Volume 2, Chapter 52 (Chapter 90): Fallen Gods

1:37pm.

Lu Yibei tore out the page in his notebook and tore it into shreds, and stuffed it into his pocket, tossing the can of cola into the rubbish bin.

Passing over a drain, he was about to discard the shreds of paper into the drain, but found the same pair of eyes staring at him again.

This time, it didn’t feel resentful at all. In fact, it felt boring, like somebody bored was just trying to pass the time by looking at the scenery.

Yibei stopped moving, waiting for the gaze upon him to stop before throwing the shreds of paper down the drain.

He watched as the paper shreds get swallowed by the gushing waters of the drain before leaving.

‘Somebody’s watching me… even if it’s not malicious, it’s scary to be watched.’

He felt an uncontrollable, unprecedented urge to just grab the watcher out of sheer willpower and teach them a lesson to not stare at people.

“How could I resort to violence?” Yibei muttered as he smacked himself in the head.

That weird gaze seemed to know when he was aware of being watched, and would disappear almost immediately.

‘If I don’t attract its attention, I’ll be fine.’

Thinking about it, he stretched his hand over and called for a taxi.

Huacheng Folk Culture Research Administration, Office V.

On the retro-styled desk, the food prepared in the exquisite bento had already gone cold.

With a pale complexion and a somewhat tired expression, Jiangli leaned on the chair and closed her eyes to rest. Unlike the last time, she did not take advantage of the free time before Lu Yibei came to play two rounds of mahjong on her computer.

Apart from supporting the special operations team in their mission twice, she played about 47 rounds of mahjong and won all 47 rounds, and yet she couldn’t sense any abnormalities from her duration of stay.

Even though she won, she was dissatisfied. She wanted the urban legend to pop up, win a round, and subdue it in one clean sweep.

Squeak!

Her office door was pushed open, and Yibei walked inside meekly.

Seeing that Jiangli was taking a nap, he crept over to her desk and took the Night Division Records that were on her table.

Holding the Night Division Records, he opened the first page, only for it to automatically flip to where he last left off.

‘Is this thing not an urban legend on its own?’

‘If I devour it, will I know everything?’

He shook his head and chased away his hungry thoughts. Even if he wanted to devour it, he couldn’t do so while he was in the maw of the beast.

Besides, he was still recovering from the side effects of Pharoah and the others. He didn’t want to go insane.

Flipping through the pages, he soon found something interesting.

[RESEARCH OBSERVES THAT MOST HIGH-RANKING URBAN LEGENDS WILL HAVE THEIR OWN SERVANTS AND SLAVES (I.E., DEPENDENTS) TO AID THEM IN HUNTS, GATHERING BELIEFS, AND OTHER ESSENTIAL BEHAVIORS.

DEPENDENTS ARE CHARACTERISED BY MARKS LEFT BEHIND BY THE URBAN LEGEND. DEPENDENTS INCLUDE, BUT AREN’T LIMITED TO, HUMAN BEINGS, OTHER URBAN LEGENDS, AND OTHER OBJECTS.]

Seeing this, Lu Yibei immediately thought of Bai Xiaohua, the game character that he covets.

‘Speaking of which, if Bai Xiaohua really existed, wouldn’t I be her dependent?’

He would hunt for the in-game currency to appease her and send her help over to other players, which is gathering belief. Isn’t that the definition of a dependent?

Du Sixian flashed across his mind.

‘Uh oh.’

‘She’s my dependent.’

‘Is there no way to remove my mark from her?’

He hurriedly flipped across the records, only to land on two completely black pages.

‘Not high enough of a clearance.’

He rubbed the two pages back and forth with his fingertips, and his eyes slightly burned as he did. The pitch-black colour, like ink meeting water, slowly faded, revealing the hidden writing below.

Just as he was about to read the writings, Jiangli felt a wave of psychic energy wash over the room and hurriedly woke up.

Her clear eyes, like a sword, stabbed right into Yibei’s own eyes.

‘Did… did she notice something? Do I confess my crimes?’

Jiangli stared at Yibei carefully, and after confirming that he had no psychic tendencies within him, he sighed, “Sorry. I’m very tired. I was busy last night.”

Seeing that Yibei was already reading through the records, she simply nodded and said, “Continue reading on your own. Feel free to ask me anything you don’t understand.”

She was just about to take another nap, but Yibei spoke up.

“W-wait, I encountered something strange lately.”

“Oh?” Jiangli sat up, her state of tiredness disappearing almost immediately. “Tell me about it.”

After a moment of silence, he cleared his throat and said, “Ahem, to put it simply… I joined a strange university forum and found a group of people discussing something called Zigu, and there was an incantation attached to it.

He decided to repeat the spell that Lin Yiqi was chanting rather than the one he heard at the school.

He feared that if he spoke that incantation, he might cause trouble within Jiangli’s office.

“Oh! And the incantation went like this: ‘My aunt, my aunt, O’…’

“Stop!” Before he could speak the incantation in full, Jiangli stopped him.

She squinted her eyes and stared at Lu Yibei for a few seconds, and after trying to find clues on his paralysed face, she sighed helplessly.

“You shouldn’t be reading incantations like that. Words have power, and they are like a prayer meant to awaken fallen gods. Even just by thinking of it, you are calling out to them, and they will be alerted to your pleas.”

“The more you call out to them…” Jiangli continued. “…they might answer you, and the only way you’ll be safe is if I lock you up in the Night Division.”

‘Shit,’ Lu Yibei cursed internally.

‘I read the incantation silently for twenty, no, thirty times while coming up with a cover story! Shouldn’t I be locked up in the darkest dungeon by now?’