Chapter 83 – The ID Registration Agent Arrives

Chapter 83 – The ID Registration Agent Arrives

Morning. Bright sunshine, clear skies with scattered clouds.

The living room TV was playing some boring urban variety show. Eileen hugged the remote control and watched with great interest, while Hu Li was in the dining room licking her bowl clean, using her bundle of tails to tidy up the dishes, plates, and chopsticks on the table.

Yu Sheng had placed his laptop on the dining table and had been staring at it ever since finishing breakfast, completely focused.

Hu Li was curious about what her “benefactor” was doing, but seeing how serious Yu Sheng looked, she didn’t dare interrupt. She only occasionally tilted her head to glance at his screen while cleaning the table, and upon finding she couldn’t understand any of it, turned back to continue her other tasks.

This went on until Hu Li had run off to the kitchen and finished washing the dishes. Yu Sheng was still earnestly staring at the screen, while Eileen came sauntering over from the living room — she wasn’t nearly as considerate as Hu Li. Seeing Yu Sheng glued to his computer doing who-knows-what, she immediately pitter-pattered over in a little run, grabbed onto his pants, and started climbing up. “Hey hey, what are you busy with? Can I see?”

Yu Sheng grabbed Eileen by the collar and set her on the dining table. “Don’t cause trouble. I need to write.”

“…Write?” Eileen was momentarily stunned. “Why?”

“…It’s my job. I’m a writer,” Yu Sheng said without raising his head, only sparing the doll a glance from the corner of his eye. “You didn’t think I was some unemployed drifter, did you? I have a legitimate profession.”

Eileen listened in bewilderment, surprise gradually spreading across the little doll’s face. She had apparently never considered such complicated questions as Yu Sheng needing to work or where the household money came from. She looked as though the doors to a whole new world had just opened before her.

Yu Sheng paid no mind to Eileen’s reaction and simply continued, “Expenses have been pretty high lately. We’ve added a lot of things around the house, and I still owe two manuscripts that are over half a month overdue. I need to catch up — so don’t cause trouble. Go watch TV like a good girl.”

Eileen stood there with her mouth hanging open for a long while, then suddenly snapped to attention. She scooted along the edge of the table until she was under Yu Sheng’s arm, poking her head out to take a look. “But you’re clearly browsing a video streaming site…”

Yu Sheng kept a straight face. “…This is a necessary preparatory process for getting my thoughts flowing.”

The little doll raised a hand and pointed at the screen. “But behind the video site, you’ve got a forum page open too.”

Yu Sheng continued trying to hold his composure, though his expression grew slightly awkward. “Reading other people’s writing has its benefits — you often find really creative ideas on forums like these. What’s wrong with looking for a little inspiration?”

Eileen looked up. “But you haven’t even opened a document…”

“Where do you get off with all these comments!” Yu Sheng finally cracked, grabbing Eileen and setting her on the floor. “Have you ever written anything? This stuff requires real expertise. The thinking and accumulation before you put pen to paper is the real bulk of the work…”

Eileen stood beside the table leg with her hands on her hips, head tilted back, perfectly self-righteous. “So when are you actually going to start writing?”

Yu Sheng glared at her. “As soon as you stop bothering me, I’ll start.”

Miss Doll pursed her lips, turned, and headed toward the living room, muttering under her breath as she walked, “Tch, a procrastinator sure has a lot of excuses…”

Yu Sheng thought about it and decided the little thing had a point — then turned his gaze back to the computer screen and continued watching videos with his mind blank.

He was a writer — though that was putting it generously. To put it bluntly, he was a second-rate small-time author.

This was one of the rare commonalities between the “hometown life” in his memories and his life in this Boundary City: he had always done this work. From that peaceful seaside town to this enormous, unfamiliar city, the means by which he made his living hadn’t changed much. That could be considered extremely fortunate.

But far too many unexpected things had happened recently, and he found he simply couldn’t settle his mind to write — it wasn’t that he lacked ideas, but rather that he had too many outlandish ones. He couldn’t tell which could safely be put into stories and which might actually point toward the Otherworld and attract certain unsafe things.

After having actually encountered so many surreal phenomena, an author who originally wrote weird fantasy fiction found himself feeling particularly at a loss.

He sat there before the computer with his mind blank for who knew how long, until he finally took a deep breath and quickly closed both the video site and the forum page.

Yu Sheng, oh Yu Sheng, it’s time to pull yourself together. Think about Hu Li’s appetite. Think about Hu Li’s new clothes. Think about the materials needed to build Eileen a body — and think about the new TV that Miss Doll had been dreaming about.

