ALL NOVEL Chapter 49): Do You Know Him?
At noon, in the student lounge of the university…
Lu Yibei sat alone in the corner, staring at the stack of A4 papers on the small round table, attempting to sort out the doubts in his heart so that he could get information from Jiangli later in the afternoon.
As long as I mention the classification of the urban legends and the basic knowledge relating to psychic powers, Jiangli should be more than glad to tell me about it, he thought.
‘She might not tell me everything, though, considering that I am just a part-time worker there.’
After pondering for a moment, he picked up a pen and wrote:
[1. How did Shui acquire Acala, the immovable?
- What does the Black Sun Totem represent?
- Ways for urban legends to feed
- What did the girl mean by “few days every month?” …]
Yibei wrote down five or six questions that he wanted to know on the piece of paper and stared at the paper for a good minute. After nodding at the contents, he tore the paper into pieces, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it at the nearest trash can.
He picked up the paper cup that was filled with coke and downed it in a single gulp.
It was as if he had taken a shot of alcohol, and the tingling and burning sensation in his throat calmed his nerves.
When he was in a state of “hunger,” he realised that he was unable to eat human food. The only reprieve he had was that he was still able to drink, so he tried everything from plain water to any single beverage available on campus.
After his tests, he found that the most he could drink was Coke.
If he were to take a step further and drink something more nutritious, like fruit juices or dairy products, he would immediately vomit.
Although drinking Coke can’t solve his problem, it would provide him with a bit of energy.
Who could’ve imagined that the terrifying witch destined to destroy the world would have to rely on sugar water to sustain himself?
At the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Administration, in the office labelled “V.”
After eating the bento sent by her maid, Jiangli laid down on the table for a short rest. Afterwards, she made herself a cup of strong tea and turned on the computer.
There is still time before Yibei arrives, so there is still time for two more rounds!
This beautiful girl seemed to be obsessed with mahjong, and she was so immersed that she didn’t even realise that her maid had escorted Yibei into the office.
Yibei was strangely calm today; he didn’t know if there was a warning mechanism for whenever urban legends would stray near the Night Division Headquarters, and he feared that Jiangli would see right through him.
Ironically, before this, as a human, he would be escorted closely by members of the Night Division. Now that he was considered a threat of some sort, he found that he was able to walk in, dignified, and not treated like a prisoner.
“You’re here early,” Jiangli raised her head and frowned slightly.
“I’d rather be early than late,” he replied, scratching his head.
In reality, Yibei didn’t expect that he would be able to just walk into headquarters without any alarms ringing.
“I see… Here, take a look for yourself, and I’ll answer your question once I’m done with more pressing matters on my computer,” she nodded as she pointed at the Night Division Records on her desk.
It was wrapped in dark brown leather, and it was as thick as a typical, complete dictionary.
Yibei stared at Jiangli as the afternoon sun bathed her in a pale, gold light; he had always found women who worked hard beautiful. He was drowning in his thoughts until a soft sound could be heard from her computer.
“You won the round! Continue?”
Without a single expression betraying her emotions, Jiangli turned the volume down, and Yibei could only continue staring in a daze.
As he held the Night Division records, he realised that it was not an ordinary book by any means.
It seems that this book cannot be flipped at will; it can only be opened page by page. If he tried to pry it open in the middle, it would refuse to budge.
He patiently turned over the first page.
No foreword, no table of contents. The first thing he saw was an overview of urban legends.
There were various conjectures about the source of urban legends, ranging from citing classics and historical stories to word-of-mouth and ancient legends.
Yibei could feel himself getting a headache as he mindlessly started to flip through the pages, but his attention returned to him when he got to the page he wanted.
[FEEDING METHODS OF URBAN LEGENDS VARY BUT CAN BE ROUGHLY DIVIDED INTO TWO CATEGORIES, NAMELY, HUNTING AND WORSHIPPING…]
He already knew from his “neighbours” that urban legends feed by hunting humans or other urban legends; it was the latter that caught his attention.
Worship? he thought. ‘Does this mean drawing energy from the power of belief?’
‘Could this belief extend to fear as well?’ he wondered as he recalled how he got less hungry after scaring the taxi driver. ‘This is a much more peaceful way of feeding! But why do they hunt if a peaceful way exists? I have to ask Jiangli about this.’
He continued to read and found himself bored again. He didn’t stop until he turned to a page and saw bolded words that caught him by surprise.
[IN SUMMARY, ONCE A CERTAIN NUMBER OF PEOPLE BELIEVE IN AN URBAN LEGEND, THE URBAN LEGEND WILL MANIFEST IN REALITY.]
He gulped as he saw the line of words and started praying in his heart, ‘Bai Xiaohua is real, Bai Xiaohua is real, Bai Xiaohua is…
“Even if you chant it repeatedly, your 2D wife will never become real. Even if she does, there’s a high chance that she will just kill you.”
Jiangli’s voice broke his trance, and it felt like a knife stabbing into him.
“How did you know? Was I saying it out loud?”
“I just guessed you were staring at those bolded words for too long. Listen, we had an operator who was an avid fan of the [Alien] series, and guess what happened to him?”
“Did they inject him with a parasite? Face-huggers?”
“Let’s just say that the city he was in no longer exists,” Jiangli said as she stepped forward, closing the Night Division records in Yibei’s hand. “Right, ask away. I don’t want you to receive too much information at once.”
“Hmm, let me think…” Yibei pretended to ponder. “Well, about the statue of Acala, the Immovable. I’ve had it for some time now, but I still don’t know how to use it correctly.”
“I’m not surprised. For an ordinary person like you, at most, it just wards off evil.”
“Can you explain?” Yibei’s eyes lit up.
“If psychic energy is channelled into the statue, it will begin to glow and chant Buddhist scripture, and this is enough to dispel Level C threats.”
“So… is it explosive?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, y-you said that if someone were to channel psychic energy into it, it would become stronger, so I was wondering…” Yibei frantically explained before he was cut off by Jiangli.
“It’s a speculation, but if the energy is pure enough, the statue would explode with immense raw power.”
“Nice!” he said as his eyes lit up. “By the way, this statue was given to me by a guardian of mine, and his full name is Bai Kai Shui. Do you know him? Or does he work here?”
When his name was mentioned, Jiangli was visibly surprised, but her expression returned to normal in an instant. “I don’t know who that is.”
‘She does know who he is! Why is she hiding it?’