Chapter 88: Higher Wages

But thinking about it carefully, this girl really never had any occasion to spend money. All the expenses of the detective agency were handled by Li Changqing, and her most recent 'extravagant' purchase had been for medicine for him.

Li Changqing half-joked, "Would you be interested in investing that money in a young and promising detective?"

"For example, we could use it to rent a bigger office, make our agency more professional, and surely we’d get more business."

Tang Xiaoyu eyed him warily and stepped back. "Don’t you dare even think about my money!"

"You’re so stingy. I was only imagining."

"No imagining, not even that!"

Just then there was a knock at the door. Li Changqing rose to open it, and Hu Xiong stood there, arms wrapped around a cardboard box filled with books.

"Come help me with this," he said.

Li Changqing took the box and set it down in the bedroom. Glancing over the books, he turned back. "That many?"

Tang Xiaoyu, seeing how out of breath Hu Xiong was, quickly poured him a cup of tea.

He downed it in one go and wiped the sweat from his brow. "Over fifty of them. They were just gathering dust at our place anyway, and no one reads them. So I brought them all over at once."

"If anything catches your interest, go through it quickly—you can only borrow them for a month. It’s not that I’m stingy, those are the rules."

These books covered all manner of topics: introductions to various monsters and evil beings, as well as Buddhism, the dark gods of the Lamela Empire, spellcasters, priestesses, and so forth.

To ordinary people, these books would be top secret, but Li Changqing could be considered half an insider, so long as he didn’t keep them permanently.

Looking at the boxful of books, Li Changqing realized these were exactly what he needed at the moment.

For once, this guy had actually come through.

After putting the books away, he sat beside Hu Xiong. "You’ve got time today? Have you finished dealing with Xia Ping’s case?"

Hu Xiong lit a cigarette. "That guy’s got no backbone. Old Bai hadn’t even started interrogating him, and he confessed everything already."

"The group behind him, the Morro Sect, worships a dark god called Juglas."

"The Morro Sect mainly operates within the Lamela Empire and rarely enters the Vermilion Bird Federation."

"But according to Xia Ping, the Morro Sect is secretly up to something. Quite a few of them have slipped into Nanlin City."

Hu Xiong considered himself lucky; if Li Changqing hadn’t stumbled upon this, the Thirty-Sixth Bureau might not have known until something major happened.

Li Changqing smiled. "So I’ve done a good deed, haven’t I? Isn’t the Thirty-Sixth Bureau going to reward me with some Lang coins?"

"You little money-grubber," Hu Xiong shot him a look, took a deep drag on his cigarette, and stubbed it out. "Get yourself together—I’ll take you somewhere tonight."

Get himself together?

Li Changqing teased, "What, are you taking me on a blind date?"

"You wish! I’m still single myself. If there’s a chance to go on a date, I’d take it first," Hu Xiong glared at him, then took out a yellow file and set it on the coffee table. "When I was getting the books for you, Director Zhang said he wanted to meet you."

"This is the official application to join the Thirty-Sixth Bureau. Fill it out and I’ll submit it for you."

Looking at the file, Li Changqing frowned slightly and took out the form inside.

Of course, it was just a formality; it all depended on whether or not Li Changqing was willing to officially join.

"Is the Thirty-Sixth Bureau really that short-staffed?"

He could sense something from this. Hu Xiong had invited him before, but hadn’t been nearly so eager.

Hu Xiong’s face grew serious, and he nodded. "Yes, there have been more and more strange incidents in Nanlin City lately. The Linjiang Dock incident, and now the Morro Sect from the Lamela Empire."

"And there are other minor cases, too. You know, Nanlin City has a population of five million. Even just the urban area is two million."

"We’ve always been desperate for talent in the Thirty-Sixth Bureau."

Li Changqing sat there studying the form, lost in thought, while Hu Xiong waited quietly for his answer.

"There must be quite a few people with spiritual power in Nanlin City. So why does the Thirty-Sixth Bureau have so few members? Have you not invited them, or did they refuse?"

"And if they refused, why is that?"

It was a crucial question—take Abbot Jinghui, for instance; surely there were others like him in the city.

"There are indeed many people with spiritual energy," Hu Xiong nodded. "But they’re well hidden. Nanlin City is huge, but it’s still rare to come across one. And even when we do, sometimes their temperament or beliefs just don’t suit the Bureau."

"You have spiritual energy, a sharp mind, and most importantly, I get along with you," he laughed.

Li Changqing understood. It wasn’t that the Bureau didn’t want to invite such people; it was just too hard to find them. He asked, "If I join, what do I get out of it?"

All that talk of fighting evil for the greater good did nothing for Li Changqing.

"The Thirty-Sixth Bureau can offer complete cultivation manuals—those are hard to come by," Hu Xiong lit another cigarette and said slowly, "According to our records, this world didn’t used to have spiritual energy."

"Then, five hundred years ago, a great earthquake struck. After that, monsters gradually appeared in the world."

"With the rise of monsters came people able to cultivate spiritual energy, and all sorts of cultivation techniques began to emerge."

"But most of those manuals are incomplete. You’d reach a dead end eventually."

For ordinary people hoping to cultivate, this was a huge draw.

But for Li Changqing, he barely had time to train in the Three Caverns Divine Talisman; how could he spare any for other techniques?

Seeing Li Changqing’s lack of interest, Hu Xiong thought for a moment and added, "You could try asking Director Zhang for a higher salary."

Li Changqing’s eyes lit up; now he was interested. "How much is considered higher?"

Hu Xiong cursed him inwardly for his greed—rare cultivation manuals were apparently less valuable than a pile of coins.

Still, it wasn’t a bad thing; better to love money than to love nothing at all.

"Fifty thousand Lang coins shouldn’t be a problem."

Fifty thousand? That was a considerable salary.

Yearly, that would be six hundred thousand.

Hu Xiong added, "Of course, when you don’t have any assignments, you’re free to run your detective agency."