Yacheng, Beishan District, outskirts, 6:00 PM.
Outside a remote detached house, police tape had already been strung up. Several officers took shelter in the shade beneath the trees, occasionally glancing stealthily back toward the house. Seeing nothing, they sighed and quietly exchanged the rumors and gossip that had been circulating through the police station these past few days.
Restless anxiety.
Only the silhouette leaning against the doorway remained motionless from start to finish.
The biker jacket draped over her shoulders swayed gently in the wind. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, concealing their precise expression.
Standing conspicuously tall even among ordinary men, she cut a striking figure, yet the sharp, fierce aura radiating from her made anyone think twice before looking too closely.
"Sorry, Sister Wen, I'm late."
A young girl wearing a sun hat stepped out of a cab, carrying two cups of milk tea. Flashing her ID to the police, she strode openly past the cordon and walked toward the figure at the door.
"Got stuck in traffic. Word is there was almost a horrible accident—so close. I took a look at the scene: a truck that big, almost smashed right in..."
Tong Hua enthusiastically described the scene to her superior. "So you see, driving tired is a terrible idea! That driver was pinned to the ground and beaten by an auntie. If the patrol officers hadn't gotten there fast, she would've slapped his brains right out. Looked just like that dumbass from Squad One when you pinned him to the floor and beat him down last time..."
Unfortunately, the woman at the door showed no interest in joining the conversation. She merely cast a glance at Tong Hua's animated face and jerked her chin toward the interior.
"Done talking yet? Go check out the scene."
"Aw, Sister Wen, you're always so serious. I rushed over here straight from the last crime scene without resting for over a dozen hours, and I even brought you milk tea!"
Tong Hua put on an exaggerated show of grievance, then instantly perked up again. "Anyway, I recently learned gait analysis! Here, let me take a look..."
She pulled on gloves, stepped through the entrance, and looked down at the foyer in front of the living room. Her expression abruptly turned solemn. "Someone's been here."
"Oh?"
Wen Wen's expression tightened.
"Looks like a woman." Tong Hua squatted down, squinting at the footprints in the dust, and took two delicate sniffs. "Quite rare—about a meter ninety tall, roughly twenty-five years old. Ha, caught her! She even smoked a cigarette right here..."
"Was she smoking a White Star?" A genial curve formed at the corner of Wen Wen's lips.
Tong Hua turned back in shock. "How can you even tell the brand?!"
Her answer was a slap to the back of her head, nearly knocking her block off.
"That was fucking me!"
Wen Wen exploded in fury, pointing toward the living room. "Gait analysis, my ass! Why don't you just recite my driver's license number while you're at it? Inspect the crime scene properly for once!"
Tong Hua felt as if her skull had nearly been batted away. She didn't dare show off her newly acquired gait analysis while her team leader's temper was flaring, but she still couldn't help fretting internally: *The boss is so fierce, she's going to have a hard time finding a boyfriend...*
Still muttering inwardly, she raised her head toward the crime scene and couldn't help sighing.
"I just really didn't want to look at this."
Couldn't they swap in someone else?
A humid breeze blew in through the window. A layer of rustling dust had settled over the table. The lavish dinner sat untouched, flies and mosquitoes already buzzing around it.
And right beside the dining table, amid the carnage, five mangled corpses were strewn in disarray, torn to pieces, blood splattered violently.
It looked as though a wild beast had burst in and ripped them to shreds in an instant.
Elderly, child, man, woman...
In less than a minute, all dead.
Tong Hua reached out, pressing her hand against the severed head left on the table. She closed her eyes. An endless torrent of agonizing memories surged instantly into her brain, making her spasm involuntarily.
In the vision manifesting before her eyes, a blood-drenched silhouette crashed through the window and pounced toward the dining table.
Feasting ravenously.
Male, forty years old, crippled left hand, black tattoo on his face.
Eyes scarlet.
Then came the tearing agony, the horror of having viscera devoured alive, and the despair of losing everything, crashing over her in waves.
"Fourth one."
Tong Hua opened her eyes, suppressing the urge to vomit. "Not the same perpetrator as before..."
The fourth homicide committed by a Bloodthirst Syndrome patient in Yacheng this week.
Bloodthirst Syndrome—an eerie plague that had spread from the Central Plains.
Legend had it that one of the four great high priests of the Central Plains, the White King, had brought about this curse by forsaking the Chosen Path.
It was transmitted through bodily fluids, and its symptom was, quite literally... thirst for blood.
In the early stage of infection, patients would gradually experience an uncontrollable hunger and a craving for blood products. Once the illness entered its second stage, they would steadily lose their sanity. During this phase, their appetite would gradually turn toward living creatures, while their physical attributes were enhanced and their canines became prominent. Only when they lost interest in poultry and livestock and turned their eyes toward their own kind did it mark their official entry into the third stage...
"At least four already," Wen Wen murmured softly.
As the common saying went—when you spot a single cockroach in the house, it means there is at least an entire nest hidden where you can't see.
"We need to move faster," Tong Hua said. "If this keeps up, we might have patients reaching the fifth stage by next week."
