1: Chapter 1: Under the Blood Moon, My Money Turned into Ghost Money!

"Waaah—waaah—"

It sounded like ten thousand infants shrieking in his ears at once, or like fingernails repeatedly scraping against rusted iron. The sound penetrated the vault-grade alloy walls, which were theoretically soundproof, stabbing into the depths of Lin Chen's brain like freezing needles.

He snapped his eyes open.

Above him, the smart ecological simulation lights, worth tens of millions, were flashing frantically, soaking the entire room in a thick, suffocating blood-red hue. The air purification system let out a dying, heavy wheeze; the vents no longer delivered pure oxygen, but instead a pungent stench of rust, rotting meat, and a faint... scent of burnt human hair.

This was his "Ark," a top-tier shelter into which he had poured trillions of assets from his past life, claimed to be able to withstand bunker-busting nuclear bombs. But now, reality was shredding his sense of security in the most brutal way possible.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Heavy impacts replaced the ear-piercing scraping, making the entire room vibrate slightly. Lin Chen turned his head, his pupils shrinking slightly—the alloy wall on the right, designed to withstand continuous bombardment from heavy armor-piercing rounds, was now bulging inward with a terrifying basin-sized dent as if squeezed by a hydraulic press! In the center of the dent were several crystal-clear claw marks with barbs!

Something was outside, attempting to tear apart this pinnacle of human technology with sheer strength!

There was no fear on Lin Chen's face, only a cold displeasure at having his peace disturbed, along with a hint of curiosity at seeing something novel. He threw back the bulletproof blanket made of top-tier composite materials and stepped onto the cold floor barefoot, his movements smooth and steady, as if there were merely a rainstorm outside.

Walking to the weapon display wall, a dazzling array of firearms glinted with a ghostly, cold deathly luster under the blood-red light. He bypassed the sci-fi-looking electromagnetic rifles and pulse pistols, directly picking up the most classic and aesthetically violent custom-made Golden Desert Eagle. As the heavy weight settled in his hand, the cold metallic touch made his thoughts even clearer.

"Click!" The sound of a bullet chambering rang out like a thunderclap in the deathly silent room.

He walked to the severely deformed wall and looked outside through the special observation window, which was three times thicker than bulletproof car glass.

The next moment, even with Lin Chen's temperament of being accustomed to great storms, his brows furrowed tightly.

Outside the window crouched a... monster that simply could not be explained by common sense.

It roughly maintained the form of an infant, but its size was as large as a three or four-year-old child. Its skin was a bloated blue-black, like something that had been soaking in water for months, covered in thick, worm-like dark purple veins. Its massive head was bald, without a single hair. Most unsettling was its face—it had no nose, only two constantly twitching black holes; there were no pupils in its eye sockets, only murky whites like spoiled milk, which were continuously oozing thick, foul-smelling tainted blood.

Its mouth split to an incredible angle, almost spanning its entire face, filled with dense, shark-like sharp teeth with barbs. Currently, it was using its pitch-black claws, which ended like hooked daggers, to frantically scratch and bash the observation window. The special glass, capable of resisting the impact of a man-portable rocket, was now covered in spiderweb-like cracks, and a tiny breach had even appeared at the center of the impact!

"Crying Infant Bizarre..." Lin Chen murmured to himself, his tone as calm as if he were identifying a newly discovered microbe in a laboratory. In some high-priced secret files from his past life, he seemed to have seen vague descriptions and energy spectrums of similar things, but he hadn't expected the physical entity to be more nauseating than the data.

Without hesitation or probing, he raised his hand, aimed at that constantly bleeding eye socket, and pulled the trigger!

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Deafening gunshots exploded in the confined space, and hot shell casings clattered as they jumped onto the floor. Specially made pure silver bullets, engraved with evil-breaking patterns on the tips, slammed into the Crying Infant Bizarre's head and torso with violent kinetic energy.

However, the expected scene of brains splattering did not occur. The bullets hit its blue-black skin as if hitting old cowhide, only splashing a few flowers of foul-smelling black blood and leaving several bullet craters no deeper than half a finger. The Crying Infant Bizarre's head was knocked back repeatedly, its movements pausing briefly; then, as if completely enraged, it let out an even sharper wail filled with endless resentment and malice!

