Courtyard House: Time Traveler Not Yet a Ghost

The twilight in Tianjin carries a different, ambiguous hue than that of Beiping. The mist from the Haihe River mingles with the salty smell emanating from the docks, blending with the aroma of coffee wafting from the Western-style buildings in the concession area and the faint strains of jazz music from the dance halls, creating the unique decadent atmosphere of this colonial port city. In the twilight, trams clang, rickshaw pullers zip along the cobblestone streets, and Japanese merchants in kimonos, compradors in suits, and socialites in cheongsams brush past each other on the neon-lit streets, each heading towards the decadent pleasures or the hellish scenes of the night.

He Damin stood in the shadows of the back alley of Dongxinglou for a moment, his spiritual sense spreading out quietly like mercury.

He didn't rush to Dongxinglou—that was the grand finale of the evening, and he needed to wait for the best opportunity. At this moment, his attention was first drawn to the Japanese warehouses, bank vaults, and munitions factories scattered throughout Tianjin, like malignant tumors embedded in the city's body.

Tianjin was the most important distribution center and logistical hub for Japanese troops in North China. Steel and coal transported from Northeast China, grain and cloth plundered from the South, and weapons and fuel imported from overseas were mostly concentrated and sorted in Tianjin's transit warehouses before being distributed to troops stationed throughout North China. The underground vaults of the Tianjin branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank and the Yokohama Specie Bank were piled high with countless gold, silver dollars, foreign currency, and looted antiques and treasures. Meanwhile, the precision machine tools and production equipment dismantled and transported from all over China in several Japanese-controlled machine factories, clothing factories, and food processing plants were invaluable seeds for future industrialization.

"Since we're already here," He Damin thought to himself, a cold glint in his eyes. The intelligence on the Japanese storage, transportation, and guarding was a godsend. If he didn't take advantage of this opportunity to thoroughly clean up this "hunting ground," wouldn't he be wasting all this careful planning?

Moreover, this was merely the prelude to a perfect "bait plan"—wasn't Yoshiko Kawashima frantically investigating "supernatural powers" and "abnormal events"? Then, let's give her a "grand gift": overnight, multiple core warehouses, vaults, and factories belonging to the Japanese in Tianjin simultaneously suffered "paranormal thefts," with all materials and equipment vanishing without a trace, leaving no evidence of human intervention. Such a grand gesture was enough to drive anyone interested in the supernatural crazy, enough to lure that "Oriental Witch" out of the underground chamber of Dongxing Building, and even mobilize her so-called "supernatural event investigation team" to the fullest extent.

This is a two-birds-with-one-stone strategy. It replenishes the strategic reserves of Taiji Space and creates more favorable conditions for hunting down Yoshiko Kawashima tonight—when her attention is drawn to the "paranormal events" that have erupted throughout the city, the defenses of the Dongxing Building headquarters will inevitably be weakened.

With a thought, He Damin caused the Soul Refining Banner floating in his spiritual sea to tremble slightly. An invisible command was instantly transmitted through the soul connection to the dozen or so soul clones scattered throughout Tianjin.

These clones mostly reside within the bodies of lower-ranking officers or clerks in the Japanese logistics, transportation, and security systems. They lie dormant silently most of the time, but upon receiving instructions from the main soul, they immediately begin to passively "activate" the host's relevant memories and transmit crucial information—the precise location of the warehouse, guard shift changes, warehouse structure, types and quantities of supplies, and weaknesses in security—in real time.

In an instant, a massive influx of information flooded into He Damin's consciousness.

Target Number One: The Mitsui Goods Third Warehouse Area, located east of the Laolongtou Railway Station. Nominally a civilian warehouse for a Japanese trading company, it was in reality a secret Japanese arms transit station. Three large warehouses, brick and stone structures, surrounded by barbed wire and searchlights, were permanently guarded by a small squad. The inventory included: 5,000 Type 38 rifles, 200 Type 91 light machine guns, 80 Type 92 heavy machine guns, 300 grenade launchers, 20 million rounds of ammunition, 5,000 boxes of hand grenades, and 800 boxes of mortar shells. In addition, there were 2,000 tons of wheat and 5,000 bolts of cotton cloth looted from central Hebei.

