Great! I'm surr Chapter 18: \

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: "Lu San's Law

A day had passed, and Duan Mingyuan finally rembered the na of that sanitation worker.

The worker's na was Lu San, a native of Yunlong City. As a young man, he was known for his "gang loyalty," with drinking and fighting being the norm. At age 24, he finally caused serious injury in a brawl, was sentenced, and locked up for 12 years. After being released from prison, he was arranged to do various odd jobs in the community, and because of theft and indecency charges, he went in and out of incarceration several tis before he started working as a sanitation worker in this district.

This was also the longest job Lu San had held in these years.

Intuition told him that this might be a very important na.

"But why does he look so old?"

Jiuyue pointed at the man in the photo, "Isn't he only in his forties?"

The person in the photo looked to be in his sixties, with sallow skin, thin muscles, as if a monster had drained him of his vitality.

"That's not important."

Duan Mingyuan carefully recalled the scene when he encountered the evil spirit after work late at night, "You were there at the ti too; the evil spirit crawled out of the garbage heap, right?"

"Yeah."

"What was it doing before it crawled out?"

"...Eating garbage?"

Honestly, Jiuyue didn't want to know what an evil spirit was doing in a filthy pile of trash, nor was she interested in Lu San, but she knew the answer to this question from the start, it was a group of wanted criminals who told her.

Genuine criminals, offered a high bounty by Universe Company.

"Ability and the subconscious of the host are related; Fu Ling's material ntioned that Lu San had been complaining about an unmanageable amount of garbage every day."

If this theory was correct, then before he passed by the alleyway, the evil spirit in the garbage pile was essentially helping Lu San deal with the trash—by swallowing it.

Lu San might have been a bad person, but the embodint of his spiritual energy indeed contributed to the cleanliness of the district.

Before the Drumr got caught up in wild dreams, he always complained about the bleak prospects of underground bands, people felt their music style was becoming more and more similar, and many old fans hadn't shown up for a long ti. He wrote in his diary that whether it's a song or rock music, at their core they converge to the sa goal, which is to tightly capture people's emotions.

And what he encountered in the company was precisely the evil spirit that manipulates human negative emotions.

Duan Mingyuan turned to a blank page of his notebook and wrote down everything he inferred, while Jiuyue kept silent, watching silently by the side, giving him enough space. She carefully read every word on the notebook, her eyes growing more and more astonished.

Mr. Mingyuan is truly born for this job.

Based on just two unconscious individuals whom he had yet to et, he drew conclusions very close to those of the criminals!

Evil spirits are the embodint of emotions and desires, with negative emotions serving as an excellent catalyst.

But to reach this precise conclusion, those criminals committed many outrageous acts. Although they theoretically have a common enemy at the mont, Jiuyue knew from the mont they t that she would not get along with those people.

When research on humans and evil spirits reached a bottleneck, they turned their attention to monsters.

"Emotional fluctuations are the key to determining the strength of Life Energy."

"Desires and obsessions determine the evolution of Ability."

Duan Mingyuan's handwriting, just like him, was structured and disciplined, every stroke well-practiced, showing that he had never slacked off in his studies.

These two lines made Jiuyue feel sowhat bewildered.

Mr. Mingyuan,

are you cheating sohow?

Now, she not only wanted to delve into Duan Mingyuan's heart but also to peer into his brain, to see if it was constructed differently from other people.

The mont Jiuyue thought about how those criminals cloaked their actions in the guise of great justice, claiming that the innocent bystanders who got involved were necessary sacrifices, she suddenly felt a sense of irony.

Their great justice, the tragedies and sacrifices they caused, and the infamy they bore in exchange for the rewards offered by hefty bounties were effortlessly caught up with by Mr. Mingyuan, who had just finished his breakfast.

No sacrifices...

Oh, except for the three eggs, the indigenous chicken folk would surely condemn this with vehence.

"Jiuyue, do you have anything else to add?"

Duan Mingyuan put down his pen and politely inquired.

He had to admit that it was this little fox's off-the-cuff remark that made him turn his attention to the two who were still in a vegetative state; if all these conclusions were correct, then it was very likely that Mr. Lu San had made an outstanding contribution to the world after wasting much of his life.

Just like Kraplot discovered uranium and Bouvet Bodrill discovered samarium, he glimpsed the mystery of Life Energy in Mr. Lu San.

If this discovery were to be written into textbooks as a formula in the future, it would make perfect sense to na it after Lu San.

"How did you think of these?"

"Because I've seen it before."

This "before" naturally refers to the years when he was a high school student, his head filled with flights of fancy, hardly down-to-earth.

He didn't like to talk about his past as a student with others, but seeing that Jiuyue, who rarely cared about serious matters, showed interest, he explained, "Have you ever heard the saying 'Even gods and ghosts fear the wicked'?"

"I've heard of it, but it seems like a rumor."

Jiuyue hadn't seen any gods, but she knew about monsters; no monster feared the wicked because their very existence is the embodint of human evil desires.

"I've seen ordinary people scare away monsters. Low-level monsters generally don't like to bother those with intense emotional fluctuations."

Intense emotions triggered changes in Life Energy, which instinctively made those monsters without awakened intelligence feel threatened. However, this phenonon was limited to monsters at the "intern" stage—like those newbies, bewildered and intimidated, who didn't dare to provoke anyone and could only endure in silence while watching the faces of others. But once the monsters beca "full-ti employees," everything changed.

"Miss Fu Ling would definitely be very interested in this; didn't she invite you to submit your resu to the company?"

"She's not the one we're looking for."

Duan Mingyuan shook his head. After so many years in the field, he was quite familiar with the practices of Universe Company. Once he beca a mber of the company in a personal capacity, his discoveries would be controlled by the company; eventually, "Lu San's Law" would be transford into "Fuling's Law" or the "Universal Life Energy Principle."

Even the few contributions Mr. Lu San made to the world would be erased.

The next step would be to monopolize the entire industry.

They would study monsters, and later on, those supernatural beings, extracting value from these otherworldly creatures.

Jiuyue and those hermit folks she ntioned were all regarded as undiscovered treasures by the company.

Last night, he lay in bed until the sky outside was about to lighten before he closed his eyes.

Aside from thinking about the structure of Life Energy and occupational levels, he pondered another question.

Miss Fu Ling had indeed offered an attractive proposition, but the question was, did he still want to return to the company and to the pace of life he had in the past?

The answer was no.

"Go find your imdiate superior."

"Huh?"

Jiuyue was sowhat dazed.

"The organization should have set up a contact person in Yunlong City. I want to et them."