Am I not good enough? Why did you pick up another dog! Lin Mu brought along a few tools from his house to the office.
It was still early when he reached the office, and official working hours hadn"t started yet. Neither Da Hei nor the Old Turtle, who Lin Mu only knew by name, was there yet.
Lin Mu took out his key to open the door then started cleaning the office. After, he pulled a stool over to the broken window and stood on it, taking out a tape measure to determine its size.
The office windows weren"t the commonly used sliding windows1, but were the slightly older cas.e.m.e.nt windows2 that needed to be pushed outwards and manually locked.
Lin Mu did not know how to change the gla.s.s, so he was planning to directly replace the entire window — but before he changed it, he needed to wait for the other two to arrive at the office before he could discuss it with them.
Lin Mu recorded the size of the window down on a piece of paper then went out of the door to take a look at the dilapidated office. He wondered what kind of plants he should buy to cover up its appearance.
In any case, this was also an office and he needed to come here frequently, so it shouldn"t continue being an eyesore.
As long as Da Hei and the other one didn"t mind, Lin Mu didn"t think that it was that big of a deal.
He walked across and stood at the opposite road to look at the tattered office, and then circled around to take a look at the other side of the office.
The other side of the office was also quite worn-down, but it was facing a pioneer park that was currently being built, so the urbanisation would probably reach this area soon.
After looking for a while, Lin Mu more or less had a sense of what was going on. When he was about to take back his line of sight and leave, from the corner of his eyes, he saw a huge shadow above the dilapidated building that only had a single floor.
Lin Mu was stunned and quickly turned his head back, but didn"t see anything.
“……”
He felt that ever since he had opened the door to a whole new world, in this short day, his life and the world in front of his eyes had become strange extremely fast.
Puzzled, Lin Mu returned to the office.
Da Hei had just arrived the minute he returned. This time, his colleague wasn"t wearing the well-manner collared shirt and jeans, but a loose sports shirt and beach pants.
Hearing the sound of the door opening, Da Hei turned and didn"t seem to have expected Lin Mu to come over, “Why did you come? It isn"t time for you to formally join the company yet, right?”
“I didn"t have anything to do, and I saw that the window was broken, so I was thinking of repairing it.”
Finishing his explanation, Lin Mu still felt a little concerned about the black shadow that he had seen.
In the past, he would have simply thought that his eyes had been temporarily dazzled, or perhaps he had merely seen something wrongly. However, when it came to this sub-district office, Lin Mu was less likely to ignore it.
He thought about it and still decided to ask Da Hei, “when I was walking around, I saw that there was a dark shadow on the upper floor, but when I looked at it again, it was gone."
“Ah? You"re talking about the second floor?” Da Hei pointed to a door in the south corner of the office. “The second floor is a paper reference room, you can go up from there.”
Lin Mu froze a long moment, “we have a second floor?”
“Yep.” Da Hei nodded and explained, “ordinary people can"t see it.”
Lin Mu softy muttered to himself, “but I can"t see it either.”
“Because you just realised that you aren"t a pure human being.” Da Hei said, and spun a small semicircle on the chair he was sitting on to face Lin Mu. “Just like I didn"t realised I gained spiritual wisdom, if you don"t recognise that you"re different, there are many things that you can"t see.”
“Philosophical idealism.” Lin Mu said.
Da Hei gave a serious nod, “yes, it"s that… I think, therefore I am? That is, now that you know you"re a half-monster, you"ll be able to see things that you couldn"t see before when you thought of yourself as a full human. Now that you know we have a second floor, you"ll be able to fully see what the second floor looks like.”
And now, once one could see it, there would inevitably be some contact, and slowly, one would completely enter into another world.
“Oh, okay.” Lin Mu nodded and pointed to the window, “does this window need to be replaced?”
“Both the Old Turtle and I don"t have any requirements for this place, if you don"t like it how it looks then just change it.” Just as Da Hei finished talking, the two people in the room heard a knock on the door.
Lin Mu got up to open the door, and standing outside were a young man and woman with a little girl.
Looks like it was a family of three.
