You Don't Want to Go to the Supernatural Management Bureau Either, Do You?

The wind over the cemetery blew wild and relentless. A moment later, the orange cat and the white cat slowly came to, found they had both been tied to a tree, and at once began to panic. Then they glanced to the side and saw that even the black cat — the strongest fighter among them — was tied up there too. "Black Meow, even you got beaten?" The white cat's face was full of despair. "How could I possibly be like you two worthless things?" the black cat muttered. "He really is different from you two." Yue Wen stepped out from the side. "He surrendered on his own." "What are you going to do to us?!" The white cat and the orange cat were both terrified. "First, let's have a little chat." Yue Wen looked the cat demons over. These little demons really didn't look capable of any great evil; if the Supernatural Management Bureau caught them, it would most likely just deport them back to the demon realm. So he had not struck to kill outright. But in the eyes of the three little ones, this was nothing short of the scrutiny of a devil, and they couldn't help trembling. "Do you have names?" Yue Wen asked first. "I'm Black Meow." The black cat demon was still fairly calm. He glanced at the white cat. "That one's White Meow." Yue Wen looked at the orange cat. "Then no need to ask — you'd be Tangerine Meow?" "No." The orange cat shook her head and said in a small voice, "My name is Orange Meow..." "That name sounds pretty decent, actually." Yue Wen nodded. "Now tell me where you three came from." The orange cat's face was all fear, and the white cat seemed to waver a little, on the verge of saying something. But the black cat immediately barked at them, jaw set: "Not a word out of either of you! Before we set out, the Cult Master told us — if we get captured, we don't confess a single thing!" At that, the orange cat and the white cat shut their mouths at once. Yue Wen frowned at the black cat. Before he could utter any threats, the black cat declared with impassioned fervor: "Let me tell you something, kid — we are members of the Meow Meow Cult! Our Cult Master is the great Cat Mountain Queen, who once held enormous power in the demon realm! If you know what's good for you, you'll untie us right now, or she will not let you off!" "The Meow Meow Cult?" Yue Wen had never heard the name before. "Some kind of demon organization?" He had heard a little of the Cat Mountain King and knew him to be a demon king of considerable power in the demon realm. But this Cat Mountain Queen he had never heard of at all. "That's right! Scared yet?" The black cat's face brimmed with pride. "Our Meow Meow Cult is a demon force hidden in Jiangcheng City, made up entirely of powerful cat demons, and our ultimate goal is for the cat race to rule the whole world! For the sake of that great ideal, torture me all you want — I'll never tell you anything!" "Such a formidable organization. Then why did it send you three to dig up corpses?" Yue Wen asked. "Heh." The black cat sneered. "Stupid human — how could you possibly guess at our Cult Master's designs? A human carrying something she wanted was killed on the road. When the Cult Master learned that he'd been brought to the East City Cemetery for burial, she sent us to bring that human's body back! Rack your brains until they break — I doubt you'd ever figure it out!" "So that's how it is." Yue Wen nodded, thinking that for all the black cat's arrogant attitude, he was actually being remarkably cooperative. A textbook case of saying all the right things with the worst possible face. The orange cat and the white cat, on the other hand, felt more and more that something was off with every word, and both turned to stare at the black cat in disbelief. Hold on. You tell us to keep our mouths shut, then rush to spill everything yourself? He's got an answer for every single question! "Black Meow, what are you doing?" the orange cat asked, bewildered. "Shut up!" the black cat snapped again. "You two aren't smart enough — he'll worm things out of you in no time. Leave the sparring with him to me!" "Keep sparring a little longer and you'll have told him the color of our granny's underwear!" the white cat hollered, completely losing it. "Do me a favor and give the arguing a rest." Yue Wen raised a hand to halt their quarrel, then asked, "What is it your Cult Master is looking for?" "How would I possibly know that?" the black cat said coldly. "If you know what's good for you, you'll go find that middle-parted man in overalls yourself and hand him over for us to take away. Otherwise, when the Cult Master gets here, you're in for a very bad time!" ... Yue Wen weighed it over and decided that the less trouble, the better. These three little ones truly were weak — and the weaker they were, the more it said about how formidable that Cult Master must be, the one sheltering them and letting them survive in a human city. Whatever designs the other side had of its own, he had only come here to clear out Lantern Wraiths. There was no need to make an enemy of it. The three little demons in front of him didn't look like they were guilty of any great crime either. He didn't want to simply kill them — yet letting them go scot-free didn't quite sit right either. So Yue Wen rubbed his chin. "I know everything I need to now, and I have no wish to be enemies with your Meow Meow Cult. But you really would be a hidden risk out in the city, and there's no telling whether you have prior convictions — so I'll just turn you over to the Supernatural Management Bureau..." "No!" the three little ones cried out in unison. The orange cat's voice went thick with tears at once. "If the Supernatural Management Bureau catches us, they'll deport us straight to the demon realm!" Compared with life in the city, the wasteland zone was already bitterly hard — but the demon realm of legend was outright hell, a hundred times more terrifying than the wasteland zone. Little demons like them, thrown into that place, would almost never come back to the human realm alive. "No! Please, we're begging you!" the white cat wailed as well. "In the whole month