Chapter 5

Hunting legally (Arc 1)

The Escape 05

Xin Lan had never really figured out exactly how their headquarters existed, at first when she was a newcomer she would have been curious, later on it was a desire to know more about the core.

But no one knows the result.

Not even knowing why they are here and why they are assigned to this department, the assignment is directly on the system.

If the system were to be asked how they were made, they would reply that it was how they were made.

Various personalities and appearances, after too many worlds, Xin Lan had given up pursuing the issue.

There was no point.

There was a reward for every mission completed, and that reward was the ability to choose for yourself what way it was.

Some are to improve physical fitness, enhance memory, money, etc., some are to be able to take as long a holiday as they want, and some are to return to reality.

Xin Lan had a colleague who just kept doing missions just so she could spend more time in reality with her family.

Not only human souls can come here, Xin Lan’s colleagues include mountain spirits, demons, vampires and others, each with their own oddities.

Xin Lan only used her reward once, to go back to her original planet to see how the Empire turned out in the end.

The Empire was badly damaged in that war, but she also took a heavy toll on her opponent’s main ship at the cost of her death, the Empire uncovered the traitor, and, in a period of national recovery, her name, Xin Lan, was included in the Imperial Chronicle, so there seemed little need to stay there any longer.

She took the rewards done out of the various worlds afterwards to augment her abilities, though after she came within the mission world, she would be subject to some limitations.

As far as the real world Xin Lan is concerned, she already has a physicality that can be compared to a superhero. Entering the first world with weakened powers, she used three parts of her power to beat up the scum, who was only seriously injured.

If she was in her original state with three parts of her strength, the scum would have been whacked into the wall and unable to even gouge himself out.

Zero Nine: The host is awesome! Where are you going though?

Xin Lan: During the legal hunt, hunting, of course.

Xin Lan’s figure faded into the night and disappeared at the end of the path.

Zero Nine smacked his lips and sighed infinitely.

She remembered her first two hosts, which were completely different from this one, really they came from another department, their style was just straightforward.

Xin Lan: What’s with the tsking?

It’s a bit irritating to be alone at night, sighing and tsking in your own head.

Zero Nine: I remembered the host I had before.

Xin Lan had already walked up to the school building, which was dark and unlit.

There was a particular sense of terror about the school at night, and the doors of the open school building looked like wide open mouths, filled with ooze.

Xin Lan pressed herself against the wall and walked up the stairs, hearing Zero Nine’s words and telling her to kankan.

Zero Nine: My first host was a delicate fox spirit with a soft body, that person hooked up with people and beat their faces in a matter of minutes, and could have gotten a better man to give her a hard time at any time, but in the end it got out of hand.

Xin Lan: How so?

Xin Lan was a little interested, the taskmaster could not be said to be omnipotent in the world, but also subject to many restrictions, playing off is accidentally destroying the world?

This was a major job mistake and would result in a heavy penalty, not to mention the deduction of money for the rest of the shift and mandatory counselling sessions and other supervision.

Xin Lan was the one who always remembered who she was and did not do such a thing, she had little interest in destroying the world, but a colleague had done it and made Xin Lan aware of the punishment regulations.

Zero Nine: Fox spirit, as you know, is by nature more licentious, catching one and dumping the other, she spent all her rewards on her own blooming beauty, in some quest world, was tied up by several natives jointly, the thing can lock the soul, I can’t save it, she had to stay there.

Zero Nine said this with some melancholy, but in truth she wasn’t quite able to understand why her host was trying to make a fool of herself, acting as if she couldn’t live without a man had given her a misguided mindset, and it was still strange to see her second host not trying to catch a man, a notion that was eventually corrected by her second host.

Zero Nine: The second host I had was a human, and according to human society, she was severely misogynistic, hitting her face all on her own, played a great game of scheming, and was ruthless in her actions.

Xin Lan: So how did you replace her for me?

The first day of the game was a disaster.

The first day I took over the system, I met a new speed of failure and was scared of the host.

Xin Lan: In love? With a female, huh?

The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you’re getting into.

A painful person who thinks out of the box, too.

Xin Lan sighed in her heart after hearing this, and had already walked to the third floor.

Zero Nine: Host, what are you doing here, there is no one here.

Xin Lan gestured for her to be quiet and tumbled in through the window.

The next day, everyone was quite cowardly, no one came to the school building.

The reason why she came was to see what was in the classroom.

There were classes during the day and there were a lot of people, so it was definitely not a good idea to rummage around.

Although there might not be any clues, it would be a good idea to do it as a pre-hunt scouting activity.

Xin Lan left the lights on and looked at the classroom furnishings through the moonlight outside.

