Was it Grandma...?
She dared not overthink. She inserted the key into the lock and quickly opened the door.
What met her eyes was a perfectly normal human room.
The front was a living room with comfortable sofas and a massive screen wall rivaling a cinema. The furnishings were modern and cozy, with no trace of demonic decor.
Further in was a sliding door with a half-glass panel. Grandma lay on a white hospital bed, eyes closed, with an IV drip in her arm. Two medical staff stood beside her.
The one in a white coat was the doctor. He wore a mask, held a notepad, and kept checking the devices around the bed. Behind him, a nurse was massaging Grandma's other arm.
Huangfu Jun's eyes stung. She tiptoed to the door. Sensing her arrival, the doctor looked up and met her gaze. He waved, indicating she didn't need to come in.
She stopped. The doctor returned his pen to his chest pocket, put away his documents, and stepped out.
Seeing Huangfu Jun, he removed his mask, revealing a man in his forties with an intelligent face.
He smiled. "Hello, I am Doctor Zheng Sijia from the Medical Department of the Human-Demon Co-governance Committee. You must be the family member, Huangfu Jun?"
Huangfu Jun quickly nodded, pulled out paper and pen, and wrote a rapid-fire series of questions, holding it up to Zheng Sijia: [Doctor Zheng, hello. What happened to my grandmother? She was fine when I left this morning. Is she sleeping or unconscious now? Was she drowsy when you picked her up?]
Zheng Sijia gave a kind smile, pressing his hands down gently to calm her. "Miss Huangfu, don't worry. Ms. Tang is fine. She was alert when we brought her. We performed a comprehensive check-up to develop a long-term treatment plan for her condition, and the medication we administered contains a mild sedative. Although we are exclusive doctors for the Human-Demon Co-governance Committee, we are all rigorously selected, licensed medical professionals. Please rest assured about our qualifications and abilities."
Learning that Grandma was safe, Huangfu Jun sighed in relief.
She wrote her most pressing question: [What did you say to convince her to move here?]
Zheng Sijia's eyes showed a hint of amusement. He put his mask back on. "The Monster Bureau sent someone disguised as you, claiming they were moving her into an employee welfare retirement home. That's how we got Ms. Tang here. I must say, Ms. Tang's observation skills are remarkable. She almost caught the impersonator's slip-ups several times. If the person sent by the bureau hadn't been sharp enough, this might have failed."
Huangfu Jun frowned deeply, pressing harder on the pen as she wrote: [What if my grandmother had refused?]
Zheng Sijia: "Nominally, the Monster Bureau is supervised by the Human-Demon Co-governance Committee, but even the Committee has no say in logistical matters. Of course, if not for your exceptional case, we wouldn't have had the chance to set foot here."
Huangfu Jun kept her expression neutral, but her heart tightened.
She felt that her entry into the Monster Bureau was not as simple as it seemed.
She wrote a probing line with a light tone: [My exceptional case must have caused the Committee a lot of trouble to get me successfully employed in the Monster Bureau, right?]
A glint flashed behind Zheng Sijia's glasses, masking a flicker of strangeness in his eyes. "It is my great honor to serve a once-in-a-millennium case like Miss Huangfu. Compared to the difficulties you faced entering the Monster Bureau, it's nothing at all."
Huangfu Jun was inwardly surprised.
Had there been difficulties entering the Monster Bureau? Aside from that strange hallucination, there had been none, right?
As if reading her question, Zheng Sijia raised an eyebrow in slight surprise and added, "Ordinary demons undergo three tests—good and evil, ability, and desire—before entering the bureau. Those who pass all three are one in ten thousand. The difficulty is naturally higher for exceptional cases."
Huangfu Jun was slightly alarmed. Zheng Sijia's expression held a hint of probing; he wasn't someone she could easily trust.
Grandma's "Tang's Workplace Strategies" said: "If the enemy doesn't move, I don't move. For someone probing your background with unclear intentions, be patient, watch for more moves until they reveal their true motives, then counter with questions and handle it gradually."
So she chose to smile and nod, showing gratitude for his care.
Zheng Sijia's eyes flickered, and his smile was warm enough to pierce through his mask. "You're welcome, Miss Huangfu. I'll do a final check on Ms. Tang later, and if everything is fine, we'll leave this barrier."
Huangfu Jun nodded.
Zheng Sijia nodded back, then returned to the bedroom, exchanged a few words with the nurse inside, seemed to confirm the patient's condition, and finally left.
As they vanished like a fading projection, Huangfu Jun walked to the door, opened it, and rushed to Grandma's bedside in two quick steps.
Hearing the noise, Tang Yaohe slowly opened her eyes.
"Bao'er? Are you okay?" Tang Yaohe reached out to her granddaughter anxiously, trying to sit up.
Huangfu Jun hurried to support her, but remembering Zheng Sijia's words, she took out her phone, typed a message, and used voice control: [Adjust the bed to sitting mode.]
The hospital bed automatically switched, propping up Grandma's back into a very comfortable reclining position.
Tang Yaohe's earlier anxiety melted away, replaced by curiosity as she patted her bed. "This bed is so advanced."
Huangfu Jun wrote more: [Grandma, this is a welfare benefit from my new job. The work is busy, and I didn't have time to tell you beforehand, so they moved you here. I hope it didn't scare you.]
Tang Yaohe's expression shifted slightly. She turned to look around the room, as if afraid of being watched.
Huangfu Jun understood. She quietly gripped the meal card in her pocket and was about to get up to lock the door.
As if reading her thoughts, a childish voice suddenly echoed in her mind: "Hello, this is Dormitory Management System, Director Zhang's No. 4 Mini-avatar. If you lock the door, the treatment room will revert to the Monster Bureau's domain, but there's still a risk of surveillance by the Co-governance Committee. So after locking, we need to notify Director Zhang to completely change the spatial magnetic field to evade the eyes and ears of the Committee and the Supervision Bureau."
Huangfu Jun's eyebrows twitched. She stood up, walked to the door, locked it, and replied mentally: "How do I notify Director Zhang?"
Zhang Yu No. 4 answered in a sweet, childish voice: "I can relay the message. One moment... done. All contact with the Human-Demon Co-governance Committee has been severed."
Huangfu Jun sighed in relief. This welfare benefit made her feel like a thief—no, like she was guarding against thieves. It was mentally exhausting.
She returned to the bedside and nodded to her grandmother, indicating the room was safe.
Tang Yaohe immediately stopped smiling, grabbed Huangfu Jun's hand, and pulled her closer, whispering, "Bao'er, I know the one who picked me up was fake. This new job is strange. I planned to tell you some things when I was near death, but since we've walked the Huangfu family's old path, you need to know earlier."
Huangfu Jun's expression turned serious.
The Huangfu family's old path? Did her half-demon blood come from her father's side, not her mother's?
Afraid of scaring her beloved granddaughter, Tang Yaohe gently patted Huangfu Jun's back. "You Huangfu children are not ordinary. You're all beautiful but weak. You can also see things that shouldn't exist."
Huangfu Jun's face was solemn.
So the 'yin-yang eyes' that could see demons were hereditary. Her awakened ability came from her ancestors.