Chapter 20: Oh Crap! I’ve Blown Everything Sky-High!
—Do you really not understand what “wife” actually means?
The question hovered on the tip of Feng Xun’s tongue, but after a moment’s deliberation, he swallowed it back down.
If this was a glitch left behind by the system’s brainwashing, explaining it wouldn’t necessarily make the boy understand anyway. After all, some things couldn’t be explained clearly in just a sentence or two.
He would observe a little longer.
“…It’s nothing,” Feng Xun said, reaching out to smooth the bow on the boy’s top hat with casual nonchalance. “The ribbon was just a bit messy.”
Jian Tang didn’t suspect a thing. Without pressing further, he turned back to discuss the paid promotional photoshoot with the shop staff.
Half an hour later, having changed back into his casual clothes, Jian Tang left the boutique in high spirits, carrying two large garment boxes.
Feng Xun offered to carry them, but Jian Tang flatly refused.
“How can I trouble my wife with this kind of thing?” The boy declared with immense pride. “I know I’m a bit short and look skinnier than you, but don’t look down on me—I’m actually very strong! In the future, you won’t have to lift a finger for any dirty or heavy work around the house. Leave it all to me.”
His tone and posture gave Feng Xun the sudden, comical illusion of a scrawny little animal cub standing before a massive adult beast, flailing its tiny limbs and showing off nonexistent muscles. It was a bit ridiculous, and yet… rather cute.
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with that,” Feng Xun said, suppressing a smile as he adopted a deadpan tone. “Your line of thinking is outdated. That’s not how labor is divided in a modern household.”
The little monster, who knew next to nothing about normal human families, was instantly intimidated. “R-Really?”
“Yes.” Feng Xun smoothly took the two heavy boxes from the boy’s hands. “Nowadays, it’s all about equality and shared labor.”
Jian Tang looked at the other man’s full hands, then down at his own empty ones, feeling that something was slightly off. “If it’s about equality, shouldn’t you carry one and I carry one?”
“It means you carry them for five minutes, then I carry them for five minutes,” the man continued to spin nonsense with a straight face. “Your time is up. Now it’s my turn.”
“…”
That… actually sounded quite logical?
Figuring his wife wouldn’t lie to him over something so trivial, Jian Tang stopped overthinking and happily moved on to the next topic.
“Let’s eat out tonight!” He waved the red envelope he had just received, which contained a thousand yuan in cash—the payment from the boutique for his photos. “Wife, you pick the place. It’s my treat!”
Feng Xun had been hoping for exactly this. He pointed toward a restaurant not far ahead. “Let’s just go there.”
It was a local chain restaurant—affordable, with a fairly ordinary dining environment. The main reason Feng Xun chose it was because it sat directly across the street from Golden Bay Hospital.
Jian Tang looked ahead and noticed the restaurant’s “perfect” location as well. Reminded of his first botched mission, his eyes flickered, and he readily agreed.
“Great!”
Both harboring their own hidden agendas beneath an air of total nonchalance, they walked over to the restaurant entrance together.
“Go on inside first,” Feng Xun said. “I’m going to re-park the car.”
“The car?”
“Yeah.” Feng Xun gestured toward the hospital. “I drove here and left the car at the hospital. I completely forgot about it just now.”
…How could anyone forget a whole car?
Still, this played right into Jian Tang’s hands. He nodded, acting perfectly sweet. “Alright, go on then. I’ll wait for you here.”
“You can wait inside where it’s warm,” Feng Xun countered. “I’ll be right back.”
“Got it!”
Jian Tang agreed readily enough, but his feet didn’t budge an inch. He kept a bright smile on his face, watching Feng Xun walk away.
The moment the man’s figure vanished behind the hospital gates, Jian Tang’s smile vanished. He thought for a second, then dashed toward the hospital’s side perimeter wall.
—
Feng Xun really had driven today; his silver SUV was parked in the hospital’s underground parking lot.
He headed down, stowed the two large garment boxes in the trunk, and then took the elevator back up to the first-floor lobby.
He had already done a sweep of the hospital buildings earlier, even using a few tricks to search the morgue—which was usually off-limits to outsiders—but had found nothing out of the ordinary.