Target number two: The former Jardine Matheson warehouse in the British concession on the west bank of the Haihe River (forcibly requisitioned by the Japanese). A reinforced concrete building, one basement level and two above-ground levels, heavily guarded with a company of soldiers. This was an important fuel depot for the Japanese North China Area Army, containing approximately 8,000 tons of gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. It also contained a large quantity of car tires, spare parts, and repair tools.

Target No. 3: The Tianjin branch of the Yokohama Specie Bank, located on Miyajima Street in the Japanese Concession. A three-story granite building, the underground vault employed the latest vault technology from the German company Krupp, featuring alloy steel doors 1.2 meters thick, equipped with combination locks and a barometric pressure alarm. The vault contained: approximately 15 tons of gold (mostly gold bars, gold ingots, and gold artifacts looted from North China), 3.5 million silver dollars, foreign currencies such as US dollars and British pounds equivalent to approximately 8 million US dollars, over 300 boxes of rare ancient books and paintings, and over 2,000 pieces of jade and porcelain.

Target No. 4: The "North China Iron and Steel Company" (formerly Tianjin Machinery Bureau) in Xiaowangzhuang, Hebei District. This large factory, covering 200 acres, housed over 400 machine tools dismantled from the Shenyang and Hanyang Arsenals, including large gantry planers, precision boring machines, milling machines, lathes, and a complete bullet production line and grenade assembly line. The factory was guarded by a large squad of Japanese soldiers, and patrolled at night by wolfhounds.

Target number five...

Target number six...

Information continued to pour in. He Damin's mind, like a highly efficient processor, quickly integrated, analyzed, and prioritized this intelligence. He first eliminated several targets that were too heavily guarded or had complex structures that were inconvenient to collect quickly, and finally identified seven of the most valuable warehouses and strongholds that could be "cleaned up" in a short time.

An action plan instantly took shape in his mind:

The first step, in spirit form, is to use the cover of night to move at high speed and "visit" these seven targets in turn.

The second step is to use the Soul Refining Banner [Soul Banner Domain] in conjunction with [Wailing of Vengeful Spirits] to suppress the area, create panic and chaos, and paralyze the guards' ability to resist.

The third step is to use the [Night Parade of One Hundred Demons] to summon materialized phantom demons, which, together with the [Netherworld Chains], can quickly eliminate all guards and harvest their souls.

The fourth step is to activate the Tai Chi Space Anode Storage Area, and use your mind to surround the entire warehouse area to carry out "indiscriminate overall collection"—including shelves and supplies, and even some non-load-bearing walls. As long as it is valuable, take it all away, leaving an empty "bare shell".

Fifth step: Quickly transition between scenes without leaving a trace.

The entire process must be lightning fast, from entering the warehouse area to completing the retrieval and withdrawal, each step must be completed within ten minutes. The total time for the seven targets must not exceed one and a half hours. It must be completed before the Dongxinglou meeting begins, leaving enough time to return to the vicinity of Dongxinglou to carry out the hunt for Yoshiko Kawashima.

"start."

He Damin's figure silently disappeared into the deeper shadows, his soul floating out. The pale golden soul light was almost invisible in the twilight. With a thought, the phantom of the Soul Refining Banner unfolded behind him, its blood-red light concealed, yet it exuded a chilling aura of the underworld.

First stop: East of Laolongtou Railway Station, Mitsui & Co.'s third warehouse area.

The spirit, like an invisible arrow tearing through the night, traversed several miles in less than three minutes, hovering above the warehouse area. Below, three enormous warehouses resembled crouching behemoths, searchlights on the barbed wire lazily swept across the open space, and several sentries, rifles in hand, huddled in the early autumn night breeze.

