43: Chapter 43 System Save Me? Your Cheat Has Been Confiscated

"Ten years or more? Confiscation of property?"

Manager Zhang lay on the ground, half his face already swollen into the color of a purple eggplant, blood foam constantly bubbling from his mouth.

His small eyes, filled with greed, stared fixedly at the credentials in Gu Changan's hand and the copy of the "Criminal Law" that looked like the Yama's Book of Life and Death.

The intense pain did not bring him to his senses; instead, it thoroughly incited the viciousness in his bones.

He was the Chosen One who possessed a System! He was a man destined to stand at the top of the food chain!

How could he fall into the hands of a tattered book and a group of people in uniforms?

"Gu Changan..."

Manager Zhang let out a wheezing roar from his throat. Because his teeth were shattered all over the floor, his voice sounded slurred and indistinct, like the roar of an injured beast.

"You ruined my plans... cut off my path to immortality..."

He lifted his head abruptly, his eyes so full of resentment that they seemed ready to drip.

"Since you want to arrest me, don't blame me for being impolite! On my turf, even if it's the state apparatus, I will chew it up and swallow it!"

Gu Changan closed his credentials, his brows slightly furrowed. Seeming to feel a hint of disgust at the blood foam he spat out, he stepped back half a pace.

"Stubborn and unrepentant. Your crimes are compounded."

"Go to hell! System! Activate 'Gluttony Mode'! I'm going to devour him!"

Manager Zhang let out a hysterical scream.

The next second, a sickening scene unfolded.

His body began to convulse violently, his already sturdy physique expanding rapidly like an inflated balloon.

"Rip—"

His camouflage vest burst open. The exposed skin was no longer human-colored but quickly transformed into an eerie dark green, the surface covered in toad-like bumps and slime.

The most terrifying part was his mouth.

His already large mouth now split open all the way to his ear roots, even continuing to tear backward, revealing rows of dense, shark-like regenerative serrated fangs inside.

A nauseating, fishy stench instantly permeated the air.

"Hungry... so hungry..."

The mutated Manager Zhang lay on the ground, on all fours, his back humped high, exactly like a giant humanoid toad that had gained sentience.

He stared at Gu Changan, his eyes devoid of any human emotion, leaving only pure appetite.

"What kind of Prodigy is this?!"

Standing to the side, Chen Beixuan instinctively covered his nose, his face full of disdain and contempt.

Although he had lost his cultivation, this did not affect his judgment as a former Immortal Venerable.

"Forcibly driving demonic power, disregarding the limits of his Physical Body, making himself look neither human nor ghost."

Chen Beixuan kicked a pebble on the ground and commented with a look of disgust: "Wanting to train himself into the ancient Vicious Beast, Taotie? He ended up training into a gluttonous toad. This kind of trash that only knows how to eat—in my prime, I could press ten thousand of them to death with a single finger."

"Don't compare this inferior product to a Taotie; that is an insult to the Taotie."

Gu Changan's voice remained steady; he even had the leisure to pull a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and gently wipe his fingers, which were free of dust.

"Roar—!"

The monster-turned Manager Zhang couldn't understand human speech at all. He kicked his hind legs violently, and the ground instantly cracked.

Like a green cannonball, he opened that bloody maw capable of swallowing a cow, rushing straight at Gu Changan's face with a fishy wind.

That was pure physical strength, so fast that even the air emitted a sonic boom.

Chen Beixuan instinctively wanted to dodge, but he realized that Gu Changan hadn't even blinked, nor had he activated the combat auxiliary mode of his exoskeleton armor.

"Stupid."

Gu Changan spat out two words indifferently.

Just as that bloody maw was about to snap shut, Gu Changan moved.

He didn't dodge, nor did he clash head-on.

His right hand was fast as lightning, fishing a cylindrical metal object out of the tactical pouch at his waist.

That was a non-lethal weapon developed by the Special Operations Group for special creatures—[High-Effect Emetic Stun Grenade (Special Supply Edition)].

"Since you're so hungry, eat a solid dish first."

Gu Changan flicked his wrist, and the metal cylinder flew accurately into Manager Zhang's bottomless throat.

