President Long didn’t like to move around much. He preferred to sit alone in his office and didn’t like being disturbed. Aside from his first day at the company, Ye Yang had barely seen him.
President Long’s office had a transparent window. Although a screen blocked the view of whoever was sitting inside, Ye Yang could still see some of the furnishings through the glass.
The office was decorated in a very classical style. The furniture looked expensive and was arranged in matching sets.
Sister Wu had said, “That’s gold-thread nanmu wood. A few hundred years ago, even emperors used it. There was a period when a lot of antiques got sold overseas. President Long managed to source some panels and tabletops, then had Su-style chairs made and matched them with the screen. From this distance, with all the smoke, it’s hard to tell, but if you actually walk in, you can see the golden, silk-like grain and the satiny sheen of the wood.”
Too bad it wasn’t shiny enough—otherwise, Wu Shuwen would have definitely moved a piece into her own office.
Even more eye-catching than the classical furniture were the incense burners scattered everywhere in the office.
There were over a dozen just on the display shelf by the door, and who knew how many more behind the screen. The office was perpetually filled with swirling smoke from continuously burning incense.
Ye Yang knocked on the door with the documents in hand. Hearing a “Come in” from inside, he pushed the door open and stepped in. The smoke rushed toward him, carrying its fragrance. Suddenly, Ye Yang froze in place, as if someone had tapped him right on the crown of his head. His body lost control, and his consciousness began to blur.
“Oh, it’s you?”
Suddenly, President Long’s voice rang out. The strange sensation instantly dissipated, and Ye Yang woke up as if from a dream. “What was that?”
President Long said, “Don’t worry. The incense is a good thing. You’re just not used to it since it’s your first time being exposed.” He had thought it was Wu Shuwen at the door, but when the noisy little crow outside didn’t come in after being invited, he came out to see and realized it was Ye Yang.
“This incense is made from zi wood, zhi wood, purple gromwell, dan wood, agarwood, and other ingredients. It’s rich in spiritual energy and helps stimulate the circulation of spiritual power. What you just experienced can be compared to altitude sickness—it’s caused by sudden exposure to high concentrations of spiritual energy. Don’t worry.”
Only then did Ye Yang realize that the bottleneck in his cultivation, which had shown no signs of progress, seemed to have loosened a bit. Moreover, the fact that he had recovered so quickly from that strange sense of disorientation was surely thanks to President Long’s help. Now he could clearly feel vast amounts of spiritual energy swirling around him, pushing his own demonic energy to circulate on its own.
Teacher Shen always said not to rush cultivation, that often it just took a small opportunity. Could this be that opportunity?
He immediately thanked President Long: “Thank you for the incense, President Long. My cultivation has improved again!”
President Long sighed, a strange expression on his face. “Such an honest child. Xiao Wu really shouldn’t have done this.”
Ye Yang: “Huh?”
…
Director Wu was fiddling with her little collection when she suddenly saw Ye Yang storm out of President Long’s office, heading straight for her.
“Sister Wu!”
Director Wu jumped, nearly dropping the earring she was holding between two fingers. “Why so loud? I can hear you just fine.”
Ye Yang felt deeply wronged. “You lied to me! Why did you lie to me?” He had thought Sister Wu was really nice. He had trusted her completely. And yet she had been deceiving him this whole time.
Sister Wu and Brother Hui were both yao. Brother Xing was human, but he was even less human-like than Ye Yang the yao… And even President Long was a yao!
The more he thought about it, the more upset he became. “You clearly said President Long was a great human cultivator. But he says he’s the dragon son Suanni, an ancient divine beast!”
Even the boss had been exposed—and by his own admission. Wu Shuwen’s gaze shifted a little. Finally, she gave up completely. No more saving face, no more excuses. She admitted defeat. “Yes, that’s right! Our Action Division is just a den of yao! Where are we supposed to find so many human cultivators? You think YCG is all that impressive? We are seriously, desperately short-staffed!”
She stopped struggling, didn’t want to say more. This was embarrassing. They had talked about keeping it a secret, and within days, everything was exposed.
She shook her head, patted Ye Yang on the shoulder, and said, “What are you standing around for? Go home!”
Ye Yang glanced at the clock on the wall. It wasn’t even six yet.
Sister Wu put one arm around Ye Yang and grabbed his backpack with the other. “Come on, we don’t actually need to sit at our desks all day. No missions today, so leave a little early.” Not that you’re probably going to stick around much longer anyway…
But to her surprise, the quitting she had been worried about never happened.
·
Before she knew it, more than two months had passed.
Ye Yang showed up on time every day, took the initiative to learn about company operations and mission coordination, and even cleaned and refilled the water cooler—even though it was just a matter of a single spell. Seeing this, Sister Wu’s previously dead heart slowly began to revive.
Ye Yang noticed that Sister Wu had been acting sneaky lately, always secretly observing him. Even when he caught her looking, she didn’t look guilty—she just pretended nothing happened and strode away.
After who knew how many times of feeling that gaze on him, Ye Yang was truly helpless. He spun around, took a big leap, and directly cornered the director who hadn’t managed to escape around the corner. “Sister Wu, just tell me whatever it is.”
