As the one who had the most difficulty keeping up with the progress due to the circumstances, Morobushi Jingguang thought hard. He was an extremely outstanding police academy student, otherwise he would not have been sent to do such a difficult undercover job. It was just because the information gap was too large, so he had to spend more time thinking about the relationship.
"In other words, Jiuyuan-kun actually has two souls in his body now?" He felt it was a bit unbelievable after he said it himself. It was really too unscientific. It was not a double personality, but "two people" in the true sense!
"Yes." Jiuyuan said, "Then everything makes sense. He is trying to influence me subtly and then assimilate me. As long as he has the upper hand, I will be completely devoured by him, and in the end there will be no difference between 'you' and 'me'."
Xia Yujie asked: "So what are your plans now?"
"Maybe it sounds a bit like a twisted logic..." Jiuyuan smiled, "I will choose to take his path ahead of time and leave him with no way to go. Instead of letting him force me, I might as well rush ahead of him and do it. In this way, I will be leading him in front and let me tame him."
Zhufu Jingguang nodded, not quite understanding.
No, he still doesn’t understand!
Does this sentence sound like it is preparing to fight violence with violence? !
Oda Sakunosuke came down from the upstairs. He had just been cleaning the second floor with Hanako. Noticing their strange atmosphere, he subconsciously glanced at Hisaen.
After hearing their explanation, Odasaku asked Hisaen, "So, now the battle is fought with your body as the battlefield."
"That's true." Jiuyuan nodded. "I thought I was in a state of slow death, but I didn't expect it to be a tense and exciting time bomb segment..."
The topic was over, and Odasaku brought up his earlier doubts again: "By the way... can we just leave the eight-foot-long bridge alone?"
Jiuyuan lied without changing his expression.
"To be honest, I'm still a little angry..." he said, but soon his expression relaxed again, "...but he will come back."
The boy lowered his eyes, his eyelashes casting a shadow under his eyes.
His smile was devoid of love, but it was filled with unquestionable certainty, simply describing a cold fact.
"—he will come back to me on his own initiative."
…
…
At night, Kuen ran into Hanako's small room.
I haven't been in there much for a while, so there are more messy things piled up in the storage box next to me. Xia Yujie had hinted several times before that spiritual items and cursed props should not be placed together, as some bad situations might arise. However, due to lack of space, I can only make a rough classification for the time being.
Jiuyuan pulled up a comfortable chair next to him and tossed the skull decoration on Hanako's desk back and forth like a child's ball. He nestled in the chair, enjoying this rare moment alone.
Hanako fiddled with the scale out of boredom and yawned while lying on the table.
The skull decorations were thrown away, and Jiuyuan looked at the ceiling and said, "It's still too crowded. We need to move to a bigger venue."
During this period, there was an endless stream of guests coming to Hanako's place. In the beginning, most of them were monsters. They exchanged intelligence and rare props they had collected, allowing Jiuyuan to gain a lot of initial supplies. Now it was time to use all these things.
Especially recently, in addition to the monsters, many people came to try to please them. After their gifts were rejected, they came up with many interesting ideas -
Even if an ordinary person has no special powers or cursed powers, as long as he is in a high position of power, there will always be a few people around him who can meet the conditions for summoning Hanako.
When Hanako agreed to these people's occupation, she asked them to pay a huge amount of money, which was a kind of flattery. But this was also a very painful initial investment. After all, Hanako could always shut them up by saying "this is the occupation fee you gave willingly."
After the system counted Jiuyuan's funds and the available funds in Xuenan and others' hands, it was found that it was indeed a huge amount of assets.
[System: Master, we have a lot of money now...! ]
"It will all be used up soon." Jiuyuan said casually, "Money is something that the more you spend, the less you have."
【Is it possible to spend so much money at one time? 】
"We still need to invest a lot in the initial construction. I plan to expand the exchange a bit so that I can implement some new ideas more easily." Jiuyuan looked around and sighed again: "...It's too small. Alas."
【Isn't it enough now? 】
"Well... let me ask you, what do you think our customers are like now?"
