“Didn’t you have something urgent to deal with today?” Ji Tan tried to bluff his way through.
The shrieking kettle fell silent for a moment. Xie Xi lowered his voice slightly, though he was still huffing with anger. “I still had time to answer a phone call.”
Helpless, Ji Tan coaxed him. “Next time I’ll ask you first, all right?”
Xie Xi neither agreed nor refused. He merely made a couple of disgruntled noises.
After finally soothing him, Ji Tan sighed. He decided he’d visit Xie Xi that evening and ask about the lightning-bolt mark. He didn’t dare discuss that thing over the phone. Talking face-to-face would be safer.
Ji Tan took the Killed Yet? shuttle out of the central zone, considering whether he should buy an electric scooter to make getting to jobs easier.
He took out his phone to look for somewhere suitable to buy one, when a notification suddenly popped up:
【Killed Yet? Notification: You have a new job request. Accept order?】
He tapped it and saw a slaughtering assignment nearby. Since he had nothing particularly pressing to do, he accepted it on the spot. Once he confirmed, the Killed Yet? app showed the exact address: a villa inside the central zone, 1.5 kilometers away.
Ji Tan looked back at the checkpoint he’d just exited, full of regret. If only he hadn’t walked out so quickly! Who knew whether they’d even let him back in now?
Then it occurred to him that being able to accept an order there meant Killed Yet? killers must be allowed into the central zone. After all, even tightly controlled residential communities let delivery riders inside.
So Ji Tan put on the purple vest he’d just received and strode back toward the checkpoint with his head held high.
The guard glanced at him and let him straight through without a word. He didn’t even ask to see the order or call the customer.
Security in the central zone isn’t that strict after all.
It wasn’t far, so Ji Tan didn’t bother looking for transportation again. He walked there, taking the opportunity to admire the neighborhood.
The central zone was beautifully landscaped, with lawns and leafy trees everywhere. The roads through the villa district were shaded by interlocking canopies. Walking beneath them, Ji Tan couldn’t resist taking several deep breaths of the cool, fresh air.
Living conditions on the outskirts of the Western District really weren’t very good. Concrete-and-steel skyscrapers stood everywhere, the air was thin, and light pollution was severe. But the central area controlled by the Crown Prince was another world entirely.
“If I’m not moving to another district, I should at least find a place here,” Ji Tan murmured, stepping into the customer’s courtyard.
It was a cozy villa surrounded by a garden of bright flowers. Even the archway over the courtyard gate was woven with climbing blossoms. A stream ran through the garden and emptied into a little pond where several plump koi were swimming.
Whoever lived here clearly loved life.
He rang the bell, and a young woman in a long pale-pink dress opened the door. At the sight of Ji Tan’s purple vest, she gave him a pretty smile and said softly, “Mr. Killer from Killed Yet? is here! Please come in.”
“Madam, you should’ve let me answer the door,” an elderly butler in a short tailcoat said helplessly.
“It’s all right, Uncle Li. I happened to be near the door.” The mistress smiled, hurried over to the sofa in the middle of the living room, and threw herself into the arms of the man sitting there. “Honey, Killed Yet? is here.”
The man on the sofa put down his papers and looked up at Ji Tan. He gave a small nod of greeting. “The job is to slaughter a goat. Are you certain you know how?”
Naturally, a goat ordered through Killed Yet? wouldn’t be an ordinary goat.
“No problem.” Ji Tan nodded confidently. In his current Butcher state, he could see straight through the structure of flesh and bone. Forget a goat, even a dinosaur would be no problem: he could play Butcher Ding and carve up a dinosaur.
Elio’s Note ¹: Butcher Ding (庖丁) is a master butcher from the classical text Zhuangzi, famous for cutting up an ox with effortless skill. Ji Tan jokingly updates the story to a dinosaur.
The man nodded, still half doubtful, then got up and led Ji Tan toward the backyard.
The servants had spread a waterproof sheet over the grass. Only after Ji Tan and the others arrived did they wheel a cage made of special alloy out of the storeroom.
Tied inside was a jet-black kid. It had the usual four hooves, a short tail, and sleek black hair, but there was something else: eight slick, black tentacles extended from its abdomen!
Like an octopus’s arms, the tentacles waved erratically beneath the goat’s belly. The kid raised its head and gazed back with its horizontal pupils, looking thoroughly eerie.
Ji Tan drew a sharp breath. He’d thought he was mentally prepared, but clearly not prepared enough. Since when did goats have tentacles? This was even more outrageous than a fish sprouting frog legs.
“A young black mountain goat. Well? Can you slaughter it?” the man asked again.
Ji Tan circled the cage. In his eyes, the little black goat automatically broke down into a diagram showing how to butcher it. The black tentacles, like the frogfish’s frog legs, were inedible. Everything else could be eaten, including the organs.
That meant less waste than a frogfish, Ji Tan thought absently. He nodded again. “I can.”
He’d come in a hurry and hadn’t brought his tools. Fortunately, the butler had thoughtfully brought out a set of butchering knives and dragged over a hot-water hose. He invited Ji Tan to do the slaughtering right there in the courtyard; the owners wanted to watch.
Ji Tan glanced around. All the other servants had vanished once the goat was brought out, leaving only the husband, wife, and butler. Presumably all three were Orderbearers who could look directly at the mythological creature.
He had no objection to slaughtering a goat in the spacious courtyard. He didn’t particularly want to squeeze into a cramped kitchen either, so he put on an apron, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.
The young black mountain goat was much more docile than a frogfish. Apart from trying to ram him with its hornless head, it made no further attacks. The force of its charge was tremendous; without Enhanced Strength, Ji Tan would have been knocked flying.
