Chapter 25: Addictive Substances

The small bear turned to look at the grass where the blood and filth of the ball-beasts were buried. "If protection was your original intent, what are you doing now?"

String-Heart gritted her teeth, her expression ferocious. She closed her eyes, unwilling to acknowledge it.

The small bear stood on tiptoe and patted her knee. "I can understand the occasional indulgence, but we generally don't use illegal businesses as an outlet. Stop playing these childish games, String-Heart. You know that if you just ask, I would give you any amount of money you want."

String-Heart’s eyes snapped open. The small bear was instantly pulled into the air by an invisible force, hovering level with her gaze.

She reached out and gripped its throat, hissing, "Fuck you, I don't need your pity!"

"This isn't pity." The small bear spoke, its voice accompanied by the friction of cotton and linen. "Requiem has also gone mad; I only have you left. I have always hoped that all of you would be well, always... everything I have can be yours, as long as you can live happily."

As it struggled in her grasp, it tore open its own chest, its small, short arms laboring to pull a dark red heart from the cotton stuffing.

The natural, heart-shaped ruby reflected the moonlight as the small bear held it up, offering it to String-Heart. It was the size of a doll's fist, superior in both clarity and color, but String-Heart’s eyes grew cold, and she swatted the ruby aside. She plunged her hand into the small bear’s chest and tore it violently in two.

Even ripped to pieces, the small bear raised its head to look at her, its voice distorted. "Admit it. You aren't happy trying so hard to live like a normal person. We can't have a so-called normal life anymore. Your past is harmless, but it has taken root in your soul, constantly reminding you of what you truly crave."

String-Heart thrust her hand into its body, forcing it up from the neck into its head, turning the entire face inside out as she tore it further.

"Just like the things you create—harmless to the human body, causing no organic lesions, but once a person experiences that power, they can never go back. It isn't sugar, it isn't caffeine; people don't get addicted to it for physiological pleasure. They like it because they want to escape their mediocrity and dream a dream that is real and free. But you are different. You are unlike those weak creatures who wallow in fantasy. You possess this power, you love this power, and you love the feeling of venting this power in a justified way even more." The small bear’s mangled head still writhed. "Otherwise, why insist on tearing me apart with your own hands?"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Her pale purple pupils suddenly constricted. The small bear doll exploded violently, every fiber of cotton turning into powder that drifted through the moonlight, shimmering with tiny specks of light.

String-Heart lowered her hands, just as she had when she crushed the ball-beast. Once the volatility faded, her eyes were filled with loss.

A doll appeared behind her, as stained and filthy as the small bear, missing a hand and an eye, as if it had just crawled out of a trash heap.

"If you are willing to continue like this, I will not stop you," Black Coral said to her sincerely. "I am just worried about you. Also, I came this time to tell you some important news. They have called Lily in. You should do less of what you did tonight; she has likely already begun her move."

String-Heart let out a cold snort, then curled her lips into a bloodthirsty smile. "So it’s that madwoman... No wonder the Magic Affairs Bureau just made a fuss and then quieted down."

"Do you need my help? Many have been investigating you lately, though they aren't on her level. You have never been excellent when it comes to intelligence. No, to be honest, you are absolutely terrible at it."

Hearing this, there was no annoyance at being belittled on String-Heart’s face; instead, she looked much calmer than before.

"You’re happy to see that I’ve finally encountered a problem I can’t solve, aren't you?" She turned around to stare at the doll.

The doll raised its single arm over its head in a celebratory gesture. "I’ll take that as a yes."

"Don't waste too much effort on me. I have only one request: don't let her find my family."

"Very well, I will see to it." The doll bowed to her. "You are indeed the same as you always were—no friends in your eyes, only tools to be used."

"But I love being used by you." A pair of hands reached out from behind String-Heart, giving her a hug as light as nothingness.

She spun around as if electrocuted, but the person behind her had already vanished.

...

...

In the residential compound, Shi Ningyu watched from upstairs as the delivery truck drove away before heading down to meet Fu Lan. She looked at the cardboard box, which reached about half her height, and asked, "How many?"

"Five. One is a bit smaller."

"Are they all alive?"

"Yes."

Shi Ningyu opened the box with skeptical suspicion, shining her phone’s flashlight inside. "Holy shit, you actually managed to get them!"

When Fu Lan told her he had a way to get a batch of ball-beasts, she thought he had a source she didn't know about. She hadn't expected it to mean he had gone out and caught them himself.

