Chapter 4
Chapter 4
“Who… exactly are all of you?”
Inside the kitchen, Leng Qingyan’s voice trembled. Her gaze held an indescribable mixture of awe and fear.
Everything she had just witnessed lay completely beyond her understanding.
Li Que and his students had to be anomaly wielders of the highest caliber-A-class at the very least!
There were only a handful of anomaly wielders at that level in the entire country. Every one of them was a world-renowned grandmaster.
Yet her unit hadn’t received any notice of an operation from headquarters lately…
Could Li Que simply have been passing through and decided to clean the place up while he was here?
That was entirely possible!
Li Que, meanwhile, was at his wits’ end. He had brought his students out with the best of intentions, hoping to keep a lonely old woman company. Instead, they’d sent her straight to the afterlife…
“I really am a teacher at Mingjiang No. 7 Special School. This is my employee ID.”
Li Que handed her his teacher’s identification and sighed. “I didn’t expect Grandma Zhang to get so excited either. Don’t worry. I’ll call the police and accept whatever responsibility I have to.”
Leng Qingyan stared at him blankly.
What did he mean by that?
Was he still keeping up the act?
Was that really necessary?
Wait… Could it be that he doesn’t want his true identity exposed?
A possibility suddenly occurred to her.
That had to be it!
Every deployment of an A-class or higher anomaly wielder involved an extraordinarily complex mission.
Such missions were invariably classified at the highest level.
Li Que was clearly an anomaly wielder of tremendous power, yet he kept emphasizing his identity as a teacher. He even intended to call the police. He was hinting that he didn’t want this incident to attract too much attention.
He wanted it suppressed and handled through mundane channels so that it wouldn’t cause unnecessary trouble or draw the notice of interested parties!
She understood everything now.
Cold sweat immediately broke out across her body. How could she have been so stupid? She’d actually tried to question him about his identity!
For a high-ranking anomaly wielder like Li Que to spare the time to help a few lower-level anomaly wielders and dispose of the Cat-Faced Crone and the Stray Cat was already an enormous favor.
If she caused his identity to be exposed and his mission to fail, the entire Mingjiang City Anomaly Suppression Bureau would be unable to bear the consequences!
“I understand… You are a teacher at Mingjiang No. 7 Special School!”
She hurriedly continued, “I’ll take care of everything here… No, I mean I’ll call the police and have them deal with it!”
“You have nothing to worry about!”
With that, she took out her phone and contacted the police on the spot.
Li Que blinked. Why did it feel as if her attitude had suddenly changed in some strange way?
Still, he heaved a long sigh of relief.
“If you’re willing to help deal with this, that would be ideal. I work at Mingjiang No. 7 Special School. If you need any help or cooperation from me later, feel free to come find me at any time.”
“I’ll take my students back to school now.”
Someone had died here, after all. It wouldn’t be good to keep the students around for too long.
They might be left with psychological scars!
Leng Qingyan’s eyes lit up.
This high-ranking anomaly wielder had just said she could come to him if she needed help.
Did that mean he had promised to lend a hand if the Anomaly Suppression Bureau ran into a difficult problem?
This was wonderful!
Thrilled beyond words, she nodded repeatedly. “All right. You can leave everything here to me!”
Li Que thanked her, then said, “Come on. We’re going back to school.”
He turned to Nian Youyu. “Stop eating!”
Nian Youyu had spent the entire time eating dumplings, paying absolutely no attention to anything happening around him. Hearing Li Que, he stood and wiped his mouth.
“Yes, sir.”
Li Que was speechless.
This student was truly unfazed by anything.
Li Que had planned to give them some psychological counseling after they returned, but now it seemed they might not need it after all.
“By the way, miss, what should I call you?”
Before leaving, Li Que turned back to Leng Qingyan.
“My name is Leng Qingyan. I’m from the Anom-I’m with the Mingjiang City Municipal Administration Bureau!”
She had been about to reveal her affiliation with the Anomaly Suppression Bureau, but caught herself just in time.
Since Li Que had chosen to present himself through his mundane identity as a teacher, she naturally couldn’t expose herself either. Otherwise, she might ruin his plans!
Hearing that she was also a government employee, Li Que finally relaxed completely. “We’ll be going, then. Thank you.”
With that, Li Que led the students away.
As they left, the anomaly domain vanished with them.
Leng Qingyan watched them go, her expression full of complicated emotions.
Was this the bearing of an A-class-or perhaps even stronger-anomaly wielder?
Ordinary anomaly wielders turned pale at the mere mention of an anomaly domain, yet people like them came and went freely without giving it a second thought!
Leng Qingyan drew a deep breath. As she waited for the police and the Anomaly Suppression Bureau to arrive, she carefully studied the Cat-Faced Crone’s corpse and the Stray Cat.
This was a rare opportunity to study the methods of a high-ranking anomaly wielder firsthand.
But the longer she looked, the more helpless she felt. She couldn’t find the slightest trace of what had been done.
“Incredible!”
She couldn’t help sighing in amazement.
…
At that moment, outside Jixiang Alley…
Several special vehicles screeched to a halt.
