"Why is Captain Huo so hateful of anomalies?" Li Muhhan asked.
Su Xue took a sip of alcohol, a trace of bitterness flashing in her eyes. "Well, but he can't disobey the regulations of the Special Management Bureau."
"Does that mean the Seventh Squad has never had any anomaly members?"
"There were some before," this time it was Yin Qi who spoke. Her voice was as soft as a small kitten's. "But during an operation half a year ago, she betrayed us."
*Betrayed?*
Li Muhhan was slightly startled. He was no stranger to the word. He had lost count of how many betrayals he had endured from childhood to adulthood, and just recently, he had been stabbed fiercely in the back by his childhood sweetheart and ex-girlfriend, Gu Ruoxi.
Yet he knew very well that the betrayal Yin Qi spoke of must be far more painful than anything he had experienced.
"That operation was originally supposed to be a simple investigation task. A Chaos-grade anomaly, unregistered, was detected in an old factory. Our squad was assigned to investigate. Of course, accompanying us was that anomaly as well. Back then, she was still our companion," Su Xue said in a flat tone.
"Everything went smoothly. It was a Blood Clan member who had just awakened not long ago, completely bewildered by everything in the world. She had never harmed anyone; she was just trembling in fear inside the abandoned factory."
Hearing "Blood Clan," Li Muhhan grew somewhat alert. Seeming to sense his thoughts, Su Xue waved her hand with a smile. "Relax, it has nothing to do with your guarantor. That Blood Clan member was very weak, belonging to a low-tier. We tried to make contact with her and soothe her emotions. Everything was fine originally; we were already prepared to take her away..."
At this point, Su Xue gripped her glass tightly, her eyes filled with confusion and incomprehension. "But our anomaly teammate suddenly expanded her Domain. She attacked the captain and Yin Qi from behind, and then fled the scene with that Blood Clan member. To this day, their whereabouts remain unknown."
"The defection of an anomaly is an extremely serious matter, and all the blame was pinned on the captain. Our squad hasn't taken on a single proper mission since then. They've all been minor tasks assisting the police with trivial cases, not even related to anomalies. And that defected anomaly has never appeared in our sight again."
"The captain has never given up searching for her. After that incident, he refused to allow any anomalies to join, and the phrase he mutters most often is, 'Anomalies are truly beasts; there's no way they can ever genuinely help humans.'"
"So, Li Muhhan, if the captain says or does anything too harsh to you in future operations, don't take it to heart. We all have to crawl out from under that shadow; none of us have had it easy."
After the gathering ended, Su Xue and Yin Qi left together, while Li Muhhan helped Lin Ziyu get a heavily intoxicated Huo Tian into the car.
"Muhhan, could I trouble you to help me send the captain back first, before I drop you off at home?" Lin Ziyu asked.
This boy, even younger than him and probably barely eighteen years old, looked at Li Muhhan with a trace of timidity. Li Muhhan knew he was afraid of his identity as a Demon.
So he smiled and nodded, because he guessed Lin Ziyu must have something to say to him, otherwise he wouldn't have asked him to get in the car.
Sure enough, the moment the car started, Lin Ziyu said, "You must be very confused as to why our captain hates anomalies so much."
"Indeed, I'm a bit curious."
Lin Ziyu gave a bitter smile as he drove. "Our captain used to be the chief of the Tianhai City Police Department."
This actually surprised Li Muhhan. He hadn't expected Huo Tian to be such a figure.
"He's been with the Special Management Bureau for five years. From the very first day he joined, he threw himself desperately into training, nearly losing his life several times. Right, I heard about these things from others; I hadn't joined yet back then." Lin Ziyu scratched his head with some embarrassment. Li Muhhan reminded him not to drive with one hand.
Then Lin Ziyu continued, "Don't look at Captain Huo like this now; he used to have a family—a wife and a son. His son even became a police officer with the top grades in his entire school."
Although Huo Tian looked robust, he was actually well past fifty years old. Because of this, Li Muhhan found it even more incredible: what on earth was the point of risking his life to enter a combat unit at this age?
Yet he had a vague feeling that he was about to get the answer from Lin Ziyu's mouth very soon.
