Night Owl

Xie Zhiyong said somewhat dejectedly, "There were originally five of us, but one of them was killed by a curse while on a mission some time ago..."

"Only five?" Lin Ran froze for a moment. Didn't an organization need at least a dozen people? Could five people even be called an organization?

But since this was a branch, it was normal for the requirements to be lower. Still, five people really was too few.

"What else did you expect? Do you think there are that many Jujutsu Sorcerers these days? Especially in an era like this, with curses and Cursed Spirits running rampant, Jujutsu Sorcerers are in extremely short supply. And with Curse Users around too, Jujutsu Sorcerers seem even rarer," Xie Zhiyong said, knowing that Lin Ran did not understand much about these matters.

"Especially during summer. Curses and Cursed Spirits appear and are born far more frequently then. At times like that, there simply aren't enough Jujutsu Sorcerers."

"Curses are not bound by lifespan. Their numbers grow with the population, and their strength increases as well. Human lives, on the other hand, are very short, and there is a limit to how strong we can become. That is why cursed techniques are passed down through Bloodline Inheritance. But there are too few people with Jujutsu Sorcerer bloodlines now, which makes them precious."

"Jujutsu Sorcerer bloodlines gradually merge and strengthen, and with human intervention, even as the number of Jujutsu Sorcerers continues to decline, their strength can still keep pace with the growing power of curses. That barely maintains a balance in combat strength between the two sides—but that balance only includes curses. Curse Users are not part of it."

Lin Ran nodded. "What you said makes sense, but there's no point worrying too much about it. If there are many curses, we'll just do our best to exorcise them. Becoming stronger is what matters most."

"That may be true, but raising a Jujutsu Sorcerer requires enormous financial and material resources. Every Jujutsu Sorcerer who dies is a loss to the Cursed Technique World," Xie Zhiyong said, seemingly still unable to let go of his comrade's death.

Lin Ran did not continue the conversation. Once someone chose the path of a Jujutsu Sorcerer, they had to accept that one day they might die. No matter what decision they made, they had to pay the price for their choice.

Half an hour later, in a relatively remote area outside Tokyo's urban district, Xie Zhiyong parked the car, got out, and pointed at an abandoned parking lot nearby. "Our branch base is underneath there. Can you imagine that there'd be a Jujutsu Sorcerer organization beneath it?"

"I really couldn't have guessed. If I'd kept searching the way I was, who knows when I would have found it?" Lin Ran took responsibility for his earlier foolishness. He really had thought it too simply before, assuming he could find the relevant office relatively easily.

The truth was, unless one came into contact with this sort of thing, there was no way to know. They had hidden it incredibly well.

"Come in. I'll introduce you to everyone. I hope you'll like them." Xie Zhiyong beckoned to Lin Ran and walked into the abandoned parking lot first.

After following him inside, Lin Ran discovered that the original elevator was broken, but there was another small elevator in a more concealed area on the other side.

Once the two entered the elevator, Xie Zhiyong took a card from his pocket and swiped it over what appeared to be an ordinary display screen. Xie Zhiyong's photo and some identification details immediately appeared on it.

The elevator started and went directly down to the fourth basement level. The moment the doors opened, the smell of instant noodles drifted over.

Before Lin Ran was a large, disorderly room. Boxes of all sizes and scattered documents littered the floor, while the ceiling lights looked as if they had not been cleaned in ages, giving off a faintly dim glow.

At a plain table sat a young woman whose arms and legs were covered in tattoos. Her bare feet were propped on the document-covered table, and she held a cup of instant noodles in one hand, noisily slurping them into her mouth.

On the other side, a man in his early thirties with a green buzz cut was flipping through some documents.

"Come in. This is our base." Xie Zhiyong seemed accustomed to the state of the place and directly ushered Lin Ran inside.

"Seriously? There isn't a single normal person here. You're living on instant noodles, and you have the ability to exorcise Cursed Spirits?" Lin Ran was genuinely speechless. Before coming here, he had held some expectations. After all, he had never visited some secret organization or hidden base before, so naturally he had imagined something impressive.

But after arriving, he realized this was no base at all—it was practically a slum. Add a few homeless people, and the scene would have been complete.

"Where did this brat come from?" The girl with her legs on the table looked up at Lin Ran, then turned her gaze to Xie Zhiyong. "Didn't you go out to improve your meals? Why did you bring someone back?"

"Yiyi, watch your image a little, will you? It doesn't matter around our own people, but there's an outsider here now. Put those long legs down!" Xie Zhiyong rubbed his forehead. Women...

"You know he's an outsider, yet you casually brought him back? Is there something wrong with your brain?" The girl named Yiyi finally lowered her legs and tossed her cup of instant noodles into the trash can.

Lin Ran glanced at the trash can. There were at least four or five empty instant noodle cups inside. It seemed this girl ate them often.

That said, this woman really was beautiful. She looked only eighteen or nineteen, with glossy black shoulder-length hair that made her seem sharp and capable. Combined with the tattoos all over her body, she gave off an intensely wild air.

Only the soles of her feet were a little dirty. She had probably blackened them by walking around barefoot on the floor.

"He won't be an outsider much longer. Let me introduce him. This is Lin Ran, a student from Tokyo Jujutsu High. He should be Huaxia as well." Xie Zhiyong said this sentence in Chinese. They usually communicated in Japanese to improve their spoken language and make deeper exchanges easier.

Upon hearing that Lin Ran was a student of Tokyo Jujutsu High, the green-haired uncle, who had not intended to speak, suddenly looked toward Xie Zhiyong. "Is that true?"

"Of course, boss. There's no reason for me to lie to you. I didn't go out to have fun this time. Look, I brought back a Jujutsu Sorcerer for you." Xie Zhiyong grinned. That counted as merit, right?

"Can you speak Chinese?" the green-haired man asked Lin Ran.

"Yes." Lin Ran nodded.

"Good. Let me introduce everyone first. This is Zhang Yiyi. The one beside you is Xie Zhiyong. I'm Yan Dao, the person in charge here. There's also someone named Kong Yue, but he's out and hasn't returned. The place you're in now is the Tokyo branch of the Night Owl organization."

"Hello, everyone!" Lin Ran greeted them politely, though he still had not mentally recovered from the chaotic environment.

"Have you thought it through? Do you want to join Night Owl?" Yan Dao asked, and Lin Ran laughed.

"I'm already here, so it would be hard to justify not joining, wouldn't it? I already know where your headquarters is. Even if I didn't join, would you let me leave?"

"You're not stupid," Zhang Yiyi said, finally giving Lin Ran a careful once-over. At the very least, he was pleasant enough to look at.

"Then that makes things easy. Let me introduce the organization first, so you can get a better understanding." Yan Dao laughed and began explaining the organization to Lin Ran.