Chapter 122

The members of the Special Incident Handling Bureau rushed to the scene upon learning that the demon race had appeared.

They initially thought a great battle was inevitable. When they saw the large hole in the outer wall of the inn, their hearts leaped to their throats, and they hurried upstairs. However, when they looked inside, they couldn’t help but feel: "…"

They saw the Daoist priests from the Daoist Association standing at the door in disarray, holding their magical tools and talismans, as if ready for battle. The situation inside the room was even more confusing to them.

The three disciples from the Xie Yao Sect were standing there completely unharmed. Except for Ke Xingzhou who was slightly out of breath, both of his disciples were unscathed.

Especially the second disciple, although appearing a bit tired, his entire appearance was pristine, as if he had just come from some banquet.

For a moment, they doubted whether they had received false information.

However, the one lying on the floor was indeed a demon. Whether it was the purple skin all over its body or the overwhelming demonic aura, it was clear this was a high-level demon.

Moreover, the room was almost a ruin, with the lingering presence of Daoist, demon, and demonic energies indicating that a great battle had just taken place.

This jarring reality left everyone from the Special Incident Handling Bureau frozen for a moment. After a moment of relief, they couldn't help but glance at the Asura, who was beaten to the point where he couldn’t even lift his head, his entire being radiating a sense of grievance.

What was going on with this Asura?

Asura: "…"

While they were assessing the scene, Ke Xingzhou was also scrutinizing the members of the Special Incident Handling Bureau.

Perhaps it was because his merit had increased to a new level after the previous beating, or perhaps the other party had no intention of hiding, but now when Ke Xingzhou looked at the members of the Special Incident Handling Bureau, he no longer had the same confusion he had when facing Xiang Ting and Zhu Qian.

With the power of his Heavenly Eyes, he could see that their human shells were not as perfect as they appeared to the naked eye.

With one glance, Ke Xingzhou spotted divine beasts like the Qilin, Chongming, and Bi Fang among them.

So, the Special Incident Handling Bureau was composed of these divine beasts?

Ke Xingzhou’s gaze was fixed on them, and Bi Fang inexplicably felt a chill down his spine. He leaned toward Chongming, supporting himself on one leg, and whispered, "Those over there are the Xie Yao Sect’s disciples, right? What’s that young man staring at us for? Could it be that he’s seeing through our disguise?"

Chongming followed his gaze and looked at Ke Xingzhou. When their eyes met, he also felt a sense of guilt.

He couldn’t help but look away and coughed lightly. "He’s just a mortal now, at most he has Heavenly Eyes that can see through some illusions. Our magic is far beyond the level of mortals, so don’t worry about it. Let’s focus on how to calm down these old Daoists first."

Bi Fang glanced over at the Daoist priests and indeed noticed a bit of anxiety on their faces.

He sighed inwardly, thinking to himself that these humans were really fragile. Just knowing the demon race existed had already scared them this much. If the demons really launched a large-scale invasion of the human world, they’d probably be terrified out of their wits.

That said, as a member of the Special Incident Handling Bureau, he still had to put on a smile and slowly speak, "Who can tell me what exactly happened here?"The Taoist priests finally breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing the Special Incident Handling Bureau arrive.

Casting a wary glance at Ke Xingzhou, who looked ready to strike again, and at the Asura on the ground—who, for some reason, still insisted on keeping his back straight with a posture full of unyielding pride—the Taoist priests hurried to surround them, anxiously chattering as they explained what had happened.

When they got to the part about the Asura attacking a green toad, the priests couldn't help but look a little awkward.

The Bureau members were still a bit skeptical when suddenly, the supposed victim—the green toad—shouted, “That’s not how it happened!”

Not how it happened?

The few members of the Special Incident Handling Bureau glanced at the Taoist priests. Bi Fang nodded slightly at the green toad. “You tell it.”

After all, they had all cultivated from demons and had a natural affinity with the demon race. While they were now divine beasts and couldn't show favoritism, listening to a demon’s side wasn’t entirely inappropriate.

The green toad began wailing and accusing tearfully: “It’s not as simple as they made it sound! That Asura—he didn’t come here to kill me, his goal was to humiliate me!!”

Bi Fang: “...?”

The divine beasts from the Bureau looked at one another in confusion.

They even wondered if they had misheard. Why would a high-level demon race member come all this way just to humiliate a green toad spirit?

But the green toad seemed oblivious to their doubts. Staring at the Asura with wide eyes, a tear slowly welled up. “He… he was jealous of my handsomeness. He wanted to crush my bones, turn me into a forbidden plaything of the demon clan, make me their toy!!”

Bi Fang: “…………”

Divine beasts: “…………”

“...” The Taoist priests closed their eyes. Their toes curled hard against the floor in secondhand embarrassment.