"Awooo—!!!"

This wail seemed to carry a physical mental shock, making Lin Chen feel a surge of intense nausea and dizziness; his temples throbbed as if struck by a heavy hammer. He even saw a slight distortion in the air before his eyes.

It stopped scratching and began using its massive, deformed head like a battering ram, hitting the observation window, which was on the verge of shattering, more and more frantically, over and over again!

"Thump! Thump! Thump!" The heavy impacts sounded like the knocking of the Grim Reaper. The "crack" of breaking glass was clearly audible, and several small glass shards began to spray in from outside.

"Useless trash," Lin Chen cursed, though it was unclear if he was referring to this weapon that had cost a fortune yet now seemed utterly powerless, or if he was spitting at the monster outside whose physical rules were incomprehensible. He casually threw the empty Desert Eagle onto the floor, the golden body colliding with the alloy floor with a dull, ironic thud.

Habitually, he pulled out his phone, the device that maintained his last connection to his past life's business empire. The screen lit up automatically; there were no signal bars, but an app he had used until he was sick of it in his past life—his private banking app from Swiss United Bank—forced its way open.

The interface still maintained that elite, luxurious UI design, but the content on it made even a financial tycoon like him, who had controlled the flow of trillions in global capital and was used to numerical games, catch his breath.

[User: Lin Chen]

[nether talisman Reserve: 10,000,000,000]

[Summonable Units: Yin Soldier Centurion (0/10000), Ghost General (0/100)]

[Permissions: Bizarre Tycoon Lv. Max (Effect: Immune to low-level mental pollution, possesses natural deterrence against low-level Bizarre Monsters, can conduct limited transactions with non-hostile high-level Bizarre Monsters)]

Not a single digit of his assets was missing; in fact, due to a series of thrilling short-selling operations in the hours before his death, the total had surged by twenty percent. But the units had changed from US Dollars, Euros, and Gold into two massive, crimson characters that looked as if written in blood—nether talisman!

The extra columns below looked more like a crude game interface.

"nether talismans? Yin Soldiers? Ghost Generals?" Lin Chen raised an eyebrow, and that habitual smile, tinged with a bit of playfulness and indifference, surfaced again. This time, it was much more genuine. "Fucking interesting. Does this mean my money, in this hellhole, hasn't just become scrap paper, but has become... a hard currency for exorcising demons? I can even build a private army?"

This was ten thousand times more bizarre than any venture capital or leveraged buyout he had done in his past life. But he accepted it extremely quickly, his brain spinning rapidly as he began to evaluate the purchasing power and application scenarios of this "new currency." After all, since something like the Crying Infant Bizarre had appeared vividly before him, what financial rules couldn't be broken?

With a thought, he attempted to operate the app interface that seemed to have been "bizarrefied." A product list with an ancient, even somewhat crude style that exuded a ghostly aura popped up. At the very top was an icon flashing with an unstable yellow light.

[Item: Evil-Suppressing Yellow Talisman (Entry Level)]

[Description: A talisman paper containing a trace of pure nether power, possessing significant killing and purification effects on low-level Bizarre Monsters.]

[Price: 1 nether talisman]

[Stock: ∞]

"One nether talisman?" Lin Chen looked at his reserve of ten billion, an eleven-digit number, feeling absurd and amused. This purchasing power was even worse than a one-dollar coin he would give to a homeless person on a New York street in his past life.

"Let's buy one to test the waters."

The moment he clicked to buy with his mind, the crimson numbers on the phone screen skipped elegantly, becoming 9,999,999,999. An indescribable, subtle connection was established between him and this "system."

Simultaneously, with a soft swish as if space itself were being sliced, a piece of parchment with a strange texture, cold and delicate to the touch like tanned skin from some unknown creature, appeared in his hand. The talisman was about the size of a palm and had a calm dark-yellow color, with a distorted, complex, and eerie pattern drawn in some dark-red cinnabar that looked like ancient, congealed blood. Even stranger, a few wisps of black mist naturally swirled around the talisman, flowing slowly as if alive and emitting a faint chill.

