I Am Your Natural Enemy

"This time, you were hit by a calamity you didn't deserve. Don't worry, I promise I'll get justice for you.

But I think there's definitely something more going on here.

The process of you being used as a sacrifice can't be a secret. No matter what, the Scorching Sun Department shouldn't have made such a rookie mistake.

Someone must've wanted to take advantage and use the Scorching Sun Department to get at you. I think it's definitely related to the things that happened to you before.

This isn't just a simple misunderstanding anymore.

They failed this time, but there's no doubt they'll try again next time."

"Ah..." Jiang Yanyan was startled, his eyes widening: "No way, right?"

"I'm going to call a couple friends over, let's talk this through, okay? One's a junior leader at the Scorching Sun Department, really valued right now, and the other's an expert from the civilian side, knows a lot. They can both give some advice."

"Oh, okay..." Jiang Yanyan was so shocked he didn't care about anything else anymore.

Wen Yan waved Feng Yao and Zhang Laoxi over, signaling for them to join.

Wen Yan repeated what was just said, and Feng Yao immediately frowned.

"In the West River Water System, people often build temples and offer sacrifices on their own. The whole water system is a mess.

Every village worships something different; it's common. After a few years, they'll switch to someone else. Totally normal.

Those who get a sliver of Water God's power from sacrifices but never receive formal recognition as Water God—there are countless cases like that.

I also used to think it was their intel lagging behind that led to mistakes like this."

Feng Yao took out his laptop and started typing rapidly.

Very quickly, he found some records in the Scorching Sun Department's internal database.

He even found public records online.

Three years ago, someone shot a brief, blurry video: a River Dolphin carrying a drowning child, all the way from the river to the bank.

It was in this very stretch of water.

And the Scorching Sun Department had access to even more detailed reports.

Last year, a scholar even published a paper discussing various branches and water sections of the West River, covering different sacrificial objects, different Water Gods, and their relationship to local drowning incidents.

Jiang Yanyan's area was specifically highlighted in the review.

For the past few years, while Jiang Yanyan was sacrificed to annually and gained a touch of Water God's power, in this waterway only a dozen kilometers long, there was just one recorded child drowning during the summer holiday high-risk period in five years.

And later, even that number dropped to zero.

Because five consecutive summer holidays without a single child drowning—that's a political achievement the local leadership could use to lord over all of Nanwu County.

So, that one case was heavily investigated and it was finally determined to be a homicide—someone drowned the kid and dumped the body in the river.

Jiang Yanyan, bearing a fraction of Water God's power, became the sacrificial object for this waterway in a clear and straightforward way.

To outsiders, it just looked like Jiang Yanyan would see a child fall into the water and take the initiative to save them, carrying them back to shore.

Over time, as this happened more and more, some of those children's families—wealthy or well-connected—would remember Jiang Yanyan's deeds and built a small riverside temple to honor him.

With local water safety education dialed in, and years of accident-free summers under his belt, every holiday season there would be parents with children who either came specially to worship or stopped by to offer prayers along the way.

During those two months, that little shrine burned with incense better than anywhere.

If the period hadn't been so short, there'd likely have been donations for a grander temple by now.

Other causes might have trouble getting official approval, but for Jiang Yanyan's shrine, the chances are hugely in his favor; the Scorching Sun Department definitely wouldn't block it.

The more Feng Yao read, the grimmer his face became.

Jiang Yanyan was properly registered inside the Scorching Sun Department records.

And Jiang Yanyan's territory did border the Water Ghost Domain, that's true. But last year's records show his influence hadn't yet extended into the Water Ghost Domain.

This year, the records show it has already extended over there.

The last time the records were updated was just three months ago.

And by coincidence, the internal staff member who updated it retired two months ago—records say they suddenly discovered they had late-stage liver cancer and died last month.

Seeing this, Feng Yao understood why such a massive blunder happened this time.

The reports really do record it this way. Plus, Jiang Yanyan's territory is indeed extremely close. In recent years, his domain has been expanding—from a few miles of waterway to over a dozen.

And with the whole West River water system in such chaos, nobody would think to question it much.

Also, in the Scorching Sun Department, sacrifices like this—without granted summoning talismans and formal recognition—are all classified as Wild Sacrifice cases.

If there's no threat, nobody bothers to care, but when things blow up, it's Heretic Rites—hit them hard and that's that.

No matter how many good deeds Jiang Yanyan's done, plenty of Wild Sacrifices that started well turned bad in the end—there are just too many, and no one really cares, so nobody thinks any of this is strange.

No one would stand up in defense of some unknown Wild Sacrifice, either.

Feng Yao looked over at Wen Yan.

"What do you think?"

"I think your Scorching Sun Department has been infiltrated so badly, it's like a sieve now."

"..." Feng Yao found himself unable to argue back.

"This is exactly why, even though you all are so short-handed, you've never fully opened up recruitment for Professionals from the general public.

That way, sure, your ability grows—but a lot of things become easier to deal with, too.