The symptom of the fourth stage was organ mutation, a progressive descent into something inhuman. And by the fifth stage, the rapidly matured host would gain infectivity, capable of spreading Bloodthirst Syndrome to new victims.
"Our backyard is practically on fire," Tong Hua scratched her head. "What about the director? Still not back?"
"The unrest in the Quancheng Catacombs is escalating. Disasters might spill over at any moment. All the top brass across Haizhou have their eyes glued there; they won't have time to worry about us anytime soon."
To put it callously—compared to the terrifying prospect of catacombs overflowing and submerging a third of Haizhou, a few mad dogs spawned by Bloodthirst Syndrome didn't even count as an itch. They would have to take a back seat.
"Those bastards in Squad One act so smug and arrogant on regular days, but when it counts, they're utterly useless," Tong Hua sighed. "Any backup from the other teams?"
"Out of the seven teams in Squad Two, five are just waiting for a reckless rookie like me to screw up so they can carve up the Beishan team... We'll be lucky if they don't kick us while we're down."
Wen Wen lowered her head to light a White Star, then suddenly asked, "Want me to speak to Lu Shenzhou and get you transferred to another team? Save you from sinking with me on this leaky boat."
"Bullshit! Selling out the big boss—er, big sis—means getting shanked six ways to Sunday!"
Tong Hua hopped in distress, gesturing wildly toward heaven and earth. "I ride with you, you've gotta trust me!"
Her answer was another slap to the back of her head.
"You're an operative of the Security Bureau, not some teenage gang girl. What's this 'riding with' crap?"
Even so, a faint smile finally curled on that striking, austere face, barely noticeable through the curling smoke. "Found any leads?"
Tong Hua grinned. "Total rookie. Didn't cover his tracks at all. He stands out like someone running around stark naked in broad daylight."
"Good. Call up Old Zhang and Xiao An." Wen Wen wasted no more time and waved her hand. "You guys pursue this lead first. If anything happens, defer to Old Zhang."
"What about you?" Tong Hua asked, momentarily bewildered.
"I'm going to have a chat with some 'old friends.'"
Wen Wen finally smiled—bright and frank, though an irrepressible ferocity and malice steadily rose between her brows. "Who knows? I might turn up something new."
Yacheng, one of the nineteen great cities across the Seven Provinces of the Northern Federation.
And within its jurisdiction lay the Beishan District, the most chaotic and lawless of all, home to 4.1 million registered residents and over a million undocumented illegal migrants.
The gray industries were a murky cesspool where shadowy gangs and syndicates vied for power, swarming with countless vermin.
From west to east: Shenghe, Dongdi Society, White Strip Gang, Yiqi Clan...
Out of all this scum, surely some of them would have to provide an answer for this.
The throttle twisted.
The motorcycle engine roared, spewing thick smoke as it tore through the sea breeze.
To hell with rules and brotherhood—
If there's one, kill one; if there's a syndicate, butcher the whole damn lot!
***
Ji Jue felt that he had passed away quite peacefully.
For a fleeting moment, he truly believed he was dead. Yet the afterlife seemed no different from the world of the living, only much colder, and impossibly light.
Lost in dazed disorientation, he forgot where he was.
His soul seemed to ascend.
Detached from the mortal realm, far from the clamor, rising toward the heavens until all dust faded away.
As if soaring.
Looking down upon the earth, gazing out across the vault of heaven.
Yet upon breaking free from his physical shell, what greeted his eyes was no paradise, but rather an unmistakable... hell!
The earth was no longer stable; fire and mist churned across it as rift-like chasms spread outward. The sky was no longer whole, but shattered, collapsing, falling.
Like rain and falling meteors.
Scattered stars burned in the darkness, bursting with searing radiance.
And so the firmament burned to cinders, and the darkness scattered and fled. Once the boundless overcast was swept away like dust and haze, all that remained was infinite light.
Behind that sea of light, something seemed to be slowly emerging.
Indistinct silhouettes overlapped yet remained distinctly defined, like heavenly pillars propping up the world between earth and sky, yet appearing omnipresent, encompassing all creation within them.
One was like a solar wheel weeping blood; one was as vast as mountains and oceans; one was a throne woven of bone and gore; one shifted restlessly like flame and lightning; one soared ever upward beyond the reach of mortal things; one was square, imposing and stern like a fortress city; one radiated outward from the center, uninhibited and unbound by anything...
Choking for breath, Ji Jue threw his head back and looked up.
They—no, *These Beings*—
—were all watching him!
In that instant, a splitting headache struck Ji Jue. He felt as though his soul and consciousness would burn to ash beneath that gaze, pushed beyond their limits. The last thing he glimpsed was a blinding white light rushing toward his face.
Swallowing everything.
"Holy shit, Gen..."
Ji Jue sat bolt upright like a dying patient shocked back to life.
Inside his bedroom, he panted violently. Amid the silence, morning rain tapped against the windowpane. The only sound echoing slowly through the room was the ticking of antique clocks.
Faint chills drifted through the room, accompanied by an inescapable hint of mold.
Only after chugging down the cold water left from the day before did Ji Jue finally shake off that bizarre, lingering dream, returning to the realm of the living and remembering where he was.
This was his home.
Chapter 3