Bai Jie had given Lin Binbin those two tasks for two reasons.
First, to prevent the phone's original owner from reporting the theft and having it tracked via satellite — although satellites were currently experiencing unstable signals, especially wildly inaccurate positioning, for unknown reasons.
Second, it wanted to assess Lin Binbin's practical combat ability and determine whether he had any value. If he could hunt mutant animals, Bai Jie could save some effort and directly extract the spiritual essence delivered right to its doorstep.
Bai Jie didn't care how Lin Binbin infiltrated the rear mountain of Xingchuan University to find it.
Come on — if you've gained superpowers and still can't sneak onto a campus, you might as well just bash your head against a wall and be done with it.
Now, Bai Jie pressed on without stopping, its speed climbing even higher, continuing to stealthily advance toward the forested area of the campus's rear mountain.
The reason it chose the rear mountain as its habitat was threefold: first, its area was large enough — several hectares — sufficient for Bai Jie to hide temporarily.
Second, it was close enough to the campus to conveniently investigate leads regarding the eerie violet light.
Third, it was convenient for Bai Jie's hunting needs.
Upon reaching the forest, Bai Jie even discovered some furtive, sneaky couples.
"Hmph. Foolish humans, disturbing my cultivation."
Left with no choice, Bai Jie had to search deeper and higher into the rear mountain until it finally settled on a large tree with a wide field of vision and good concealment.
Without another word, it immediately began spinning its web.
"Floor," "ceiling," "curtains," and "warning perimeter" — nothing could be left out.
After a good while of busy work, the new spider nest was finally complete.
During a rest break, Bai Jie noticed a text from Chen Zhang on its phone.
"He Jun has gone missing? And there's suspicion that Wang Miaoyin is involved..."
An image surfaced in Bai Jie's mind — a face brimming with charm and allure, flirtatious yet not vulgar. As for this neighboring class's beauty, it had certainly heard of her.
"There's a lead. Next, I can go investigate Wang Miaoyin. I also need to remind Chen Zhang to keep his distance from her and not meddle in these matters."
Beep-beep~!
Suddenly, a notification chime rang out — not from the system, but because the phone was almost out of battery. Bai Jie was very frustrated.
It couldn't exactly go on another "zero-dollar shopping spree" for a shared power bank, could it?
Though it was a good idea, it was already deep into the night, and Bai Jie simply couldn't muster the energy to move.
"I'll figure out how to get power tomorrow. Right now, I just want to lie down in my nest for a while."
Wait... power?
Didn't I have the Thunder Mastery talent?
At this thought, Bai Jie immediately perked up. With a concentrated effort, it manipulated a strand of electricity as fine as a hair into the phone's charging port.
Beep.
[Super Fast Charging in Progress... 20.5%, 20.8%, 21.1%]
"...I should say, this is absolutely beyond absurd."
"I don't know whether this phone battery's compatibility is absurdly high, or whether my Thunder Mastery talent is just excessively exquisite. In any case, it worked."
"I absolutely have to protect myself."
Bai Jie's resolve to avoid being captured by humans became utterly unshakeable.
Just imagine being tossed into a power plant and becoming an emotionless power-generation tool — that would be far too miserable.
After the excitement subsided, Bai Jie found itself unable to sleep no matter how it turned. So it stopped conserving battery, turned on mobile data, and went online.
"Thank goodness there's still a bit of network signal in the rear mountain."
"Huh? This video... is that Zheng Yueling?"
On social media, Bai Jie saw an anonymously-sourced video being shared like wildfire.
The video content was primarily a first-person perspective dialogue between the filmer and Zheng Yueling. The filmer's voice had been specially processed, making it impossible to tell male from female. The filmer's name mentioned by Zheng Yueling had also been censored.
Through the exchange between the two, it was revealed that the disappearances (suspected deaths) of two students from Xingchuan University earlier were connected to Zheng Yueling, and Zheng Yueling's words were an admission that she was indeed the true culprit.
Bai Jie quickly realized this must have been Chen Zhang's doing — and that an expert was backing Chen Zhang, such as that black-clothed man who had rescued Chen Zhang from Zheng Yueling the previous time.
The trending topic driven by this video completely exploded.
Among the trending topics, many tech bloggers emerged to analyze the video's authenticity, and they all judged that the possibility of fabrication was extremely low.
For a time, public indignation surged, and netizens subjected Zheng Yueling to a storm of condemnation.
Many were also worried about the video filmer's safety, unsure whether they had met with harm.
Some even expressed relief that Zheng Yueling was already dead — otherwise, even more people would have fallen victim to her.
The direction of public opinion began to shift. Very few people continued to heap blame on Nyx, suspected of killing its master.
...
The next day, golden warmth rose from the east.
The sun's rays spilled down and shone upon Bai Jie's body.
It lazily pushed aside its spider-silk blanket, pulled out its phone, and started scrolling.
In a daze, it felt like it was still living the life of a university student.
Inevitably, it came across a major piece of news about mutant animals.
But its popularity was not as high as yesterday's anonymous video.
The Yongan City Law Enforcement Department had issued a notice stating that they had discovered out-of-control stray animals attacking humans. Over the next week, they would carry out city-wide operations to round up stray animals.
The Law Enforcement Department also reminded citizens that until the cause of the animals' loss of control was determined, they should send household pets to the government to be managed by relevant agencies, in order to avoid unnecessary danger.
This provoked many netizens' displeasure. They claimed there was no evidence and that it was nothing more than bureaucratic posturing.
Animal protection associations and animal lovers voiced strong condemnation.
But many others posted photos, including the state of the humans who had been attacked and killed, as well as the corpses of animals Bai Jie had killed.
Eyewitnesses also came forward to give their accounts, stating that rabid dogs and cats had indeed bitten people to death the night before.
Even so, there were still plenty of people protesting the Law Enforcement Department's actions and questioning the veracity of the animal attacks on humans.
The Law Enforcement Department, however, paid no mind to online chatter.
Many Yongan City residents reported that upon waking early in the morning, they saw law enforcer androids everywhere rounding up stray cats and dogs.
[What's been going on lately? First students disappearing one after another, now city-wide roundups of stray cats and dogs. Is it that the Criminal Investigation Department can't crack the cases, so they're having the Law Enforcement Department create a distraction?]
[The stray animals going out of control is real. I just saw several biting people on the street. Fortunately, the law enforcers got them under control right away.]
[Strange, then how come domestic pet cats and dogs are fine?]
[Holy crap! I actually saw a huge dog tackle a law enforcer to the ground and rip it to shreds! Can a normal dog even do that? Good thing other law enforcers subdued it together, or the consequences would have been unthinkable.]
[...]
On a morning of beautiful weather, when office workers should have been heading to work and students to early classes, Yongan City instead found itself in a state of some chaos.
Fortunately, the number of out-of-control stray animals was not too large, and most of them only turned aggressive while being rounded up by the law enforcers. So civilian casualties were not extensive.
In the span of a single morning, the vast majority of stray cats and dogs across the city had been taken into containment.
The roundup continued.
"This means there won't be many targets left for me to hunt."
"But at the same time, all those scattered, tiny strands of spiritual essence have been concentrated in the hands of the Law Enforcement Department..."
After evaluating the risks, Bai Jie temporarily set aside the idea of heading to the Law Enforcement Department to absorb the animals' spiritual essence.