Chapter 18

“It’s not Yin Bujie.”

Qiao Qingshuang walked out of the cemetery and slid into the car waiting at the entrance. “I didn’t sense any trace of him,” he said.

Su Xuan sat behind the wheel. “This doesn’t sound like Yin Bujie’s style at all.”

Xiao Li, curled up in the back seat, rubbed his bleary eyes. “Yin Bujie?”

“Yin Bujie is the Strangeness King,” Su Xuan told him.

Xiao Li had arrived at Frost Mountain on the very day Su Xuan came to visit his Uncle Master Qiao. As a result, Su Xuan was one of the few people—aside from Uncle Master himself—who knew Xiao Li best. He knew the child’s intelligence was roughly equivalent to that of a five-year-old and understood exactly why Uncle Master had left him in their care. Over the past six months, Su Xuan had patiently explained the ways of the world to Xiao Li, bit by bit.

“In our world, some people harbor strangeness,” Su Xuan continued. “When the strangeness takes hold and the body undergoes obvious mutations, it ceases to be human at all. Take that vascular strangeness from the film crew, for instance—its body consisted of nothing but blood vessels. There are other kinds of strangeness made entirely of eyes, their forms composed solely of eyeballs. Anything that bizarre counts as strangeness. Of course, the truly powerful ones can revert to a human shape.”

Xiao Li nodded.

Strangeness came in good and bad varieties,” Su Xuan went on. “Some follow human society’s rules of their own accord, while others are utterly vicious. Uncle Master Qiao drove all the bad ones underground, and Yin Bujie rules them as their king.”

“Very bad?” Xiao Li asked.

“Very bad, completely unhinged, and incredibly powerful,” Su Xuan replied. “He wants nothing more than to destroy the world. Only Uncle Master Qiao can keep him in check.”

Qiao Qingshuang chimed in at just the right moment with a single word: “Annoying.”

Xiao Li turned to his big brother. “Does Big Brother hate him?”

“Next time we meet, I’ll chop him into pieces,” Qiao Qingshuang said. “No—I’ll grind his bones to dust and scatter the ashes, so he can never annoy me again.”

Xiao Li stared at him blankly.

Even though his Uncle Master could be plenty annoying himself, Su Xuan obligingly pulled out his tablet. “Yin Bujie has definitely been to these places.”

Every anomalous incident was meticulously cataloged on the tablet, but Qiao Qingshuang had no patience for such devices. Su Xuan unfolded a traditional paper map instead. “Read off the locations one by one. I’ll trace his activity path.”

Su Xuan recited them in order, while Qiao Qingshuang sketched the route on the map. When he finished, he scowled in irritation. “What is this? Is he playing hobo, drifting from one spot to another with no rhyme or reason?”

Su Xuan turned to study the cluster of locations where Yin Bujie had appeared. He stared for a good long while but discerned no obvious pattern. The only common thread he could find was, “They all have good educational resources?”

Qiao Qingshuang blinked at him. “?”

“You’re right,” Su Xuan said after double-checking. He nodded firmly.

Unlike Uncle Master Qiao, who had been raised on a strict regimen of Celestial Master training from childhood, Su Xuan had climbed the ladder from elementary school all the way through university. He’d spent years surrounded by classmates from every corner of the land and had a keen sense for where the best schooling could be found.

“What would he want with places that have top-notch education?” Qiao Qingshuang muttered. He suddenly bent over the map. “Which elementary school around here is the best?”

“Why are you asking about that, Uncle Master?” Su Xuan said. The answer dawned on him almost immediately. He and Qiao Qingshuang turned to look at Xiao Li in unison.

They had always assumed Xiao Li would remain safely on Frost Mountain, surrounded by caretakers. The idea of school had never crossed their minds. But if they wanted him to grow properly, a taste of campus life might not be a bad thing?

Physiologically, Xiao Li was thirteen years old, but years of neglect outside had left him looking no more than eleven. Mentally, he operated at about the level of a five-year-old—a touch sharper than your average kindergartener. Elementary school would be a perfect fit.

Bai Chen, realizing what they meant, slapped a hand over his face, unwilling to confront it.

Why was everyone so set on making him go to school?

Bai Chen fumed. With a furious toss, he hurled the school selection handbook out the door.

The Strangeness King happened to be passing by right then. The hefty volume—packed with colorful photos and glowing descriptions of dozens of elementary schools—struck him square in the head. He hissed in pain. “Who went and pissed off the Little Devil King this time?”

A blood-red, heart-shaped organ came tumbling out of the room on all fours, before shifting into human form. Bloody tears streamed from its puffy eyes. “The Little Prince doesn’t want to go to school.”

“Yin Le,” Yin Bujie said, his patience fraying, “I’m telling you, school is for your own good! Was I not perfectly content living it up underground? Why else would I go to all this trouble up here on the surface? It’s all for you—to give you the finest education, so you can become the greatest person… er, strangeness there ever was!”

The invisible Liu Mo fell silent yet again.

He’d witnessed scenes like this many times by now, but he still occasionally found himself questioning everything.

Yes, this was the same man who agonized over his son’s education exactly like any ordinary father from their world—down to using nearly the identical words. This was the Strangeness King Yin Bujie.

Doubts about his own role plagued Liu Mo time and again.

Before transmigrating into the book, both the Book Transmigration Bureau and Du Feili had warned him: the Strangeness King Yin Bujie was the most deranged and dangerous boss of them all.

He hadn’t needed their warnings. Back in his original world, as a member of the Anomalous Bureau, Liu Mo had felt that terror firsthand. While investigating Du Feili’s neighborhood, they’d detected one of the invading energies as belonging to the Strangeness King himself—pure nightmare fuel.