[90% monsters, 10% humans? And the humans are those with special abilities... Is there anything wrong with this? ]
"There are still problems. Don't forget that we are not a monster that keeps its route secret. We have even been dealing with humans for quite some time. In the early stages of development, we relied heavily on monsters. This is reasonable. After all, business starts with acquaintances. However, if we show up in front of people in a high-profile manner and completely exclude humans, it may be fine for a day or two. But after a long time, it is easy to... hit the bottom and rebound."
[…In other words, do we need to give humans some leeway? But, wouldn’t it be weird to let ordinary people without abilities get involved?]
"That's why we need an intermediary exchange that can allow them to fish in troubled waters. As long as they can find a way to get the entrance tickets, they will be allowed in... The transaction of tickets, as well as how to disguise as a person with special abilities or even disguise as a monster to enter, are all gray industries. But there is an advantage to this, that is, every 'human' who actively enters will voluntarily bear the consequences. After all, they are not the 'target customers' listed on our tickets, right?"
"If we don't allow them to touch it, it will only cause resentment. It's better to open a 'smuggling channel' for them."
[…It feels like smuggling. So what does the intermediary exchange do? ]
Jiuyuan tapped the table and said, "The buyer and seller put up the signs themselves, and we, as the platform, will take a commission based on their transactions."
[So, we will be the guarantor?]
"Guarantee? That's wishful thinking." Jiuyuan said, "In my place, monsters can trade with each other, and humans can trade with monsters. Unless they can find a better trading platform than us, otherwise it will be a monopoly. Moreover, don't forget that ordinary people are 'smugglers'. Even if we promise to provide a guarantee, they don't meet the conditions."
[Eh…] The system felt like a worried old mother and asked: [What if there are no customers in the beginning?]
"People who are short of money will take the initiative to find customers for us. If you are a person with special abilities, but your special abilities are not strong enough, you have no money, and you don't have anything you want to buy, but you accidentally get a ticket to the exchange, what will you do?"
[…Sell tickets to those in need?]
"That's one reason." Jiuyuan said with a smile, "He can also do purchasing on behalf of others. Believe me, not everyone has the courage to pretend to be a person with special abilities to enter the exchange. For example, those who are rich and powerful, why don't they just find those special abilities who have tickets to help them enter and buy what they need? For them, this little errand fee is nothing."
"You see, the seller sold the goods, the buyer got what he wanted, and the esper who only had the ticket received a considerable amount of running errands fee, and we also got a commission. After such an esper tasted the sweetness, he would definitely take the initiative to help us find customers... Moreover, what if he saw what he wanted in the exchange, but he didn't have enough money? With a clear goal of making money, he would work harder to find business."
Jiu Yuan seemed to be in a good mood. He continued, "In fact, there are many exorcists. As far as I know, the lower-level exorcists don't make much money, but it's not difficult for them to disguise ordinary people as monsters. If someone gets a ticket through some channel but doesn't meet the entry requirements, they can ask these exorcists for help. It's just a small amount of money."
"In addition, sorcerers also have spell tools, which allow ordinary people without spell power to bring spell tools with them and sneak in. They only need to charge a rental fee..."
[But wouldn't it be too mixed? ]
"The tickets are made with demonic power, and with the 'God's Notebook' that can automatically read customer information, it's easy to find out the ticket holder's information. Even just a name is enough, and the rest will be left to the hackers to find out."
[But, won’t the opening of the exchange affect our own store business? ]
"Don't forget, we have an absolutely equivalent scale as a verification tool, which is a guarantee of quality for users. If you see someone publish a product on the exchange and sell it for only 100 yen, and the same product in our store sells for 200 yen, where would you choose to go?"
[Let me think... If I don't have enough money, I will choose the goods on the exchange. If I have enough money, I will choose the goods in the store with a guarantee. The worst case scenario is that I bought a fake product on the exchange, and finally I have to pay 200 yen to buy the real thing in the store. ]
"Since customers will always spend money in our industry, the difference is always more or less, and it won't have much impact overall." Jiuyuan yawned and felt a little sleepy. He said lazily, "Let's stop here for now... At present, these are just preliminary ideas, and there are still many things to be improved. I will add more when I think of them later."
