[Behind the scenes, the hidden world moved exactly the way you had arranged it.]

[Shiu Kong worked fast.]

[Confirmation for Toji Fushiguro came soon enough. The battered flip phone buzzed again, and you answered.]

["Hey," Shiu Kong said. His voice crackled through the speaker. "The Star Religious Group agreed to your price hike."]

[There was a little awe in his tone. Not admiration, exactly. More like the sound of a man staring at a number with too many zeroes.]

["But the deposit stays the same as before. They are not wiring the full amount upfront. That ridiculous bonus you squeezed out of them only gets paid after the Star Plasma Vessel’s death is confirmed and the job is officially done. It will come with the final payment."]

[The face you wore inside Jujutsu High showed no surprise.]

[That was within your projections.]

[You shifted your vocal cords back into Toji’s register, rough and low, the voice of a man who had already gambled with death so many times it had gotten boring.]

["Got it. Now collect every scrap of intel on the Star Plasma Vessel. The more, the better."]

[You paused on purpose.]

["And make two copies of the package."]

["Huh?"]

[Shiu Kong’s confusion came through clearly.]

["Two copies? You’re one guy taking one job. What do you need two sets of intel for?"]

[You answered in Toji’s lazy, arrogant drawl.]

["Take the second copy to the underground market. Post a bounty."]

[There was a sharp little sound on the other end, probably his cigarette twitching between his fingers.]

["Post a... bounty?" Shiu Kong sounded like he was checking whether he had suffered hearing damage. "Have you lost it? You want to pay people to compete for your own contract?"]

[You snorted.]

[The sound carried all of Toji’s usual contempt, the kind that made people want to punch him and also avoid getting within arm’s reach.]

["Idiot. The escort is Satoru Gojo. I don’t care how strong I am. If I walk straight up to a freak like that, there is no guarantee I get a clean win."]

[Shiu Kong went quiet.]

[You continued, cold and practical.]

["The assassination window lasts several days. So I use the easiest method. Throw money at desperate fools and send them at Gojo in waves. Let them harass him. Drain his stamina. Wear down his focus. When that pampered prodigy is running on fumes, I step in and finish it."]

[For a moment, Shiu Kong said nothing. The plan was vicious. Efficient too.]

[It sounded exactly like something the Sorcerer Killer would do. A war of attrition paid for with other people’s lives. But he still had to ask the important part.]

["Clever. So how much are you putting up for this black-market bounty?"]

[Your eyes went flat.]

[What you said next would have made any underground broker sit up straight.]

["The exact amount the Star Religious Group is paying me. Every coin of the deposit goes into the bounty pool."]

[Shiu Kong sucked in a breath.]

[You were not done.] 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

["The posting also needs to say this clearly. Whoever completes the assassination gets the Star Religious Group’s final payment as an extra bonus on top."]

[Silence. Long, ugly silence. Shiu Kong had worked with Toji Fushiguro for years. He knew the man.]

[Toji could burn piles of cash at the track or boat races without blinking. Business expenses, though? Different story. He pinched coins so hard they probably screamed.]

[And now that same cheapskate was throwing the entire deposit into bait and promising strangers the final payout too.]

[It was not just unusual.]

[It was wrong enough to make Shiu Kong sweat.]

[His voice turned serious.]

["Hey. Did you drink something weird today? I’m asking one more time. You really want every cent of the deposit posted as bounty money? This is not pocket change."]

[You answered like you were explaining basic math to someone with a rusted-out brain.]

["Of course. Think for one second. The escort is the Gojo Clan’s golden boy. If the bounty is not high enough to make people lose their minds, how do you hook them?"]

[Your tone stayed lazy, but the words were sharp.]

["It has to be absurd. Big enough to short-circuit common sense. Big enough that every desperate moron starts thinking, ’With a little luck, I can get rich overnight.’ That fatal delusion is what I need."]

[Shiu Kong wiped cold sweat from his forehead.]

[The logic made sense.]

[That was the annoying part.]

[Still, one concern remained.]

["But you said it yourself. The real target is just a fragile girl, the Star Plasma Vessel. What if, and I mean what if, some dumb-lucky killer or Curse User actually slips past Gojo and kills her? Then your money is gone. Total loss."]

["Impossible."]

["That possibility does not exist. If Gojo were weak enough for bottom-feeders to slip past him, the Star Religious Group never would have swallowed my price increase in the first place."]

[Your voice through the phone turned colder.]

["So put away your useless sympathy and your useless worrying. Cast the net as wide as it goes. When this show ends, every cent of that bounty will flow back into my pocket, because every challenger will have failed."]

["And the little fish who took the bait will be corpses on the ground. Now shut up and make it happen."]

[Click.]

[You ended the call without giving Shiu Kong room to argue.]

[For a moment, you stood there with the phone in your hand.]

[Then you pocketed it and walked to the window.]

[The greed, arrogance, and swagger you had borrowed from Toji drained out of your eyes.]

[This was not just an imitation of the tactic the original Toji Fushiguro had used in your simulated memories to wear Gojo down.]

[This time, the calculation went deeper.]

[If the Star Religious Group wanted to act like generous patrons with bottomless pockets, fine. You would take every coin they offered and turn it into bait.]

[The biggest bait the underground had ever seen.]

[You were going to drag every Curse User in Japan out of hiding.]

[Every sewer rat skulking in the dark. Every bottom-feeder waiting for an easy payday. Every murderer who thought a fat bounty was worth gambling their life on.]

[Let them crawl into the open. Let them swarm Tokyo, drunk on money that was never really theirs.]

[Then you would catch them all at once.]

[A single, decisive purge.]

[The more bait on the hook, the better.]

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