Luo Jiuyin, Chairman of the Seven Parts Association, had not even had time to go to Happiness Residential Complex before he received a resignation letter from his own Vice Chairman.
He read the resignation letter over and over several times, then took a deep breath.
He summoned all the subordinates who had recently had contact with He Yu and questioned them carefully, one by one. When he got to Xiao Liu, who had been playing the office worker, and heard him recount the conversation between the two of them, Luo Jiuyin understood.
Case solved. Now he knew why his Vice Chairman had run off.
Luo Jiuyin: “…Who told you we had no salary anymore?”
Xiao Liu, looking completely lost. “Chairman, are you planning to burn joss paper money for us?”
Most of the Seven Parts Association’s employees were ghosts and spirits, and ghosts and spirits generally had no use for money. They preferred spiritual energy.
Luo Jiuyin slowly drew in a breath and waved a hand to send Xiao Liu away.
“Pull back all the personnel who’ve been lying in wait in Happiness Residential Complex.”
That undercover mission had been set up for He Yu in the first place. Now that the man had woken up, the mission was no longer necessary.
The most important thing now was to find him.
……
On the other side, after kicking out his black-hearted boss, He Yu felt refreshed and in high spirits.
Jinnan City was a small city with a very slow pace of life. It had four distinct seasons without being extreme, which was the result of his careful selection. He Yu was greatly looking forward to his new life here.
The first day of his new life began with finding a place to live.
He Yu was not short of money, and the best solution would be to buy a house, but unfortunately he had no ID card.
These days, even signing a lease required an ID card, so the only option for He Yu was an unlicensed agent.
The agent took him on a big tour, and when He Yu was dissatisfied with everything, drove him to a residential complex in the suburbs.
“This complex is a bit old, but the facilities and so on are all quite good,” the agent said, leading him to a locked rolling shutter door on the ground floor. Crouching on the ground, he unlocked it with a key. “And the price isn’t high. You know how it is, it’s the suburbs, so it’s a bit out of the way. It’s not very convenient for elderly people seeking medical care or children going to school, but if you’re a young person who doesn’t work in the city center, it’s just perfect.”
The rolling shutter door hadn’t been opened in so long that it was a little rusty. The agent heaved at it several times without success, his face turning red from the effort.
He Yu bent down and reached out a hand, and the shutter door rattled right up.
The agent was stunned, then laughed. “You’re pretty strong.”
“Not bad,” He Yu said with a smile.
Behind the shutter door were large glass display windows and a glass door. It was a street-facing shopfront.
When the door was opened, the smell of years of accumulated dust rushed out to meet them, and the agent couldn’t help coughing a couple of times.
“Nobody’s lived here for too long. Once it’s cleaned up, it’ll be fine.”
He Yu lifted a foot and walked inside. The space inside was not small. The front was a spacious open shop, and further back, when he opened a door, a staircase was hidden behind a wall, with rooms behind the staircase as well. It was a connected two-story residence.
Inside were some old pieces of furniture the previous tenant hadn’t wanted, and dust and cobwebs everywhere, though fortunately there was no mold. With such a rundown smell, it was impressive that the agent could still keep up his sales pitch:
“This is a shop-in-front, courtyard-behind design. You live in the back and use the front to open a shop, which is extremely convenient. And come upstairs and take a look. Both floors have plenty of ceiling height. Other ground-floor shops usually have an additional attic level built in, with insufficient height, so you have to stoop to go upstairs. This building is a true two-story, not oppressive at all.”
He Yu was not the type to be moved by an agent’s empty bragging, but the layout here really did tempt him.
The front could be used to open a plush toy shop, with the shop’s second floor as a storeroom. The living room in the residential area had a large glass window facing the courtyard, which could be turned into a wide bay window with a cushion and a small bookshelf beside it. The bedroom was on the second floor, and outside its window there happened to be a tree…
But the courtyard needed a good cleanup. The weeds had grown almost chest-high, and when the cold wind passed through, they swayed back and forth, looking desolate from every angle.
The agent kept a straight face. “This courtyard is quite large. You can plant vegetables or flowers, whatever you like. As for the house, a home is something you make by living in it. Fix it up as you live in it and it will take shape. Don’t be fooled by how shabby it looks now. Once it’s cleaned up, it’ll be fine. If a house like this were in the city, the rent would at least double…”
He Yu pulled open the door, and the agent, hit by the wind, shivered, the second half of his sentence choking in his throat.
