The Containment Bureau

"Did you need something from her?" The woman glanced sideways at Xia Shou.

"No, I've just heard of her. By the way, what should I call you?" Xia Shou asked.

"Li Luo, head of Department One," the woman replied.

So she's a department head, too, Xia Shou thought.

"Shangguan Yan and I do the same work. Why are you suddenly asking about her? Did you come here specifically to join her?" The red-haired woman looked at Xia Shou with growing curiosity.

"No, I was just asking. What do you think of her as a person?" Xia Shou probed.

"Hmm... that's hard to say." She tilted her head slightly, rubbed her chin, and pondered for a long while before offering a cautious assessment. "She's strong and looks good, and we get along pretty well. But to be perfectly honest, she breaks far too many procedural rules at work, and she exploits her subordinates terribly.

"Working under her is a hundred times more painful than working anywhere else. It's practically like selling your soul to the devil."

"And people still want to work for her?"

"Because she's lax about management. As long as you obey her personal wishes, she'll even approve requests from her subordinates that violate regulations. So there are always a few deeply obsessed people willing to climb aboard that woman's pirate ship.

"But just as an official who takes bribes can never be honest and incorruptible again, anyone who makes a deal with the devil loses their freedom forever.

"So joining her department really is a terrible idea!"

"She really isn't a good person." Xia Shou was beginning to understand what the note meant. "But aren't you afraid of offending her, talking about her behind her back like this?"

"Oh! Don't worry. We're the same rank, and we know each other pretty well... at least, I think we get along. She won't mind."

They got along, yet she talked badly about her behind her back? And claimed she wouldn't mind?

Was this one of those famously two-faced best friends?

Xia Shou felt he had gained a preliminary understanding of office politics at the Containment Bureau.

The elevator finally stopped on the seventh basement level.

The doors opened onto a wide, deserted corridor.

The woman strolled ahead with her hands behind her back, her heels tapping out a steady rhythm on the floor.

"Since this is your first day, I'll start by giving you a detailed introduction to the main divisions of responsibility.

"First, you'll need to choose your role. After joining the Containment Bureau, you can take a safe clerical position, or become a Cleaner responsible for investigating, containing, and hunting anomalous beings.

"The former is very safe in almost all circumstances, while the latter..."

"Then I'll take the second option," Xia Shou said without hesitation. He had come here to devour anomalous beings.

"You're certainly impatient. Don't answer just yet. Decide after you've seen those Anomalous Entities. Ninety percent of new employees change their minds after touring the 'mild-mannered' ones and choose a safe clerical job."

With that, she stopped in front of a wall fitted with a controller.

She made a few inputs on the control panel, and the wall slowly opened, revealing a pure white room before Xia Shou.

Beyond a huge pane of blast-resistant glass, an enormous creature lay on the floor.

Xia Shou sucked in a breath and raised his head, his gaze settling on the jagged bony protrusions, sharp as flint. Black bone spikes covered the "giant lizard" like armor, but its twenty-meter-long bulk filled him with an overwhelming sense of pressure and delivered an indescribable visual shock.

It made Xia Shou reluctant to associate the monster before him with an ordinary animal like a lizard.

Rather than a lizard, it looked more like a Western dragon stripped of its wings.

The enormous reptile seemed to notice the gaze from beyond the glass. It slowly turned its neck, its scales scraping together with a shrill metallic noise. The massive beast met Xia Shou's eyes through the glass, its glowing slit pupils like molten gold.

Xia Shou saw an emotion in its eyes that belonged distinctly to humans.

It was contempt.

"This blast-resistant glass won't break, will it?" Xia Shou swallowed.

"Under normal circumstances, you could call it absolutely foolproof," she replied with a smile.

Normal circumstances. In other words... accidents could still happen.

She waved a hand, and an azure screen appeared on the surface of the glass, displaying a brief introduction to the Anomalous Entity:

[Name: Calamity Crystal Dragon Lizard]

[Threat assessment: high]

[Anomaly level: 5]

[ID: 53-678]

[Containment risk: low]

[Description: Anomalous objects swallowed by this creature will be excreted in crystalline form. As long as the crystals remain intact, the objects' Curse Power will not dissipate.

Besides consuming special items, this creature has a strict intelligence requirement for the organisms it eats.

It must be fed one death-row inmate at regular intervals within every twenty-four-hour period. The inmate must have at least a university-level education.]

"High-threat Sealed Anomalies and Anomalous Entities can cause a thousand deaths in a short time if left unchecked.

"And an anomaly level of five is almost the limit of what the Containment Bureau can reliably handle.

"The higher the anomaly level, the higher the priority of its supernatural powers when they take effect, and the greater its immunity to outside supernatural powers. Calling a human who reaches anomaly level five a monster would be no exaggeration," the woman explained.

Xia Shou nodded, then heard machinery operating inside the room beyond the glass.

A moment later, a human scream rang out from the room.

"Aaaaaah!"

As the scream sounded, the ceiling of the inner room suddenly opened. A man in prison clothes fell through it and slammed heavily into the floor.

Both his legs had broken at horrifying angles. He writhed on the floor in agony, crying for help.

Then he saw the twenty-meter-long monster, and his cries of pain turned into hysterical screams.

"Aaaah! Aaaaaaaaah!!!"

"Shut up!" The lizard spoke in a human voice, raised a claw to pin down the struggling death-row inmate, and opened its blood-red maw.

In an instant, severed limbs flew and blood sprayed everywhere. Droplets mixed with scraps of flesh kept splattering against the glass in front of Xia Shou.

As the enormous reptile tore into the corpse with its sharp teeth, it let out shrill, mocking laughter and loudly recited Nietzsche: "He who does not wish to die of thirst among men must learn to drink from all cups; he who wishes to remain clean among men must know how to wash himself even with dirty water... heh heh heh heh!"

Through the glass, Xia Shou witnessed the entire process of the giant lizard brutally killing the man.

"How do you feel?" the red-haired woman asked.

"Not great. It can actually talk, and it seems pretty defiant," Xia Shou said.

At that answer, the woman paused, then smiled. "It looks like there really is no need to show you anything else. You're clearly well suited to Cleaner work. Fill out the form, then. Just check the box for Investigation Department Three and put my name down as your referrer."

With that, she took out a sheet of paper and handed it to Xia Shou. It was a job preference form.

Xia Shou quickly filled in his basic information and checked the box for Investigation Department Three. Finally, his pen stopped over the referrer field. "Wait... aren't you from Department One?"

"Oh, I was joking with you earlier. I'm not actually Li Luo. I'm Shangguan Yan," the woman said with a smile.

Xia Shou jerked his head up and stared at her, stunned.

"So everything I said earlier was really just self-deprecation. My department is actually quite good." Shangguan Yan watched him with a smile. "Come work for me."