Chapter 9: Cultural Relics Become Spirits
A hole has appeared in the world's barrier.
Yan Shi looked up at the sky and almost lost his composure.
At this moment, a continuous stream of spirits flowed out from the inner world through the hole, causing utter chaos around the Summer Palace.
Inanimate objects becoming spirits, animals becoming demons, and obsessions becoming ghosts all require a spirit.
Because the spiritual energy in the surface world is scarce, spirits, monsters, and miasma lack the necessary conditions for their birth, and when they do appear, it is only because they are cultivated by someone with good intentions.
Now, with the influx of a large number of spirits, numerous anomalies have begun to appear around the Summer Palace, which is at its core.
Unlike the world of Hei, where everyone is full of martial virtue, the world of the surface is mostly made up of ordinary people who are helpless against the abnormal.
Without cultivating spiritual or magical power, it is extremely difficult for humans to awaken abilities on their own. Even if they do awaken them, they are not necessarily offensive abilities; for example, the nullification that Yan Shi casually mentioned is a support ability.
However, spirits and monsters possess powerful racial talents from birth. Lacking human empathy and moral boundaries, they will run rampant without restraint.
This would be a disaster.
"Chief, the patrol division has evacuated the crowd within the affected area and set up a cordon around the perimeter." Sheng Chunqiu walked quickly toward her.
The Summer Palace is the former imperial city of the old dynasty. Now, some areas are open to the public as tourist attractions. The surrounding area is almost entirely commercial streets, with no residential areas.
Fortunately, no civilians were injured or killed, especially since it was the middle of the night.
Yan Shi frowned: "How did the world barrier suddenly develop a vulnerability?"
The urgent overtime work was so challenging that it made her scalp tingle.
Sheng Chunqiu: "The Information Department is urgently reviewing historical data, but there are very few records related to the World Barrier, and the department also lacks relevant experience."
I understand. It's an urgent work task for which there are no precedents to follow.
Yan Shi: ...
"First, control the inflow of spirits and suppress the spread of the abnormal area." She slowly sorted out her thoughts. "What's the situation within the abnormal area now?"
"According to the preliminary statistics from the Investigation Department, there are currently two high-risk incidents: the Ghost Domain and the Shadow Demon. Teams A24 and A31 have been notified to accept the mission. The remaining monsters are being gradually brought under control, but..." Sheng Chunqiu hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.
"Um?"
“There are many cultural relics in the Summer Palace,” she said, carefully choosing her words. “You know, cultural relics all have some history, and if they become sentient, they lack spirit.”
Yan Shi stood in front of the main hall of the Summer Palace, remaining silent for a long time.
A bronze statue, about two people tall, rolled around in the open space, wailing loudly, "I don't want to go back! I've been in the cupboard for decades!"
"Do you know how I've survived?!" it sobbed, accusingly. "How could you be so heartless! To lock up a free-spirited bronze creature in such a place!"
As we all know, anything that's too big will lose sanity.
Sheng Chunqiu used his spiritual power to create a protective umbrella for Yan Shi, shielding him from the sand and dust splashed up as the bronze statue rolled back and forth.
“The concentration of spirits within the Summer Palace is now almost the same as in the underworld. There are a lot of artifacts that have become spirits, accounting for almost more than half of the total artifacts.” Sheng Chunqiu smiled wryly. “Although they are not aggressive, they basically do not want to return to the display cases.”
"And they were running around everywhere. The patrol team caught some of them, and they are still checking the number of cultural relics against the list provided by the Summer Palace Research Institute."
"It's hard to explain why half of the artifacts in the Summer Palace were missing overnight. There's nowhere to put so many artifacts that have become sentient. After all, they only have intelligence at the moment, and it will take a long time for them to take human form."
Yan Shi knew that Sheng Chunqiu hadn't mentioned that the patrol team would need to spend time and manpower to find all the sentient artifacts. If they ran to other parts of the surface world, there would be issues such as covering up the relevant personnel or dealing with any unusual events that might occur.
However, putting the sentient artifacts back in the display case is also going too far; the whole incident is a huge mess.
“Tell them that they can choose to spend their days in the display cases as work, and the Bureau of Exotic Affairs will pay them a certain amount of compensation based on their working hours,” Yan Shi said after thinking for a moment.
