Demon Suppression Bureau

Biodata

Organization and Authority

The Bureau’s county branches protect their localities through armed force, while higher offices oversee appointments, investigations, and disciplinary action 4 21 24.

• Higher oversight: County commandants remain subject to commandery and provincial authority; they cannot openly disregard appointment rules without consequences 4.
• Rigid hierarchy: Publicly addressing a commandant by name can constitute contempt for a superior. Killing a superior without authorization is a grave violation, even when that superior has colluded with demons 20 22.
• Investigative procedure: Accusations against a county commandant should be submitted to the commandery Bureau for the suppression commissioner’s decision 20.
• Retired officers: Veterans retain substantial local influence. Zhao Tielin mobilizes retired personnel, including former company commander Qi Guoshou, to protect Lu Guan during his appointment dispute 6.

Recruitment and Service

Promotion Assessments

• Qualification mission: Lu Guan’s first demon-slaying assignment serves as his assessment for becoming a full officer and receiving an imperial salary 1.
• Proof of success: He brings back a piece of the slain White Bone Demon’s skeleton to substantiate his report 2 4.
• Non-intervention rule: Supervising captains do not intervene during assessments. If a candidate dies, they may avenge him afterward rather than prevent his death 2.
• Risk-based assignments: A late Qi and Blood Realm demon would ordinarily require a veteran officer leading a team, not a newly qualified probationer 1.

Merit and Resources

• Controlled martial arts access: Officers need the corresponding merit or rank to exchange for higher-grade cultivation methods and martial arts 2.
• Demon-slaying merit: Killing demons and making outstanding contributions provide the established route to better methods 9.
• Commandery resources: Lu Guan considers exchanging merit at the Langya branch for a Gang Condensation Realm cultivation method 28.
• Weapons purchasing: Officers also obtain weapons privately. Jia Guofu states that most Bureau customers visiting his black market seek sabers 10.

Combat Methods and Martial Arts

Coordinated Combat

• Standard doctrine: Officers are taught to support one another, operate in groups of three, and coordinate disciplined advances, retreats, offense, and defense 31.
• Gather Blood into a Blade: A Bureau secret method for combined attacks. Wu Yong states that it allows the First Squad to escape a True Qi Realm demon unscathed 12.
• Strength-dependent effectiveness: Wu Yong believes adding the perfected Qi and Blood Realm Lu Guan could let the formation wound the White Bone Demon King 12.

Demon Suppression Cultivation Method

• Standard issue: Every Bureau member possesses a copy of this common cultivation method 2.
• Cultivation ceiling: It reaches perfected Qi and Blood Realm but does not provide a route into True Qi Realm 2 14.
• Perfected effects: Produces furnace-like Qi and Blood, replenishing strength, and a body developed to the realm’s limit 2.

Demon Subduing Saber Technique

• Documented practitioners: Used by Lu Guan and Tang Jun against White Bone Demons 2 13.
• Dependence on cultivation: The same move that initially fails to threaten Lu Guan’s assessment target becomes lethal after his cultivation rises 2.
• Defensive limits: Ordinary moves cannot penetrate an unusually durable perfected Qi and Blood Realm White Bone Demon’s bones; Lu Guan must perfect the technique to overcome it 8 9.

Martial Arts Archives

• Collections: The Qianqiu storehouse contains internal cultivation methods, sword arts, saber arts, lightness skills, and external body-conditioning manuals 34.
• Acquisition: The Bureau expands its reserves by destroying disobedient martial sects and through manuals compiled by its own high-realm martial artists 34.
• Incomplete material: Its holdings include the incomplete Dragon-Elephant Demon Suppression Art associated with an expelled Vajra Chan Monastery disciple 34.
• Lu Guan’s independent developments: He uses his Dao Seed to derive the Demon-Exterminating Heart Scripture, Demon Suppressing Saber Record, and Nine Heavens Dragon-Elephant Secret Record from existing arts. These are his personal developments, not identified as standard Bureau teachings 14 23 34.

History

Qianqiu County Under Zhou Kaishan

Zhou Kaishan maintained secret dealings with demonic factions around Qianqiu County and supplied residents to demons. The apparent peace concealed disappearances, while officers occasionally caught minor demons to present an appearance of fulfilling their duties 7 21.

