Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 550 Cheng Ming
……

Cheng Ming weaved through the crowded throng and finally found a seat. Before he could even put down his backpack, three more people of similar age sat down next to him and opposite him. The memetic connection between the infected made Cheng Ming instantly realize that these three were his "kin."

It wasn't just these three people; roughly half of the passengers in this entire train carriage were infected... or rather, monster hunters.

As for the remaining 50%, they were either the hunters' partners or freelance mercenaries who also hunted strange creatures for a living. Although none of these people carried weapons, Cheng Ming could still tell at a glance that their temperament was completely different from that of ordinary people.

"Oh, looks like we're all in the same line of work?" said a stylishly dressed young woman sitting across from Cheng Ming. "You've all taken on that mission too, right?"

"Otherwise what?" Sitting next to Cheng Ming was a boy wearing a dark gray windbreaker. He was estimated to be over 1.8 meters tall, but the soft down on his lips had not yet turned into a stubble, and his features looked very immature. He looked like a high school student who was a little too well-nourished.

"The railway management department of Liangzhu has specially concentrated all the hunters and mercenaries heading to Chang'an in this carriage," said the man sitting opposite Cheng Ming, next to the young woman. "They probably did this to prevent too many infected people from gathering at once and causing public panic."

Cheng Ming turned to look out the train window. The platform was no longer as crowded as before. Passengers who had just gotten off were either dragging their luggage toward the exit or staring at their phones, checking navigation apps or calling ride-hailing services. A tall girl in denim shorts jumped into the arms of a boy in a white shirt; a young man in a red volunteer vest was squatting beside an elderly man, helping him repair his malfunctioning wheelchair.

The train number is G1944. It departs from Liangzhu West Station and terminates at Shuofang City. The entire journey is 2099 kilometers and takes 11 hours and 30 minutes. However, for the people in this carriage, their destination is Chang'an North Station, which is a stop along the G1994 route. The journey only takes eight hours.

Cheng Ming turned his gaze away from the car window and was surprised to find that in the short minute he had been staring blankly out the window, the three people next to him had been chatting animatedly.

"If I can complete this mission, I'm going to go to a nightclub and hire ten, no, twenty male models!" the young woman said with a giggle, "and have them line up to lick my toes!"

The young hunter, who looked like a high school student, shook his head: "It's boring... If I could get the money, I'd buy those limited-edition sneakers, then top up ten 648 yuan accounts, oh, and..."

"Little brother, are you still a virgin?" the young woman suddenly asked, staring at him.

"Why are you asking this?" The young hunter blushed slightly.

"Nothing, just asking." The young woman tossed her hair, sat up straight, and deliberately puffed out her chest. "Do you think I'm pretty?"

"So-so." The young hunter's eyes turned deadpan as he looked at the woman. "Not even half a stick of Arturo's."

"Who is Arturo?" The young woman's expression stiffened slightly, and she immediately asked.

“It’s a character from a mobile game I play,” the young hunter replied.

"Tch... a two-dimensional character." The young woman's eyes revealed a hint of disdain as she muttered under her breath, "A deadbeat otaku virgin... what a waste of such a handsome face."

"This bounty is five billion! Even if it's divided among five hundred people, each person would get ten million," said the man sitting next to the woman. "Such a huge sum of money, and this is what you plan to do with it?"

"So what are you planning to do?" The young woman turned her head to look at him, and then put a little distance between them.

Although the hunter wasn't very old, looking to be around thirty, for some reason, he always gave off a lifeless feeling... The young woman thought about it, and she probably only ever had a similar feeling about those overworked geezers in the CBD who worked overtime every day until they died, relying on coffee to keep them going and smelling like office workers.

"Of course, I'd buy a house in Shanghai. That way, I can transfer my household registration from Liangzhu to Shanghai... You guys don't know, the benefits for registered hunters in Shanghai are much better than in Liangzhu. The monthly personal consumption subsidy alone is almost double... After all, it's the second largest metropolis in the Federation after Chunming City!" said the hunter with the distinctive smell of a policeman.

