Containment Bureau

Biodata

Organization and Personnel

Departments and Teams

Notable Personnel

• Shangguan Yan — Investigation Department Three director and Xia Shou’s recruiter. She supplies special blood and arranges his first mission in exchange for a month of unpaid overtime 3 5 18.
• Dr. Modis — Scientist specializing in anomaly taxonomy; explains Transcendent levels and Sealed Anomaly compatibility to Xia Shou and questions him after the hospital incident 4 48.
• Xia Shou — Newly recruited Level-one employee who joins to gain access to anomalies. He conceals his shadow’s ability to devour them from the Bureau 2 8 20.
• Zhang Zhengde — Directs field operations at the Blood Demon House, including rescue efforts, withdrawal, and perimeter preparations 6 13 21.
• Edward — S-Rank Investigator dispatched into the Blood Demon House ten years earlier. His Life Lamp remains lit despite his disappearance 6 22.
• Zhou Hongjie — Second-Level Cleaner sent into the returned Blood Demon House with five First-Level Cleaners 6.
• The Tamer — Level Three Cleaner deployed during the Blood Demon House operation; dies inside and leaves a relic for the head of Division Two 13 15 20.
• Wang Long — Doctor and Bureau warden at Central Hospital, responsible for benign earthbound spirits 28 34.
• Lin Yanxue — Presents intelligence and unresolved findings during the directors’ review of the Blood Demon House incident 22 23.
• Shang Liang and the colonel — Participants in the directors’ meeting who assess the mission’s outcome and its apparent impossibility under normal circumstances 22.

Cleaner Ranks

Cleaner rank is separate from Anomaly Level. Cleaner titles depend on combat record and overall capability, while Anomaly Level determines the priority of supernatural powers and resistance to outside abilities 3 4.

• Promotion criteria: The frequency and difficulty of anomalous incidents resolved alone 6.
• Deployment authority: Sending a Level Three Cleaner without approval from multiple departments requires special emergency authority. An unresolved incident can result in a major demerit for the responsible director 6.
• Operational ceiling: Anomaly Level five is described as almost the limit of what the Bureau can reliably handle 3.

Facilities and Resources

Facilities

• Museum front: The Jiangbo City entrance appears to ordinary society as a museum. Anomalous-looking visitors can pass through its tourist crowds unnoticed 2.
• Underground containment area: Xia Shou’s introductory tour reaches the seventh basement level, where the Calamity Crystal Dragon Lizard is housed behind blast-resistant glass 3.
• Archive terminals: Investigation Department employees use ID cards to search Sealed Anomaly files by name, characteristics, or photograph. Most files are generally accessible to employees 4.
• Staff accommodation: The Bureau provides dormitories and employee phones; Xia Shou also receives a gym key card 4 5 48.
• Camouflaged containment sites: Facilities are built around immovable anomalies. Central Hospital was established to sustain several benign earthbound spirits requiring complicated care 28.
• Transport and custody vehicles: The Bureau operates field transport trucks and backup convoys. Xia Shou’s custody vehicle includes a bed, table, shower, and prepared meal 6 21.

Documented Anomalies and Items

An archive entry does not necessarily mean the Bureau currently possesses the item.

The Dragon Lizard’s Role

• Capture: Captured in 1953 at a devastating cost to the Bureau 18.
• Disposal mechanism: Its Level-five anomalous nature allows it to digest the vast majority of material submitted for Curse Power disposal 18.
• Crystallization: Anomalous objects it swallows are excreted as crystals; their Curse Power remains preserved while the crystals stay intact 3.
• Feeding requirement: Must receive one death-row inmate with at least a university-level education within each twenty-four-hour period 3.
• Cooperation limits: It abandons the attempt to devour Xia Shou after Su Weiyu offers double food and a month of reading aloud 19.

Operations and Protocols

Recruitment and Mission Access

• Employment choices: Recruits can select relatively safe clerical work or pursue Cleaner duties. Shangguan Yan claims ninety percent choose clerical work after viewing contained entities 3.
• Initial assessment: New personnel receive an employee card and undergo Anomaly Level testing 4.
• Equipment shortage: Only about ten percent of low-level Transcendents can undertake missions because usable Sealed Anomalies are scarce and already requisitioned 5.
• Standby duties: The remaining low-level personnel generally handle anomaly care, testing, and patrols 5.
• Survival dependence: Without Sealed Anomalies, low-level Transcendents face a nearly one-hundred-percent mortality rate on missions above their level 5.
• Emergency command: During supernatural crises, administrative personnel are automatically demoted relative to the responding specialist. Wang Long consequently treats Xia Shou as his superior 31.