Lin Ziyu glanced at Huo Tian through the rearview mirror, and seeing that the man was sleeping soundly and snoring, he continued, "Five years ago, before he joined the Special Management Bureau, a shocking series of disappearances involving young girls happened in Tianhai City. The victims were all young female college students or white-collar workers just starting their careers, and the police attached great importance to the case."
"The captain couldn't sleep for nights on end because of that case, and finally, he really did manage to grasp a clue. All clues pointed to a taxi driver named Zhou Zhiguo."
Li Muhhan said nothing. He sat in the passenger seat, quietly listening to Lin Ziyu recount the past.
Huo Tian had just become the police chief that year, his future bright and promising, and to have such an incident happen within his jurisdiction was agonizing. He couldn't eat or sleep, sorting through clues day and night, and finally, leading the entire department, he locked the target onto a taxi driver named Zhou Zhiguo. Just as he was planning to close the net, a phone call from the provincial department warned him to stop investigating the matter—someone else would handle it.
Though extremely displeased, Huo Tian suppressed his inner turmoil and ordered the entire department not to meddle further.
Only one person resolutely opposed this: Huo Tian's son, a rookie police officer who had just reported to the criminal investigation team.
For this, Huo Tian had a fierce argument with his son, which ended on bad terms.
And early the very next morning, Huo Tian received the devastating news.
His son was dead, killed in an abandoned warehouse, his internal organs hollowed out. And that very ruin was the exact spot where they had planned to close the net.
"After that, Captain Huo completely collapsed. More than once, he took a gun and went looking for Zhou Zhiguo, ending up losing his official position as a result. The strangest thing was that all those missing girls actually returned overnight, as if they had been brainwashed—they didn't remember a thing."
At this point, Lin Ziyu turned his head to look at Li Muhhan. "You should know who did it."
"The Special Management Bureau." Li Muhhan answered without hesitation.
"That's right. The Special Management Bureau intervened, found the missing girls, but had no evidence to prove that Zhou Zhiguo did it. In the end, they could only tighten surveillance on him, and the matter ended there."
"But for Captain Huo, that incident was only a beginning," Li Muhhan said.
Lin Ziyu nodded. "In the second month after losing his job, the Special Management Bureau found the captain and informed him that his son had died at the hands of an anomaly, but it couldn't be proven that Zhou Zhiguo was the one who did it."
Hearing this, Li Muhhan already understood the answer to the question he had asked Huo Tian earlier: Why join the Special Management Bureau?
He wanted to avenge his child with his own hands.
"Don't think of the captain as too narrow-minded, either. Revenge is certainly part of it, but after learning of the existence of such monsters, the captain felt that as a former policeman, he had to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the people. So he resolutely joined the Special Management Bureau and made himself a combatant capable of using Domains."
With persistent yearning comes an echo. Perhaps only someone with such an obsession could pass that hellish kind of special training.
And at that moment, Huo Tian, who had been sleeping in the back seat, slowly opened his eyes. A rare trace of sorrow flickered in his gaze.
***
Meanwhile, on the top floor of the Zhao Group building in Tianhai City, it was brightly lit even in the middle of the night, as if declaring that night could not allow this city to fall into complete silence.
Zhao Zhijiang smoked cigarette after cigarette at his desk. He was waiting—waiting for a result.
Soon, the office door was knocked upon.
Zhao Zhijiang stood up instantly. "Come in."
A bodyguard walked in and said with a hint of timidity, "Mr. Zhao, we've already posted a hit on Li Muhhan on the underground assassin leaderboard. The bounty has been raised to ten million, but still nobody is taking it."
"Dammit! Is some fucking orphan really that capable?!"
Furious, Zhao Zhijiang smashed his ashtray onto the floor. This was no longer just about his son. Because he had kidnapped Li Muhhan only to let him return unscathed, he had been threatened, and the organization he entrusted with the job had been wiped out.
This was practically taking a shit on his head and forcing him to smile in compensation.
Just then, his cell phone rang. Picking it up and seeing an unknown caller ID, he felt a bit puzzled; almost nobody knew this number of his.
"Who is this?" Zhao Zhijiang asked coldly as he answered.
"Fifty million, I'll take it." A cold, girlish voice came through the phone.