The Anomalous Bureau had come later than the Transmigration Bureau. In a way, they existed to clean up the latter’s messes. But they weren’t mere support staff. Anomalous Bureau agents possessed special abilities and far superior combat prowess.

In their world, book transmigration was an established reality.

They relied on a formidable Book Transmigration System. Transmigrators used it to enter countless novels, extracting resources to bolster their own realm.

It started out as nothing but upside. But over time, mishaps piled up: runaway resources spiraling out of control, transmigrators suffering breakdowns in mind or power, anomalous objects slipping through in their wake. The Anomalous Bureau handled all of it.

That fateful day, acting on a tip from the Transmigration Bureau, Liu Mo led his team to Du Feili’s neighborhood for an inspection. The moment they probed, two of his teammates were ruined. The anomalous energy pouring from the Strangeness King was apocalyptic—even the slightest contact stripped away one’s humanity.

Less than a minute in, Liu Mo triggered an SSS-level emergency alert.

Prior to transmigrating, no one grasped Yin Bujie’s horrors better than he did. When the mission assigned him here, there was no mystery to it: his invisibility skill was their only shot. Even the Transmigration Bureau knew there was no fighting the Strangeness King head-on—hiding was the sole option.

Invisibility offered a veneer of safety, but descending into the Underground World still set his nerves on edge. The horrific, gut-wrenching fates of his colleagues from that night haunted him still.

Du Feili had described the Strangeness King Yin Bujie as a raving lunatic consumed by the urge to annihilate everything. His horde of evil anomalies followed suit, turning the entire Underground World into a realm of utter chaos, madness, and gore. Yet the moment Liu Mo arrived, he overheard two strangenesses exchanging polite greetings.

“Good evening. Isn’t the moonlight lovely tonight?”

“Good evening indeed. What a beautiful night.”

Liu Mo glanced up at the pitch-black “sky,” devoid of moon or star. “…?”

There were no brawls, no rivers of blood. The deeper one ventured toward the core, the more harmonious and friendly it grew. Bewildered, Liu Mo pressed on. How had the Underground World become like this? Why?

Only upon reaching the Strangeness King Palace and laying eyes on Yin Bujie did certainty settle in. He’d come to the right place.

The Strangeness King—clad in black, his long hair cascading—lounged on the palace steps. Wine bottle in his left hand, right wrist draped casually over one knee in a posture of absolute dominance. He radiated an aura at once terrifying… and strangely petulant.

Petulant?

Yin Bujie glanced up and took a swig from the bottle. His eyes were ringed in blood-chilling crimson, his matching lips stained as if fresh from feasting on flesh. With venomous bitterness, he growled, “Why is raising a kid so damn hard?”

“How the hell did I end up with a devil of a son like this?”

“Sometimes just looking at him reminds me of that certain ‘old acquaintance.’ He talks and acts exactly like Qiao Qingshuang—enough to drive anyone insane! What did I do to deserve this in a past life? And now I’ve got a kid piling on the karma?”

Liu Mo: “?”

A son?

Since when did Yin Bujie have a son?

In the novel, Yin Bujie was a notorious playboy, but childless.

Du Feili had insisted the same—no offspring.

Before transmigrating, the Bureau had set up a casual group dinner to help them unwind and get acquainted. Even though everyone knew a world-ending monstrosity like Yin Bujie would never bother with heirs, the thoroughly sloshed Du Feili—who’d been tormented by him a thousand times over—still spat out in venomous spite: “Maybe the bastard’s sterile. Being cut off without an heir is the retribution he deserves!”

And now, out of nowhere, Yin Bujie had a son?

Indeed, he did.

That son, just as he’d described, was a true devil spawn—his vicious aura surpassing even his father’s.

Du Feili had called childlessness Yin Bujie’s rightful punishment. But it seemed fatherhood was its own exquisite torment.

Take this moment: as Yin Bujie lectured, “I’ve picked the perfect school for you—it’s all for your own good,” the Little Devil King cracked open his cold peach-blossom eyes and drawled darkly, “You can’t even beat Qiao Qingshuang. You’re a failed strangeness, so you take it out on me by bullying me? Go defeat Qiao Qingshuang first, reclaim your place on the surface, and then we can talk about school.”

“Hiss—”

Everyone gasped.

No one dared mention Qiao Qingshuang in the Strangeness King’s presence—except this one. Not only did he bring it up, he stomped relentlessly on the king’s deepest insecurities.

Black miasma erupted from Yin Bujie as he lunged forward, only to be restrained by a swarm of surrounding strangenesses. Tentacles, limbs, and tongues everywhere latched onto him.

“Your Majesty, calm down!”

“The Little Prince didn’t mean it!”

“The Strangeness King Palace can’t survive another battle!”

“You know the Little Prince has a sharp tongue but a soft heart—it’s not like this is news!”

The strangenesses babbled in a chaotic chorus, some wailing in anguish, others dissolving into sobs. The one they held—Yin Bujie himself—was so enraged that his own black qi turned on him, blackening his face.

It took a long while, but finally Yin Bujie spoke. “Let me go. I’m not going to hit him.”

The strangenesses hesitated, unsure whether to release their grip.

With his long hair falling limply, Yin Bujie sighed in resignation. “You’re right. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve realized he’s a debt-collecting ghost. What else can I do?”

He’d known what his son was like from their very first encounter.

Yin Bujie would probably never forget it. He’d sized up the small strangeness who looked like a human boy of six or seven—cute features and all—and asked mildly enough, “Who are you?”

With the tone and expression of “I’m your granddaddy,” the boy had shot back, “I’m your son.”