Chapter 9: The Ambitious Yuan Zhu—A Thousand Miles to Offer His Head

“Back again, all of them have returned.”

As the Boss Template faded away, the human side took full control.

Simply looking at everyday objects with the naked eye and engaging in basic reflection triggered a flood of related information deep within his mind. It even compelled his thoughts to expand wildly, sparking a brainstorming storm that fused diverse knowledge and perspectives, allowing him to reprocess and absorb this information anew.

The more associations he made, the more knowledge surfaced. This set off a chain reaction, unleashing a veritable avalanche of knowledge inside his skull!

At this moment, Yuan Zhu felt an unprecedented strength—not brute force, but the formidable power of his brain, cognitive responses, and the integration of knowledge!

Truly worthy of the “Tri-Core Trinity” soul processor, forcing his mind into overdrive and transforming him into a super genius. Every second was like performing an overload calculation on the level of a third-year high school mock exam.

Fragments of memories and knowledge from his former self’s life were irresistibly drawn to Yuan Zhu’s soul, swarming in like moths to a flame. They were reinterpreted and absorbed based on his current Earthling worldview and thought process, becoming his own knowledge and common sense.

In other words, the worldview, life philosophy, and values painstakingly constructed over eighteen years by his predecessor were shattered into tiny knowledge points, then reshaped and infused with the form of today’s Yuan Zhu—creating a brand new self.

...Just like how the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture originally intended to transform him.

“With this knowledge and common sense, you’re becoming more and more like a native,” the little spirit said, pleased with Yuan Zhu’s transformation.

Yuan Zhu pressed his temples, soothing the intense headache, while recalling his situation: “I remember now. It’s the weekend. I’m a part-time employee at Firefang Cleaning Company. For a handsome pay, I took a job involving a suburban order.”

“My main duties here are lawn maintenance, garden fertilization, and clearing out the overpopulated rabbits and rats in the nearby woods. The client came at 9 a.m., had a lavish all-meat meal at noon, and then disappeared by afternoon?”

As he pieced together his identity and background, the company profile of Firefang materialized in his mind.

Though publicly labeled a cleaning company, Firefang’s employees weren’t mere janitors or sanitation workers. Strictly speaking, they were scavengers.

Beyond providing basic cleaning services for the wealthy and nobility, they mostly served higher-ups with covert tasks—such as discreetly disposing of servants, lovers, enemies who died under suspicious circumstances—to maintain appearances.

Additionally, Firefang’s business spanned extensive underground dealings: fencing stolen goods, destroying evidence, expertly cleaning gang fight and murder scenes, recovering bodies, and removing bloodstains.

The company was also famed citywide for its complex and thorough “professional exorcism rituals, haunted house blessings, ghost catching and calming” services. They collaborated with numerous religious institutions and were officially recognized by the city government as a model anti-evil enterprise.

Lastly, Firefang had a gray-market pillar industry: pest extermination, often bundled with exorcism packages and sold aggressively. Their targets ranged from cockroaches, fleas, and bedbugs to goblins infesting sewers and underground caves, and up to earthbound spirits, evil entities, and grudging souls—nothing was beyond their reach.

Among these, hunting goblins was the most lucrative. Though dangerous, the market price for goblin corpses had risen steadily over the past two years. Several major pharmaceutical corporations had reportedly developed “large-scale, low-cost, high-efficiency extraction of longevity biomatter from pseudo-sentient lifeforms.”

This technology had existed in rudimentary form years ago and was a hot topic among the wealthy. However, it was immature, expensive, and limited to laboratory synthesis. Moreover, since the “medicine” originated from sentient beings, it sparked widespread negative public opinion.

In fact, over three centuries ago, the royal family of the Eastern Kingdom, locked in a battle of wits and magic with an alien magical race, pioneered an ancient alchemical formula using fairy mountain cultivators as raw material to distill “elixirs of longevity” from freshly squeezed elves.

Nowadays, after centuries of integration and interbreeding, elves, orcs, dwarves, and others had gradually blended into the planet’s fabric, no longer viewed as alien invaders but as “intelligent minority races” subject only to racial discrimination.

Equality and harmony were the accepted norms, and no major corporation dared to commit mass atrocities against them.

Especially the elves, who were the most beautiful, long-lived, and least fertile race, had been the first to be accepted by native humans two centuries ago. At that time, the most prestigious supernatural system—magic—was monopolized by the elves.