“If you don’t want this job,” she paused, “then just destroy it. The same goes for patrols searching for artifacts; if they encounter fierce resistance, just destroy it.”
The bronze statue seemed to have heard her words, and its tantrum gradually subsided.
“Anyway, artifacts that don’t accept the arrangements won’t be returned to the Summer Palace. Instead of wasting time dealing with them, let’s solve the problem at its source.” Yan Shi turned to Sheng Chunqiu, “Chunqiu, what do you think?”
“…Okay, I’ll notify the patrol team.” Sheng Chunqiu realized what was going on and replied, “Even the chief, there are powerful beings in the inner world whose artifacts have become sentient. What if they have any objections?”
“Shengchu,” Yanshi said, “the duty of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs is to maintain order.”
This is written on the first page of the handbook for all employees of the Foreign Affairs Bureau.
Although the artifacts in the Summer Palace may have come to life and are protesting on their own, disobeying the arrangements of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs can still be considered as disrupting the world order.
The world order is established for humanity. It protects all humans.
Yan Shi had doubts when he was reviewing the laws enforced by the Bureau of Alien Affairs. The entire law, especially the provisions applicable to the world, seemed reasonable, but in fact, every rule and clause protected the human race and restricted other races.
For example, humans in the surface world with cultivation talent will be contacted and admitted to the university in the inner world. However, spirits, monsters, and miasma will be marked as abnormal events and handled by the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs once they appear.
Those who have not harmed humans can be sent to the Inner World to continue their cultivation, depending on their impact on the event.
Anyone who has harmed humans will either serve at least a hundred years of hard labor in the Bureau of Alien Affairs prison or disappear from the world forever.
"I understand." Sheng Chunqiu lowered his eyes. "Director, the Security Department is already near the vulnerability."
Yan Shi nodded: "Let's go take a look too."
As you hurry from the Summer Palace to the leak, you can see many members of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs patrol team and investigation team rushing to deal with the abnormal events caused by the gathering of spiritual energy.
Working in the Executive Office of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs is actually very dangerous. According to reports from the General Administration, no more than 40% of the employees live to normal retirement age.
Most of them will die during abnormal event handling.
The Bureau of Different Management really has a strange sense of disconnect, Yan Shi thought to himself.
The Confidentiality Division, under the Information Department of the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs, is primarily responsible for the follow-up arrangements of abnormal events. For example, ordinary people who accidentally become involved may experience memory fading, or the curse within the ghost realm may slowly dissipate after the core of the ghost realm disappears.
When Yan Shi and Sheng Chunqiu arrived, the Secret Service was already setting up its defenses.
Because the impact of this incident was extremely serious, the person in charge of the deployment was Gui Gemu, the director of the Confidentiality Department.
The formation has two main purposes: first, to prevent spirits from continuing to flow into the surface world, using the formation to "weave" a net to catch the spirits leaking out of the inner world, like patching up the world barrier; second, to collect the excess spirits in the current abnormal area and condense them into spirit stones.
The array masters of the Secret Service were working on the array according to the assigned tasks in the array diagram, while Guigemu was adjusting the remaining array diagrams based on the effects of the parts that had already been completed.
Yan Shi stared at the complex array of colors and layers before him, and then everything went black.
What are all these things?
Her prolonged gaze seemed to have led Sheng Chunqiu to misunderstand something.
After observing for a while, Sheng Chunqiu said to Yan Shi, "This magic array can't be set up in less than five hours. The main problem is that the location of the world barrier is difficult to determine. It's said to cover the gaps in the barrier, but it actually covers all areas near the point of spiritual energy diffusion, so the efficiency is a bit low."
"Or what do you think?"
I don't understand anything, don't contact me.
Yan Shi fell silent, feeling as if he could perfectly embody the image of a desperate illiterate man.
"I need to patch the loopholes in the world barrier as soon as possible," Yan Shi muttered to himself.
As soon as he finished speaking, the hole in the sky slowly shrank, much to Sheng Chunqiu's astonishment.
Yan Shi: ...?!
Yan Shi was also stunned.
She didn't use any spells, and besides, aren't spells sometimes effective and sometimes not?!
A note from the author:
The previous text has been revised and some content has been added.
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