He rubbed his arms, which had broken out in a row of goosebumps, and felt less confident about successfully renting the place out. This house had gone too long without anyone entering it, and it was chilly and clammy. The courtyard had not been paved with concrete, so there was almost nowhere to put a foot. He glimpsed something moving in the grass, and couldn’t tell whether it was a rat or something else. He’d heard there were snakes around here…
The customer, either not noticing or not afraid, had already walked into the courtyard along the path that was nearly swallowed by weeds. The agent stood there for a long time and simply did not dare set foot in the courtyard.
He Yu ignored the agent. He was thinking that he could lay a few small paths through the courtyard with bricks. One area here could be left for growing vegetables, a small pond could be dug in that corner, and the area near the fence would be suitable for climbing flowers. He liked warm, vivid colors… Reaching the gate and pushing aside the weeds, wild Chinese roses, red as fire, peeked out.
He Yu’s eyes curved into crescents.
“I’ll rent this place.”
……
Paranormal Affairs Administration Bureau.
The siblings Jiang Yan and Jiang Xian were sitting in an interrogation room, both in low spirits.
Jiang Xian looked at the anonymous printed letter on the table, head lowered and shoulders slumped, visibly dejected.
The atmosphere was serious. Of course, the Paranormal Affairs Bureau did not suspect the siblings of any wrongdoing. It was just that the matter involved this time was rather large.
A few days ago, the Paranormal Affairs Bureau had received an anonymous letter reporting on the Seven Parts Association. The Bureau took it very seriously and immediately sent people to Happiness Residential Complex, but they were a step too late. The place was already empty.
After investigation, they discovered that half of the residents of Happiness Residential Complex were actually Seven Parts Association members! The remaining ordinary residents knew nothing about it and thought they were living in an ordinary residential neighborhood.
The siblings Jiang Yan and Jiang Xian had happened to carry out a mission at Happiness Residential Complex before, so they had been called in for questioning. But at the time, the two had not noticed anything wrong, and there had been no problems during the mission.
Nevertheless, the Paranormal Affairs Bureau went over every detail of their contact with He Yu again and again in careful questioning, because the main subject they had dealt with in this mission, He Yu, was also on the missing persons list.
Of course, the chat records between Jiang Xian and He Yu had been investigated too.
The chuni teenager was mortified with embarrassment.
However, the main reason for Jiang Xian’s low mood was not the embarrassment.
“Relax, the questioning is over. We’re just chatting casually now,” their superior said.
He knew the siblings were the children of Jiang Yanjun and could never betray the Bureau, so his attitude had been gentle throughout. Besides, Jiang Yanjun was in another room watching the surveillance footage.
The Paranormal Affairs Bureau was very alert to this incident. They had also suspected that someone who knew the Jiang siblings’ identities might have staged the whole thing to target Jiang Yanjun. However, the investigation concluded that this was impossible.
The mission had been randomly assigned by the system. Even the siblings themselves hadn’t known what mission they were taking, so there was no possibility of human manipulation.
They had also given the siblings a thorough examination and found no hidden methods left on their bodies. Moreover, the only person who had had contact with them during the mission had gone missing, so there was no longer any channel through which anything from this mission could affect the siblings.
The Jiang siblings had most likely just happened to run into it by coincidence.
“During your contact with He Yu, what kind of person did he feel like to you?” the superior asked.
Jiang Xian kept his head down, unwilling to speak, and only muttered, “A very good person.”
Jiang Yan spoke up. “He seemed quite sunny and cheerful, friendly, and a little gullible. After we explained things to him, he believed us right away. It was the first time I’d encountered someone like that.”
The superior pondered. “Believing right away isn’t necessarily gullibility. It could also be because he sensed something abnormal.”
It wasn’t that they hadn’t suspected He Yu of being a problem, but firstly, the spiritual arts Jiang Xian cultivated gave him an unusually keen intuition about people. Secondly, the siblings carried protective talismans from Jiang Yanjun, the third-ranked spirit-inscription master in the Bureau, and as long as there was physical contact with someone, it could sense whether that person was an ordinary human.
Only exorcists like Bronze Mask, or top-tier figures among ghosts and spirits, had the ability to fool the sensing of the spirit inscriptions. If He Yu had not been an ordinary person, the talisman would have been triggered long ago.
When Jiang Xian had grabbed He Yu to ask for directions, the two had skin contact on the hands, and the spirit inscription had not reacted.
As for the idea that He Yu was Bronze Mask in disguise… that was a joke. Why would a top-tier figure like that go on a petty mission like disguising himself as an ordinary person?
Jiang Xian still kept his head down and said nothing.
The superior asked him, “You said he mentioned at the time that the amaryllis at home was about to die, and you went to look at it and thought it was just from not being watered, correct?”
Jiang Xian nodded dejectedly. “Yes.”
