Chapter 195: Cao Ye

He grabbed Li Mingyue by the hair, forcing her to look at him, his eyes shining with a vicious light:

“Li Mingyue! Li Mingyue! You tell me, are we all so different?! And you’re telling me you question the very reason for the Anomaly Administration Bureau’s existence? Do you take all these heroes for fucking idiots? You think the Anomaly Administration Bureau should just serve Dusk? So many of us have left our families and given up everything, just to serve Dusk? What do you think all our sacrifices, all our hard work, amounts to?!”

Li Mingyue pressed her lips together tightly.

The pressure from Director Cao Ye was overwhelming.

But she still bit the bullet, and, full of shame, said in a faint voice:

“If we aided Dusk, they wouldn’t have to suffer this kind of pain.”

Cao Ye’s fury boiled over into laughter.

“Ha? HAHAHAHAHA, I seriously want to fucking kill you. We’ve sacrificed so much, and for what? You tell me. Tell me what it’s all for!”

Li Mingyue said,

“To deal with anomalies.”

Cao Ye shoved Li Mingyue to the ground and glared at her fiercely:

“Yesterday morning, that Succubus killed someone at the entrance of Twenty-Fourth Middle School! The reason was that a couple of vendors were being assholes, running their mouths and insulting the Succubus. But let me ask you, is that a crime punishable by death?”

Li Mingyue’s lips quivered.

“No.”

Cao Ye spat the cigarette butt from his mouth onto the floor.

“Why doesn’t anyone care about this? Is it just because that Succubus is an Extraordinary Creature, one of Dusk’s subordinates?”

Cao Ye took two steps forward, crouched down, grabbed Li Mingyue by the collar, and yanked her face-to-face, his gaze sharp as a knife:

“Why can’t we touch her? Because our fists aren’t big enough! We can’t just casually take out Lucifer or Black God, like Dusk can. We are weak—terrifyingly weak. When we deal with anomalies, all we have is the spirit of a moth flying into a flame. But…”

Cao Ye gritted his teeth and said, enunciating every word,

“But being weak is no excuse to give up, Li Mingyue!”

Li Mingyue was silent, unable to utter a single word.

Cao Ye released his grip on Li Mingyue, walked back behind his desk, sat down, took a deep breath, lit a cigarette, and said,

“If we choose to serve Dusk, our own power will forever be secondary to theirs. We will never have another chance to contend with them on equal footing. Do you know what it means to be a gentleman? At the table, everyone has the ability to flip it over, but they’re all polite enough not to do it rudely. We can choose not to flip the table, but we must have the power to do it if we need to. Do you want the people of the Xia Kingdom to live under Dusk’s heel forever? Where are our institutions? Where is our law? Dusk hasn’t made any radical moves yet, but what about in the future?”

Cao Ye put down his cigarette, his gaze distant and dark.

“Of course, it’s not just about Dusk. For now, Dusk seems to be on the side of good. But what about Taiping Dao? We take a salary from the country. Shouldn’t we be the ones to rip Taiping Dao out by the roots? You can’t possibly expect us to go begging Dusk to clean up Taiping Dao for us, can you? Goddammit, are you earning your salary? Are you worthy of the trust the country has placed in the Anomaly Administration Bureau?”

At the mention of Taiping Dao, Li Mingyue thought of Miss Mihua, who had joined the Witch Association.

‘Miss Mihua killed so many people. She deserves to die; she should be punished by the law.’

‘But she joined the Witch Association.’

Thinking this, Li Mingyue’s resolve to go after her weakened considerably.

‘For one, the Witch Association serves Dusk.’

‘For another, the leader of the Witch Association is my own best friend.’

Li Mingyue stood up. She paused for a moment, her expression gradually growing firm, and finally spoke.

“I understand. I… I was too naive.”

Cao Ye’s tone softened.

“We’ve been working hard. And now, we have a few trump cards of our own.”

Li Mingyue was taken aback.

“What?”

Cao Ye said,

“Prince Bright Lamp’s great hostility toward Dusk counts as one of our trump cards. After all, we’re in the same boat as Prince Bright Lamp. In the future, when there’s an anomaly, Prince Bright Lamp—seeing as we’re shipmates—won’t just stand idly by as he did before.”