"Huh? What fifty million, you fucking—"
Suddenly, Zhao Zhijiang thought of something. "You're an assassin?"
"Fifty million."
"Are you out of your fucking mind? An orphan's life is worth fifty million?"
"Fifty million." The caller mechanically repeated the phrase.
Fifty million was nothing to Zhao Zhijiang, but he was somewhat annoyed by this unknown person quoting an astronomical price completely out of nowhere. However, right now, absolutely nobody else was accepting the job.
With no other choice, he gritted his teeth and said, "Fine. As long as you bring me his head, I'll give you fifty million."
*Beep beep beep—*
The phone was hung up.
Zhao Zhijiang gave a cold snort. The person's voice sounded young; he didn't know where this reckless greenhorn had popped up from, but it didn't matter. Sometimes the recklessness of such rookies could actually accomplish big things. Even if she failed, wouldn't it be fine as long as he didn't pay? What a rookie—she hadn't even asked him for a deposit.
Zhao Zhijiang sneered. "Keep raising the bounty. Twenty million."
He wasn't pinning all his hopes on this phone call, so he still instructed his subordinates to keep posting the hit. In any case, as long as the authorities couldn't trace the order back to him, they couldn't do anything to him anyway.
People died every day in this world. Would the death of a single orphan have any impact on the world? Not at all.
***
### Chapter 18: The Transfer Student
The next day, after waking up on the sofa, Li Muhhan felt a bone-chilling cold.
"This shouldn't be right. Even in winter, this is indoors. Is the heater broken?"
Li Muhhan got up to check the heater and incidentally knocked on the bedroom door. A somewhat dissatisfied voice came from inside.
"...Let me sleep a little longer."
This was an agreement between Li Muhhan and Xia Yue—or rather, an agreement Li Muhhan unilaterally forced upon her: he would sleep on the sofa, and Xia Yue would sleep in the bedroom.
Even though Xia Yue had expressed that she didn't mind sleeping in the same bed with Li Muhhan, Li Muhhan had covered his face and declared that doing so was wrong.
As for whether they had actually done anything or not, Li Muhhan ultimately didn't dare to ask. It was simply too embarrassing to bring up.
Li Muhhan prepared breakfast, left a reminder for Xia Yue—who was still sleeping—to make sure she ate, and then headed out. He had already grown used to Xia Yue frequently skipping class; perhaps that was one of the reasons why her reputation at school wasn't very good.
Besides, she was a vampire, living by night and sleeping by day; that seemed pretty reasonable, didn't it?
Once outside, Li Muhhan was surprised to discover that it was snowing in Tianhai City.
No wonder the temperature was so low; this city hadn't seen snow in five years.
On the bus, he opened his phone and found that he had been added to a WeChat chat group named "Seventh Squad, Forever Home."
"Welcome Muhhan~" Su Xue, whose profile picture was a cute little sheep, spoke up first.
"Taozi, are you still half-asleep? Didn't we already welcome him yesterday?" Lin Ziyu chimed in to tease her. His profile picture was an anime girl.
"Welcome." Then came Yin Qi. To Li Muhhan's surprise, Yin Qi's profile picture was actually a cute little cat. Come to think of it, the vibe of that cat really did resemble the taciturn and petite girl.
"Where's the captain? Where's the captain? Come and welcome him."
"The captain's probably still sleeping. You guys were so unrighteous last night, dumping the captain on me and Muhhan and just going home. It took a lot of effort for the two of us to carry him upstairs." Lin Ziyu sent a crying emoji.
"No choice, the captain must have been too happy because our Seventh Squad is complete again. We owe this all to Muhhan."
"Taozi! Are you ignoring me?! It took us a huge amount of effort to carry the captain upstairs! Just imagine his build!"
"Doesn't matter, as long as we can do missions," Yin Qi said coldly.
"Yin Qi! You're ignoring me too!"
Looking at these people chatting in the group, a smile appeared on Li Muhhan's face.
It seemed he had never had so many friends before, never experienced being welcomed and surrounded by so many people. From childhood to adulthood, the person he played with best was Luoyang.
Yet Luoyang had his own social circles, and those circles were ones Li Muhhan could never quite integrate into.
