The Keeper of Myths - Chapter 1

The torrential rain mercilessly lashed the city, water streaming noisily down the glass outside office buildings. On the highway, the headlights of cars converged into a river, twisted and blurred into a hazy glow by layer upon layer of rain.

The hard sole of a pair of Martin boots crushed an empty cola can, startling a stray cat sheltering from the rain in a trash bin. The wary creature poked its head out furtively and saw the silhouette of someone holding a Pikachu umbrella. The temperature in the air inexplicably dropped by two degrees; the stray cat shivered and hid itself away.

“Hey, isn’t it about time you stopped running?” The person under the Pikachu umbrella lazily blew a bubble with her chewing gum. “The Special Investigation Bureau agents have already surrounded this place. No fewer than five snipers equipped with White Phosphorus Bullets have you in their sights.”

The voice was clear and bright, obviously a young girl.

She wore a loose sweatshirt paired with faded blue jeans, the hood pulled low to cover most of her face, leaving only a sliver of pale chin exposed.

At the end of the alley was a low wall, illuminated by a single, struggling streetlamp. There was no one there. But as the girl’s words faded, something vaguely human twisted into existence under the pale light. To call it human was a stretch-it only barely resembled a person.

It looked like a tall, upright mantis, its upper body bare, the bones on its back protruding sharply beneath paper-white skin. Yet its face was unmistakably human, even handsome. It turned its head toward the girl with a series of unnerving, crackling sounds, as if its neck was stiff.

“Are you… a Celestial Master?” The thing stared at her with a chilling gaze, its tongue seemingly frozen, words slurred and awkward.

“Not at all,” the girl replied modestly with a smile. “I’m just a salarywoman working a desk job. Listen, buddy, it’s freezing out here-don’t make this harder on us. Whatever you have to say, you can tell the Investigation Bureau at your leisure. Our Execution Bureau has air conditioning and hot water-way more comfortable than a five-star hotel!”

“Are there any children?” The thing grinned, a crack splitting from the corner of its mouth all the way to its temple, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth slick with viscous saliva and a blood-red tongue. “I’m hungry.”

A wind, thick with the stench of blood and rotting flesh, suddenly tore through the damp air, rushing straight at the girl’s face. The force of it nearly ripped the Pikachu umbrella to shreds.

Yet the giant mantis’s movement seemed to freeze, comically suspended a meter from the girl as if someone had hit pause.

A faint current of warmth surged in the air, something on the verge of erupting.

The girl calmly pressed down her raised finger. A complex sigil flashed between the mantis’s brows, and without warning, it exploded, bursting into a splattering mass of unidentifiable, blood-soaked matter.

“I really wanted to talk things out with you, but you just wouldn’t listen,” the girl sighed regretfully, pressing her Bluetooth earpiece to announce to her colleagues, “I’m clocking out.”

“Section Chief Pei, the Execution Bureau said they wanted him alive,” a colleague said awkwardly over the comms. “The police haven’t even taken his statement yet!”

“What? I can’t hear you! The signal’s bad here, the rain’s too heavy,” Pei Xueting replied, pretending to cut off the communication with a half-hearted performance.

With the radio cut, for a moment it seemed as if only the patter of rain existed between heaven and earth. Rainwater, carrying that rapidly blackening mass, snaked through the cracks in the pavement and finally joined the torrent in the sewer below.

The darkest things in a city are all buried here.

Pei Xueting held her umbrella, humming a tune as she turned and left the alley.

—

In the morning, the local TV station ran rolling news coverage: the culprit behind a major child disappearance case had been shot dead by police.

Reportedly, the killer was an ordinary office worker who, due to psychological distortion, murdered innocent children. Though the killer was brought to justice, the victims’ bodies could not be recovered.

Pei Xueting, biting into a jianbing guozi, squeezed onto the bus and saw that bloodless face on the tiny onboard TV.

The face that had shattered before her eyes the night before.

The camera cut to the parents weeping at the police station entrance. But the cries from the TV were quickly drowned out by the shouting around her. Next to Pei Xueting, an old lady and a primary school student launched into a heated debate-rich with traditional rhetoric-over whether one should respect the elderly or care for the young first.

With sobbing in her left ear and shouting in her right, Pei Xueting felt like a diode with both ends connected.

“Phoenix Road, next stop. Passengers getting off, please exit from the rear door-”

Pei Xueting, holding her half-eaten jianbing guozi aloft, squeezed her way out through the crowd. Phoenix Road was in the old city district, lined with plane trees and surrounded by old-style buildings. She stopped in front of No. 47, a brick-red villa covered in green ivy.

This villa gave off a strange feeling, always making people subconsciously overlook its presence.

“Section Chief Pei, heading to work?” Old Liao the gatekeeper greeted her with a smile. The guardroom was gloomy, all the blackout curtains drawn, with a sliver of weak sunlight barely reaching the threshold, not daring to cross a single step.
“Who did you swap the day shift with this time?” Pei Xueting glanced at him, “The rain will stop at noon today, and there will be sunlight. Be careful.