Although the magical system had since declined, elves had amassed sufficient capital and infiltrated human society, holding important positions and forming intertwined interests, making separation impossible.

Following the elves were the Crystal Barrier Humans, who, after a century of interbreeding with native humans, had adapted so thoroughly to the planet’s environment that distinctions blurred.

The native humans had no effective way to deal with the Crystal Barrier Humans, whose biological origins were different but who shared similar appearances and habits. Remarkably, there was no reproductive isolation, which was unprecedented.

Over centuries, the Crystal Barrier Humans had mastered the local language, customs, and had even established a nation on the New Continent. Native humans grudgingly accepted this.

Better than dwarves and orcs, at least they looked somewhat similar and were bearable.

After fully localized humans, the third race officially recognized by the global dominant nations were the dwarves, about 150 years ago.

Unlike the proactive integration of humans and elves, the dwarves who had crossed over were few and low-profile. They avoided conflicts with humans, preferring to wander the world, either mining underground or tunneling in mountains, trading their magical metallurgy skills with humans.

Over time, humans sensed their goodwill, and with the reconciliation of elves and Crystal Barrier Humans, dwarves became the third race recognized by the natives, enjoying equal rights.

As for another famous magical race—the orcs—due to their ugly appearance and savage, brutal culture, they were never accepted by the native humans.

Instead, over the past centuries, they faced constant hunting, confinement, enslavement, and segregation into reserves. They were divided and balanced internally, with the strongest sold to farms, plantations, and factories. Aside from scalping, virtually every form of oppression had been inflicted.

The orcs’ presence significantly eased internal racial tensions among humans and contributed indispensably to human alliances with other magical races.

Since the advent of the orc—a beast capable of triple the work of large livestock—the previously booming black slave trade cooled off completely. Racial discrimination within the native humans paused, even the discrimination between native humans and Crystal Barrier Humans was overshadowed by orc-related racial conflicts.

After all, these creatures simply did not resemble humans! Alongside blue-skinned ogres and green-skinned trolls, they were dubbed the “Beastly Trio” and were subject to fierce discrimination.

Nonetheless, the orcs, rallying under the slogan “Are nobility and officials born or made? Orcs will never be slaves!” gradually awakened racial consciousness over the past century. They launched several large-scale movements, growing in strength until they secured equal rights as an intelligent race.

Today, the only large population on the planet not recognized as an intelligent species and not considered “human” are the goblins—ubiquitous like cockroaches and rats worldwide.

These goblins were not the clever, enterprising goblin engineers of the Warcraft universe who sold arms. Instead, they were primitive, dirty, low-intelligence, highly fertile creatures resembling cave-dwelling goblins who imprisoned female adventurers.

This very estate had an ongoing, large-scale “goblin order” with Firefang. Employees delivered shipments every one to two weeks, with cleaners dispatched the next day to sanitize the site.

Both parties maintained a tacit understanding: freshly harvested goblins were cleaned and disinfected before delivery. Even Yuan Zhu, as a part-timer, knew of the estate’s secrets, which was why he eagerly took this order—to smuggle a batch of “goblin deliveries” and earn an easy, pleasant paycheck.

Add in routine lawn care, garden maintenance, and rat and rabbit poisoning—another sum of wages plus tips. And each time he came, the owner provided meals with unlimited meat and fish. Truly delightful!

What he earned this day outstripped a regular worker’s weekly income.

Looking back now, where else in the world would there be such easy money to pick up?

Why did he join Firefang? Because Yuan Zhu was naturally a fiercely ambitious go-getter. Hungry for success, wealth, power, and especially strength!

He wasn’t satisfied with his high school diploma, which in this world was as valuable as a university degree on Earth. Unlike Earth, this planet’s productivity lagged behind the second industrial revolution but compensated with divine and supernatural powers, sometimes even surpassing Earth.

Educational resources were scarce. A high school diploma carried the weight of a top-tier university degree.

Yuan Zhu’s achievement reflected his relentless drive: not only did he complete high school as a lowly commoner, but also worked and studied simultaneously, supporting his younger brother through secondary school.

He also held three part-time jobs at a steam lighting factory—technician, maintenance engineer, and warehouse clerk—earning one and a half salaries while proofreading accounts for free.

Outside this, he fought underground bare-knuckle boxing near his home. Though he lost more than he won, the organizer was fair, and injuries were limited to bruises and broken ribs, with no risk of permanent disability.