“Shadow-Devourers don’t affect plant growth. It’s quite possible he sensed something and was unwilling to go near the flower stand, so he didn’t water it,” the superior said. “Among ordinary people, there occasionally appear those born with yin-yang eyes or a sharp spiritual sense.”
And people like that very likely had a special constitution.
The siblings said nothing. They both understood the part their superior hadn’t said aloud.
“We’ve been wondering why on earth the Seven Parts Association went to such trouble to plant so many people in Happiness Residential Complex. Later we investigated the residents’ move-in dates. Every member of the Seven Parts Association moved in around the time He Yu moved into the complex.”
If He Yu had some kind of rare and precious special constitution, and the Seven Parts Association’s target was him, then everything would make sense.
“A person born with a sharp spiritual sense, living in a place where most of the people around him came from the Seven Parts Association. He may have sensed something, but since he had no understanding of the paranormal world, he couldn’t understand the source of that feeling.”
“He may have been in a state of unease all along.”
So when he heard the Jiang siblings’ self-introduction, He Yu immediately showed trust. It was an unconscious act of asking for help. However, because he himself did not understand the source of this unease, he did not explicitly ask the two of them for help.
But after he saw the materials Jiang Xian sent him, he very likely connected them with his own experiences all along, discovered some things, and thus wrote this anonymous report letter.
As for why he wrote a letter instead of messaging Jiang Xian directly, there were many possible explanations. Perhaps he feared the messages would be intercepted and read, perhaps he had already sensed some kind of surveillance at the time, perhaps his thinking had begun to be influenced by the Seven Parts Association…
After He Yu mailed out this report letter, the Seven Parts Association noticed the problem, moved swiftly, abducted him, and withdrew.
The siblings had thought of this too, which was why they were so down.
He Yu was just an ordinary person, but they were exorcists of the Paranormal Affairs Bureau and had failed to notice anything wrong. If they had noticed something back then, perhaps He Yu would not have gone missing.
Jiang Xian was even more dejected. He felt that if he had not sent He Yu those messages, the Seven Parts Association would not have acted so quickly, and there might have been another chance later.
“It’s not your fault. The Seven Parts Association hid too well. If the Seven Parts Association valued his constitution, he may well still be alive. Go on back, and work hard. Only then can you save more people,” the superior comforted the two.
Jiang Xian secretly clenched his fist.
He was still too weak!
Before they left, the superior returned Jiang Xian’s phone to him. The materials Jiang Xian had sent He Yu were fine. He knew his limits and hadn’t sent anything he shouldn’t have. But the problem was not those materials. It was Jiang Xian’s attitude toward Bronze Mask.
“I know you have some special feelings toward Bronze Mask because of what happened when you were little, but he’s a member of the Seven Parts Association, and you’ve seen what the Seven Parts Association has done. Don’t be naive,” the superior said.
Jiang Xian put away his phone and nodded silently.
He was also of a special constitution, born with spiritual connection, an excellent constitution for an exorcist, suited to communicating with ghosts and spirits, though of course also relatively prone to being possessed by them.
When Jiang Xian was little, he had unfortunately been abducted by that group of lunatics from the Descent Cult. The Descent Cult worshipped the Lord of Wang Mountain, believing the world to be ugly and corrupt, and that the Lord of Wang Mountain would eventually descend to cleanse the world and build a better one in its place.
They had taken a fancy to Jiang Xian’s constitution and planned to use him as the vessel for the Lord of Wang Mountain’s descent.
At that time, Jiang Yanjun had been trapped in a ghost realm and could not leave, and the people of the Paranormal Affairs Bureau had all been lured away or held up by the Descent Cult lunatics. Little Jiang Xian was tied to an altar, and a Descent Cult lunatic was holding a ritual knife, preparing to carve incantations into his body.
He shut his eyes in terror, but suddenly heard the surrounding Descent Cult lunatics cry out in furious alarm, and he heard them shouting “Bronze Mask.”
When Jiang Xian opened his eyes, the sharp ritual knife had stopped right on his eyeball, only one centimeter from his eye. The ritual’s officiant was already dead, the knife still gripped tightly in his hand. A pale, slender hand had seized his collar, and that was the only reason the knife had not pierced Jiang Xian’s eye.
He looked upward: a dark green robe, a bronze mask, firelight flowing across the mask into mysterious patterns.
Bronze Mask tossed the dead officiant aside and turned his head to give him a cool, indifferent glance.
He had been saved by Bronze Mask once.
Jiang Xian had always felt that Bronze Mask was not someone who killed innocents indiscriminately, but He Yu was also an innocent. He was the first person who believed them after Jiang Xian began his exorcism missions, and the first person he had failed to save.
That things had turned out this way must be because he wasn’t strong enough yet!
He would work hard and better himself!