899: Sweep the Top Three Spots!

Sweep the Top Three Spots!

When the shopkeeper gave his name, Wang Ling realized that fate was indeed a very mystical thing. The destinies of different people were entwined together, and there were times when that fate ran deep. Back when Wang Ling had named Jingke, it wasn't as if he knew the shopkeeper's name; who would have thought they would actually be homonyms… A comedian who looked like a tea egg once scolded loudly on a program: Anyone who makes a joke about homonyms will be fined[1]!1

After confirming their team of four, Boss Jin started to explain how the modern exorcism competition worked as well as points of note.

"You're not in our line of work. While you might have heard about the exorcism competition, I don't think you know the details, so let me briefly explain them."

Boss Jin took out his laptop – there was a PPT on it which his former teammates from previous years had made. Teams of four participated in the exorcism competition each year, and you had to look for teammates yourself. Boss Jin hadn't ranked very well the last few years – he found the "demon," but ultimately wasn't the one to destroy it… instead, he wasted time making wedding robes for other people[2].

"The full name of the exorcism competition is the Modern Exorcism and Spirit Banishing Competition. We live in a world that produces new demons and ghosts every year. These things are either made up of lasting resentment or complex negative emotions. They linger on earth, constantly affecting the daily lives of people."

Boss Jin said, "This is now an age of national cultivation, where even a Foundation Establishment high school student can easily dispose of some earthbound or simple malicious spirits. Professional exorcism is gradually waning, hence the reason for the exorcism competition.

"The prizes for the exorcism competition continue to increase every year. Everyone participating in the exorcism competition has to form teams prior to the start of the competition. If you don't have enough people, you need to let the competition organizers know."

"Does it have to be four?" Odd Zhuo asked.

"The best is four, to fill all the spots in your team." Boss Jin frowned and said, "That's because the devils we have to exorcise in the exorcism competition are all very powerful! They can kill people! At least one of the four should be a medic!"

Wang Ling and Odd Zhuo: "…"

Saying this, Boss Jin clicked on the next slide. "Every year before the start of the exorcism competition, the competition committee will collect information on unusual activity from various cities and will put the data together half a year beforehand. They'll put together a list of demons which are generally recognized to be the most difficult to deal with, and which give different reward points. The group with the highest number of accumulated points after forty-eight hours is the winner."

Boss Jin was done giving a general overview of the situation, and finally came to the real issue: the prize money. The prize pool for the exorcism competition this year was one billion HNY.

For a lot of enlightened cultivators, this sum might be nothing, but for most cultivators… one billion HNY wasn't a small number – even Wang Ling's heart itched at this amount.

But this prize money was doomed to never be his. The rule in the Wang family was that Wang Ling couldn't use his powers beyond his status as a student to win any sort of money. Otherwise, Father Wang wouldn't need to work so hard to churn out words, and could have become the richest man in the world long ago…

But Wang Ling also had nothing to lose.

After all, cooperating with Boss Jin was a win-win situation.

Boss Jin wanted to preserve his ancestral legacy, while Wang Ling's goal wasn't the prize money, but Jingke's original scabbard.

For this year's exorcism competition –

The group with the most points would get 600 million HNY.

The group in second place would get 200 million HNY.

The group in third place would get 100 million HNY.

The remaining 100 million HNY would be distributed to the rest of the groups based on their points ranking.

Staring at the list, Odd Zhuo thought for a while, then asked Boss Jin, "Are sign-ups still open for the competition?"

"You can register right up until the official start of the competition. But why do you ask?"

"I'm wondering if I should get a few of my friends to form groups so that we can take the top three spots."

"…"

Boss Jin wiped at his sweat. "There are numerous experts in the exorcism competition this year. Even if your friends take part, they may not be able to beat them… When all is said and done, they're not professional exorcists, while basically all the groups are each led by a professional exorcist, and the other three members are recruited in other ways…"

"It's just ghost hunting; anyone who has gone through university will more or less have done a course on it," Odd Zhuo said. "A so-called professional exorcist is just a regular person who has an extra certificate. As the saying goes, a random blow can kill an old master[3]; as long as the lineup is strong enough, anything is possible. In any case, the money will be all yours. What's there for you to be unhappy about?"

Boss Jin opened his mouth, but in the end swallowed his words. He felt that Odd Zhuo was a little presumptuous. Although the latter was indeed very strong and had captured a number of internationally wanted criminals… each field was singularly unique, and exorcism absolutely wasn't as simple as Odd Zhuo imagined.

Because this exorcism competition covered the whole country! Once the competition started, all the groups had to search the entire nation for the ghosts on the list and get rid of them.

Hence, in past competitions, sometimes the hardest part wasn't destroying the ghosts, but finding them.

How could you win the competition if you couldn't even find a ghost? Moreover, these strong ghosts were intelligent – when they encountered someone a little stronger, they would be too afraid to come out.

It was in moments like these that a professional exorcist was needed.

Professional exorcists had thousands of ways to draw demons and ghosts out, which was one of their professional abilities.

"Do as you like. In any case, I just need to rank in the top three." While Boss Jin didn't think much about Odd Zhuo's suggestion, he still waved his hand and let Odd Zhuo pull people in and do as he pleased.

Actually, Odd Zhuo wasn't doing this all for Boss Jin.

The Office of Strategic Deception hadn't been established for long, but all the teams had basically been busy with all sorts of different things and didn't seem to have done anything together as an overall group. Thus, using this competition to foster a harmonious atmosphere among the executive members and to cultivate a sense of teamwork would be very important!

At that thought, Odd Zhuo called Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal right away.

Several minutes later, the executive members of the Office of Strategic Deception received their groupings from Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal.

Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal, Dog Two, Dharmaraja and Fatty Luo were in one group.

Fang Xing, Little Silver, Cailian Zhenren and Immortal Toya were in one group.

The goal — to sweep the top three!

What Wang Ling didn't know…

Was that elsewhere, Wang Zhen, Liu Qingyi and Gu Shunzhi had also signed up for this competition…

But these three people didn't plan to find another teammate, and intended to do their own thing…

[1] Refers to Li Dan ("dan" being a homonym for "egg") on the Chinese talk show "Storyman."

[2] From a Chinese seven-line poem, which refers to someone whose hard work is in service to other people and not themselves.

[3] I.e. Don't take things for granted as the unexpected can still happen.

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