Then, he lifted his right hand sharply, giving the slime-covered chin a hard shove upward.

"Click!"

Forcibly closing his mouth.

Manager Zhang widened his protruding, bubble-like eyes, and a muffled sound of choking came from his throat.

"Mmph! Mmph mph!"

Before he could react to what that tasted like.

"Bang—!"

A muffled explosion sounded inside his stomach.

This wasn't a gunpowder explosion, but the instant release of high-frequency sonic vibrations mixed with a high-concentration, high-effect emetic.

Manager Zhang's body stiffened violently, his originally inflated belly fluctuating intensely, as if something inside was churning the seas and rivers.

That feeling was like having just drunk a ton of gutter oil and then being stuffed into a tumble dryer and spun three hundred times.

"Waa—!"

There was simply no possibility of holding it back.

Manager Zhang fell to his knees, opened his mouth wide, and began to vomit frantically.

The Shangfu bird meat he had just eaten, the undigested barbecue, and even stomach acid and bile all gushed out in one go.

But that wasn't all.

Along with the vomit, clusters of black mist were also expelled.

That was the greedy desire bestowed upon him by the System, the energy source that supported his transformation.

"Ugh... ah..."

Manager Zhang twitched in pain, tears and snot streaming down his face.

As the black mist left his body, his massive monster physique deflated rapidly like a punctured ball.

The dark green skin faded, the fangs fell out, and he turned back into that blood-covered, disheveled, middle-aged fat man.

At this moment, let alone resisting, he didn't even have the strength to move a finger; it was as if his entire backbone had been pulled out.

Gu Changan stepped back two paces in disgust, avoiding the filth on the ground.

Just then, a faint, eerie light crawled out from Manager Zhang's body, attempting to take advantage of the chaos to flee toward the distant dense forest.

That was the System itself, having realized that its host was completely ruined and preparing to run away.

[System Prompt: Host's physical functions detected as collapsed, unable to maintain contract, performing forced unbinding...]

A cold smirk curled the corners of Gu Changan's mouth.

"Want to run?"

"Hit-and-run in front of me? Who gave you the guts?"

He raised his left hand, palm facing outward.

In the center of the palm of that pitch-black exoskeleton armor, a dazzling blue light suddenly flared.

"Order Domain, lockdown."

The blue light instantly turned into a light prison, tightly trapping the eerie light that hadn't even flown five meters away.

The eerie light charged left and right, but it could not break through the seemingly thin light curtain, only emitting a desperate buzzing sound.

Gu Changan curled his five fingers into a void grip, and the light prison rapidly contracted, finally turning into a transparent cubic cage that flew back into his palm.

Inside the cube, a small ball of light was trembling, and one could vaguely see the pleading emoji it had morphed into.

"Illegal possession and use of a prohibited Golden Finger; confiscating the tool of the crime."

Gu Changan examined the ball of light in his hand, his tone as casual as if he were disposing of a piece of contraband electronic appliance.

"Chen Xiaobei."

"Here!" Chen Xiaobei's excited voice came through the communicator.

"Take this 'Gourmet Hunter System' back and format it."

Gu Changan tossed the cube to the special operations personnel who had just stepped off the plane, took off his gloves, and threw them into the trash bag beside him.

"Remove the greed algorithm from it, and only keep the ingredient identification and cooking assistance functions."

"The food in our bureau's cafeteria has been too poor lately; the old squad leader of the cooking squad has been complaining for a long time."

"Install this thing into the old squad leader's smart stir-fry machine; it'll be just right to improve everyone's meals."

Chen Beixuan stood to the side, listening in stunned silence, his mouth twitching wildly.

Taking a System that could allow one to Heaven-Defyingly change one's fate... and using it to cook in the cafeteria?

Is this the state's way of handling things?

This is just too...

Too damn reasonable!

Gu Changan adjusted his collar, not even looking at Manager Zhang, who lay on the ground like a dead dog, and turned to walk toward the obsidian.

There, the curled-up Fire Qilin cub was poking its head out, looking at him timidly.

Gu Changan bent down, the originally cold and hard lines of his face softening a little.

"Little one, you've been frightened."