Such a driven man naturally refused to settle. He constantly seized opportunities to climb upward in this rigidly stratified society.

After searching, Firefang Cleaning Company appeared before him—a low-grade, somewhat disreputable firm dealing with the lower classes and black market.

They handled dirty, hard, and dangerous work: corpse disposal, cleaning crime scenes, hunting goblins in sewers, exterminating cockroaches and rats. Though lowly, the job granted access to circles beyond ordinary folk.

For example, their famed exorcism business genuinely eradicated the lowest levels of supernatural contamination and cooperated with temples, shrines, and churches, allowing contact with those wielding supernatural powers.

Coincidentally, Firefang was unstable. Employees often suffered serious injuries, quit, or vanished mysteriously. So they frequently recruited externally, and Yuan Zhu, eager to enter higher circles, joined without hesitation.

...And then, well… he was still too naive.

Did he truly think such an easy, high-paying order was so easy to grab? In the end, not only were the goblins delivered, but he was delivered too!

...

Piecing together a series of clues and oddities in his mind, Yuan Zhu finally realized he wasn’t surprised to be caught in this tragedy.

Fate had its plan: his dissatisfaction with life and yearning for wealth and opportunity led him to Firefang and this estate, where he lost his head. A case of karma, perhaps.

While connecting the dots, he also explored the estate, discovering many remnants of rituals and numerous specially crafted goblin mummified specimens.

The estate owner had a twisted taste: secretly conducting blood sacrifices, deriving pleasure from torturing and offering goblins. Afterwards, proudly turning the goblin offerings into specimens for display and boasting to friends.

Such pathological pursuits hollowed the owner’s soul, escalating sacrifices to grander scales, even targeting their own kind.

Yuan Zhu was fortunate in timing.

Had he delivered a week earlier, he would have escaped unharmed. A week later… the delivery person would inevitably vanish, though the estate’s secrets might remain hidden for now.

This group of cultists bungled their game thanks to the Immortal Scripture’s intervention. Without the “abnormal spiritual root” or Boss Template, anyone who came would die. Yet if willing to pay, Firefang would cover it up with top-notch cleaning services.

Thus, all crimes would be concealed, awaiting the next unlucky delivery guy.

“This world is so dark! Brother Zhu was so driven and hardworking, but in the end, he lost his head? How’s that fair?” Yuan Zhu lamented his predecessor’s fate with sorrow and indignation. Why must effort equal death? Why must enduring hardship mean endless victims?

“That’s the price of social mobility. To access supernatural power, you must accept sacrifice. Ha! Keep these things safe—they prove the estate owner is a repeat offender. His guests all have dark histories too.”

The little spirit began instructing Yuan Zhu on organizing the evidence and where to break into cabinets to find valuable, concealable treasures.

Soon, Yuan Zhu found a hidden compartment in the study containing a parchment filled with a list of names, but it was illegible and incomprehensible.

Unlike other materials, the little spirit sensed residual “corruption traces” on the scroll—a powerful list imbued with secrecy, binding, and anti-curse effects.

“Good stuff! Save it quickly and hand it over to the cops!”

Alongside the parchment, Yuan Zhu uncovered another document revealing the organizer behind the sacrificial ritual.

It was an amateur group called the White Feather Wish Society. The estate owner was the deputy leader, providing the site and purchasing sacrifices, while the leader was versed in occult knowledge—capable of offering sacrifices and prayers to non-specific, non-targeted deities while avoiding their attention.

This Wish Society didn’t worship any real or singular entity. Defining a sacrifice target would forge a bond, binding them to serve only that master.

Instead, the White Feather Wish Society conducted uncertain, frequent, mass random calls to attract the attention of evil gods, hiding themselves and completing one-off transactions with strangers.

Using this “irresponsible sacrifice method,” they attracted many like-minded people who sought benefits without fulfilling follower duties.

They charged hefty membership fees, randomly lured evil gods to descend, promoting a lottery-like chance of success—astonishingly low but lucrative for the leaders.

Over time, members realized the odds were poor and fees too high. Though not beholden to any deity, they still felt cheated.

So, unsatisfied with merely torturing goblins, the deputy leader decided to escalate sacrifices to humans. This would boost the evil gods’ odds of bestowing favors and satisfy the leader’s twisted desires.