Wu Shuwen let out an awkward laugh. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just… you’ve been working so diligently. Have you ever thought about transferring? I hear the City West branch is really short-staffed too. They have a lot of missions over there, and the pay is better.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she wanted to slap herself. Why am I praising another branch? What if Ye Yang was already thinking of leaving and just didn’t know this information…
Ye Yang found it a bit amusing. “So that’s what you’ve been worried about. Sister Wu, why would you think that? I’m doing great here. I’m not going to quit.”
“Doing great here?” Sister Wu wondered if she had heard wrong.
The expression on Sister Wu’s face was too complicated to read. Ye Yang started to doubt himself. “…Is it not great here?”
Nine to five, one and a half hours for lunch, weekends off, annual leave, full social insurance and housing fund benefits—everything was covered. No difficult bosses or colleagues—at least not so far. Everyone seemed pretty nice.
The only thing that could possibly be considered a downside was the lack of demanding work.
You could even say there was no work at all.
As the South City Action Office under the Action Department of YCG’s East Continent Branch, the company that couldn’t quite settle on a name outwardly ran an advertising agency business, but its real work was handling supernatural incidents that only they could deal with.
Starting his second month, the company signed a formal labor contract with Ye Yang. His position was “salesperson.” His base salary after deductions came to 3,000 yuan. Performance was commission-based.
It all looked very official, but that too was a front. The real bulk of his salary—and the part Ye Yang looked forward to most—was the mission compensation.
Compared to his probation period, he could now take on a wider range of missions with higher pay.
The advertising agency was just a cover and basically had no business. The few leads they occasionally got were hard to close because of their art director’s… unconventional taste. Over the course of a month, they barely managed two or three orders—and of those three, two might get returned.
And in that same month, they’d be cursed out seven to ten times by the few clients they did have, saying a crappy company like theirs was definitely going to go under soon.
Apart from Ye Yang, the other employees were completely unmoved by such comments.
What could they do? At peak times, they heard that kind of talk four or five times a day. They were long used to it.
But since Ye Yang had arrived, not only was there none of the work a normal advertising agency should have, but even the missions—their actual job—were few and far between. Brother Xing could handle them all on his own, not even needing Ye Yang’s help.
“Sister Wu, the only thing I feel is a little bad is that there are too few missions. How come? When I interned at the Action Department, there were plenty of missions.”
“Ah… that’s a bit complicated. Not something I can explain in a moment.” Wu Shuwen scratched her head guiltily.
Ye Yang simply pulled Sister Wu into the break room, poured her a bowl of tea, and set out two plates of snacks. “Then take your time. We’ve got plenty of it. It’s not like we have any work to do.”
Seeing that Sister Wu still seemed reluctant, Ye Yang started playing the pity card. “Sister Wu, I’ve already promised Director Tu that I’ll work hard at this company. I’m still buried in debt. If things keep going like this, I’m really done for.”
After starting work, the government’s monthly subsidy had stopped. On top of that, Ye Yang had received terrible news from Director Tu.
“The apartment was given to you at a steep discount before. Now that you’re working, those perks naturally go away.” The rent had skyrocketed to 4,000 yuan a month!
He had been looking for other suitable places to live but hadn’t found any. His identity was unique—he couldn’t live in densely populated areas. But any place with better privacy that wasn’t easily broken into by others only got more expensive, never cheaper.
Ye Yang had even thought about just living at the company. But before President Long—the company owner—could say anything about it, Shen Ming had exploded.
“Leave here? Then where will you live?” The moment Shen Ming heard that Ye Yang was planning to move out, he immediately asked with concern.
Then, when he heard Ye Yang was thinking of living at the office, Shen Ming shot to his feet. Though his expression didn’t change much, his agitation was clear. “Is this how YCG exploits you?!”
“Uh, it’s not like that…”
Shen Ming was furious. This was the little sea hare he had watched grow up step by step! Even though… but still… this was his disciple!
Ye Yang didn’t understand what had made Shen Ming so angry. The more he tried to explain, the more tangled things got, and the worse he made it sound. In the end, he simply gave up on the idea.
If he didn’t give up, Teacher Shen was going to march straight to YCG headquarters!
With all these reasons combined, he was now even poorer than he had been as a student. Every day when he opened his eyes, he was already another 133.33 yuan in debt.
“That is pretty rough…” Sister Wu had amassed quite a fortune over the past millennium and could hardly imagine Ye Yang’s situation. “Alright, I’ll tell you. But don’t make fun of me. And even if you know what’s going on, getting normal missions will probably still be hard.”
Yes, the Action Department received many missions every day. So many incidents piled up that less urgent tasks might sit for years without anyone having the time to deal with them.
But despite being so short-staffed, and with so many missions, the Action Department still tried not to assign missions to their location, which was guarded by ancient greats like Suanni and Xing Tian. The reason was simply that this company was a bit… peculiar.
Or rather, it was because of Suanni and Xing Tian that things were this way.
YCG had placed Suanni and Xing Tian here more for surveillance than for them to actually be useful.
One was a dragon son no one dared to order around. The other was an ancient remnant who feared nothing, had no attachments, and couldn’t die. Who would dare provoke them?
Who would dare criticize them if they went wild on a mission? Who would dare send back a completely nonsensical report and demand a rewrite?
Over time, they simply stopped assigning missions here.
And it wasn’t just Suanni and Brother Xing—Sister Wu and Brother Hui were also far from ordinary.
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