Xu Changjiang quickly led his people out of the vehicles. Dashan and Erhe rushed forward to meet them, and the whole group charged into the courtyard.
“Why did the anomaly domain disappear?”
Dashan and Erhe were both stunned. Then they spotted Leng Qingyan and cried out in delight.
“Sister Leng!”
Xu Changjiang approached with several anomaly wielders.
Everyone was overjoyed to see Leng Qingyan still alive.
Xu Changjiang finally let go of his crushing worry and hurried over.
“Qingyan, you’re alive! Thank goodness!”
Then came a rapid barrage of questions.
“Why did the anomaly domain suddenly vanish? Where are the two anomalies? How did the domain disappear?”
Leng Qingyan’s expression was complicated. “Someone disposed of them…”
She pointed at the Cat-Faced Crone’s corpse and the cat nearby.
Xu Changjiang and the others spun toward them, utterly shocked.
“What? They were actually destroyed?”
“How is that possible?”
Everyone was dumbfounded.
“Qingyan… Did you do this?”
Xu Changjiang stared at her in disbelief.
“It wasn’t me… Director, it’s a long story. We need to discuss it back at the bureau.”
Leng Qingyan drew a deep breath.
This involved an A-class anomaly wielder. It was top secret and naturally couldn’t be discussed in public.
Xu Changjiang nodded. “Secure the scene. We’re returning to the bureau!”
“Have the police arrived yet?” Leng Qingyan asked.
Erhe blinked. “The police? What does this have to do with them?”
The police had no authority to handle a case like this.
“Don’t ask. Erhe, you stay behind. When the police arrive, tell them to treat this as an elderly woman passing away from natural causes. Director, we should go.”
Xu Changjiang nodded solemnly.
…
Not long afterward, inside an office at the Anomaly Suppression Bureau…
“An anomaly wielder who is at least A-class, possibly even A-plus-class?”
Everyone’s expression turned exceptionally grave after hearing Leng Qingyan’s account.
They all understood what an anomaly wielder of that level represented.
“No wonder the Cat-Faced Crone and the Stray Cat could be disposed of so easily…”
“Sister Qingyan is so lucky!”
Everyone spoke at once.
“But as for Teacher Li’s identity…”
Leng Qingyan hesitated.
“There are only two possibilities,” Dashan analyzed. “Either headquarters sent him here for an important mission-but that doesn’t quite make sense. Even if the mission was above our clearance level, the Provincial Anomaly Suppression Department would have sent someone to accompany him.”
“Also, I pulled Teacher Li’s file from Mingjiang No. 7 Special School. He has been in Mingjiang City all along. He hasn’t left once!”
When he finished, a possibility occurred to everyone in the room at the same time.
“You mean… an unregistered A-class anomaly wielder has emerged right here in Mingjiang City?”
Xu Changjiang murmured without thinking.
Everyone was stunned.
Unregistered anomaly wielders were nothing unusual.
But at most, they reached D-class before a local Anomaly Suppression Bureau investigated and recruited them.
How could an A-class anomaly wielder possibly have slipped through?
Yet the evidence was right in front of them.
“No. I have to visit Mingjiang No. 7 Special School in person!”
Xu Changjiang could no longer sit still.
If that man truly was an unregistered A-class anomaly wielder, his existence would be extraordinarily significant to the Mingjiang City Anomaly Suppression Bureau.
In recent years, anomalies had become more common everywhere, and the bureau was critically understaffed. Even a C-class anomaly wielder was considered a rare talent.
In the entire Mingjiang City Anomaly Suppression Bureau, only Xu Changjiang and Leng Qingyan had barely reached B-class.
If they could persuade Li Que to join, the bureau’s strength would increase beyond anything it had ever known. They might even have some means of responding to the S-class anomaly Rain!
“Director, I don’t think we should be too direct. That man… doesn’t seem to want any direct involvement with the Anomaly Suppression Bureau,” Leng Qingyan warned with a frown.
There was no way Li Que hadn’t recognized who she was. Yet throughout their entire interaction, he had deliberately ignored everything related to anomalies and repeatedly emphasized that he was only a teacher.
He clearly wanted to keep a low profile.
If they approached him too directly, it might backfire.
Xu Changjiang thought for a moment. “All right. Notify Director Zhou of the Municipal Education Administration Bureau. Have him accompany me on an inspection of Mingjiang No. 7 Special School.”
The Education Administration Bureau oversaw every school in the city.
In the current era, however, every government department was required to cooperate unconditionally with the Anomaly Suppression Bureau whenever necessary.
…
At that moment, inside Mingjiang No. 7 Special School…
“Who gave you permission to take the students out on your own?”
Principal Zhu Jiayan slammed a hand on his desk and glared furiously at Li Que.
Li Que had taken students out for some so-called community-service activity without authorization, and someone had died as a result. Even the police had become involved.
What was Zhu Jiayan supposed to do when the Education Administration Bureau started asking questions?
Li Que felt helpless too.
“Keeping the students shut inside all day can cause psychological problems of its own… But it’s true that I failed to think this through.”
Zhu Jiayan said, “This isn’t something you can explain away by saying you didn’t think it through. Teacher Li, you’re fired.”
…