“Hey!” Old Liao responded.

Pei Xueting pushed open the door, and a cacophony of voices immediately rushed at her. The fax machine was churning out paper, the clatter of keyboards and the ringing of phones blended into a single din.

This small villa looked like it had at most three floors from the outside, but inside it was a world of its own. Just this chaotic main hall alone was half the size of a football field.

Yet, there wasn’t a single normal person in the entire hall.

The Great Fox Spirit at the front desk had all nine tails draped over the table, using a little pink-bowed comb to groom its fur. An elite-looking man in a shirt and suit jacket was expressionlessly printing out a stack of documents, his lower half a snake’s tail coiled around a massive cat tree.

A mess of phone wires crawled all over the floor like spiderwebs in a demon’s lair. A national map, detailed down to every village and town, was spread out, with colorful darts pinned all over it. Every time a call ended, a dart was removed.

“Notify them to immediately produce an ‘Exploring Nature’ script and arrange for a documentary crew to go in. Yes! It’s about that Coal Mine Village incident-unknown magnetic fields, quantum mechanics, just change the name on their usual set of tricks!”

“Delete all those posts that sound too realistic for violating forum rules. Which academy’s students are so bored that they’re flooding the forum again? Did they sign the confidentiality agreement for nothing? Contact their advisor and withhold their diploma!”

“The culprit in the major child disappearance case in Jingzhou City? The bastard head of the Action Department already burned him to ashes last night. Where am I supposed to find someone to answer to the victims’ families? Fine, fine, I get it. We’ll have a specialist disguise themselves and go through the motions!”

Pei Xueting was unfazed by this “natural legend” scene. She took out a card and scanned it at the punch clock. The machine remained unmoved. The Great Fox Spirit lifted its head from its tails and gently reminded her, “Department Head Pei, you’ve used the wrong bus card again.”

“Oh, oh, sorry.” Pei Xueting fumbled to switch to another card, this one decorated with a Fuxi totem-human body, snake tail. With a beep, the card passed through the punch clock.

“The Action Department scored another success this time!” The Great Fox Spirit winked at Pei Xueting. “That troublemaker was finally caught.”

Before Pei Xueting could take the opportunity to brag, an exasperated voice suddenly blared from the speakers in all four corners of the hall, full of fury and authority-

“Pei Xueting, get up here!”

Pei Xueting placed her half-eaten jianbing on the Great Fox Spirit’s desk and strolled off to press the elevator button. “It’s yours now, with two extra eggs.”

—

“Three weeks ago, the police received reports of children disappearing one after another. After several investigations, the police decided to privately hand the case over to the Special Investigation Bureau.”

The Execution Bureau Chief, Lu Wu, who struck fear into the hearts of all department heads, pressed one hand on the desk and stared Pei Xueting down aggressively. “What is the purpose of the Special Investigation Bureau?”

Pei Xueting thought about it sincerely and ventured, “World peace?”

Lu Wu took a deep breath, but still couldn’t suppress his temper. He raged, “In any case, it’s not for you to burn the demon while capturing it! You’re in the Action Department, not the Execution Department! Do you know how much flak I took for you last night?”

He ran a hand over his hairline in anguish. “Do you know how much sleep deprivation damages a middle-aged man’s hairline?”

Pei Xueting said curiously, “But you’re not human.”

Lu Wu glared at her.

“Alright,” Pei Xueting sighed, “As the Action Department Head, I have the authority to decide whether to capture the target alive or execute them on the spot, right?”

Lu Wu was taken aback.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know this rule-it’s just that all previous Action Department Heads, including Pei Xueting, had the ability to capture targets alive, so the Action Department hadn’t actually killed anyone in years.

Pei Xueting rolled up the sleeve of her hoodie, revealing a section of gauze faintly stained with blood.

“How did this happen?”

“Since you asked, I won’t bother filing a report.” Pei Xueting said, “I only found out at the scene-it wasn’t just a demon that preyed on children. It was an Evil Spirit.”

A demon suddenly going berserk among humans wasn’t that scary-at least, not nearly as serious as the appearance of an Evil Spirit. An Evil Spirit is the embodiment of all negative factors-pain, sorrow, and malice all fuel its growth, and it seeks out a Host.

“In short, the culprit I killed in the serial child disappearance case wasn’t an ‘unregistered entity.’ He was a real human, just possessed by an Evil Spirit.” Pei Xueting said calmly. “The sudden appearance of an Evil Spirit sounds like something bad is about to awaken.”

Lu Wu sat in his chair, silent for a long time, then said, “I understand. You can go back now. Anything else you want to ask?”

Pei Xueting thought for a moment and asked, “With signs like this, does it mean we’ll have to work overtime from now on?”
Lu Wu’s frustration vanished in an instant, replaced by a fit of laughter. “You’ve never missed out on overtime pay. Get lost. Just seeing you annoys me, you troublemaker.”