No matter how many times they heard this story, they could never maintain the same calm expression as the master and disciples of Xiaoyao Sect. They simply couldn’t stay composed in front of such scenes and declarations.

The demon race truly was terrifying. Even the most casual act from them could shake a cultivator’s heart and cause their Dao mind to waver!

How malicious!

The divine beasts looked at the green toad and the Asura on the ground, then at one another, completely unable to describe what they were feeling at the moment.

After a brief silence, they tacitly decided to ignore it all. One of them simply pulled out a demon-binding rope and threw it at the green toad. Instantly, the rope wrapped around him, tying him up like a bullfrog for sale at the market—even his mouth was sealed.

Green Toad: “??!”

Wait, he was the victim! Why was he the one being tied up?

He struggled violently, eyes bulging wide, trying to signal to this powerful group of Bureau members that they’d got the wrong target!

But Bi Fang calmly averted his gaze and asked the Taoist priests, “Did this toad cause any damage during the incident?”

“...” The green toad instantly stopped squirming.

He quietly pulled in his limbs, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Bi Fang noticed this out of the corner of his eye, and his heart sank a little.

Though the Special Incident Handling Bureau roamed freely through the three realms and didn’t technically belong to any one faction, with the decline of the divine race, most of its members now were divine beasts—so their decisions tended to lean slightly in favor of the demon race.Because the ancestors of the demon race are extremely protective of their own, most of the time, as long as the offense doesn't cross a bottom line, they unconditionally shield their members.

For the sake of peace in the Three Realms, the Special Incident Handling Bureau had no choice but to step in and handle such matters on behalf of the demon race.

Simply put, compensation had to come out of their own pockets.

No beast was willing to take on such unlucky tasks, so they had delayed a bit on the way. It was only when they heard that demons were involved that they abandoned their transport and rushed over directly.

Looking at the now-ruined third-floor room, Bi Fang estimated the damage and couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain.

If this was caused by the green toad, how much would they have to pay?

It could cost them years of salary.

Luckily, the Daoists quickly explained that it was the Asura who caused the destruction in that room and that it had little to do with the green toad.

“But…” Daoist Qian changed the subject, seemingly hesitant to continue.

Just as he hesitated over whether to include the losses suffered by Director Yan Xingwei’s film crew, Zhu Chu straightforwardly spoke up for him: “But this Brother Toad did cause trouble while the crew was filming.”

Bi Fang’s recently calmed heart immediately tensed up again: “What happened?”

Zhu Chu angrily replied, “Director Yan scraped together all his savings, finally hired a few actors and rented a location. He just wanted to finish one last movie, to stand firm at his final post. But because of all the supernatural events this guy stirred up, they’ve already been delayed for a long time!”

The divine beasts all turned to look at Yan Xingwei in surprise—“Final post”?

Yan Xingwei: “……”

That’s a bit too tragic.

Although if he still couldn’t succeed this time, it was true he wouldn’t have the money to keep making films freely, as he wanted.

But people were still willing to hire him to make low-budget commercial films!

The divine beasts looked at his expression and knew Zhu Chu wasn’t lying. Their expressions instantly turned serious. “Movie? You mean the kind that gets broadcast all over the country?”

“Of course!” Zhu Chu nodded firmly. “Back in the day, Director Yan was famous at home and abroad. His movies even won international awards—tens of billions of people around the world have seen them!”

Bi Fang instantly realized the gravity of the situation.

Even Chongming and Qilin, who had been pretending to be invisible until now, became serious. They even glared coldly at the green toad.

The realms of humans, ghosts, and demons had always tacitly maintained a principle of mutual non-interference—just as ghosts couldn’t appear openly before people, demons too were forbidden from revealing their identities while walking among humans.

This consensus had preserved a delicate balance for nearly ten thousand years. People in the human world now barely believed in the existence of ghosts, let alone the demon race.

What’s more, with the demon race’s resurgence and aggressive assault, this was no time for any mistakes.

If the green toad’s actions triggered chaos in the Three Realms and gave the demon race an opening to exploit, not only would they be in trouble—even the Demon King might want to personally tear this green toad to pieces and feed him to the dogs!

The Special Incident Handling Bureau, which roamed the Three Realms, knew far more than any single race and was more familiar with human methods of dealing with such matters.

Even if the balance of the Three Realms was ultimately destined to collapse, it should not happen in such a reckless and direct way!Bi Fang immediately declared, “What else has he done? If the impact is truly far-reaching, rest assured—we’ll erase his spiritual intelligence and revert him to his original form to start cultivation anew.”

Green Toad: “?!!”

The Green Toad instantly rebelled.

For a spirit beast, being reverted to original form and having spiritual intelligence erased is basically equivalent to reincarnation. Without spiritual intelligence, all past memories—including cultivation knowledge—would be lost!