However, thinking of that investigation report, her gaze toward Fu Lan was tinged with suspicion. And even more bitterness...

She quickly masked it with timely unease and urged Fu Lan to move the items into the bicycle shed.

The two lifted the box into the doorway, and Shi Ningyu panted heavily. "It’s way too big when you actually have to move it! Teacher Lan, do you happen to know any magic like a spatial bag?"

"You're thinking too much. If such magic actually existed, would the Magic Affairs Bureau still be chasing after mages? The government would have already put us on a pedestal."

After confirming they were safe, Shi Ningyu closed the door and began to admonish Fu Lan. "It’s too risky to hire a truck and pretend to be moving furniture. The suppliers can use small trucks because they have connections; don't let this happen again."

Fu Lan replied indifferently, "If we’re lucky, we only have to move them this once."

They dismantled the box, which was disguised as an oven package, and transferred the five unconscious ball-beasts into a chicken coop.

Shi Ningyu pulled a few wet wipes from her bag to clean the dust off her hands and stood with her hands on her hips, looking at Fu Lan. "Alright, tell me how to raise them. I’ve only ever dealt with the kind that were already sedated. What do I do when they wake up?"

Fu Lan had previously given her a brief introduction to the habits of ball-beasts. Like most magical beasts, they fed on human negative emotions. But this didn't mean the negative emotions disappeared from the host once "swallowed"; the beasts only absorbed the spiritual energy that overflowed as a result.

If they lacked their staple food of negative emotions, they could survive on what ordinary animals ate—ball-beasts were omnivorous magical beasts, making them easier to raise. But if they went too long without their primary food, they would become irritable.

Interestingly, the negative emotion ball-beasts liked best was irritation. They were often attracted to places where workers gathered; the largest cluster of ball-beasts ever discovered was found hiding in a tunnel near the Tiantongyuan subway station.

And if one wanted them to breed, one still had to provide them with meat. After consuming enough meat, ball-beasts would enter a three-to-five-day dormant incubation period. The amount of meat required varied by species. Once incubation was complete, they would spit out a cub about the same size as themselves, which would grow to adulthood in just three days.

Shi Ningyu had probably refined hundreds of ball-beasts, but this was the first time she had learned about their habits in such detail. Upon hearing this, she couldn't help but ask curiously, "Which meat works best?"

A look of distinct disgust appeared on Fu Lan’s face as he replied, "Human meat."

"...We aren't going to use human meat, right?" Shi Ningyu joked. Seeing that Fu Lan remained silent, she panicked slightly and pressed, "Right?"

"We won't. But you’ve probably heard that the underground raw material supply industry in certain countries is far more developed than in others." Fu Lan stopped there and did not elaborate further.

Compared to other animals, the food and breeding conditions required by ball-beasts were incredibly simple, comparable to mealworms. Under ideal conditions, one could find a sweatshop filled with office workers, build a farm underground, and toss in a dozen pounds of meat at regular intervals; before long, the ball-beasts would be overflowing.

"Then weren't we being too wasteful before?" Shi Ningyu had another whimsical idea. "Once they breed to a certain number, as long as we regularly supply them with negative emotions and have them run in circles to generate electricity, wouldn't they be perpetual motion machines? Why would we even sell goods? We’d win the Nobel Prize!"

Fu Lan looked at her helplessly. "If they could be used like that, others would have done it long ago..."

Ball-beasts were not chickens; you couldn't just keep them in a cage and expect them to eat and sleep well. No magical beast liked to be kept in captivity, much less run in circles to generate electricity dutifully. The first thing these ball-beasts would do after waking up would be to bite through the bars of the chicken coop.

Changing the material of the coop wouldn't solve the problem. Of course, the ball-beasts couldn't bite through steel, but if they went berserk in an iron cage for too long, it could easily trigger a self-destruction with considerable power. If several ball-beasts were kept together, it would trigger a combined evolution, which was nothing to take lightly.

Fortunately, Fu Lan’s USB drive recorded a little-known habit of ball-beasts: they loved to watch things that swung back and forth.

That’s right, the kind of useless hypnotic trick where one swings a pocket watch in front of a person’s eyes. No one had ever done this to a ball-beast, so no one knew they could actually be mesmerized by such a ridiculous thing. If you placed a pendulum in front of them, especially in their favorite color—red—they would watch it for a whole day without moving.

When Shi Ningyu saw Fu Lan take out an electric Newton’s cradle painted red, she was completely speechless.