Chapter 83

Chapter 83: The ID Clerk Arrived

Morning came with bright sunlight and a clear sky streaked with thin clouds.

A boring urban variety show played on the living room TV. Irene hugged the remote and watched with intense interest. In the dining room, Foxy licked bowls clean while using her tails to gather dishes, chopsticks, and plates into neat stacks.

Yu Sheng had his laptop open on the dining table. Since breakfast, he’d been staring at the screen like it was an enemy he had to defeat.

Foxy was curious about what her Benefactor was doing, but he looked so serious that she didn’t dare interrupt. She only tilted her head now and then while cleaning, sneaking a glance. When she realized she couldn’t understand any of it, she quietly went back to work.

Even after Foxy finished washing the dishes, Yu Sheng was still staring at the screen.

Irene wandered over from the living room. Unlike Foxy, she had no sense of restraint. The moment she saw Yu Sheng at the computer, she pattered over, grabbed his pant leg, and started climbing.

“Hey, hey, what are you doing? Can I see?”

Yu Sheng casually picked her up by the collar and set her on the table. “Don’t mess around. I need to write.”

“…Write?” Irene froze. “Why?”

“My job,” Yu Sheng said without looking up. He flicked her a sideways glance. “I’m a writer. You didn’t think I was unemployed, did you? I make a living.”

Irene stared blankly, shock slowly spreading across her face like she’d just discovered a hidden door to a new world.

Yu Sheng didn’t care. He kept talking. “Spending’s been high lately. I bought a bunch of stuff for the house, and I still owe two articles that are over half a month late. I need to make them up fast. Don’t mess around. Go watch TV.”

Irene stood there with her mouth open for a long time. Then she suddenly scooted along the table edge until she was under Yu Sheng’s arm. She leaned in and squinted at the screen.

“But you’re obviously scrolling a video site…”

Yu Sheng’s face didn’t move. “Necessary warm-up. I need to clear my head.”

Irene lifted a hand and pointed. “And behind the video site, you have a forum open.”

“Reading other people’s work is useful too,” Yu Sheng said stiffly. “Forums have lots of creative ideas. I’m gathering inspiration, okay?”

“You haven’t even opened a document,” Irene said.

“Why do you have so much to say?!” Yu Sheng finally snapped. He picked her up and set her on the floor. “Have you ever written anything? This is professional. Thinking and gathering before you write is the main part…”

Irene planted her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “Then when are you going to start writing?”

“If you stop messing around, I’ll start,” Yu Sheng said, glaring back.

Miss Doll pouted and stomped toward the living room, muttering as she went, “Tsk. A procrastinator sure has a lot of fancy words…”

Yu Sheng realized she wasn’t wrong.

He looked back at the computer screen and, in spite of himself, kept watching the video with his mind blank.

Writer was the polite word for it. Honestly, he was a second-rate, small-time author.

It was one of the few things his old life and his life in this Boundary City had in common: he’d always done this, from that quiet coastal town to this huge, unfamiliar city. The way he made money hadn’t changed much, and he knew he was lucky for it.

But too many unexpected things had happened lately. He couldn’t calm down enough to write. It wasn’t that he lacked ideas—he had too many, and they were all too outrageous. Worse, he couldn’t tell which ones could safely go into a story and which ones might actually point toward an otherworld and attract something dangerous.

After personally touching so many surreal things, a writer who used to write weird fantasy suddenly felt more lost than ever.

He sat there, empty, for who knew how long. Finally he took a deep breath and snapped the video and forum tabs shut.

[Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng. Pull yourself together. Think of Foxy’s appetite. Think of Foxy’s new clothes. Think of the materials to make Irene a body—and think of the new TV Miss Doll keeps dreaming about.

A bottom-tier typist doesn’t have savings to burn. If I don’t write, I’ll really be eating dirt.

Forget being some spirit-realm detective. First I have to figure out how to feed everyone in this house.]