"Are you a registered hunter?" The young woman glanced at him. "From the Liangzhu Mystery Research Institute?"

“Yeah, right.” The hunter, dressed in a typical school uniform, nodded. “Bounties posted by the Celestial Tower can be accepted by any hunter, whether registered or freelance, as long as they don’t have any ongoing missions… I think this guy over there is a registered hunter too, right?”

"I've only been with the company for two months," the young hunter said, scratching his head. "I just finished my advanced training yesterday."

"A rookie actually participated in this kind of mission?" The young woman looked at him with some surprise. "Aren't you afraid of dying?"

"Our instructor told me that participating in this kind of mission is more beneficial than harmful. As long as I don't overexert myself, observe and think more, and do what I can, I can not only gain a lot of practical experience, but also get a share of the bounty," the young hunter said. "I'm quite confident in my abilities... The other guys in my training group, even if they teamed up, might not be able to beat me!"

"Isn't this just a freeloader?" the young woman laughed. "What a coincidence, I'm a freeloader too... what can I do when my ability is support-type?"

"Actually... most of the people who participated in this mission had this in mind." The hunter, dressed in a military uniform, lowered his voice slightly. "I checked all the information about the target monster released by the Tian Shu Tower. A large monster of this level would definitely require a large number of hunters to hunt it down. Besides the fighting, there would be plenty of work left for slackers like us. What puzzles me is that the best way to deal with this kind of monster is to use missiles or heavy weapons to kill it directly, and the Hexi Corridor is a no-man's land, so there's no need to worry about affecting civilians... But the Tian Shu Tower chose to issue a bounty. Could it be because there are some important facilities in that area?"

"I don't care about that kind of thing, as long as I get paid." The young woman waved her hand. "If it were some other private organization issuing a mission, I might hesitate... But this mission was issued by the Tian Shu Tower. I don't think the Tian Shu Tower would play any tricks like those unscrupulous capitalists, right?"

"Speaking of which, you haven't said a word from the very beginning, have you?" The young woman looked at Cheng Ming. "A mute?"

"No." The other person's slightly offensive words did not anger Cheng Ming. He replied casually, took out a bottle of water from his backpack, unscrewed the cap, and took a few sips.

The train slowly started moving, and the scenery outside the window began to rush past.

"Then why don't you say anything?" the young woman asked again.

“Nothing much to say.” Cheng Ming placed the water bottle on the folding table, watching the liquid inside sway back and forth with the vibrations of the carriage. “Dude, if you got this bounty, what were you planning to do?” asked the rookie hunter who looked like a high school student. “That’s a whole ten million… I’ve never seen so much money in my life.”

"Save it," Cheng Ming said.

"Save it?" The young woman and the rookie hunter looked at Cheng Ming in disbelief. The idea of ​​another person planning to buy a house was already rigid enough, but they didn't expect there to be an even more rigid one here.

"Saving money is not as good as buying some stable financial products. The returns are much higher than bank interest rates," even the hunter with the distinctive smell of a soldier couldn't help but say.

"Hmm." Cheng Ming hummed in response, clearly indicating that he had no intention of continuing the topic.

Seeing that he was so boring, the other three stopped paying attention to Cheng Ming and started chatting amongst themselves.

Cheng Ming lowered his head, took out his phone, and glanced at it.

The message on the chat app was from his mother, letting him know she was alright. She told Chengming that he seemed to have more energy today than yesterday, that he had drunk a bowl of porridge and half an apple in the morning, and that the head of the department had also said during rounds that her condition was improving, and that Chengming should focus on his work and not worry.

Cheng Ming didn't tell his mother that he was a hunter who hunts monsters—his mother had been hospitalized for two years, and Cheng Ming was infected with a meme in the fourth month after his mother's hospitalization, which forced him to become a monster hunter.

Even now, his mother still believes that Cheng Ming is still working as a programmer.