I've been in the Seventh City, the only bad thing I've ever done is steal someone's ID card to book an all-nighter at an internet café!" "Can you two have a shred of backbone?!" The black cat eyed his companions with disdain. Only after glaring at them several times did he turn back to Yue Wen. "Kid, I suggest you weigh this over once more..." His tone remained as arrogant as ever. "If you don't release us today, then you've made an enemy of the Meow Meow Cult, and our Cult Master will never let it go. But if you're sensible and let us go, I might consider calling you Daddy!" Yue Wen studied the black cat and wondered whether the cat world got split personalities too. The face in charge of acting arrogant; the mouth in charge of begging for mercy. "Oh, there's no need to be so polite." After a pause, Yue Wen said leisurely, "It's just that all the losses you've caused will be chalked up to me. And I've spent a great deal of time on the lot of you as well — I can't have worn myself out for nothing. You'll have to think of a way to make good my losses, won't you?" "Oh!" The white cat saw the light. "I've seen this in the movies! You want to kidnap us for ransom!" "But we're poor, we don't have anything..." the orange cat said meekly. "If you let me go back and inform Her Eminence the Cult Master, maybe she'd be willing to pay it." "Inform your Cult Master? Don't even think about it. Whether she'd pay the ransom, who knows — but she'd come after me, that much is certain," Yue Wen said. "She wouldn't." The orange cat demon's eyes were full of pleading. "We cats are humanity's best friend." Yue Wen's face said, Guess whether I believe you. Then he broke into a devilish grin. "Better think it over carefully. As I can see, you don't want to go to the Supernatural Management Bureau either, do you?" With the standoff deadlocked, the black cat suddenly roared, "Human, my patience has its limits! If you don't let me go this instant, then I'll just have to tell you a secret about a treasure!" Yue Wen stared at him, speechless. Every time this black cat spoke, he needed a beat to process it. "Go ahead, then." "The three of us really don't have anything of value on us — but back when we were strays in the wasteland zone, we once came upon a treasure." The black cat told his tale: "We found a crashed helicopter. We meant to go over and see if there were any survival supplies, but there was a surge of intense spiritual power in the wreckage, one that heavily counters demons — we couldn't get within five hundred meters of it!" "To us it's a lethal weapon, a dreadful threat — but to you, it should be a magic implement of tremendous power. Release us, and I'll tell you where this magic implement lies, and you can go search for it." At those words, Yue Wen's heart stirred slightly. "Do you have any proof?" "We took a group photo at the time. We can show you," said the black cat. "The phone's in my pocket. Be careful how you touch it," the white cat reminded him in a low voice. Yue Wen drew a very old-model smartphone from the white cat's pocket. The screen had shattered across more than half its face — no wonder the cat had told him to be careful. Judging by how the three little ones ached over the old phone, it must have been picked up who knows where and treasured like a family heirloom. Yue Wen opened the photo album and scrolled upward as the black cat directed. Sure enough, there was a group photo of the three little demons. It showed a spot in the wasteland zone veiled in thin mist, with the wreckage of a battered helicopter visible in the distance. Beyond a stretch of fallen trees, the black cat held the phone high, his own face in frame; behind him the orange cat stood delicate and pretty, while the white cat pushed his big face right up to the camera with a goofy grin. Yue Wen noticed the corner of a mountain peak showing in the far distance of the photo, and was a little surprised. "This is near North Vermilion Bird Peak. You were strays out there?" That was a spiritual vein in the wasteland outside Jiangcheng City where demons gathered in swarms — a place of extremely high danger. With the strength of these little demons, they had actually survived there? "We used to have a grandpa and grandma," the white cat said, looking utterly aggrieved. "Then other great demons beat them both to death, and that's when we drifted out on our own and met the Cult Master..." "There, you see? We're not wild, untaught demons!" the black cat snarled viciously. "I won't hide it from you — back in the day, Grandpa and Grandma passed a secret art down to me! If you truly dare harm us, I'll pay with my whole lifespan if I must — and give you knees that crack and pop for three full years!" At the East City Cemetery, Yue Wen interrogates the three cat demons he has captured and tied up. Despite having forbade the others to talk, the arrogant black cat proudly confesses everything: they are members of the Meow Meow Cult, founded by the Cat Mountain Queen, with the goal of cats ruling the world; they were sent to retrieve the corpse of a murdered human — the middle-parted man in overalls — who carried something the Cult Master wants. Yue Wen, who only came to clear out Lantern Wraiths, decides against killing such weak demons but refuses to release them for nothing, threatening to hand them to the Supernatural Management Bureau. Terror of deportation to the demon realm — said to be a hundred times worse than the wasteland zone — makes the cats beg; the white cat admits his only crime was stealing an ID card for an all-night internet-café session, and the black cat absurdly offers to 'call him Daddy'. As compensation, the black cat offers a secret: a crashed helicopter in the wasteland zone radiating spiritual power that repels demons, which would be a powerful magic implement for a human. A group photo on the cats' cracked old smartphone proves it, showing the site near North Vermilion Bird Peak, where the three survived after other great demons killed their grandpa and grandma. The chapter ends with the black cat vowing to sacrifice his lifespan for a secret art that would make Yue Wen's knees crack for three years.