Urban Mysticism: The Office of Human Order

Shen Yan, an intern at the First Municipal Hospital, always carries two things in his backpack: a scalpel and a cinnabar talisman.

By day, he’s an ordinary doctor, stitching wounds and listening to patients’ hearts and complaints. At midnight, he slips into the hospital’s thirteenth floor with silver needles to channel energy into the vengeful ghost of a woman who died unjustly in childbirth ten years ago, using acupuncture to dispel her lingering obsession. It all began when his master handed him the “Order Division insignia” on his deathbed. Shen Yan is a hidden “specialist in handling anomalous incidents” in the modern city.

The world is never as simple as it seems. In alleys beyond the reach of surveillance cameras, a bar owner who is a shapeshifted nine-tailed fox demon uses illusions to deal with traffic police checking for drunk drivers. In the dark corners of encrypted networks, vampire nobles bid on “custom blood plasma” labeled by blood type. At a suburban veterinary clinic, the doctor tears off his white coat every full moon and transforms into a howling werewolf. The “Human Realm Order Division” is the hidden bond that holds it all together, ensuring that cultivators’ talismans don’t interfere with traffic lights and that the fangs of other races don’t frighten people walking home late.