Chapter Seven: Reattaching the Leg First

Like most libraries, the City Library was routinely closed on Mondays. However, this only meant that the reader services desk was off; other departments still operated as on regular workdays.

The dull weekly meeting dragged on for nearly an hour. After everyone took turns delivering hollow summaries of last week’s work and plans for the coming week, the department manager called Fu Lan into his office.

“Are you feeling alright?” he asked, wearing a carefully measured expression of concern, while lighting a cigarette.

Fu Lan wrinkled his nose. “It’s nothing. I just missed breakfast that day and had low blood sugar. After resting for two days, I’m fine now. Thanks for your concern.”

“I heard the doctor recommended some tests afterward. Did they find anything?”

Fu Lan stared at the trembling ash on the cigarette and answered evenly, “Nothing wrong. Everything’s normal.”

“Alright then. Take better care of yourself. If you have any difficulties, don’t bear them alone—talk to me.”

The manager tapped off the ash and casually added, “I’ve noticed you’ve been handling quite a lot of work lately. I’m thinking of requesting an additional staff member from above. That way, if you need to take leave, someone can cover for you, and sharing the workload might ease your burden.”

Fu Lan didn’t argue, though he read the implication beneath the words.

After feigning casual responses and enduring some more pointless small talk with his superior, he was finally dismissed.

Outside the office, he took a deep breath of fresh air and returned to his workstation.

Aside from a few inquiries about his health from Xiao Liu, his colleagues barely paid him any more attention, which suited him fine.

Taking advantage of the Monday closure, Fu Lan carried out maintenance and inspections on all the book terminals throughout the building, as per regulations.

During work breaks, he found himself repeatedly checking his phone for updates from Shi Ningyu’s side. Yet she remained silent, which only deepened his anxiety.

In truth, besides the issue of raw material supply, they urgently needed to restore their severed sales channels.

Shi Ningyu had come under scrutiny from the Magic Affairs Bureau precisely because her previous downstream partner had been busted, nearly implicating her in the process.

She had originally suggested they split tasks and each handle one end of the product chain, but to her frustration, Fu Lan was completely ignorant of anything beyond refining the demon ember.

“You rushed in without proper preparation, diving headfirst into a field you knew nothing about?” Shi Ningyu lifted her youthful face, “That’s utterly immature.”

Fu Lan had no retort to the younger woman’s lecture. “I believe professional matters should be handled by professionals.”

“That doesn’t mean dumping everything on me. I can find raw materials and lead negotiations with the demon ember dealers, but you have to handle your own side. Besides, I don’t want to deal with your low-end products.”

Reluctantly, Fu Lan agreed.

Leaving everything to her alone was indeed unreasonable. Even the refining was handled by her; as partners, he couldn’t just provide a formula and wait to be paid.

Moreover, he instinctively regarded Shi Ningyu as a child. Despite their involvement in illicit business, he felt an obligation to look after her.

When it came to crimes involving magic, Fu Lan had little sense of the severity, having lived for over a decade as a fugitive.

He judged matters involving magic on his own terms, especially in recent years, when the Magic Affairs Bureau’s legislative push seemed impatient and shortsighted. Even setting aside his own position, he found it difficult to agree.

But the world cared not for objectivity or long-term considerations; it demanded what served the interests of the majority at the moment.

What pained him most was that children like Shi Ningyu deserved a better life.

It wasn’t until five o’clock that Shi Ningyu finally messaged, saying she had contacted a potential buyer and asked if Fu Lan was available to meet the next afternoon.

When he could only confirm after work, she couldn’t help but complain: “Do you have to go to that awful job?”

She sent the remark as a voice message, delivering quite a shock.

Fu Lan promptly lectured her on civility, only to be silenced by her retort, another voice message: “Cut the daddy act.”

She sounded upset, her voice like a wildcat hissing.

Fu Lan was baffled for a long while, unsure what had offended her—or whether she was simply venting.

He couldn’t help but sigh, realizing even his own adolescent child hadn’t been so difficult. It felt as if he owed some debt he never incurred.

He had once wished for a daughter—how fortunate that never came to pass.

The meeting was finally set for the evening after tomorrow. Imagining negotiating with a stranger in an illicit deal made Fu Lan hesitate.

He had never conducted business before, let alone illegal transactions. But the path was his choice, and he resolved to face it head-on.

Setting down his phone, a sudden realization struck him: had their roles been mistaken from the start?

He quickly packed up to leave work, only for the department manager to poke his head out and call him over.

“There’s a patriotic education exhibition for all the city’s primary and secondary schools this week. You need to set up and test the equipment in the first-floor auditorium. All subsequent lectures will use it.”

After such a long day, this was announced only just before leaving.

Fu Lan suppressed his rising irritation—he hated when his plans were interrupted so abruptly. But he simply nodded and followed orders.

Once the last-minute task was done, he finally went home and collapsed onto the sofa to calm himself.

Yet, unlike usual, he didn’t rest long before rising and heading to his study, fishing a USB drive from the corner of a drawer.

He admittedly lacked skill in sales, but perhaps he could approach the problem from another angle.

Shi Ningyu had told him many small-scale demon ember workshops struggled with supply bottlenecks.

There were very few stable sources of orb beasts; in some areas, only a single supplier served multiple counties.

Since magical beasts were unsuitable for conventional farming, most suppliers combined semi-captivity with trapping. The trapped portion was essentially stolen from patrols of the Magic Affairs Bureau, and the facilities required for breeding were beyond ordinary means.

When supplies ran tight, chefs had to catch stray orb beasts themselves in poorly monitored suburbs.

Because Shi Ningyu’s downstream partner was arrested, the boss who sold her orb beasts feared trouble and cut ties, forcing her to seek a new supplier.

She had been unhappy with that boss anyway.

Technically, he wasn’t even a proper supplier—just a middleman buying from day-hunters of orb dogs and reselling unstable stock. She had long wanted to find a better source.

Fu Lan’s thought after work was to revisit the habits of orb beasts and attempt self-sufficiency.

Their current demand was small but needed to be steady; perhaps breeding was a viable path. Besides, orb beasts weren’t perfect raw materials—other lower-grade magical beasts might also have value.

He wasn’t particularly interested in magical beasts, but years ago, someone close had studied them extensively, documenting their abilities and weaknesses to aid tactical planning.

He retrieved the USB containing those records and was about to close the drawer when something seemed off.

A certain old book in the drawer appeared to have been moved.

He wasn’t sure—only recently, when Fu Linxing and the others moved out, he had meticulously reorganized these things and placed the book in a new spot.

Unable to suppress his suspicions, Fu Lan opened the book Faust to the page he remembered.

He flipped back and forth, confirming his fears.

The illustration tucked inside the book was gone.