He had gained awareness so muddle-headedly back then, even he didn’t know how he ended up on the cultivation path.

With such a lucky, once-in-a-lifetime journey to become a spirit, who knew if he could even succeed a second time!

He urgently croaked twice, trying to defend himself—he hadn’t done anything outrageous!

But all it did was make the Demon-Binding Rope tighten around him even more, to the point where his mouth was nearly split in two, and he couldn’t get a word out.

Bi Fang was clearly serious. After finishing his statement, he swiftly used divine sense to scan the entire inn. When he sensed the presence of other yokai besides the Green Toad, his heart trembled.

Zhongming’s gaze was like lightning. He immediately glared at the Green Toad. “You actually have accomplices?!”

Green Toad: “...Croak!!”

This was slander against a good toad!!

From the moment he gained intelligence until now, he’d never interacted with other spirits. His only companion was Princess Xixi, who had visited him since he was young.

Where would he get accomplices!?

He frantically blinked at Bi Fang and the others, trying to prove his innocence.

But Bi Fang didn’t believe him at all. He directly pointed out the identities of the spirit beasts: “Three dog demons, one snake demon, one rabbit spirit… So many spirit beasts gathered here—if not because of you, do you think it’s because of these Taoist priests? What more do you have to say?!”

The Taoists: “……”

Green Toad: “……”

Even Zhu Chu was briefly stunned, thinking, why does that lineup sound so much like the group of yokai employees they’d sent to audition?

Facing the hard-to-explain stares from the Taoist priests and the accusatory eyes of the Green Toad, he finally came to his senses. Before Zhongming could rush over to drag out those “remnants,” he hurriedly stopped him: “W-wait! There might be some misunderstanding here!”

Zhongming paused. Bi Fang and Qilin turned back to him in confusion.

Wasn’t it this senior disciple of the Xiaoyao Sect who just said the Green Toad was guilty and needed strict punishment?

What misunderstanding could there be?

But then, aside from the Xiaoyao Sect’s second disciple, the rest—including master and disciples and the Taoist Association members—all had strange expressions. Several old Taoist priests even turned their eyes away, as if they couldn’t bear to watch what would happen next—

Zhu Chu: “Ahem, to tell the truth, those spirit beasts you mentioned didn’t actually gather here because of Brother Toad.”

Divine beasts: “?”

Zhu Chu’s voice got even smaller. The more he understood the metaphysics circle, the more he realized how ridiculous his previous actions had been, and now he lacked the confidence to even speak clearly: “They’re disciples of our Xiaoyao Sect… uh, sect-spirits?”

Divine beasts: “…………???”The Taoist priests silently turned their faces away under the gazes of the Special Incident Handling Bureau members.

Don’t look at them—this had nothing to do with them.

--

As expected of seasoned veterans, the divine beasts of the Special Incident Handling Bureau quickly recovered from their shock.

Only then did they finally understand what Zhu Qian had meant before departure when she said meaningfully, “Xiaoyao Sect, huh? Quite interesting.”

…This was way too “interesting.”

Dazedly pondering whether to blame the humans or the demons when a demon hired by a human revealed their identity in front of other humans, the divine beasts glanced at each other and silently agreed to pretend this whole incident had never happened.

This kind of dilemma was better left for Xiang Ting to resolve.

That said, aside from the few demons below, the issues faced by the film crew were indeed caused by the green toad.

In fact, the past ten years of Yan Xingwei’s constant setbacks in the film industry—from failed investments to disastrous shoots, and not a single complete film reaching the audience—were all due to the green toad acting under Xixi’s orders.

Blocking a genius who was supposed to lead the entire industry to new heights—the green toad's sin was very deep.

Fortunately, none of it was truly his intention. He only wanted his human companion to be happy. Even before the Heavenly Dao, the punishment wouldn’t be too severe.

Compared to causing chaos across the three realms, these sins were practically negligible.

Bi Fang immediately stated that all losses caused by the green toad would be compensated by the Special Incident Handling Bureau. If Yan Xingwei needed, they could even arrange someone to take care of the troubles Xixi’s company was bringing him.

At first, Yan Xingwei was a bit unhappy. Though this movie had been full of difficulties and lacked many satisfying scenes, they had already filmed so much. Starting over now—wasn’t that a joke?

Just the foggy mountain scenery from the first few days was impossible to recreate.

The boss had said they were lucky—others might only get one perfect foggy day in years.

You couldn’t expect him to delay filming by years just because of a few wasted days’ costs.

But when he heard the second half of the sentence, he hesitated.

No one knew better than him what the past ten years had been like.

He was a newly rich director. Even though he’d made billions at the box office, his dislike for socializing meant he never gained access to the truly powerful. Xixi’s company wasn’t especially big, but with enough entertainment industry connections, it was enough to trap him in a cocoon, making any progress nearly impossible.