Without any hesitation, He Damin instantly unleashed the [Soul Banner Domain], covering the entire warehouse area within a fifty-foot radius! The [Wailing of Vengeful Spirits] effect was activated simultaneously!

"Ugh—!"

Countless mournful, desperate, and resentful wails exploded directly in the minds of all the Japanese guards below! It was as if thousands of wronged souls had crawled out of hell, wailing and demanding their lives from them! Although these guards were all veterans, they had never experienced such a direct psychological attack. Instantly, more than half of them clutched their heads and collapsed to the ground, screaming in agony, their minds broken; the rest were also pale-faced, trembling all over, unable to even hold their guns steady.

Immediately afterwards, more than twenty solid, lifelike phantoms of evil spirits, their claws gleaming with a cold light, swooped down with shrieks! They darted between the guards, their ghostly claws tearing and their sharp teeth biting, not only creating terrifying illusions but also inflicting real physical damage. Screams, gunshots (mostly accidental discharges), and the sound of bones cracking rose and fell in waves.

He Damin's physical soul descended like a ghost in front of the largest warehouse. The [Netherworld Chains] silently extended, instantly drawing away the souls of several sergeants who attempted to resist. Then, he pressed his hands against the warehouse wall, his spiritual sense surging in like a tide, instantly grasping the distribution of all the supplies within the warehouse.

"receive!"

Under the influence of his will, the entire massive warehouse, covering nearly a thousand square meters and about eight meters high, was completely wiped away within three breaths, as if by an invisible cosmic hand! Even the sturdy steel shelves and lighting fixtures, anything not fixed in place, were taken away! The warehouse was instantly empty, leaving only bare concrete floors and walls!

Without pausing, He Damin repeated the process, and within two minutes, all three warehouses were emptied. The total loot included: 5,000 rifles, 280 light and heavy machine guns, 300 grenade launchers, 20 million rounds of ammunition, 5,000 boxes of hand grenades, 800 boxes of artillery shells, 2,000 tons of wheat, 5,000 bolts of cotton cloth, and a large quantity of accompanying wooden pallets and packaging materials.

The effects of [Soul Devouring Feedback] continued to emanate. The souls of the nearly one hundred Japanese guards that had just been harvested were being rapidly refined by the Soul Refining Banner, feeding back strands of pure soul power to replenish He Damin's consumption.

Without giving the chaotic warehouse area a second glance, his soul soared into the sky, heading straight for his second target—the oil depot on the west bank of the Haihe River.

The subsequent actions were as precise and efficient as those of a fine clock.

The second stop was the Jardine Matheson oil depot. After a thorough suppression and clearing of the area, a total of eight thousand tons of various fuels, along with hundreds of oil drums, pipelines, and pumping station equipment, were collected into the Taiji Space. A specially designated isolated area within the anode storage zone was set aside to store these hazardous materials.

The third stop was the underground vault of the Zhengjin Bank. The defenses here were indeed tight, but only against physical intrusion. For a spirit capable of passing through walls and burrowing underground, and for spiritual power that could directly affect metal structures, the heavy alloy steel doors and complex combination locks were utterly useless. He Damin's spiritual sense penetrated the lock cylinder, simulating the password vibrations with his true essence, and forcefully twisting the mechanism with his soul power. In thirty seconds, the vault door silently slid open. Fifteen tons of gold, three and a half million silver dollars, eight million US dollars in foreign currency, three hundred boxes of ancient books and paintings, two thousand pieces of jade and porcelain… all were readily accepted. He even conveniently took the several huge stainless steel safes inside the vault.

The fourth stop was the Xiaowangzhuang Machinery Factory. This factory had the largest guard force, but it too quickly collapsed under the combined onslaught of the [Wailing Vengeful Spirits] and the [Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts]. He Damin's spiritual sense swept across the entire factory area. Over four hundred machine tools of various types, two complete production lines, mountains of raw steel, semi-finished gun parts, and even the diesel generators and transformers in the factory's power plant were all uprooted and stored in his spatial dimension. The once bustling factory area instantly became a deathly silent wasteland.

