamchaser also taking the flight with us?”

“Yes.”

“Oh?”

Wei Xun had asked it casually, but An Xuefeng actually gave him a positive answer. Which meant he would get to meet Dreamchaser in person, in the real world.

“Zhang Xingcang is coming along too.”

An Xuefeng explained.

“Zhang Xingcang is currently something of an off-the-books entity in the Agency, so he can travel by normal means as well.”

This time the trip counted as a private excursion; no Agency-designated itinerary, no required scenic spot objectives.

The only Agency task was:【Explore the Death Sahara.】

An Xuefeng seemed to be thinking something through. He first frowned and examined the butterfly tattoo on Wei Xun’s chest, then gave him a thorough physical check-up, and by the time he confirmed there were no major problems, it was already eleven-thirty.

Time for bed.

The two of them went to wash up in turn. By the time Wei Xun came out of the bathroom, An Xuefeng had already finished and was standing right at the door, his tall frame almost completely blocking the way. Something like stars shifted in the depths of his quiet gaze.

“The Death Sahara exploration progress is already at the halfway point, which means I’ll drop into the dangerous zone immediately upon entering.”

An Xuefeng said seriously.

“The gap between your current level and mine is quite large, so you’ll likely appear separately in a relatively safer zone. I’ve already cleared most of the original risks from the safe zone, and I’ll find you as quickly as I can, but…”

But the state of the butterfly fragment inside Wei Xun was unusual, and An Xuefeng was still uneasy.

“Let our bond go a little deeper first.”

He lowered his head, his presence wrapping around Wei Xun entirely, and a burning kiss landed on the cold tip of his nose.

“Let me take you to see…”

“The cemetery from my memories.”