# 900
Chapter 901: Caretaker Laifu
Lin Qiye watched Sun Wukong and Gilgamesh leave and let out a long breath.
He had said everything that needed to be said, done everything he could do. As for whether subsequent events would develop according to his wishes, that was beyond his control.
After all, those were the Great Sage Equal to Heaven and the oldest heroic king in the world—their actions and thoughts could never be swayed by Lin Qiye. They would only act according to their own will.
Lin Qiye took a sip of tea, about to return to his office to rest, when he turned the corner of the corridor and saw Li Yifei leading a group of people out of the restroom.
"Oh? Qiye?"
When Li Yifei spotted Lin Qiye, he pulled down his mask and waved at him.
"Li Yifei?" Lin Qiye looked surprised. "Aren't you the Chief Steward? Why are you personally leading people to clean the bathrooms?"
Li Yifei raised an eyebrow. "I've been leading the cleaning department to clean bathrooms during this period. Wangcai wasn't you who transferred him out on official business?"
"When did I ever transfer Wangcai…"
Before he could finish, Lin Qiye froze in place.
Then, as if remembering something, his mouth dropped open involuntarily…
Oh no!
He had forgotten about this!
Without another word, Lin Qiye turned and sprinted back toward his office.
In the dim, narrow corridor, Lin Qiye in his white lab coat passed through the empty cells, hurrying forward.
He finally remembered why he hadn't seen Wangcai around the asylum recently.
After he had killed Lei Shen with the chopsticks Zhou Ping had given him, the latter's soul had been imprisoned in the asylum. To increase Lei Shen's fear value and turn him into a caretaker, he had specially assigned Wangcai as the specialist to terrorize Lei Shen…
So much time had passed, and there had been one situation after another in Great Xia, leaving Lin Qiye completely forgetting about this matter.
He wondered how Lei Shen was doing now?
It was a Divine-Level spirit artifact after all. It should be fine, right?
Lin Qiye quickened his pace to the cell where Lei Shen was held. The moment his gaze fell upon it, his entire body froze.
In the narrow cell, a deep blue kitten was curled up in the corner, its body noticeably thinner than before. There were traces of vomit at the corner of its mouth, its eyes gazing vacantly ahead—showing no despair or pain, only the hollow stupor left after a storm had passed.
And facing it, a dog dressed in a tailcoat was standing on its hind legs, pressing against the cell railing, swaying its body alluringly…
After staring at its bizarre and awkward dance for quite some time, Lin Qiye勉强 managed to identify that this dog seemed to be trying hard to pole dance.
It opened its mouth, panting heavily, its dog lips curled into a seductive expression, casting a flirtatious glance at the kitten in the corner.
The dazed deep blue kitten in the corner suddenly shuddered.
Its eyes rolled back, and it fainted neatly onto the ground, foaming at the mouth.
Lin Qiye: …
Lin Qiye grabbed Wangcai by the tailcoat that had somehow appeared on him and pulled him out of the cell without a word.
"Woof! Director, hello!" When Wangcai saw Lin Qiye, he barked.
"What have you been doing?" Lin Qiye glanced at the unconscious deep blue kitten in the cell and couldn't help but complain. "I told you to discipline it, not to murder it."
Wangcai blinked his eyes, seemingly not understanding the difference between discipline and murder.
Lin Qiye sighed and asked, "How long has it been like this?"
"What?"
"The foaming at the mouth, the fainting."
Wangcai thought for a moment. "At first it was about once a day, I suppose. Later the frequency decreased. Now it's about once every two or three days, but each time it stays unconscious for a whole day…"
Lin Qiye: …
Whatever methods Wangcai used didn't matter, as long as Lei Shen's fear value could be raised to the required 60. Otherwise, Lin Qiye would have to expend much more effort to turn it into a caretaker for the asylum.
Lin Qiye turned to look at the panel in the cell.
"Criminal: Lei Shen
Choice…
Current Fear Value: 673"
When Lin Qiye saw the red "673" on the panel, his mouth twitched uncontrollably.
He vaguely remembered that before Wangcai started "disciplining" Lei Shen, the fear value had only been in the twenties… During this time, what kind of inhuman torment had Lei Shen experienced?
Lin Qiye sighed and woke Lei Shen from its faint. The latter popped up from the ground immediately, quickly shrinking into the corner of the cell. It covered its eyes with its tiny paws, body curled into a ball, trembling involuntarily.
"Lei Shen." Lin Qiye called out.
Lei Shen startled. It raised its face full of terror and helplessness, staring blankly at Lin Qiye for a moment. Its eyes actually began to glisten with tears…
Seeing Lei Shen's miserable expression, Lin Qiye coughed awkwardly twice, cleared his throat, and slowly spoke:
"Now, you have two choices. Either you die, or…"
"Meeeoow—!!!"
"…you choose death?"
Lin Qiye's expression grew strange. Looking at Lei Shen's resolute gaze of seeking death, he fell silent for a moment before modifying the options. "Two choices. Either become my caretaker, or I'll lock that thing back in here for ten years…"
Lei Shen's body shuddered violently!
…
Two minutes later.
Wearing a deep cyan caretaker's uniform with a name tag on its chest, Lei Shen followed Lin Qiye out of the underground prison with an expression of total resignation.
Under Wangcai's drooling, foolishly grinning face, Lei Shen surrendered in less than half a second, obediently signing the indenture contract with Lin Qiye, becoming the Asylum of the Gods' Caretaker Number 432… and also the first Divine-Level caretaker here.
"Lei Shen… no, from now on I'll call you Laifu." Lin Qiye didn't even think about it, naturally giving this Japanese Divine Beast from Takamagahara a local Great Xia cat name.
"Do you know about Kujira?"
Hearing these two words, Laifu paused slightly and let out a weak meow.
Although Lei Shen itself was a Japanese Divine Beast and couldn't speak Chinese, after it became a caretaker of the Asylum of the Gods, it gained a mental link with Lin Qiye. Even without a common language, Lin Qiye could understand its meaning.
"You mean it's also a Divine Beast from Takamagahara, just like you?" Lin Qiye paused and asked again. "Do you know when it left Takamagahara?"
Laifu shook his head. "After I became the spirit of the Yata Mirror, I never returned to Takamagahara."
"What about the gods of Takamagahara? Didn't they come looking for you?"
"At the very beginning, Takechiyo-sama would come once a year to perform maintenance, observe the situation within the Human Enclosure, and collect faith power… But later, he just stopped coming."
"What about the other gods of Takamagahara?"
"They didn't appear either. It's like they vanished completely, abandoning this Human Enclosure."
"Vanished?" Lin Qiye frowned slightly. "When did this start?"
Laifu thought about it, speaking somewhat uncertainly. "Probably… around fifty or sixty years ago?"