What bottom-rung word-churner has enough savings to burn through like this? If he didn’t start writing soon, he’d literally be eating dirt! Never mind being a spirit detective — right now he needed to figure out how to feed the people in this house first!

And so Yu Sheng gave his own face a good hard slap, moved the mouse — and opened a game.

Gathering his thoughts was too exhausting. He’d play one round against bots to relax first…

But before he could even start, he felt something bump into his calf — Eileen had somehow snuck back from the living room again, and was now headbutting his leg. “Yu Sheng, you’re playing games!”

“How is everything your business!” Yu Sheng immediately felt his dignity slipping, and bent down to shoo the doll away. But before he could raise his hand, he suddenly felt his pocket vibrate, followed by his phone ringing.

He pulled out his phone and saw another unfamiliar number.

Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, then answered and held the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

On the other end, a very young woman’s voice came through, slightly hesitant and flustered. “H-hello! Is this Mr. Yu? I was sent by Bureau Chief Baili Qing! To… to deliver your registration forms.”

Yu Sheng was taken aback for a moment, but then it clicked — this was about the matter he’d brought up with the Bureau Chief before. He’d almost forgotten!

“Right, right, that’s me. There is such a thing,” Yu Sheng quickly stood up, setting the Eileen matter aside for now, answering the phone while looking out the window. “I’m home. Where are you right now?”

“I should be right next to your house, but I can’t see it,” the voice on the phone sounded quite nervous. “The Bureau Chief told me to call you before coming, but I forgot, and only remembered after I got here…”

“Hold on, I’ll open the door for you.”

As he said this, Yu Sheng walked toward the entrance. Eileen quickly called out from behind him, “Hey, who is it! Should I use my disguise?”

Hu Li also walked out looking a bit nervous. “Should I transform?”

“No need, no need,” Yu Sheng waved his hand. “Someone’s here to make your ID cards.”

Before his words had even faded, he was already at the door. Peering through the peephole, he indeed saw a young woman standing not far outside, holding a phone — wearing a neat black suit, with short hair, looking around the open space.

She looked exactly like a fresh temp worker who’d been dumped with field work after getting shafted by her boss.

Yu Sheng casually pushed open the door.

The short-haired young woman scanning the open space was startled, then turned and stared blankly at the large door that had appeared out of thin air not far away, and at Yu Sheng standing in the doorway.

“Mr. Yu!” She snapped out of it and hurried over to the door in a few quick steps, clutching a document envelope. “Hello, I’m from the Special Operations Bureau, Second Squad. Just call me Ren Wenwen — may I come in? I’ll need to take photos of the registrants for their cards and such… Oh right, here’s my credentials. Please take a look.”

As she spoke, she hastily fished a small black booklet from her pocket and flipped it open.

Yu Sheng glanced at it and found it looked much the same as the credentials Li Lin and Xu Jiali had shown before.

In truth, he didn’t really need to verify her credentials — after all, the only people who currently knew both his phone number and “No. 66 Wutong Road” were the Special Operations Bureau people and Little Red Riding Hood.

Oh, and those three locksmiths from before.

“Come in.” Yu Sheng stepped aside from the doorway. At the same time, he felt something was a little odd: he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but this young woman calling herself “Ren Wenwen” seemed unusually nervous. It wasn’t the same kind of nervousness that Li Lin and Xu Jiali had shown when first entering No. 66 Wutong Road, but rather…

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Ren Wenwen entered the house. Yu Sheng poked his head outside for another look, found the large area in front of the door as empty and deserted as always, and casually closed the door.

Eileen and Hu Li watched the short-haired young woman who had suddenly appeared in their home with curiosity.

Ren Wenwen, in turn, studied the doll and the fox spirit with equal curiosity.

“How does this process work?” Yu Sheng walked over. Seeing the three of them standing there in a daze, he took the initiative to ask, “Do we register them first, or handle my team registration process first?”

“First… first we register their legal identities,” Ren Wenwen finally snapped to attention, hastily pulling forms from the document envelope while rummaging through her bag for portable equipment. “You want to register an independent team, correct? That requires resolving the identity issue for each member first. Fill out these two forms, then I’ll photograph them and make their cards — I brought the equipment with me, and the colleagues handling the back end at the office are standing by. We can produce the IDs and enter them into the system on-site.”

Yu Sheng watched as she deftly laid out an array of items on the table. Then the young woman produced two pens, looked up at the little doll standing on the table (66.6 cm tall), and at the fox spirit beside her.

“Will you be filling these out yourselves?”

Hu Li blinked, glanced at the forms on the table, then looked up helplessly at Yu Sheng.

She couldn’t read these characters…

Yu Sheng sighed, stepped forward, and took the pen. “I’ll fill them in for her.”