If he could truly get rid of Xixi’s suppression, then with his ability, rising back to the top wouldn’t be a problem.

He had that confidence.

So, after a moment of hesitation, Yan Xingwei asked, “You can really make Xixi stop suppressing me?”

Bi Fang nodded.

The Special Incident Handling Bureau did indeed have that capability.

Yan Xingwei’s expression softened. He thought for a moment and said politely, “In that case, I won’t ask you to compensate for more—just cover the expenses from these few days of lost work.”The people from the Bureau had been prepared for him to ask for an outrageous amount, but to their surprise, his demand was so low.

Chongming couldn’t help but glance at him again, nodding slightly.

Despite his unkempt appearance, Yan Xingwei’s gaze was firm and upright—clearly not the kind of person to push his luck.

The few divine beasts let out a sigh of relief and readily agreed.

They had originally thought it was just a low-budget film shot in some remote corner—how expensive could a few days’ delay really be? But then Zhu Chu made a phone call directly to Assistant Liu.

“Hello, Assistant Liu. Didn’t we say before that we’d invest in Director Yan’s film? What was our daily budget again?”

Bi Fang, who knew a bit about the entertainment industry: “……”

Director Yan: “!!!”

--

Asura and the Green Toad were both taken away by the Special Event Handling Bureau. The innkeeper was called up and was handed a large amount of compensation for no apparent reason. Later, when he learned that several rooms on the third floor of his inn had been blasted into rubble, he wasn’t even sure whether he should be angry.

Bi Fang and the others left in tears. The Green Toad, parting painfully from his beloved, was sobbing uncontrollably.

Among them, only Asura’s eyes remained dry.

His eyes had completely turned blood red, and his purple skin made him appear cold and terrifying. Flames of hatred flickered in his eyes—he swore to crush beneath his feet every person who had ever brought him humiliation!

But before the car even started, he was glanced at by a very disgruntled Bi Fang.

Bi Fang, staring at the glaring “0.00 yuan” on his phone screen, was annoyed at everything. When he saw Asura getting in the car still looking like that, he immediately scolded, “What are you doing just standing there? Turn into a human! If you scare someone out there, don’t expect it to end well for you!”

“Hmph.” Asura scoffed and had no intention of listening.

Just a mere Bi Fang—something not even ranked among the top ten divine beasts—dared to talk down to him.

If it hadn’t been for his bad luck today, encountering that strange young human, Bi Fang wouldn’t even have had the chance to talk to him!

He turned his head, trying to emphasize his unyielding pride—only to catch sight, at the edge of the third-floor ruins behind the car, of Ke Xingzhou watching him.

Ke Xingzhou’s expression was a mix of regret and eagerness—what a perfect punching bag for merit cultivation! Every hit gave him a decent boost and relieved stress. It was a real pity to let him go just like that.

Asura: “……”

His body trembled involuntarily. After a moment, he turned his head back stiffly, his form slowly changing—returning to the appearance he had used when chatting up Ke Xingzhou and the others earlier on Mount Insect.

Bi Fang saw him obediently transform into human form in the rearview mirror and felt a little awkward himself.

For some reason, even though everything had gone smoothly today, and even Asura, a demon, was behaving, Bi Fang felt vaguely uneasy—as if he’d stolen credit for someone else’s work.

He couldn’t figure out why, so he just blamed it all on the discomfort of being around demonic energy.

“Hey, suppress your demon aura too!” Bi Fang snapped. “You’re under arrest and still acting all arrogant—what, you think you’re Demon King Poxun or something?”

“You—!” Asura’s face darkened and he was about to retort, but the searing gaze from behind made him grit his teeth and finally suppress his demonic aura.

He was furious—but even after doing everything as he was told, Bi Fang still gave him a nitpicky look, with a faint trace of disdain in his eyes.Tsk, even high-level demons are this cowardly?

Really feel like getting into a fight.

Only when the car finally disappeared from view did Ke Xingzhou reluctantly take his eyes off the "merit punching bag" Asura.

The guest rooms were completely full, so the innkeeper reassigned them, and the end result was that the three disciples from the Xiaoyao Sect had to share one room.

When Nie Chen found out, his face turned so dark it was practically unwatchable, but in a remote mountain area, the power of money lost its usual effect. He could only follow Zhu Chu into the room with a face like still water.

His expression finally eased a little when he saw two single beds inside.

The next second, however, Zhu Chu happily pushed the two beds together, jumped on top, lay down in the middle, and called out to them: “Master, junior brother, come on! This way, all three of us can fit. I’m the senior brother, so I’ll sleep in the uneven middle spot. You two can sleep on the sides!”

Ke Xingzhou: “……”

Nie Chen: “…………”