Luoyang was smart; he wouldn't force Li Muhhan to fit into his circles. He kept those boundaries distinct so that Li Muhhan wouldn't feel uncomfortable.
"Thanks everyone, but I'm not really a member of the Special Management Bureau yet, an intern at most," Li Muhhan posted as well.
This was the agreement between Lin Ze and him: he would follow the Seventh Squad as an intern to do missions first, and as for whether he would officially join or not, he would decide for himself.
Pulling his thick coat tighter around himself, Li Muhhan got off the bus and arrived at the school.
Whether it was his imagination or not, upon arriving at school, he felt that freezing chill grow even more intense, as if the school itself were the epicenter radiating the cold.
"Oh my god, it's freezing to death."
"Yeah, the weather forecast didn't say it would be this cold today."
"Even though it's winter, this temperature is ridiculous. We're a southern city, for goodness' sake!"
Listening to the complaints of other students on campus, Li Muhhan walked toward the teaching building.
Along the way, he heard discussions among the surrounding students, and the most discussed topic of all seemed to be the arrival of a transfer student.
"You wouldn't believe it! That transfer student is a super babe!"
"Guess how tall she is? One meter seventy-five!"
"Oh my god! Those legs!"
"I heard she's an exchange student from a northern tundra country. She's seriously gorgeous."
These topics didn't interest Li Muhhan much. Exchange students or international students were common in universities, and people naturally developed a strong curiosity about foreign students they rarely encountered in daily life.
Meanwhile, in a certain classroom by the window, a tall, fair-skinned, breathtakingly beautiful blonde girl was resting her chin in her hand, gazing out the window.
"Miss Hati, how are you getting along here in Huaxia? Is it very different from your country?"
"Wow, your skin is so well-maintained! It's so fair!"
"Um... do you have a boyfriend?"
A group of students surrounded her, asking questions left and right.
The blonde girl paid no attention to the students swarming around her with questions. She maintained an icy expression the entire time—until her gaze happened to catch Li Muhhan walking past down below.
A bizarre smile suddenly bloomed across her previously expressionless face.
"Found you."
During the lunch break, Li Muhhan received a call from Xia Yue.
"Did you get up and eat breakfast?"
"Mhm..." Xia Yue still sounded lazy, and the sound of bedsheets rustling came through the line.
"It's freezing outside today. Right, I plan to take you out to buy some clothes this weekend. You can't keep wearing mine all the time."
"Sorry..."
"I'm not blaming you. It's just that someone as pretty as you... should wear clothes that fit you better."
Xia Yue let out a light laugh on the other end of the phone, then suddenly seemed to remember something and asked, "You said it's very cold today?"
"Yeah. You really haven't woken up yet, have you? Get up and look outside—it's snowing."
After that came the sound of curtains being pulled.
Xia Yue's voice turned somewhat chilly. "Li Muhhan, do you have a part-time job tonight?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Don't go to your shift tonight. Come home early."
Li Muhhan found it a bit strange, but Xia Yue's tone sounded quite serious. "If I don't work part-time, how will I pay the rent?"
"I'll figure something out. Anyway, come straight back after class, or I'll come pick you up."
"Even though you're my guarantor, you... don't need to go as far as picking me up from class, do you?"
Li Muhhan smiled to comfort Xia Yue, assuring her there wouldn't be any trouble, and then hung up.
As for the part-time job—how could he *not* go? There was an extra mouth to feed at home now; although Xia Yue had also started working to earn money, he couldn't just rely on her to support him.
So after class, Li Muhhan still went to the supermarket where he worked.
"Xiao Li, you don't need to come anymore starting today."
However, the supermarket owner chased him right out.
He was thoroughly confused. He hadn't done anything wrong; why was he being fired?
"Boss, did I do something wrong?" Li Muhhan went back into the supermarket, wanting to get to the bottom of it.
The owner stammered, then looked around and, seeing no one else, whispered, "You offended someone you shouldn't have. Someone's out to ruin you now. I'm afraid you won't find a job anywhere."
Li Muhhan understood instantly.
This was Zhao Zhijiang's doing.
He couldn't kill Li Muhhan, but he could use his power and money to blacklist him. Fearing this, Li Muhhan realized that even if he managed to graduate smoothly, he might never find a job.