Chapter Ninety-One: Herd Mentality (Celebrating the Book’s Release)

It genuinely surprised everyone that Yuegong Lingna dared to talk back to her superior.

As mentioned before, the girl was an absolute sweetheart, always smiling at everyone she met. She was not the sort of shrew who would openly pick a fight with management.

But soon enough, everyone seemed to understand why.

In nearly every respect, Xia Qingyu was her opposite. She greeted everyone with a cold, mocking face, as though she would be ill at ease unless she had something venomous to say.

If you were right, she stayed cold. If you were wrong, she sneered.

Chen Ziang, having prepared himself in advance, was doing all right for the moment. Several coworkers were already asking in the group chat where they could buy blood-pressure medicine.

“Good,” Xia Qingyu said icily. “And this is precisely why Nishikawa Mie has remained at large until now: because the officers hunting her down are a pack of useless fools.”

No one spoke. No one dared provoke the new leader.

But Xia Qingyu seemed dissatisfied with that as well, and called out:

“Chen Ziang, I see you have something to say.”

“No, no,” Chen Ziang said hastily, shaking his head. “What you said was absolutely right, Qingyu. We should reflect properly on ourselves.”

The next second, almost every coworker turned around and stared at him in disbelief.

“Um,” Chen Ziang said with a forced laugh, “Qingyu doesn’t like being called ‘leader.’”

“I see,” Lu Yunfeng said, stepping in to explain. “Then everyone can just call her—”

His voice cut off abruptly, because Xia Qingyu had already fixed him with a murderous glare, as though to say, “Go on, say it and see what happens.”

“In any case,” Xia Qingyu went on, “with your current abysmal efficiency, Division Five must recruit more personnel.”

“Indeed,” Chen Ziang echoed. “Shortage of manpower has always been a major problem, but qualified people are simply too scarce. Under our current screening standards, the pass rate for the first round is not even ten percent.”

“Oh? And what exactly is on this first-round test?” Xia Qingyu asked coldly. “Peeling bananas to throw at anomalies?”

“Ahem, the first round is purely a written exam,” Chen Ziang explained patiently. “Introduction to Abyss Studies, Identification of Common Anomalies, Psychological First Aid and Counseling, and Folklore Studies and Taboos. Applicants have a morning to read the materials, then take an open-book test in the afternoon... Most applicants with no prior contact with the supernatural collapse during the morning reading session alone, unable to withstand the sudden surge in their clairvoyance.”

“The recruitment system needs to be redesigned,” Xia Qingyu said flatly. “We can discuss the rest later.”

“Agreed,” Chen Ziang said, and quickly shut up.

Xia Qingyu gave him a contemptuous look that seemed to say, Who exactly do you think you are? Then she continued:

“How was the system for assigning cases arranged before?”

“The section chief assigned them,” Chen Ziang said after scanning the room and seeing that no one else was willing to answer, while the beautiful new boss kept staring at him.

“Oh, the section chief assigned them,” Xia Qingyu said with a cold laugh. “So it was all done behind closed doors.”

“Of course,” Chen Ziang replied. “He was the section chief, after all.”

“Classic herd mentality,” Xia Qingyu said scornfully. “You instinctively obey the alpha’s orders, regardless of whether they make sense.”

“Qingyu, I need to point out one thing,” Chen Ziang said carefully. “You’re the boss here.”

“Get out!” Xia Qingyu snapped.

Chen Ziang sighed and rose to leave the conference room... Wait. Why did this scene feel so familiar?

Only after he left the room did he finally remember: last time, when Masaba Nagayoshi had demanded that the sealed items be turned over to public ownership, he had led the refusal and been suspended and kicked out for it.

Chen Ziang, oh Chen Ziang. Weren’t you supposed to be honest and obedient? Why were you picking a fight with management again?

Back at his desk, Yuegong Lingna looked at him in surprise and asked:

“Is the meeting over?”

“No,” Chen Ziang said listlessly. “I said the wrong thing and got thrown out.”

“Not surprising,” Yuegong Lingna said with a nod. “That woman is obviously no good. Senior, you’d better stay far away from her from now on.”

Chen Ziang was still mired in regret over not having kept his head down around management, so when he heard this he sighed and said:

“Lingna, didn’t you say you don’t badmouth people behind their backs?”

“Yes,” Yuegong Lingna said earnestly. “I didn’t badmouth her behind her back. I insulted her to her face in the conference room.”

“You know what happens when you insult your boss at work... never mind,” Chen Ziang said in self-mockery. “We’re supernaturals, anyway. The whole point is to live beyond the constraints of ordinary social rules.”

“Exactly,” Yuegong Lingna said with a bright smile. “The stronger your abilities, the better life gets. That’s reality.”

Chen Ziang opened his computer, then suddenly remembered the favor he had promised Takano Seiko earlier.

He searched through his contacts and quickly found a friend he hadn’t spoken to in a long time. “Friend” was really too generous a word; he was just a coworker he had met while on duty, someone who also worked in the public security system.

“Takeda, are you still working at the North Sea District Police Station?”

It took a while before the other side replied:

“Yeah. What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask about that incident at North Sea University where a male student jumped to his death,” Chen Ziang typed. “Of course, only if it doesn’t involve classified information. If it does, forget it.”

“Stuff like that can’t possibly be classified, can it?” Takeda replied quickly. “There wasn’t much to it. The guy was suspected of taking covert photos under women’s skirts, and then he couldn’t handle the public pressure, so he jumped.”

“So it really happened?” Chen Ziang asked.

“Hard to say,” Takeda said. “We didn’t find any photos like that on his phone, but we can’t rule out that he deleted them afterward.”

“Deleted data on a phone can be recovered by forensics, right?” Chen Ziang asked uncertainly.

“Sure,” Takeda replied. “But why bother? The forensics section is already swamped.”

“If the case is already closed, you could send it over anyway,” Chen Ziang replied. “I’ll arrange for someone on my end to examine it. If there’s any new information, I’ll let you know.”

“The case has already been closed,” Takeda said, sounding hesitant. After a pause, he added, “Still, I wouldn’t recommend wading into this mess. You know the people involved came from the Women’s Mutual Aid Society, right?”

“I do. Why?”

“Why do we recommend that people report sexual harassment to us first?” Takeda typed back at once. “Because only public security officers have the ability to determine what’s really going on.”

“Contacting so-called ‘victims’ privately, making no investigation or judgment, believing their side of the story outright, and then taking the victim to confront the suspect under threat, or stirring up public opinion online—what exactly is that supposed to be?”

“If you think we’re too slow handling cases, then every case is like that. Every day we deal with endless reports of stolen bicycles, noise complaints from upstairs neighbors, drunken brawls, and the like. Everyone else waits in line honestly, so why should sexual-harassment cases get top priority? And if they aren’t resolved quickly enough, you think you can just take matters into your own hands?”

“Takeda, you really can’t go around saying things like that,” Chen Ziang said at once, hearing the obvious frustration in his voice. “If someone screenshots that and posts it online, it’ll be a nightmare.”

“I’ve only ever complained about this to you,” the other man replied with a joke of his own. “If it gets posted, I’ll delete you from my friends list.”

“In any case, all I can say is that their intentions were good. They wanted to help victims. But I absolutely do not support them investigating, judging, or even interrogating people on their own. It only makes trouble for us. As for this case, actually it’s—”

“Senior, what are you looking at?” Yuegong Lingna suddenly leaned over from the side.

“Nothing. Just something Takano-san asked me to look into last time, and I was asking about it by the way,” Chen Ziang said, keeping his eyes on the screen.