Ji Tan straddled the kid and swiftly slit its throat to bleed it. The black tentacles suddenly lengthened and lashed about wildly. One slid up inside his trouser leg from the cuff, and the slippery contact sent goose bumps all over his body.
Like the limbs of a frogfish, the tentacles were inedible. Ji Tan waited until the goat had no strength left to struggle, then immediately raised his leg, pulled out the tentacle, and severed it cleanly with two quick chops.
From the moment the bleeding began, the mistress had buried her face against her husband’s chest, afraid to look. The man fondly patted her back to comfort her. Only after Ji Tan had finished killing the goat and neatly sorted the hide, head, meat, and organs into separate piles did the delicate lady turn around.
“My goodness, you’ve done such a neat job!” She clapped softly, looked up at her husband, and said, “Let’s have roast goat together tonight.”
Frogfish meat was supposedly best eaten raw, but this young black mountain goat didn’t seem to have any restrictions on how it was prepared.
Ji Tan mentally filed away this new fact. He just didn’t know how its effects would differ from eating frogfish.
“No, it’s all yours. I went to quite a bit of trouble to get this from the Southern District. It’s a goat just for you. I can’t bear to eat any of it, so it’s all yours. If you can’t finish it today, save the rest and eat it little by little. I bought a special container for storing the meat too.” The man stroked his wife’s nose affectionately as he spoke.
“Honey, you’re so good to me.”
“I’m determined to win this election. Hurry up and eat it so you can rank up. The wife of a district dictator can’t remain E-rank, you know.”
“I know!”
The two embraced and snuggled together. The handsome man and beautiful woman made a wonderfully heartwarming picture, if you overlooked the pile of goat meat beside them.
The sight made Ji Tan’s teeth ache. Pointing to the eight black tentacles, he said, “These parts can’t be eaten. How would you like them disposed of?”
“Just leave them. I’ll deal with them later.” The butler brought over a clean, warm towel for Ji Tan to wipe his hands.
Only then did the master of the house remember the goat butcher standing nearby. He released his wife, approached with a smile, and shook Ji Tan’s hand. “Young man, excellent work on that goat. Let’s exchange contact information. My surname is Song, and this is my wife.”
Mr. Song told Ji Tan how hard it was to find someone in the Western District who could slaughter a young black mountain goat. There might be more goat-slaughtering jobs in the future; he’d contact Ji Tan directly rather than leave another order hanging for two days without anyone accepting it.
A regular customer was always welcome. Besides, slaughtering a goat took less effort than slaughtering a fish.
Ji Tan gave Mr. Song his phone number and saved the Song family’s butler’s number as well, to make contacting them easier.
After settling the slaughtering fee of 100,000, Mr. Song gave him a paper bag as an extra gift. Ji Tan glanced inside. There was a dark, lumpy mass that looked like… tentacles!
“You can’t eat these, but they’re good stuff.” Mr. Song waggled his eyebrows at him.
Ji Tan had no idea what he meant. His Butcher skill only identified them as inedible; it revealed nothing about any other uses. Judging by Mr. Song’s manner, this was an extra gift intended to encourage a long-term working relationship. It would be rude to refuse such generosity, so Ji Tan accepted.
Mrs. Song, standing beside them, blushed bright red and punched her husband.
At that, Ji Tan sensed something was amiss. The paper bag suddenly felt rather hot in his hands. After leaving the villa district, he went into a convenience store and asked for a plastic bag, sealing the contents up tightly. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief. He found a bench and sat down to call Xie Xi.
“What’s wrong?” Xie Xi asked, a little out of breath, shaking out his hand.
A strange screeching noise came through the phone. Ji Tan swallowed. “You’re busy. We can talk later.”
“I’m not busy.” Xie Xi planted his foot on the squirming fellow on the floor and warned him to keep quiet. “Why? Looking for an excuse to hang up so you can call Xie Bei?”
Ji Tan rolled his eyes. Leaning back on the bench and gazing up at the canopy blocking out the sky, he asked, “Are you free tonight? Dinner’s on me.”
Silence fell at the other end for a moment. There seemed to be the sound of leather shoes striking a metal floor. Xie Xi’s voice was slightly unsteady. “Mm. That depends.”
He hadn’t said yes, but he hadn’t said no either.
Ji Tan understood. It was a boss’s sense of dignity. You couldn’t expect him to come running the moment you asked. “All right, I’ll call you again later.”
“Hey?” Before Xie Xi could say anything more, Ji Tan had already hung up decisively. Xie Xi spun around on the spot, fuming. “This is all your fault.”
The Huo-family bodyguard, bruised and battered, looked up and found the devil glaring furiously at him. He nearly burst into tears. “Sir, you really can’t blame me this time. I’ll talk, all right?”
Ji Tan checked his bank-card balance. The payment for that last job had already arrived.
Although City A had no mobile payment system, customers could transfer money to the bank account listed in Killed Yet?’s backend. Once the platform settled the payment, it passed the killer’s share along.
The service fee was 100,000. The platform took a twenty-percent cut, leaving him with 80,000.
Ji Tan winced at the commission. Running a platform really was the way to make money. As he was thinking this, another order popped up on the screen.
【Job request: Stand in for a headcount at the Nine-Snake Street intersection. Payment: 20,000.】
Ha! That made up for the commission someone had taken.
Still, what kind of task was ‘standing in for a headcount’? Since it only paid 20,000, surely it couldn’t be nearly as difficult as slaughtering fish?
He checked the job’s scheduled time and calculated that he’d still have enough time to finish it and go to dinner with Xie Zhi. He might as well book a restaurant near Nine-Snake Street. If the job paid cash, he could get Xie Zhi to stand in too and earn another 20,000!
Ji Tan rose to his feet, thoroughly pleased with himself. “Hehehe, I’m such a genius.”