Yet his intuition told him that there were definitely eerie creatures lurking nearby. If they weren’t inside the buildings, they were somewhere on the hospital grounds.
As he walked, Feng Xun pulled a spatial card from his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, a box of colorful chocolate candies materialized in his palm.
This was the “bait” he had carefully selected from his inventory after much consideration.
Since he couldn’t find the entrance to the monster domain, he would target the eerie creatures that knew where it was. Once a creature ate this bait, it would be marked, and its monstrous aura would be drastically amplified, allowing him to track its trail with ease.
As long as he could lock onto just one, the rest would be simple.
Feng Xun stepped out of the building. Before scattering the bait, he carefully checked the label on the “chocolate” packaging.
Yes, it was definitely mid-grade bait.
If he accidentally scattered high-grade bait, the sudden, violent spike in monster aura would likely attract the local authorities, and he didn’t want that kind of hassle.
Satisfied that the bait was correct, Feng Xun walked along the outdoor flower beds, scattering every last one of the colorful “chocolate drops” into the foliage.
—
Meanwhile…
Jian Tang crept along the exterior of Golden Bay Hospital’s western wall, peering through the fence into the grounds.
Night had fallen, and there weren’t many people entering or exiting the hospital. Under the glow of the streetlights, the open courtyard looked quiet and desolate.
Jian Tang watched for a while but saw no sign of the Stinky Moles. Still, he had a gut feeling they were still nearby.
The boy slipped into a dark, shadowed corner and reached into his sleeve, pulling out a handful of small leaves.
Each leaf was a fresh, vibrant green, delicate and shaped like a tiny petal. Holding them to his nose, he caught a faint, incredibly pleasant sweetness.
These were a byproduct of his true monster form. They shed from time to time, much like human hair—a completely daily occurrence.
As for their uses, aside from smelling nicer than ordinary flora, they weren’t particularly special. In fact, if a greedy monster ate them, it would cause severe stomach aches and indigestion.
Jian Tang walked a stretch along the fence, scattering all his tiny leaves onto the hospital lawns.
This was the remedy he had come up with after careful thought.
Stinky Moles were omnivorous monsters that ate both meat and vegetation. His leaves had a sweet, aromatic scent that would likely tempt them into taking a few bites.
If those three Stinky Moles that had swallowed his stink bombs ended up eating them, they would highly likely suffer from massive indigestion and start violently passing gas. If that happened… well, wouldn’t he have technically fulfilled the boss’s orders?
After all, a fart flavored with concentrated stink bombs would easily be foul enough to send any other monster running for the hills.
However, there was a slight risk to this method. These leaves were, after all, “monster products.” Once a Stinky Mole ate them, its own monstrous aura would intensify. If it grew too strong, it might trigger the Bureau’s detectors and draw human attention.
But Jian Tang reconsidered and decided it wasn’t very likely. It was just a few leaves, not some sort of tracking bait. It shouldn’t trigger a terrifying, explosive reaction when combined with the stink bombs. There was no need to overthink it.
Having finished scattering the leaves, Jian Tang quickly fled the scene of the crime and headed back to the restaurant.
Moments later, a silver SUV pulled out of the hospital gates and parked near the restaurant.
Feng Xun got out of the car, slightly surprised to see Jian Tang still waiting at the entrance. “Why didn’t you go inside?”
Jian Tang smiled brightly. “I wanted to go in with my wife.”
The boy’s voice was sweet, sounding almost like he was acting spoiled. Feng Xun pursed his lips and said nothing.
But when Jian Tang happily reached out to loop an arm through his, the man didn’t resist or push him away, compliantly allowing himself to be held.
They entered the restaurant together.
After ordering at the counter, both of them seamlessly chose a table by the window—a spot that made it much easier to observe any subsequent developments at the hospital.
“This is so good! (munch munch munch) Wow! This one is amazing too! (munch munch munch) Wife, you have to try this!”
“Yes, it’s not bad.”
Their dinner proceeded harmoniously. While Jian Tang gorged himself, he cast occasional glances across the street. Feng Xun was much more discreet, merely tracking the area with his peripheral vision.
Suddenly, Feng Xun’s heart stirred. He had sensed the signal of a successful bait marking.