Fifth stop, sixth stop, seventh stop...

The Japanese army's textile warehouses in Tianjin (containing 50,000 bolts of fine cloth and 20,000 military blankets), pharmaceutical warehouses (containing 200 boxes of precious Western medicines such as penicillin and sulfonamides, and 50 tons of Chinese medicinal herbs), and food processing plants (containing two canning production lines, 100,000 cans of beef, and 50 tons of compressed biscuits)... all these targets were reduced to empty shells under He Damin's efficient "cleaning up".

He was like a giant beast that had broken into a treasure mountain, leaving nothing but devastation in his wake. The Yang storage area of ​​the Taiji Space was filled at an alarming rate, forcing the temporary creation of more partitions to store different types of supplies.

As the operation progressed, the Japanese communication network within Tianjin began to break down.

"Communications down in the third warehouse area!"

"The Yokohama Specie Bank alarm has been triggered, but all security personnel have lost contact!"

"Gunfire erupted in the Xiaowangzhuang factory area, followed by deathly silence. The reconnaissance team went in but never returned!"

"A huge tremor was heard from the direction of the Haihe oil depot, suspected to be an explosion, but no flames were seen!"

Urgent reports flooded the Tianjin Garrison Command, the Japanese military police, and the Tianjin branch of the Special Higher Police. The officers on duty initially thought it was a sporadic guerrilla attack or a workers' uprising, but they soon discovered that their troops—multiple warehouses and strongholds of different locations and natures—had been attacked almost simultaneously, and all the reports mentioned strange phenomena such as the guards "suddenly losing their minds," "seeing ghosts," and "instantly losing communication."

This couldn't be a typical armed attack! The scale, the methods...

"The Fengtai incident... has been repeated in Tianjin?!" A staff officer shouted out in horror, voicing the most fearful suspicion in everyone's mind.

Panic spread like a plague within the Japanese command system.

At this moment, He Damin had already completed the clearing of the seventh target—a Japanese communications equipment warehouse located on the edge of the Italian concession (containing two hundred military radios, fifty telephone exchanges, and one hundred kilometers of cable). He hovered in mid-air, his spiritual sense sweeping over the seven target points below, now empty, with only a mess and scattered corpses remaining, without a ripple in his heart.

The value of the supplies piled up in the Taiji Space at this moment is beyond quantification. These weapons are enough to arm two full divisions, this fuel can power thousands of military vehicles for months, this gold and foreign exchange is astronomical wealth, and these machine tools and equipment are priceless treasures. More importantly, this plunder is equivalent to severing a vital logistical artery for the Japanese in North China, and its strategic impact far exceeds the annihilation of a few thousand Japanese soldiers.

"The bait has been laid." He Damin looked towards Dongxinglou, where it was still brightly lit and filled with the faint sounds of music. "Now, it's time to close the net."

He sensed that through the network of his soul clone, the dynamics inside Dongxing Tower were being transmitted in real time: Kawashima Yoshiko had arrived and was listening to a report in the underground secret room; however, the guards on the ground outside the tower had been significantly strengthened, and several figures with abnormal soul power fluctuations had even appeared—they should be members of her "investigation team" who had been temporarily transferred to strengthen the guard.

Clearly, the simultaneous "supernatural thefts" occurring in multiple warehouses across the city had alarmed this "Eastern Witch." Instead of leaving Dongxing Tower, she tightened her defenses, as if facing a formidable enemy.

But this is exactly what He Damin wants—when the prey is startled and curls up back in its den, it is the perfect opportunity for the hunter to launch a surprise attack. Because no matter how sturdy a den is, it has its weak points.

He Damin's soul transformed into a streak of light, shooting towards Dongxing Tower. The night wind whistled in his ears, and the chaos and clamor of Tianjin City below were gradually brewing. But in his heart, there was only a chilling killing intent and precise calculations.

Yoshiko Kawashima, your "investigation" should have yielded results by now—tonight, I am the "extraordinary" you've been looking for.