White Bone Mountain’s demons understood this arrangement as an exchange: they surrendered expendable demons for the Bureau to claim credit, while continuing to treat the county’s population as food. The late True Qi Realm tiger demon of Yellow Flower Ridge was powerful enough to compel Zhou’s cooperation 14 16.

Zhou also imposed a curfew to avoid the unidentified threat called “Yin Soldiers Borrowing the Road.” Residents were not told that the restriction concealed his inability to confront a demon entering town to claim lives 26.

Lu Guan’s Appointment Dispute

Lu Guan entered the Bureau in a family line of service: three generations of his predecessor’s forebears had died fighting demons. His own assessment nearly killed him because its target was far stronger than the intelligence indicated 1.

After he returned with proof of success, Zhou Jie attempted to secure the available appointment through his uncle Zhou Kaishan’s influence. Lu Guan ultimately became a regular officer, but after Zhou Jie’s death, Zhou Kaishan assigned him to watch White Bone Mountain with the intention of having him killed 4 6 9.

Exposure and Replacement of Zhou Kaishan

Lu Guan instead killed the tiger demon and White Bone Demon King. The First Squad escorted the demons’ remains into Qianqiu County, drawing crowds who celebrated the deaths of creatures responsible for their relatives’ suffering 17 18 21 22.

At the Bureau entrance, Yu Qianqian publicly accused Zhou Kaishan of feeding the county’s people to demons. Lu Guan killed him despite Qin Tiannan’s attempt to take him into custody, then produced demon-script inscriptions documenting his crimes. Qin confirmed the evidence, and Wang Quan offered Lu Guan the acting commandant’s post 22 23 24.

Wang Quan ordered the new commandant to clear the surrounding demons as amends for violating procedure. He also directed Qin Tiannan to help remove a traitorous commandant in a neighboring county, promising Qin the position afterward 25.

Campaigns Under Lu Guan

On his first day in command, Lu Guan mobilized the branch against Wild Boar Ridge. Townspeople offered food to the departing officers, and the return of the boar demons’ corpses prompted widespread celebration 28 30.

His preference for confronting powerful demons alone departed sharply from Bureau doctrine. Wei Jincheng questioned whether the officers had become mere spectators, while Wu Yong recognized that this approach reduced the danger to their comrades 31.

Yuan Guanshan Crisis

When Yuan Guanshan surrounded Qianqiu County, frightened officers looked to Lu Guan as their main support. Lu Guan interpreted the siege as an attempt to force the Bureau to surrender him in exchange for the city’s safety, and refused to leave his survival to an unknown superior’s decision 39.

Following the old ape’s death, Sun Ying warned that the killing could destabilize You Province and leave the Bureau to handle the consequences. Chen Jingchou countered that the killer was Lu Guan—still a Bureau commandant at that moment—and invited him into the separate Demon-Slaying Envoys 48.

Uniforms and Facilities

• Full officers’ uniform: Black flying-fish robes. Details of the uniform and additional ornaments distinguish rank and status 4 19.
• Probationary clothing: Plain black robes rather than an official flying-fish uniform 4.
• Qianqiu office exterior: South-facing premises with two stone lions, white walls, black tiles, and heavy vermilion main gates 4 22.
• Interior fittings: Chains, shackles, and weapons hang inside the offices 4.
• Operational spaces: Duty room, commandant’s hall, rear training grounds, squad rooms, and martial arts storehouse 4 11 34.
• First Squad quarters: A row of rooms along the eastern edge of the rear training grounds 11.

Relations with Other Organizations

• Great Li imperial court — Employs and pays Bureau officers; the Bureau serves as one of the dynasty’s armed institutions 1 7 45.
• County civil administration — The magistrate manages livelihoods while the Bureau commandant controls armed force. Local bailiffs maintain order during the victorious demon-remains procession 22 24.
• Demon-Slaying Envoys — A separate Great Li enforcement organization with fewer members and higher cultivation requirements; even bronze-token envoys are Gang Condensation Realm martial artists. Chen Jingchou explicitly rejects Sun Ying’s authority over him 45 48.
• Demonic factions — Official targets of suppression, but Zhou Kaishan’s local branch maintained corrupt arrangements with them. Lu Guan breaks those arrangements through direct extermination campaigns 7 14 28.
• Martial sects — A source of confiscated martial arts when the Bureau destroys sects deemed disobedient 34.