—

The Great Fox Spirit swept the bag of pancakes disdainfully into the trash, then looked up to see a thin, frail human youth. The young man wore a white T-shirt and a blue plaid shirt, his bangs so long they covered his eyes, and his glasses were thicker than the bottom of a beer bottle.

The young man moved furtively, crouching sneakily behind a thriving potted plant, muttering something over and over under his breath. The Great Fox Spirit had no other hobbies except for eavesdropping on gossip, so it couldn’t help but perk up its ears to listen.

A mosquito-like voice drifted over in broken fragments: “Hel-hello, Leader, I’m from the Action Department… ah, no, I’m Song Xiaoming.”

The Great Fox Spirit found his self-introduction boring, but caught the words “Action Department,” so it simply called upstairs and told them to come down and fetch him.

Song Xiaoming was still revising his speech system when someone suddenly patted him on the shoulder from behind. He swallowed the lines he’d rehearsed for half a day in a panic, nearly suffocating himself. He turned around and met the half-smiling, half-mocking eyes of a girl, and his just-straightened thoughts tangled up again.

“I-I-I…”

“You’re Song Xiaoming, here to report to the Action Department?” The girl didn’t mock his rooster-like crowing of an introduction, but naturally picked up where he left off.

Song Xiaoming’s face turned bright red. He wished he could dig up the money tree in the potted plant and bury himself in its place. He suffered from severe social anxiety; whenever he spoke to someone, he unconsciously lowered his voice, especially in front of highly respected leaders or young, beautiful women.

He was supposed to be a dual-core processor, but as soon as he overheated, he downgraded to a corner store calculator-only able to reset to zero.

“My name is Bai Yin, I’m a staff member of the Action Department. Come with me.”

“Okay.” Song Xiaoming hugged his backpack and followed closely behind Bai Yin. As they passed the front desk, he glanced several times at the tail draped over the table, muttering to himself that the prop tail was surprisingly realistic.

But the further in he went, the more he suspected he’d wandered into some kind of pyramid scheme company. All around him, people were on the phone, and the content of their calls was bizarre. Song Xiaoming couldn’t help but size up the employees dressed like cosplayers, only to be glared at in return.

This workplace sure has an open atmosphere, Song Xiaoming thought.

He nervously wanted to call out to Bai Yin, but it was too noisy and she didn’t hear him at all.

“I know, I’ll clean up the mess left by that bastard from the Action Department.”

Song Xiaoming heard the words “Action Department” and looked over. What he saw nearly gave him a heart attack. The impatient man adjusting his collar was the very same murderer who had swept across all the major news sites in Jingzhou that morning-the culprit behind the serial child disappearance case!

“Sister Bai Yin, h-he-” Song Xiaoming’s voice trembled so much it changed pitch, and he slapped Bai Yin on the back without thinking.

Bai Yin let out a piercing scream. Song Xiaoming instinctively looked over, only to see Bai Yin’s head roll right off her shoulders!

“My head!”

“Ah-”

Bai Yin’s head rolled onto the floor, and an intern hurrying by with documents accidentally kicked it, sending it spinning over to the Snake Man. The Snake Man was operating the copier, which was jammed and twitching, unable to spit out paper. Annoyed, he slapped the copier, and his snake tail lashed the floor with a “smack,” sending the head flying again.

The head rolled back and forth amid the screams, like a horror version of the World Cup.

Song Xiaoming was so frightened his heart nearly stopped. After more than a decade of materialist education telling him to stay calm-this must be some kind of special effect or unknown magnetic interference, after all, one should not speak of supernatural phenomena-his body was honest: his blood pressure rose, his heart rate quickened, and with a “thud,” he collapsed onto the floor.

“Don’t step on it, don’t step on it, watch out for my head!” Bai Yin screamed as she chased after it.

In an instant, the already chaotic liaison hall erupted like a pot of hot oil doused with cold water.

The pained-looking head suddenly stopped. Pei Xueting formed a hand seal with one hand, and a Rune froze the head in place like a soccer ball.

“Used 502 glue to stick your head on again, didn’t you?” Pei Xueting grumbled. “I told you, that stuff doesn’t hold, but you never listen.”

Bai Yin, tears streaming down her face, hugged her head. “I know I was wrong, thank you, Boss, wuwuwu.”

Pei Xueting then turned to look at the unconscious Song Xiaoming, fanning the flames as she mocked, “Which department’s new connection is this? Coming to work before his worldview is even complete?”

A corner of the hall fell silent.

Under the sympathetic gazes of the non-human beings, Pei Xueting calmed down, but still clung to a sliver of hope as she struggled, “He’s not from our department, is he?”

Bai Yin barely managed to hold her head in place on her shoulders. “Boss, why do you think I came downstairs?”

Pei Xueting looked at the unconscious man on the floor and felt her career facing an unprecedented challenge. She couldn’t bear to look, so she covered her eyes.