And it wasn’t just one.
Without pausing his chopsticks, dozens of strategies instantly flashed through his mind—how to use these marked pawns to force open the entrance to the monster domain, and then use every method at his disposal to extract the location of his true target from those eerie creatures’ mouths.
No matter how well that little monster hid, a scorched-earth investigation of this scale would drag him out eventually.
Jian Tang, who was happily shoveling rice into his mouth, suddenly felt a sudden, profound chill wash over him, followed by a massive sneeze.
He rubbed his goosebump-covered arms and sniffed his nose in confusion. They say a sneeze means someone is thinking about you… who on earth is plotting against me right now?
Suddenly, Jian Tang’s pupils contracted. He snapped his head toward the hospital across the street.
As an eerie creature, his perception of his own kind’s presence was incredibly sharp, even outside of a dungeon. He had just sensed a sudden, violently explosive surge of Stinky Mole aura within the hospital grounds. It was growing stronger and denser by the second, multiplying at a geometric, catastrophic rate!
What on earth is happening? Jian Tang was completely stunned and bewildered.
Even if they had eaten his leaves, their aura shouldn’t skyrocket like this! He was just a low-tier, F-rank little monster; the power of his byproducts couldn’t possibly be that exaggerated!
Feng Xun noticed the overwhelming aura soon after. He looked toward the hospital, thoroughly taken aback. I only put out mid-grade bait. How could the monster aura spike this violently?
Minutes later, two vans with special government license plates tore down the distant street. In a state of absolute urgency, they executed a wild, synchronized drift that practically kicked up sparks from the asphalt, roaring into the hospital courtyard like bolts of lightning.
Jian Tang, dropping his chopsticks in sheer terror: “…”
That vehicle model, those license plates… those looked an awful lot like the Eerie Creatures Investigation Bureau…
—
Tonight was destined to be chaotic.
The moment the Bureau detected a phenomenally powerful presence suspected to be an A-rank eerie creature at Golden Bay Hospital, their highest-level purple alert was instantly triggered. Amidst the shrill, piercing wail of the alarms, the staff on duty mobilized in full force, treating it as a catastrophic threat while frantically calling in reinforcements.
Investigation Bureau personnel who had already clocked out and gone home were thrown into utter panic by the notifications, rushing out of their houses. We just wrapped up an A-rank serial killer case not long ago! How did three more A-ranks suddenly pop up out of nowhere?!
Are these high-level eerie creatures coming to our City A for a corporate team-building retreat?!
Given the gravity of the situation, personnel from sister agencies were also drafted for emergency deployment. In less than ten minutes, a massive force of police officers swarmed the scene. The entirety of Golden Bay Hospital was swiftly locked down, and police tape was strung outside the gates, barring all civilians from entry.
Such a massive commotion naturally drew the attention of nearby citizens. Not only the restaurant where Jian Tang and Feng Xun were sitting, but all the shops along the street were thrown into a tizzy. People gathered along the sidewalks or pressed themselves against shop windows, gossiping excitedly as they watched the spectacle unfold.
Feng Xun, witnessing the entire process: “…”
The absolute worst-case scenario had just played out.
With official personnel stepping in, this location was bound to become a heavily monitored hotspot. It would be incredibly difficult for him to find a breakthrough here anytime soon.
Feng Xun closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose in sheer frustration as he silently tried to figure out which variable had gone wrong.
When he opened his eyes again, his peripheral vision suggested that the person next to him had suddenly gotten shorter.
“?”
He turned his head, only to find Jian Tang melting like a liquid cat, slowly sliding right off his chair.
“??”
Feng Xun quickly reached out and hauled him back up into his seat by the collar.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Jian Tang’s lips trembled, tears practically welling in his eyes.
Question: What does it feel like for a low-level, working-class cog to accidentally cause an apocalyptic disaster?
It felt exactly like this.
It was like a bratty kid who only wanted to toss a firecracker to hear a tiny pop, but ended up blowing up an entire city block instead. I just wanted to throw a stink egg at the entrance of Jingba Town! I didn’t want to wipe them all out in one go!
Oh crap! I’ve blown everything sky-high!



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