The Supervisory Heavenly Office

When Li Huowang picked up the torture implements again, Han Fu’s Nascent Soul was genuinely terrified.

“No! No, no, no!!” The tiny head strained backward in fear, its mouth scrambling for anything to redirect his attention.

“I really don’t know that much about the Zuowandao! If you want to deal with them, go find the Supervisory Heavenly Office! They definitely know plenty about the Zuowandao.”

“The Supervisory Heavenly Office?” Li Huowang set the instruments down, studying the creature thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the imperial bureau that handles supernatural threats? They know a lot about the Zuowandao?”

The Nascent Soul nodded frantically. “Mm-hmm! They’re sworn enemies!! The Zuowandao—wherever they show up, the Supervisory Heavenly Office runs them out.”

“Especially over two hundred years ago, when the Zuowandao swapped out the emperor of Dongxia and let him wreck the entire country until it fell! After that, the Supervisory Heavenly Office took them very seriously!”

“And on matters of dealing with the Zuowandao, the offices in Qingqiu, Daliang, Siqi, and Sichuan are all united! They don’t hoard information! They’re bound to know something!”

“Oh? Is that so.” Li Huowang sat back down on the stool and began to mull it over.

“If North Wind is one of the Four Joys of the Zuowandao, and these two sides are long-time enemies, then the Supervisory Heavenly Office must have gathered intelligence on their old adversary. Maybe I really can find out North Wind’s true nature from them.”

Li Huowang wasn’t expecting to find North Wind directly and force him to reveal how to escape Bewilderment.

First, he needed to ascertain whether this statement—that North Wind was a Heart-Element who had managed to shed Bewilderment—was even true.

He desperately wanted it to be true. But he hadn’t forgotten that the words came from a Zuowandao’s mouth.

Before taking any action, he had to verify this premise. Otherwise, he’d just let a dead Zuowandao trick him one more time.

Only if North Wind really was a Heart-Element, and truly had a way out of Bewilderment, would he have a clear direction forward.

“Supervisory Heavenly Office… Supervisory Heavenly Office…” Li Huowang murmured to himself for a long while before his gaze refocused on the malformed face of the Nascent Soul in front of him.

“Tell me everything you know about the Supervisory Heavenly Office. Take your time. Remember it carefully. The more detail, the less pain.”

Through Han Fu’s Nascent Soul, Li Huowang learned that the Supervisory Heavenly Office was, in essence, an organization that helped those in power handle problems the military couldn’t deal with—major city-dwelling evil spirits, and various other nuisances.

And of course, the Zuowandao, who delighted in throwing the world into chaos, received their highest priority.

“Is it only the Zuowandao? What about the Ao-Jing Sect and Zhengde Temple and the like? Don’t they care about those?” Li Huowang asked again.

Hearing this, a flicker of confusion crossed the Nascent Soul’s single eye. “Why would they care? They’re legitimate, orthodox sects.”

“Bullshit! How could they possibly be orthodox? They—! They—!” Li Huowang stopped mid-sentence. He cupped his chin, thinking hard, and then realized with absurd clarity that the Nascent Soul was right. There was no need to intervene.

One group was cultivators who tortured only themselves. The other was monks who had, at worst, broken their vows of celibacy. No matter how extreme they were, they caused trouble only within their own walls. They didn’t threaten the ruler’s grip on the nation. And Zhengde Temple had been built right inside the capital—a fact that spoke volumes about its standing in certain eyes.

He didn’t believe the emperor of that same city was unaware of Zhengde Temple’s “son-granting” charity. Since he hadn’t intervened, that meant he tacitly approved.

Li Huowang had always thought those two groups were nothing but cults. But after everything he had encountered since then, he had come to realize: when it came to causing harm, they couldn’t even compare to the bandits who robbed travelers on the road, or the river pirates who forced people to eat “boiled knife-cut noodles” and “wonton soup.”

And that wasn’t even mentioning Anci Nunnery. Compared to everything else, a bunch of filthy nuns who embodied every form of greed, anger, and ignorance might as well have been living bodhisattvas glowing with Buddhist light.

“What about your Luo Sect, then? You’ve killed plenty of people. Doesn’t the Supervisory Heavenly Office come after you?” Li Huowang pulled out the nineteen Yang Life Pills and lined them up in a row in front of the Nascent Soul.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be, but as long as a cultivator cultivates normally and only kills a few people here and there—as long as he doesn’t offend any high officials or nobles—the Supervisory Heavenly Office turns a blind eye.”

“Heh.” Li Huowang’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, isn’t the Supervisory Heavenly Office just doing its job diligently.”

The Nascent Soul caught the sarcasm and explained, “Actually, it’s not like we’re cats and mice. The Supervisory Heavenly Office also uses disciples from various sects to handle tasks. Some of my senior brothers have worked for them before.”

Through this explanation, Li Huowang came to understand that the Supervisory Heavenly Office operated on a principle of lenient external control and strict internal discipline. The people on the outer fringes were loose cultivators like Han Fu.

They cast a wide net for these people. As long as they could solve the problem, any method was acceptable. Sometimes, neither side even needed to meet face-to-face.

These people’s real enemies were the Zuowandao—who would never rest until the world was in chaos—along with certain extremely dangerous evil entities. But above all, their most important mission was to deal with Heavenly Calamities.

“Wait. What did you say? Heavenly Calamities!?”

The moment he heard that word, Li Huowang’s guard shot up. He himself had already experienced two Heavenly Calamities: the disappearance of rot, which he had witnessed firsthand, and the disappearance of deception, which he had learned about from Han Fu.

And dealing with Heavenly Calamities was the Supervisory Heavenly Office’s most important duty.

Abruptly, Li Huowang slapped his own forehead in frustration. Just from the name alone—Supervisory Heavenly Office—he should have guessed that the organization was probably founded precisely to handle Heavenly Calamities.

Yet such an obvious conclusion had only now dawned on him.

“So how does the Supervisory Heavenly Office deal with Heavenly Calamities? How do they make them go away?” Li Huowang pressed the Nascent Soul again. He was genuinely curious about what exactly was happening to this insane world.

“How they deal with them—I really don’t know! I’m not part of the Supervisory Heavenly Office! I’m not lying to you!”

Li Huowang wasn’t the least bit surprised by this answer. It was already impressive that the creature knew this much.

“Fellow Daoist Li, you do have Han Fu’s Seven-Star Sword, don’t you?”

The Nascent Soul’s voice made Li Huowang look up from his thoughts. “Seven-Star Sword? You mean that bronze coin sword?”

“Yes! Let me tell you, that thing is a treasure! That Seven-Star Sword was personally crafted by our master using one hundred and eighty-four ancient coins, forged at the hour of noon on the noon day of the noon month in the Year of the Monkey, during the Eight Nodes and the Three Prime Days! It can disperse the earth energy of the Two Blacks and the Five Yellows, and has the power to dissolve evil and drive away malevolence!”