Invitation

At five o’clock in the afternoon, the sky darkened rapidly. The blazing sun seemed to be obscured by a layer of shadow, like a scarlet glow cast upon the earth.

Filling out the relevant documents, Hua sat on the bench in the lobby of the police station. She saw Yibei being led out of the interrogation room, only for him to turn around and argue with the police.

“Excuse me, where are the groceries I bought? I need them, or I won’t have dinner tonight.”

A teenage boy being arrested for chasing a cat and pestering the police for his groceries is not normal.

“Shut up! Your groceries aren’t here!” the police officer yelled. Of course, the police only care about taking people in and not their belongings.

“Ah…” Yibei sighed. Those groceries cost him almost a hundred yuan, and he felt as if he suffered a huge loss.

Before he could open his mouth to babble further, Hua immediately stepped forward to rescue the police officer: “You’re out; let’s get out of here.”

“But my groceries…”

“Who cares about your groceries?” she yelled in a hushed whisper. “Food is food; there’s no difference! You can get more food later! Or just eat nothing! It’s good to live in hardship and simplicity!”

He followed Hua out of the police station, and he could see a silver-haired girl looking at him from behind a rolled-down car window.

“I didn’t expect you to come and pick me up from the prison,” he admitted.

“From the police station,” she corrected. “Get in. I’ll take you back.”

Opening the car door, he wordlessly sat beside Jiangli, which made her freeze for a bit. The gap between them was less than a palm.

Hua was about to intervene and remind him to take the shotgun but was surprised to hear Jiangli order her to begin driving.

The ride was bumpy and silent, and, of course, he couldn’t help but want to break the silence in the car.

“How was work? Are there any interesting updates?”

“Well, Shihekou High is still being investigated, but we’re nearing the end of the investigation. I can’t tell you because it’s classified information.”

Jiangli turned her head to look out the window. She didn’t expect An Qing to piece together the clues from the two samples brought back from the haunted gate of the University.

Through her analysis and comparison with past records, she confirmed that the samples originated from Mr Rabbit, a wanted member of the Eclipse Society. With those samples, they can be located, and the Night Division will soon be able to uncover what they have been doing behind their backs.

Of course, once they capture the members, they won’t confess their crimes, but the Night Division has at least a hundred ways to make them talk.

Human rights don’t exist when dealing with the Eclipse Society.

However, she knew that Yibei must not participate in this investigation or read about it. The methods the Night Division uses might traumatise him for life.

“Oh, I see,” he replied, disappointed that he couldn’t obtain useful information.

“By the way, I suspected there was something strange in that store,” Yibei said. “I decided to investigate it on my own, but I didn’t expect the police to be called by that stupid butcher, so I just made up a story about chasing a stray cat into the store.”

Yibei retold his experiences to Jiangli, and her eyes widened.

The incense, the coffin, the cat of unknown origin… Could the cat be…?

‘No, impossible,’ she shook her head. ‘He disappeared long ago. Maybe he lost control and was devoured by other urban legends.’

Speaking of which, why does this guy always get into these dangerous situations?

Is this the fate of those who detect things beyond a human’s senses?

Is this the kind of fate where he will actively be approached by strange entities and one day, he will encounter something he cannot comprehend and die horribly?

“I shall investigate that store myself, but don’t expect to find anything,” Jiangli glanced at Yibei, calming her emotions.

“Why?”

“Didn’t you say that An Qing found nothing, too? It simply means that the store is a temporary hideout for the urban legends. In fact, it could be one in a million hideouts they have.”

She thought of her most difficult cases and of the ones regarding singing that could be heard in the toilet. Almost everybody knew of it, but nobody in the Night Division could solve it.

After all, it has too many places to hide. Nobody knows where it will appear.

Unless more than half of the toilets in the world are guarded by psychics, it’s impossible to locate them.

She sighed again as she thought of the lack of manpower in the Night Division.

For every new member of the Night Division, there are ten more urban legends hidden in the dark corners of the city.

Their power is, in fact, limited in this world; when they plan to subdue an urban legend, it is very likely that ten other attacks are going on in parts of the city they don’t know about.

Jiangli dropped Yibei off at his apartment and ordered Hua to drive towards the market where Yibei was.

He watched as Jiangli drove away and turned around to walk towards the construction site, where he usually deals with his transformation. Then he thought about Jiangli’s words about urban legends with hideouts.

Doesn’t that include me? He thought. ‘Maybe I should find new hideouts! But… how? I can’t buy a house with my money but in the future…’

A realisation dawned upon him. If he becomes stronger, he might become a wandering urban legend. A vagrant, if you will.

Just as he was thinking about it, his phone vibrated.

His eyes widened as he glanced at his phone, and he couldn’t help but look around nervously.

Good. There’s nobody around, he thought, seeing a prompt pop up in his notifications about a certain chat group.

The person who sent the message was [ONE HUNDRED AND 2/3 CATS], and it was an invitation to join the chat group named [NEW GC! University Urban Legend Chat Group].

His eyes stared at the screen for a long time as he tapped on the [CONFIRM] option, and his screen switched to the chat group.

After joining the chat group, he decided to remain silent and see what the other group members would say.

However, the chat group seemed dead, even with more than two hundred users. Strangely enough, all of their profile pictures were the default profile, and the only ones with profile pictures were him and the person who invited him.

Seeing that the sky was about to darken, he hurried into the construction site, and not long after, a groan could be heard in the darkness, followed by a short incantation, followed by a sigh of relief.

The boy emerged from the construction site and scrolled through his phone, finding two new messages directed to him.

[17:44 ONE HUNDRED AND 2/3 CATS: Congratulations on passing the preliminary review / Please change to an ID that matches your identity.]

[17:50 We will finalise your entry into the actual group in the near future, so please be patient / There are currently 217 people ahead of you.]

‘A review to enter a chat group? A hundred and two-thirds of cats… cats… cats!’ he gulped at the realisation. Somehow, the cats managed to find him and invited him to this mysterious chat group.