Plain classroom, chandeliers, fans, blackboards, whiteboards, slogans on top of the classroom ………

Xin Lan’s eyes stopped at the slogan, which during the daytime should have read ‘Heavenly Rewards’ and ‘Self-improvement’, but now on the other side it was ‘Self-improvement’, which had been altered One character, not really an alteration, but a change from simplified to traditional Chinese.

Nobody stays in the classroom after school, this handiwork would definitely not be done by the three hundred and ninety-nine students here, only the so-called ‘rules’ aka NPCs.

Zero Nine: Host, I-I-I’m a little scared.

Zero Nine hugged his little yellow rooster pillow tightly in the system space, although it is a materialist, but how to think how strange it is to suddenly be replaced with a word slogan in an empty classroom in the middle of the night, right?

Xin Lan was so calm that she even moved her desk and chair and stepped on it to reach the word, slowly tearing it away from the bottom by a corner.

Something landed in her palm, and Xin Lan squeezed it, pasted the word back, wiped the footprints clean after restoring the table and chair, and sat down, looking at the object in her hand by the light.

It was a stiff paper card, the texture of which resembled the game cards children played with.

There was a line of writing printed on it.

[Clue Card]: Use it silently during a legal hunt to obtain one clue that fits.

Xin Lan immediately used it, and the card disappeared from her hand, replaced by a clue fragment.

Xin Lan took out her other two, and sure enough this one had the same pattern as her own original one.

Xin Lan pieced it together, and nothing came out.

It looked like a torn map, but the paper was peculiar, and at least it could not be torn, it was very soft.

Xin Lan put the three clues in her pocket and went back the way she had come.

She had just wanted to see if anything would happen today, preferably to hunt for fallen prey, but everyone was cautiously hugging each other, but it was good to have an unexpected surprise.

There must be more than one surprise hidden in this school, and she would probably have missed this one if she hadn’t been so habitually observant.

It was just not clear whether this was the kindness of the ‘rules’ or a much deeper trap.

Xin Lan’s original plan had been to look through all these places, but she had not expected to make an unexpected discovery at all.

She wondered if there would be something like this inside the other classrooms, her instincts told her there was, but again, years of experience told her not to go there.

Xin Lan was not a greedy person either, she always felt that if she collected several of these things at once today, she might die a violent death tomorrow.

The word ‘strong’, the one she had taken out as a clue, had now been restored to its original form.

Seeing this, she wasn’t about to keep it until 12 o’clock.

The end of the hunt was at twelve o’clock and Xin Lan always thought that something would change after that, but she had got a clue and the place where the clue was hidden had been restored to its original state.

To be on the safe side, she decided to leave.

Again, Xin Lan jumped down the corridor to the ground, giving Zero Nine the fright that her host was going to jump off the building.

Xin Lan returned to the dormitory and knocked on the door.

Xiaochun opened the door for her, and the moment she saw Xin Lan it was as if she had seen some kind of saviour, almost crying with joy.

Xin Lan lifted the basin up and put it in, and saw a girl sitting on a chair wiping the blood from her head.

No wonder Xiaochun had that look on her face, she was afraid that this person would come back to rob her of what she was carrying.

The girl took one look at Xin Lan, but she didn’t dare to show any resentment, so she kept her eyes downcast and went about her business.

Xin Lan arranged the things one by one, took the basin with the laundry detergent and prepared to go and wash the clothes.

Xiaochun followed behind Xin Lan with the basin in her shaking hands, and Xin Lan didn’t mind, but when she closed the door, she said something to her.

“Are you so scared?”

Xiaochun nodded and clutched the basin in her hand.

“She’s already hurt, you don’t have to be so scared of her.”

“I’m afraid she’ll go crazy, she doesn’t have a clue anymore, and I’m afraid she’ll try to rob me.”

Xiaochun said honestly.

“You’re not afraid I’m going to rob you?”

“I ………”

Xiaochun hesitated for a moment, but still didn’t pull away from Xin Lan.

“Give it to anyone but her, if you want it I can give it to you, just don’t hit me.” Xiaochun said after a moment of thought, but the last sentence was a whisper.

Zero Nine: Pfft.

Did her Host look that vicious?

“Just keep it for yourself for now.” Xin Lan hid the obscurity in her eyes and walked to the Water Room.

Deal with the vicious dogs in the crowd first, and don’t worry if the rest of the sheep will misbehave.

————

What the author has to say:

Zero Nine’s changes to dislike people on the system network↓↓

Initially: there are many men who are crazy about my host, your host is a rookie!

Later: what’s the big deal about seducing men, my host is a high-powered man-hater, and your hosts are all different!

Now: What’s the pride in men going crazy for her? I can beat ten of those men with one, cut!

Other systems: ????

——–

T/N: 

Kankan 侃侃 (kǎnkǎn): to possess assurance and composure

licentious 放荡不羁 (fàngdàngbùjī): wanton and unrestrained (idiom); dissolute