Lin Mu was a little stunned, “h.e.l.lo?”
“h.e.l.lo.” The young man gave a nod, “we"re here to apply for a residence permit.”
Hearing his words, Lin Mu nodded and opened the door.
Over on the side, Da Hei, who had already heard their conversation, switched on the computer with ease and called them over.
Thinking about it for a moment, Lin Mu did not go out to but the window first, but instead closed the door and went back into the office, planning to see how the office operated.
This sub-district office only served monsters.
The office was mainly to help the monsters who wanted to live in the human world create a household register and apply for a residence permit, as well as to prevent them from committing crimes in the human world.
As for those monsters that had gained spiritual awareness but did not come to register, they would all be considered unregistered households. If one were to encounter these unregistered monsters, they would have to be reminded to come to the office and register. For those that chose to resist, they would be beaten up and then brought back to be registered. As for those that had already committed crimes, the law would be used to deal with them.
Lin Mu sat at the desk beside Da Hei"s and watched as Da Hei opened the computer"s entry software then asked the family of three, "where did y"all come from?"
"West part of the Great Wilderness, Yan Huo Country3(厌火国. 厌 (yàn) can mean tired of/satisfied with/hates, 火 (huǒ) is fire, 国 (guó) is country. Lit. translates to either The country that is tired of fire, the country that hates fire, or the country that is satisfied with fire. The actual term is used in several mythological books and ancient china based games.).” The man said as he took out a small book, and Lin Mu saw the two words, Household Record, on it.
Da Hei heard the man"s words and flipped the book, then he paused, “beside the Red River4 A river often featured in Chinese myths and stories. Said to flow from Kunlun. of the Kunlun Mountains5 It is known as a celestial mountain, where G.o.ds and G.o.ddess dwell, as well as where divine/mythical plants and animals live.? Why would residents of the Red River run to the Central Plains?”
The man sighed, “recently, the Great Wilderness isn"t peaceful at all. Everybody was rushing to enter the big cities. Our family is weak and some strong monsters came to occupy out house. We didn"t dare to go to the more remote places, so we simply chose the go to the Central Plains."
Da Hei frowned, “the Great Wilderness isn"t peaceful?”
The man"s eyes were filled with sadness, “yes. It seems that there"s a great monster that came out of hiding and went around causing chaos. It"s extremely fierce, slaughtering and ma.s.sacring across the Great Wilderness. It"s already murder several leaders from different countries."
"……" Da Hei didn"t say anything else and continued tapping on the keyboard while checking the Household Record book. After a while, he stamped on the book and returned it to the family of three. "Alright, you guys can go and find a place to live within the area of the Qingyao Mountains. Remember to pay a visit to this land"s G.o.d6土地神. (Tǔdì shén.) There is an actual G.o.d called but this isn"t referring to him. This refers to a local G.o.d that occupies the land, the one basically in charge of the area. and try not to go out too much. The Central Plains isn"t that peaceful recently either."
The family of three took back the book, let out a sigh of relief and nodded their heads again and again with grat.i.tude then walked away.
Lin Mu pondered over the few unfamiliar words that he had heard a while ago and felt that he could probably understand.
The Central Plains referred to this land, the place where they currently lived. The Great Wilderness should probably be another place, or even another world. It sounded as if all the citizens of the Great Wilderness were monsters.
And as for Yan Huo Country, Kunlun Mountains and Red River, Lin Mu was quite familiar with the latter two. He had seen them in many mythological themed works, and all three had sounded like the names of places in the Great Wilderness.
He looked up at Da Hei who was frowning, “what"s the matter?”
"I"m just saying, there seems to be more and more bunches of little monsters coming in the register lately." Da Hei clicked his tongue, "before, I didn"t ask much since their address were from some remote areas of the Great Wilderness. But this time, it"s citizens of the Emperor of Heaven"s capital - oh, you might not know, it"s the Kunlun Mountains. It was chosen as the capital of the Great Wilderness by the Emperor of Heavens, the birthplace of the Red River, and it"s a place blessed by the Emperor of Heaven. I only started to ask when the residents of that area ran out, and it turns out, something had happened in the Great Wilderness."