Containment and Escalation

• Life Lamps: Track whether an individual’s body remains alive; a burning lamp does not establish that the person remains human 6.
• Loss-of-contact protocol: Zhou Hongjie’s team is presumed dead after failing to report from the Blood Demon House 6.
• Anomaly monitoring: Field teams use meters and detectors to track anomalous readings and Curse Power dissipation 6 18 20.
• Death Row Barrier: Death-row criminals absorb escaping Curse Power before it reaches civilians. The barrier is prepared when a Level-five intervention may otherwise cause mental illness and social instability 13.
• Execution Squad enhancement: Members accept brutally restrictive bindings and substantial costs to raise their Anomaly Levels. Their strength generally approaches Level three, with methods allowing brief breakthroughs to Level four; reaching Level five is extremely difficult 18.
• Dragon Lizard backup: The Blood Demon response plan calls for negotiation with a confirmed host first, followed by a Dimensional Wormhole through which the lizard can attack if talks fail 18.

Custody and Public Secrecy

• Consent-based restraint: A custody operative obtains Xia Shou’s agreement before marking his hand and imposing escort rules. Su Weiyu explains that some abilities require consent or contract-like conditions 21.
• Escort protections: A person pending investigation must remain with the escort, but may act freely during emergencies within Bureau regulations. The escort also undertakes to protect them 21.
• Cognitive sanitization: Civilians exposed to supernatural incidents are expected to undergo cognitive sanitization 32.
• Cover stories: After the hospital disaster, the Bureau plans to alter survivors’ memories, demolish the building with explosives, and have relevant departments blame extremist terrorists publicly 48.

Research and Intelligence Limitations

• Anomaly classification: Records distinguish Anomaly Level, utility or threat assessment, and containment risk rather than treating them as a single measure 3 4 25.
• Occult evidence: Archives contain cult doctrines, research logs, and diaries preserved as evidence, including writings shaped by supernatural compulsions to spread dangerous knowledge 36.
• Root Sea research: Bureau records describe Abyssal Diving Syndrome and its risks, but acknowledge that the Root Sea cannot be meaningfully utilized, observed, understood, or studied 25.
• Deciphering delays: Dorian Gray’s chaotic multilingual notes prevent the Bureau from understanding the Blood Demon House before deployment. Crucial information about possession is decoded only after personnel enter 9 13.
• Antimemetic vulnerability: Su Weiyu says “Transparent Man” is the thirty-eighth designation assigned to her. Once investigators correctly connect the anomaly to her, her ability can cause them to dismiss the records and delete them 25.
• Closed Domain evasion: The sanatorium director’s diary records that an unnamed stranger taught him to construct a Closed Domain to escape Bureau pursuit; the completed domain successfully conceals his operation 37.

History and Major Operations

Blood Demon House

Ten years before Xia Shou’s arrival, the Bureau sent S-Rank Investigator Edward into a villa associated with recurring Blood Demon incidents near Jiangbo City. Three days later, both Edward and the villa disappeared, and the related incidents ceased. Edward’s Life Lamp continued burning throughout the Bureau’s ten-year wait for the house to return 6.

When it reappeared, the Bureau sent Zhou Hongjie and five First-Level Cleaners inside. After contact was lost, Xia Shou arrived as temporary support from Department Three and was initially mistaken for the expected Level Three Cleaner. The actual Level Three operative, the Tamer, followed him 6 8.

Newly decoded information revealed that the Blood Demon could possess intruders and escape. Headquarters ordered a one-kilometer cordon, withdrawal, and preparations for the Execution Squad and Death Row Barrier 13.

Xia Shou secretly killed and devoured the Blood Demon. The Execution Squad attacked him on his emergence, but Su Weiyu severed the executioners’ arms and persuaded the Dragon Lizard to withdraw. Xia Shou then credited the Tamer with resolving the incident to conceal his devouring ability 19 20.

A subsequent search found no Edward, despite his Life Lamp remaining lit. Directors ultimately attributed the unexplained outcome and Xia Shou’s protection to the antimemetic entity “Transparent Man,” then assigned him to investigate a related surge in insomnia 22 23.

Central Hospital and the Sanatorium Domain

Xia Shou’s follow-up investigation brought him to Central Hospital, a Bureau containment site for benign earthbound spirits. A ward was drawn into a Closed Domain far beyond the spirits’ known capabilities, trapping staff, patients, and visitors 26 28.

Inside the domain, the survivors discovered a sanatorium whose director had used Idrisu’s treatments and human raw materials. His diary revealed that he had created the domain specifically to evade the Bureau 36 37.

After Xia Shou escaped, Dr. Modis questioned him before Shangguan Yan took him away. More than fifty people survived, but the heavy casualties prompted the Bureau’s planned memory alterations, demolition, and terrorism cover story 48.

Notable Quote

“Strength alone is not enough. What we need is strength we can use repeatedly.”

— The Containment Bureau’s first maxim 4

Trivia

• Xia Shou’s department is named inconsistently in the provided chapters: his recruitment and Shangguan Yan’s office are associated with Investigation Department Three, while his workplace in Chapter 24 is called Investigation Department Two 3 18 24.