At the very instant this "Evil-Suppressing Yellow Talisman" appeared!

Outside the observation window, the Crying Infant Bizarre, which had been frantically bashing and was determined to break through, suddenly froze! Its blood-dripping eye whites stared fixedly, filled with an indescribable terror, at the seemingly unremarkable yellow paper in Lin Chen's hand. The sound from its throat was no longer a violent wail, but a "Heh... heh..." low growl full of fear and despair. Its massive body even began to tremble uncontrollably, and it instinctively tried to shrink back, moving away from the window it was about to smash.

"Oh? You recognize quality?" The playfulness on Lin Chen's face deepened, and for the first time, a spark of interest truly belonging to a "player" appeared in his deep eyes. He pinched the yellow paper worth "one nether talisman" and twirled it nimbly between his fingers, as if playing with an interesting toy.

He walked leisurely to the observation window, separated from the ugly, powerful monster by almost nothing but a layer of glass on the verge of collapse. He could even clearly see the leftover scraps of meat and mucus between its sharp teeth and smell the nauseating stench hitting his face.

"Your crying is really unpleasant," he said in a flat tone, yet with a condescending disdain as if judging a shoddy product. "If your professional level is this poor, don't come out to scare people."

Before his voice had even faded, he flicked his wrist casually, his movement relaxed and easy, as if flicking non-existent dust off a suit.

The Evil-Suppressing Yellow Talisman instantly transformed into a solid, swift streak of black light. As if completely ignoring physical barriers, it noiselessly penetrated the cracked special glass and was imprinted with absolute precision onto the Crying Infant Bizarre's bald, blood-covered forehead!

"Awooo—!!!"

A shrill scream, exceeding the limits of human hearing, instantly erupted! Where the talisman was attached, it was as if a red-hot iron had been pressed hard, bursting with a blinding, eye-searing crimson light! Accompanied by a violent "hissing" sound like cold water dripping into boiling oil, thick black smoke like liquid ink surged out from every pore of its body!

The Crying Infant Bizarre frantically waved its claws, trying to tear the talisman from its forehead, but the paper was as if rooted there, unmoving. Instead, the red light grew even more intense. It rolled and convulsed violently on the ground, its massive body shriveling and dissolving at a visible rate. Its screams also quickly became weak and high-pitched, finally turning into a faint, lingering mournful cry.

In just two or three seconds.

The black smoke was instantly sucked away by an invisible force, dissipating completely.

Outside the observation window, it was empty.

No corpse, no ashes, no residual tainted blood, not even a trace of an odor was left behind. It was as if that terrifying, powerful monster had never been anything more than a hallucination. Only the massive dent on the alloy wall and the dense cracks and hole in the observation window silently spoke of everything that had just happened, defying all logic.

Value: one nether talisman. Effect: outstanding. Environmentally friendly with no residue. User experience: excellent.

Lin Chen nodded in satisfaction and gave a soft critique to the empty space outside the window, as if he had just completed a small investment with an incredible rate of return: "The cost-performance ratio is super high. This exchange rate is quite fair."

He lowered his head, his thumb stroking the phone screen, preparing to properly research what other good things worth "bulk purchasing" or "strategic investment" were in this [nether domain asset system] when—

"Lin Chen! Lin Chen! Are you in there? Please! Open the door! Save me! Save me—!!"

The scream of a woman he was incredibly familiar with, yet currently filled with ultimate terror and despair to the point of almost tearing her vocal cords, accompanied by even denser and closer Bizarre Monster roars and impacts, penetrated the hole in the wall and reached his ears with absolute clarity and sharpness.

He had heard this voice countless times in his past life. It belonged to the woman he had spent endless effort, wealth, and emotion pursuing, yet who had always remained like a moon reflected in water—distant and aloof—Su Qingyu.

His unattainable "White Moonlight."

Lin Chen raised his head and looked in the direction the voice came from. His eyes remained calm, but the playful curve at the corner of his mouth quietly widened a bit more.