When Tuantuo flew down right on time from the second floor of the Sunset Post Office, she happened to spot Fang Yuan surrounded by her fellow spirits. Fang Yuan's fingers skillfully braided various hairstyles for several of the little spirits, prompting everyone to clamor for a hairstyle of their own.
Seeing her fellow spirits getting along so harmoniously with Fang Yuan, Tuantuo felt an even greater sense of accomplishment.
She flew over happily, just in time to run into Youmeng, who was carrying a crate of letters around the corner.
Youmeng looked as though she had pulled another all-nighter; her overall demeanor was listless, and the dark circles under her eyes were even more pronounced than yesterday.
She let out a yawn and set the letter-filled crate down on the wooden counter.
“Sister Youmeng, you stayed up late again last night experiencing the dreams inside these letters. That's bad for your health,” Tuantuo said coaxingly as she helped adjust Youmeng's sliding glasses.
“It's fine. I'll catch up on sleep during the day.”
Youmeng squinted and waved her hand toward the Dandelion Spirits. Tuanchun flew out from behind the counter and hovered quietly at Youmeng's side.
“Same as usual. Ten letters for each Sunset Mail Carrier. Deliver them to the correct locations before sunset, without any mistakes.”
Saying this, Youmeng pointed toward Fang Yuan without even looking up. “As for you, new Sunset Mail Carrier, you get twenty letters a day. If you don't have a map, fetch one from Tuanchun. Make sure they're accurately delivered before sunset.”
“No problem, Pink-Haired Boss.”
Leaving the mail distribution to Tuanchun, Youmeng curled up behind the wooden counter with her canvas mailbag tucked against her chest and fell asleep instantly.
Tuanchun deftly handed out letters to the various Dandelion Spirits.
She grouped letters destined for nearby addresses and assigned them to the same spirit so they wouldn't have to fly long distances.
After all, Dandelion Spirits were tiny, and their flying speed wasn't particularly fast.
Fang Yuan chewed on a piece of compressed vegetable biscuit handed over by Tuantuo as she received her twenty letters.
She took a quick glance and noticed that the writing on them intentionally used human script rather than the script used among divine creations.
“Ah, our destinations are so far apart! Mine are all on the east side of town, while yours are all on the west.”
Tuantuo, who had originally planned to tag along with Fang Yuan, leaned over to peek at her delivery addresses and sighed regretfully.
“T-Then, when you go to the west side, you must stay away from the Pantomime Circus! The clowns there aren't good people.”
Fang Yuan wasn't surprised at all to receive deliveries for the west side.
Tuanchun's top priority was naturally the safety of her kin; assigning potentially dangerous areas to an outsider was the best choice.
Fang Yuan swallowed the last bite of her compressed vegetable biscuit and tossed all twenty letters into her fluff ball.
“No problem. Don't be slower than me, Sister Tuantuo.”
The west side—just perfect.
The west side was the only area of town whose routes she wasn't familiar with yet.
While delivering letters, she could also search for Ling Chun's whereabouts.
Fang Yuan said goodbye to Tuantuo and the group of Dandelion Spirits at the entrance of the Sunset Post Office, humming a tune as she headed toward the west side of town.
The location of the first letter.
Northwest side of town, 302 Wutong Street.
As Fang Yuan turned onto the street leading to Wutong Street, she felt probing gazes shooting toward her from all directions—some hidden, some brazen.
She turned her head, accurately pinpointing the owner of every single gaze, and offered them a polite, friendly smile along with a greeting.
“Hello, everyone! Has anyone seen Ling Chun? I'm going to kill her.”
No one answered her question.
Yet no one withdrew their gaze, either.
After all, she had never killed anyone in public, so there were still those who believed she was merely a Candidate lucky enough to possess three 【Blessings】.
“If you want to kill me, feel free to try while I'm still free.”
Fang Yuan opened her map, confirmed the route through the west side, and threw the map back into her fluff ball.
Subdued mutters echoed from various corners:
“She has a storage Divine Relic...”
“She's only one person! If we all attack together, and she revives, can't we just kill her again?”
“Are you stupid? She has more than just three Blessings—she's also stacked with Divine Relics! Is that something sheer numbers can deal with?”
“Are we really just going to let her walk away? Who knows if she'll ever show herself so openly again! She only showed up this time because she definitely doesn't realize we already know everything about her!”
“Who said anything about killing her? Have you all lost your minds? Her Divine Relics must be inside that storage fluff ball! Why not just snatch the fluff ball on her waist? With so many of us against one fluff ball, are you seriously afraid we can't grab it?”
Before the last syllable could fully leave the person's tongue, a giant hammer slammed heavily onto their head out of nowhere.
“BOOM—”
The face of the hammer smashed solidly and square onto his skull.
The sound was dull and squelching, blending the sharp crack of fracturing bone with the wet splatter of collapsing flesh. His head deformed instantaneously, his facial features swallowed in a gruesome burst of red and white matter.
Another divine Candidate right next to him hadn't even processed this sudden turn of events before freezing up, their gaze tracing up the bright yellow hammer to collide with a pair of smiling red eyes.
Thick liquid dripped from the hammer. A few drops of warm blood had splattered across Fang Yuan's cheek, trailing striking scarlet streaks down the curve of her cheekbone.
Someone noticed that at the spot in the street where Fang Yuan had originally been standing, only an identical corpse of Fang Yuan remained.
There were always quick-witted people. Upon seeing Fang Yuan's corpse alongside the real Fang Yuan, who had appeared like a phantom behind the victim's dead body, they instantly understood what had happened.
—Fang Yuan could revive in a new body upon death. By killing herself, she had spawned her new body directly behind the person, achieving an ability akin to teleport-killing.
Fang Yuan tilted her head, her eyes curving into a smile as she stepped up to the candidate nearest to her. “Do you share the same idea as him? Do you want to snatch my things?”
She turned sideways, exposing the fluff ball on her waist completely to the person's view. “It's right here, you know?”
As expected of bound Divine Relics. After her body died, her bound Divine Relics transferred over to her new body along with her.
It wasn't like the first time she encountered Huo Duoduo, when she had to throw her shovel and hammer outside the general store—otherwise, even if her body revived outside, her shovel and hammer would have remained trapped inside the shop.
It seemed she would have to ask Huo Duoduo if she had any binding stones or similar items so she could bind every single one of her possessions.
She had money, after all—she could afford to be willful.
As for this group of naive Candidates, striking once was more than enough. With sufficient deterrence, no one would be foolish enough to step out of line again.
Rate on N.U.