Li Mingyue frowned.

“But didn’t you just say… that Forbidden Creatures can’t be trusted…?”

Cao Ye’s expression looked a little unnatural.

“I have my methods, naturally.”

He cleared his throat twice.

“I don’t know the depths of Prince Bright Lamp’s power, but I do know the depths of the Mother-Child Black Coffin.”

Li Mingyue frowned.

“The Mother-Child Black Coffin? That thing doesn’t have any offensive power, does it?”

A smile tugged at the corner of Cao Ye’s mouth.

“The Mother-Child Black Coffin itself has no offensive power, but the thing inside it… is extremely vicious.”

Li Mingyue froze.

“You mean… Bai Juzhi, who’s inside?”

Cao Ye nodded.

“The Mother-Child Black Coffin will cause the killing intent and resentment on Bai Juzhi to materialize, becoming his combat power. And that man’s killing intent and resentment are the most immense I have ever seen.”

Li Mingyue pursed her lips.

“I suppose he’s a pitiable figure.”

‘For the sake of his wife and daughter, Bai Juzhi went to serve the previous director, Zhao Pengcheng.’

‘He killed countless people for him.’

‘In the end, he realized it was all just a scheme by Zhao Pengcheng.’

‘Zhao Pengcheng had never intended to resurrect his wife; he hadn’t even taken care of his daughter.’

‘It got to the point where Bai Juzhi ordered the indiscriminate annihilation of all survivors from the Sea Train.’

‘His daughter’s body was likely never even recovered.’

‘Zhao Pengcheng only wanted him, a man brimming with immense resentment, to enter the Mother-Child Black Coffin so he could obtain a puppet possessing Extraordinary Power.’

Cao Ye scoffed.

“Slaughtering the innocent for one’s own selfish desires isn’t pitiable. You could say he brought his fate upon himself. But there’s no denying it. Bai Juzhi’s power is growing more and more formidable. There’s no telling how great his potential is. Didn’t Lucifer call that woman at Dusk’s side the ‘Human Peak’? Well, maybe Bai Juzhi is the new ‘Human Peak.'”

Cao Ye snuffed out his cigarette and said,

“Alright, enough of this idle talk. Your next mission is to develop the power of your Eye of Hela as much as possible. For the sake of the Anomaly Administration Bureau, we need more trump cards.”

……

PS: Thank you to reader ending in 8959 for the 588-coin donation.

PS: On Yuewen, chapters are generally two thousand Chinese characters long.

But my chapters are usually around three thousand characters, sometimes 2,500, sometimes 3,500.

To keep the plot stable, the pacing is sometimes slow, but all those plot points are important.

I want to properly sketch out the Extraordinary World I have in my mind; I don’t want to compromise on the quality.

The opening chapters of this book were written to cater to the market, all fast-paced.

That’s not what I like to write; I’m not a big fan of mindless stories.

And I’ve really suffered for it. A slower pace means readers tend to “farm” chapters (stockpile them to read later).

The readers on Qidian are one thing, but if readers on QQ Reading farm chapters, my royalties get cut drastically.

The problem is, this book is syndicated on Qidian, which means I only get half of the subscription revenue from them.

This author is really poor, I’m in desperate need of money. My whole family depends on me.

I really hope you all won’t farm chapters. I’m begging you! *kowtows*

The royalties I get are the same whether you read ten chapters in one day or two.

I won’t let my readers down. Every chapter will be about three thousand characters, truly.

For example, with the bonus chapter today, I’ve written ten thousand characters.

I really want to write this book for a long, long time and fully build up its vast world.

Also, I really don’t have a backlog of chapters written.

I only know what’s going to happen in the story about two hours before you do.

Every character is alive in my mind, with their own thoughts and ideas.

Sometimes, when I’m writing a certain scene, a thought will pop into my head: ‘Huh? He would actually think that and do that?’

Finally, I wish all my readers, ladies and gentlemen, wealth, prosperity, and a happy, fulfilling sex life!

Good night!