Lily Smith let out a light laugh and said, “The Kyoto Yokai Affairs Institute is one of the three palaces, six institutes, and seventeen societies directly under the Ten Thousand Yokai Association. Its jurisdiction covers all yokai-related affairs in four provinces and two cities, including North City. It’s basically like the North City government’s functions, but expanded to an area twenty times larger. The yokai registration of the Ten Thousand Yokai Association is similar to a household registration, an ID card, or a social security account. Only with this can a yokai be considered to have an identity. Without a yokai registration card, you’re considered wild. Although the Ten Thousand Yokai Association doesn’t force yokai to register, any yokai without a registration card can be hunted, killed, or captured at will by human cultivators. Even if they’re caught as pets or slain as monsters, the Ten Thousand Yokai Association won’t interfere. This is a measure to protect yokai. Powerful yokai might not need it, but for weak or newborn yokai, not having a registration card means it’s really easy to die for no reason.”

“As for a guide…”

Lily Smith blinked and spoke softly and slowly: “It’s basically like a referrer and guarantor, and they also have to take on some responsibility for teaching new yokai. The Ten Thousand Yokai Association gives guides a certain compensation. For example, I want to upgrade my yokai registration card recently, so I really need this guide job to get a social rating from the association.”

Brian Carter said a bit indignantly, “I haven’t done anything bad. Why do human cultivators want to catch and kill me?”

Lily Smith giggled and said, “Humans kill pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, dogs, rabbits, all kinds of life… Is it because these lives did something wrong? It’s just because humans are at the top of the food chain on Earth! By the same logic, powerful yokai have eaten plenty of humans, and human cultivators can’t do anything about them either. If the Ten Thousand Yokai Association is strong enough, it can make agreements with human cultivators to protect registered yokai. In other countries, yokai organizations aren’t as strong as the Ten Thousand Yokai Association, so even if they join an organization, their country’s human cultivators will still hunt them. This kind of thing doesn’t need any reason—just depends on who’s stronger.”

Brian Carter was left speechless by the rebuttal. Other than his Black Light Wall-Passing Technique, he really didn’t have any combat skills. As a newly “initiated” yokai, he was genuinely afraid of running into some “monster-slaying” guy and getting killed just like that.

With Lily Smith recommending it so strongly, Brian Carter actually wanted to get a yokai registration. He hesitated a little and said, “But we’re in class right now, and we don’t have time to get a registration card, do we?”

Lily Smith smiled like a little fox, beaming as she said, “No worries! The Kyoto Yokai Affairs Institute is open twenty-four hours a day, no holidays. We can go after school.”

Brian Carter thought about it, then nodded and said, “I’ll leave it to you.”

A girl who was on good terms with Lily Carter had a slight smile at the corner of her mouth, but quickly put it away and seriously prepared for the next class. She was an exceptionally hardworking girl, making sure to use every class to the fullest. She glanced at her textbook for a while, and when she occasionally looked out the window, her expression suddenly became serious. She saw Brian Carter chatting with a girl, and they seemed quite close.

She was close to Lily Carter, so she also knew Brian Carter, the diligent pursuer, very well. Brian Carter usually never interacted with any girls, and that classmate named Lily Smith wasn’t sociable either, hardly talking to anyone in class. But when the two of them chatted, the closeness between them was clearly not just that of classmates, which made her very curious.

She thought to herself, “Lily Carter is such a beautiful girl, and Brian Carter is already falling for someone else? And Lily Smith is so plain-looking! I have to tell Lily Carter that Brian Carter is a two-timer. I can’t let Lily Carter be fooled by him!”

Brian Carter had no idea that his conversation with Lily Smith would be misunderstood and that someone was about to report him.

After chatting with Lily Smith for a while, the bell rang for class. He wandered back to the classroom and sat in his seat, but felt a bit of a tense atmosphere. Glancing to the side, he saw the girl closest to Lily Carter looking at him with a strange expression, and his heart sank a little. He thought for a while but couldn’t figure out how he might have offended her, muttering to himself, “It must be my imagination. She just happened to look over a couple of times…”

After comforting himself, the Chinese teacher walked in, so he stopped dwelling on it and started listening to the lesson attentively.

Lily Carter didn’t come to school in the morning, nor in the afternoon. She didn’t show up at all that day. Brian Carter was actually quite worried, even though he knew Lily Carter often participated in similar activities and this wasn’t the first time.

Brian Carter had never felt this way before, but somehow, he suddenly realized that his world and Lily Carter’s were a bit far apart.

Every time Brian Carter looked at Lily Carter’s empty seat, he felt a faint, subtle… sigh!

……

If Lily Carter had come to class, Brian Carter might have hesitated. Every day after school, he would shamelessly follow Lily Carter home, but since Lily Carter didn’t come to school, he didn’t have to make any more choices. After school in the afternoon, he met up with Lily Smith outside the school gate.

Lily Smith didn’t take him straight to the Kyoto Yokai Affairs Institute, but first dragged him to a hotel near the school, leaving Brian Carter a bit confused.