“En?” Lin Mu paused for a moment and recalled, “I remember yesterday you said that some things had happened recently, so all of you were a little busy. ”
“Yeah.” Da Hei sighed, and said with a low voice, “Just… Some time ago, I saw a doc.u.ment stating that many people had died in the recent months. After a thorough investigation, I traced their lineage and discovered that these people were descendants of Cultivator Families from hundreds or thousands of years ago. The human-side executives asked us, so the monster management executives from around the country reported the number of monster deaths every quarter. As soon as the report was made, they found out that the recent monster deaths had also exceeded the average.”
"These deaths sounds a lot like revenge.” Lin Mu said.
“It definitely is, since the state of death was quite brutal, so the human-side executives questioned us.” Da Hei paused, “but monsters have also been attacked indiscriminately on a large scale, and several land G.o.ds have also died, and these seem to be done in the same manner as the killings in the Great Wilderness.”
Lin Mu had absolutely no say in these kind of matters, “how are these kind of things usually dealt with?”
Da Hei pointed to the west, "we have the Qingyao Mountains. Within the mountains, there"s a huge pa.s.sageway leading to the Great Wilderness. Because it"s very stable, this is the only pa.s.sageway recognised by both sides. Occasionally, there"s some small pa.s.sageways that popup, but they appear at random and the risk of use them is very high.
"Since this kind of thing happened in the Great Wilderness, those from above would definitely send over some great monster to meet us. If the great monster that was making a mess in the Great Wilderness ran through this stable and safe door into the Central Plains, we"re all finished."
Lin Mu thought for a bit, and felt that this seemed a little wrong.
"Wouldn"t the usual case be them throwing this great monster over to our side to let us take the fall?"
“……” Da Hei looked at Lin Mu in surprise, “Lin Xiaomu7林小木. Nickname, lit. Lin little Mu., I couldn"t tell because you look so warm and gentle, but your heart"s actually so dark?”
Lin Mu scratched his nose and felt that his logic was perfect and that there was nothing wrong with it.
Da Hei slowly took back his gaze and said, “true, you don"t know why this middle area is so important.”
“The Central Plains, the Human World, is the foundation, understand?” Da Hei pointed at the thick cirrus clouds8 in the sky, “do you know what"s that?”
Lin Mu thought about it and answered honestly, "clouds."
“Wrong, that"s part of the Heaven"s illusion.”
Then Da Hei stepped on the floor underneath his feet and said, “do you know what this is?”
Lin Mu answered, “floor.”
“Wrong, this is the overarching sky of the Netherworld.”
Da Hei pointed a circle around himself after he completed his sentence, “do you know what these are?”
Lin Mu stopped talking.
“Sky, land, plants, water. Everything in the Central Plains is the basis of the Great Wilderness. Without the Central Plains, everything in the Great Wilderness would disappear completely.” Da Hei explained, “so even if all the monsters in the Great Wilderness were being slaughtered and had died or abandoned the Great Wilderness to come to the Central Plains for refuge, they still would not let that monster loose here.”
Lin Mu, who was taught, nodded, “so since this thing happened, there"ll be a great elder coming over to help. ”
“Yes.” Da Hei patted Lin Mu"s shoulder, “but it doesn"t have anything to do with little monsters like us, it"s fine as long as we do our own things.”
So Lin Mu obediently went to the furniture shop and picked a wooden window of the right size back.
The matter was probably quite serious. Just that morning, there were eight little monsters that came running from the Great Wilderness to register for as household, and with each one that Da Hei received, he scolded the Old Turtle who was absent from work.
Lin Mu listened to him scold for a whole morning, fixed the window frame and sat down with Da Hei to eat takeout.
“That"s right.” Lin Mu remembered the dog he had at home, “I picked up a dog yesterday.”
Da Hei froze as he was picking up some food then turned to look towards Lin Mu, “am I not good enough? Why did you pick up another dog!”
“…… It ran to my home.” Lin Mu said.