Another thing Cheng Ming didn't tell his mother was her illness.

Lung cancer was diagnosed at an advanced stage, and for the past two years, she has been relying on targeted drugs and low-dose chemotherapy to maintain her condition... Cheng Ming told his mother that she had a rather troublesome chronic pneumonia that required long-term hospitalization to control the disease.

Cheng Ming's mother always trusted him and never asked him what illness he had... Cheng Ming always felt that perhaps his mother already knew about his condition.

Two months ago, the doctor found Cheng Ming and told him that the cancer cells had begun to develop resistance to targeted drugs and that he could only survive for a maximum of three more months.

The doctor also said that Cheng Ming's mother's cancer cells were very rare, being confined to the primary lesion in her lungs without metastasis or spread. Therefore, if a lung transplant could be performed, the prognosis would be very optimistic, with a high chance of a cure.

However, without a lung transplant, after three months, the effects of conventional treatments will become negligible, and Cheng Ming's mother's condition will likely deteriorate rapidly, with an expected survival of less than six months.

However, finding a suitable transplant organ is difficult, especially given the tight timeframe. The doctor recommended that Cheng Ming visit a biological research institution under the Tian Shu Tower, which has the capability to clone and cultivate human organs.

They can cultivate a pair of brand-new lungs using Cheng Ming's mother's own cells in a short period of time. Moreover, because they use the patient's own cells, the probability of rejection after transplantation is greatly reduced.

The only drawback of this plan is that it's expensive.

Even excluding the cost of the transplant surgery, the cost of extracting sample cells and cultivating the organ alone is beyond what Cheng Ming can afford.

In the year or so since Cheng Ming became a hunter, he has spent almost all of his income on his mother's treatment. Not only does he have no savings, but he has also had to ask the Monster Research Institute where he works for an advance of half a year's salary and subsidies.

The institute was aware of Cheng Ming's situation, but they did everything they could to help, including applying for subsidies, fundraising by colleagues, and various reductions in medical expenses. Even so, there was still a huge shortfall in the cost of organ cultivation.

Cheng Ming has exhausted all his connections, and the people from that biological research institution have already taken Cheng's mother's live cells. As long as the remaining amount is paid, they will immediately begin the organ cultivation process.

Just when Cheng Ming was at his wits' end about the last few million shortfall, the news of the sky-high bounty caused a sensation in the hunter community—Cheng Ming instantly seized the opportunity as if it were a lifeline and accepted the mission without hesitation.

His abilities weren't particularly strong; among all the monster hunters, he was just one of the most inconspicuous low-level hunters—and it was precisely for this reason that he rarely received any resources from the Heavenly Pivot Tower.

If it were an elite hunter whose mother had cancer, the hunter probably wouldn't even need to worry; a team of professionals would have already taken her to a top-tier medical institution for treatment.

A deep-sea medical pod that costs 200,000 just to turn on, top-notch drugs that ordinary people have never even heard of, consultations with the best medical teams... As long as you can become an elite hunter, then Cheng Ming won't have to worry about these things; they will naturally be delivered to his door.

Unfortunately, Cheng Ming is not.

He still vividly remembers what the institute director said to him after he underwent meme testing—

“There are two pieces of news, one bad and one good,” the director said. “The good news is that your meme and infection process are stable. As long as you inject inhibitors regularly, you can live for decades like a normal person. Rather than becoming a monster or a monstrous relic, you should pay more attention to your health. As for the bad news, it’s related to this good news… Your meme response is weak, which means your abilities will also be affected… I personally don’t recommend you join as a monster hunter. You can live a normal life as an observer, and we will regularly provide you with inhibitors and a living allowance…”

However, Cheng Ming declined the director's suggestion and joined the ranks of the monster hunters.

The reason is simple: he lost his job after being infected by the monster, and his mother had been diagnosed with the disease. His living allowance was simply not enough to cover his mother's medical expenses.

(End of this chapter)