Rainwater streamed down Lin Mou's cheeks. He wiped his face, trying to look a bit less pathetic.
Even with heavy rain pouring over his head, one had to maintain their dignity.
Upon seeing Yue Shi, Lin Mou immediately declared his identity. "I am Lin Mou, a senior investigator for the Zhongzhou Supernatural Management Bureau and the lead investigator for the Forging City disaster thirty years ago. I have been waiting for your return."
Yue Shi remained expressionless, a faint look of impatience surfacing on his face.
The rain continued to fall.
Lin Mou's Adam's apple bobbed. He knew he wasn't facing an ordinary person; there was no need for pleasantries or small talk. Those were all useless words.
He had to say the most useful things in the shortest amount of time.
"During my investigation into the Forging City disaster all those years ago, I felt the god's blessing. From that moment on, I have been the god's most devout believer."
In truth, he had simply been contaminated by Extreme Evil, but in Lin Mou's description, it was all a divine blessing.
Yue Shi's eyes narrowed slightly.
Blessing, believer, devout—these words came from Lin Mou's mouth with a sense of calm sincerity.
The power of Extreme Evil had left a deep imprint on him. He hadn't gone mad or turned into a low-level monster; instead, it was a deeper form of erosion.
Lin Mou continued, "The monsters in Forging City are merely the lowest rank of scions. They couldn't withstand the god's blessing and were dominated by malice, losing their reason and doing nothing but indiscriminately destroying everything. But I am different. I..."
He hadn't let malice crush his reason. Or rather, he had been crushed once, but he had crawled back out on his own. Thirty years was enough for a person to be dissolved into bone in the abyss, but it was also enough for a person to learn how to swim in it.
He had harnessed this power filled with malice.
"What do you want?" Yue Shi asked airily.
Yue Shi didn't trust this subordinate or believer who had come knocking on his door at all.
Because the attribute of "Extreme Evil" was incompatible with "loyalty."
Low-level scions without reason would instinctively draw close to Yue Shi, but a believer with reason was far more dangerous than those low-level monsters.
The essence of Extreme Evil dictated that the closer one was to the source, the easier it was for the ambition to replace it to sprout.
Even Yue Shi's own clones would try to devour their master if he wasn't careful. Therefore, he was convinced that his so-called believers must have also inherited the rebellious streak in his character.
No loyalty, no filial piety, no kindness, no righteousness, no principles, and no bottom line—that was true Extreme Evil!
Lin Mou stood in the rain, the water pouring over his head and streaming down his face. He opened his mouth to say something, then swallowed it back down.
Of course, he didn't sincerely worship an evil god. He only wanted to find the heavily injured evil god or its remains, devour it, and obtain powerful strength for himself.
But as things stood, this human form of the evil god seemed perfectly healthy.
In thirty years, the evil god that had been shot down back then appeared to have fully recovered. One didn't even need to test him to feel the overwhelming pressure radiating from him.
He couldn't rule out the possibility that the other party was bluffing, but Lin Mou didn't want to gamble. Even a weakened evil god wasn't something he could handle.
"Just say what you want and stop wasting my time," Yue Shi said, his pitch-black eyes devoid of any emotion.
Lin Mou chose his words carefully. "I have hit a bottleneck. To rise any further, I would have to enter the core departments of the Bureau. The auditing and surveillance in those departments are several orders of magnitude higher than where I am now. I might not be able to hide the 'blessing' on me."
Yue Shi nodded; he understood what Lin Mou meant. The power of Extreme Evil wasn't ordinary mental contamination. It was hard to tell from the surface if someone had turned evil, and even low-level scions could maintain a basic human form.
However, the core departments of the Bureau must have specialized detection methods for such contamination; otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to keep the contamination in Forging City within a relatively stable range.
"All these years, I have been stepping over others to benefit myself, rising through the ranks, and constantly increasing my strength," Lin Mou's voice quickened, as if he were defending his actions.
"The more evil I do, the stronger I become, and the stronger I become, the more evil I can do. It's a positive cycle. But I've hit a ceiling now. The detection methods in the core departments are too numerous and too strict. I'm afraid..."
He didn't finish, but Yue Shi understood instantly.
Lin Mou was here seeking protection. He wanted a way to mask the power of Extreme Evil on his body so he could successfully pass the audits of the core departments and enter a higher level of power. To put it bluntly, he wanted a tool to help him cheat.
"So, you want me to help you?" Yue Shi's tone was gentle, though his mind was churning with wicked ideas.
Lin Mou nodded. He was afraid of being exposed, so he had used various excuses to avoid promotions and had even volunteered for the observation mission in the Forging City danger zone, hoping to find the evil god from back then. Now, he had finally found him.
At this thought, he grew somewhat nervous. He knew the person before him was a temperamental master. He had been a bit impulsive just now, running straight to the evil god like that.
In the end, he had still been tainted by the traits of the low-level scions, instinctively wanting to draw closer to the source of Extreme Evil.
The snow leopard rolled over in Yue Shi's arms, exposing its belly with its four paws curled together, letting out a satisfied purr.
Yue Shi's fingers slowly massaged the snow leopard's belly as a rotten idea quickly took shape.
"There is a way," he said kindly to Lin Mou.
Lin Mou's eyes lit up.
"But, are you sure you can kill without blinking?" Yue Shi asked, playing up the mystery.
Lin Mou frowned slightly, asking urgently, "What exactly is the way?"
Yue Shi continued to pet the snow leopard. The leopard was being massaged so comfortably that it squinted its eyes and let out a rumbling purr from its throat.
Only when he saw Lin Mou becoming increasingly anxious did Yue Shi say calmly, "Refine living people into 'medicine.'"
Lin Mou's pupils shook. "What?"
Yue Shi smiled. He had learned a great deal of occult knowledge from the school library, including some evil arts and black magic.
And now, hadn't an experimental subject just delivered himself to his door?
Yue Shi explained in a soft voice, "It's a special type of alchemy that uses living people as raw material. The stronger the material, the better the effects of the 'medicine' produced."
"The 'medicine' has no attributes and can be consumed directly to comprehensively enhance all of one's basic stats. It can also be used as a casting material to perform various spells as you wish."
"This 'medicine' also has another, more common name: the Philosopher's Stone."
"The Philosopher's Stone?" Lin Mou's voice tightened. "Can it hide one's aura?"
Yue Shi nodded. "Hiding your aura is only a small part of its effects. With a Philosopher's Stone, you can do whatever you want with it. It is a panacea."
Lin Mou's eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Yue Shi slowly tempted him. "Your talent is quite good, but I see frustration written all over your face."
"As the saying goes, a horse doesn't grow fat without extra fodder at night, and a man doesn't prosper without a windfall. To achieve great things, one must use means others dare not..."
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