“Oh, a stray dog. They have it difficult.” Da Hei picked a piece of meat, “you take care of it.”
Lin Mu nodded, “en. I"m planning to raise it.”
Yan Xuanjing finally found the place, and just as he was about to raise his hand and knock on the door, he heard a slightly familiar voice.
He sniffed the air, and that clean and pure aroma of vegetation made an appearance.
Inside, Lin Mu was talking to Da Hei, “I think it"s quite smart, that is…… I feel that it can communicate with me, and yesterday it expressed it didn"t want to go to the hospital.”
Da Hei"s eyebrows wrinkled, “hospital?”
“Yes, because it"s hurt. The wounds on the dog looked a little terrifying, and it seemed that it was the fence outside my yard that caused those wounds……”
The Yan Xuanjing outside the door, “……”
How could an insignificant nail harm him?
It was just the discomfort of being p.r.i.c.ked by something sharp.
All of his injuries were caused in the Great Wilderness. After all, he"s a nine-tailed fox, it would be too shameful if he could be hurt by ordinary nails.
“I feel responsible, and I wanted to have a dog for company from the start.” Lin Mu muttered, “and it"s so smart.”
“Then raise it.” Da Hei ate some rice, and indifferently said, “you observe for a couple of days. If the injuries heal really quickly without going to the hospital, and if the dog is extremely smart and human-like, then it might have awakened its spiritual wisdom. Actually, there"s a lot of animals that have awakened their spiritual wisdom, it"s just that it is hard for them to detect their own specialness. If you take good care of this dog, the dog might even attain spiritual awareness.”
Lin Mu was stunned and his expression became slightly serious, “is that so?”
It seemed that going to the hospital for sterilisation was impossible.
“But I"m not sure if it"s willing to stay.” Lin Mu bit his chopsticks, “I"ve already even thought about the name, if it"s willing to stay, I"ll give it this name.”
“What it"s called? Male or female?” Da Hei asked.
“Male, I want to call it Milky.” Lin Mu remembered Samoyed that his mother brought him to see, thought about the dog in his house, and smiled, showing his two small dimples, “it"s super good-looking.”
Da Hei felt that this name was slightly sickly sweet, but looking at Lin Mu"s happy appearance, he silently closed his mouth.
The two people ate a couple of mouthfuls then heard a knock at the door.
“I"ll go open.” Lin Mu put down his chopsticks and turned to open the door.
He opened the door as he greeted, then, when he looked up, his mind instantly became muddled.
At first sight, this was an amazing and extremely eye-catching face. The nose was tall and straight, with a pair of perfect phoenix eyes and sharp eyebrows. With hair like a silk waterfall, a satin like texture visible to the naked eye. Looking closely, it wouldn"t be an exaggeration to use the phrase skin as smooth as silk, usually use to describe beautiful women for this man.
He wore a dark coloured ancient outfit with gold embroidery9 Approximately something that looks like this. The colour used is 玄色. 玄色 is a very vague colour, that isn"t red, but isn"t black. Sometimes, it"s described as black, but sometimes it"s dark red, and sometimes there"s no other description but dark., and a hand had reached out from the wide sleeves to knock on the door. His fingers were long and slender, with faint blue-violet veins that could be seen on the back of his hands. He simply stood there, expressionless, surrounded by a solemn and regal air like an emperor, with a majestic aura, a tall and straight posture, elegance and grace draped across his body.
Lin Mu made eye contact with his black eyes, and felt that everything was far away from him, leaving only a drum-like heartbeat.
It seemed as if a long time had pa.s.sed, and Lin Mu slowly recovered from the man"s gaze, but was still slightly dazed as he opened the door. He watched as the man, who was a head taller than him, step into the slightly happy office.
Lin Mu, who was still stunned, raised his hand his chest and felt his heart, which was still beating incredibly fast.
Oh no.
His heart was touched.
The author has this to say:
Lin Mu: I can!!!!!!!!!! Scream.jpg
Yan Xuanjing: What a coincidence, so can I.
A sleepy, sleepy couch potato that adores BL. Only second to sleeping.