When I looked at the time, it was already one o'clock in the morning.
Before leaving, he asked Hanako to do some divination - will someone from the Special Powers Special Affairs Department come tomorrow?
The answer is most likely yes.
He had been waiting for the secret service personnel to come these past few days. They probably wanted to wait until he had dealt with all the big and small fish before showing sincerity, which would help the subsequent negotiations.
Jiuyuan directly used his demonic power to condense five admission tickets, with a black background and gold patterns, and the word "Yoquan" written in obscure and difficult to understand characters on them, and then handed them to Hanako.
This is a quota for the Special Powers Agents Department. As for how they use it, he has no control over it.
Anyway, the more people this thing passes through, the more information his notebook will get from them, so he will not lose out in the end. Moreover, this ticket is completely condensed by demonic power, and nothing can be found out about it.
The next day, Sakaguchi Ango came to the door with his long-awaited sincerity. After knocking on the door, he was quickly invited by a young man to sit down.
Then, a glass of drink was handed to him. He said "thank you" subconsciously out of courtesy, but when he saw the familiar face of the other person, he was speechless.
"Long time no see, Ango." Odasaku guessed that this would be his reaction, and considering that Ango was still working, he finished his job, nodded, and left.
Ango Sakaguchi was left standing in shock. He subconsciously adjusted his glasses several times. After making sure that he was not seeing things, he felt even worse.
(…Could it be that the person in front of me is Odasaku’s spirit or something?)
(Is this a coincidence? Or is it a trap for me? Has the other party investigated me?)
(Is this the real Odasaku?)
(Does Dazai know about this?)
When Hanako slowly came down from the stairs, she saw Sakaguchi Ango sitting stiffly at the table.
Hanako: “……?”
But Ango himself is also very professional. After seeing Hanako, he immediately adjusted his state.
"Hello."
He made a brief self-introduction and stated his identity, but the monster Hanako in front of them was relatively unfamiliar to them, and Yomizu Kyuen, the central figure of the incident, did not appear.
Realizing why Sakaguchi Ango was hesitant to speak, Hanako said, "He is in a depressed mood and doesn't want to see anyone for the time being. He has handed everything over to me to handle. If you have anything, you can communicate directly with me."
In fact, this behavior is very shameless, but because Yomikawa Kyuen has always been very nice, Sakaguchi Ango is a little suspicious that he might really be depressed and don't want to see anyone...
However, Huang Quanchuan Jiuyuan, who was in a depressed mood, went to study the location of the house early in the morning.
I also called Gojo Satoru and asked him if he was interested in doing business, and if there was a suitable property, I would introduce it to him.
This is what he said to Gojo Satoru—
A big family like the Gojo family should have quite a few cursed tools, right?
You rent out those unimportant spell tools to customers who need to enter the exchange, helping them to complete the smuggling.
When we review the entry, we give the highest entry success rate to the smuggled customers who hold your spell tools. For example, the customers brought by others only have a success rate of 60% to 70%, but we raise it to 80% for you. In this way, you will have a stable reputation.
He also did not forget to say that we will do this matter very secretly and it will definitely not be discovered. You can also find someone with a clean identity and no connection with the Gojo family to do this. This should not be a difficult task for you as the head of the family, right?
It wasn't a whim to seek cooperation with Gojo Satoru. The world of sorcery is a very small business. If Gojo Satoru wanted to reform it, it would definitely touch other people's circles. Given that the resources within his circle were limited, it was normal for him to contact external resources.
What's more, what Jiuyuan did, in a sense, was also improving the living space for those sorcerers who were not from big families, and they would have more choices.
Gojo Satoru has been looking for more possibilities. Now that there is an opportunity in front of him, he believes that he has the ability to bear the consequences and there is no reason to be timid.
No matter how bad it is, can it be worse than the current state of the magic world?
He agreed very straightforwardly, and even tried to say on the phone: "Do you want me to choose a house with you? I know a few good places."