He slapped his cheeks hard, reached for the mouse—and opened a game.

Thinking was exhausting. One bot match to relax first…

He hadn’t even started when someone rammed into his calf.

Irene had slipped over from the living room at some point. She butted her head into his leg. “Yu Sheng, you’re playing a game!”

“Why is everything your business?!” Yu Sheng bent down, ready to chase her away—

His pocket buzzed. His phone rang.

He took it out. An unfamiliar number.

Yu Sheng hesitated, then answered. “Hello?”

A very young woman’s voice came through, hesitant and nervous. “H-hello! Are you Mr. Yu? I was sent by Director Bai Li Qing. I’m here to… to deliver the registration forms.”

Yu Sheng froze, then remembered the conversation he’d had with that director—something he’d nearly forgotten. “Right, right. That’s me. That is a thing,” he said quickly. He stood, ignoring Irene for the moment, and looked out the window. “I’m home. Where are you?”

“I think I’m right next to your place, but I can’t see your house,” the voice said, sounding mortified. “The director told me to call before I arrived, but I forgot. I only remembered after I got here…”

“Hold on. I’ll open Door Opening for you,” Yu Sheng said, heading for the front door.

Behind him, Irene shouted, “Hey, who is it? Do I need to disguise myself?”

Foxy stepped out too, suddenly nervous. “Do I need to change my appearance?”

“No need,” Yu Sheng said, waving a hand. “The person here to get you your ID cards is here.”

At the door, he checked the peephole. Sure enough, outside on the empty open ground stood a young woman in a neat black suit, short hair clipped close. She held her phone in one hand and kept turning in circles, searching for something that wasn’t there.

She looked like a bright-eyed temp who’d been sent on an errand by a boss with zero conscience.

Yu Sheng opened the door.

The young woman jumped as if she’d been startled by a ghost. She turned and stared at the door that had appeared out of nowhere—and at Yu Sheng standing calmly in it.

“Mr. Yu!” She hurried over, clutching a document envelope. “Hello! I’m from the Special Operations Bureau Second Unit. You can call me Ren Wen Wen. Can I come in? I’ll need to take photos of the registrants later… ah, right, this is my ID. Please take a look.”

She fumbled a small black booklet from her pocket and snapped it open.

Yu Sheng glanced at it. It looked similar to the IDs Li Lin and Xu Jiali had shown before.

He didn’t really need to verify it. The people who knew both his phone number and Wu Tong Road 66 were the Bureau and Little Red Riding Hood. And, technically, those three locksmiths from before.

“Come in,” Yu Sheng said, stepping aside.

Ren Wen Wen slipped inside. Yu Sheng leaned out and glanced around one last time. The wide area in front of the door was as empty as ever. He closed the door.

Irene and Foxy stared at the short-haired young woman who’d suddenly appeared in their home.

Ren Wen Wen stared back, just as curious—and, Yu Sheng noticed, far more nervous than he expected. It wasn’t the cautious tension Li Lin and Xu Jiali had shown the first time they entered Wu Tong Road 66.

This was something else.

Yu Sheng decided not to poke at it. Instead he walked over. “So what’s the process? Do we register them first, or do we do my registration first?”

“First… first we register their legal identities,” Ren Wen Wen said, snapping out of it. She pulled forms from the envelope and took portable equipment from her bag as she spoke. “You’re registering an independent team, right? Then we need to settle each member’s identity first. Fill out these two forms, and then I’ll take their photos and make the cards. I brought the equipment. A colleague at the office is ready too—we can make the cards on-site and enter them into the system.”

She laid a pile of items on the table with brisk, practiced motions, then looked up at the doll standing on the tabletop and the demon fox beside it.

“Can you fill them out yourselves?”

Foxy blinked at the forms, then looked up at Yu Sheng, helpless.

She couldn’t read these characters at all.

Yu Sheng sighed and took the pen. “I’ll fill it in for her.”