No One Was Victimized

As dusk approached, slanted sunlight spread from the far end of the city, leaking pale golden rays between the high-rises like a forest—but deep in the old city surrounded by those buildings, in places the sunlight could barely reach, the small alley had already fallen into dimness one step ahead. The lingering dampness and slight chill in the air felt out of place with the dry air outside the alley, and the ice shards rapidly melting and disappearing in the cracks between the bricks became a sort of “evidence,” proving that something unusual had happened in this quiet alley. Several fast-moving black shadows darted over the gaps between the buildings, as if weightless, and dropped down into a corner of the alley. Their edges quivered, quickly condensing into wolf-like shapes. These blurred-faced shadows prowled and sniffed around the alley for a while, then slowly gathered together. The leading shadow raised its head and let out a resounding howl at the sky: “Awoo...” “Thunk!” A stone accurately struck the shadow wolf on the head, violently smashing back the howl that had only just begun. Immediately after came a scolding from the shadows of the buildings: “Shut up! No howling in the city—and tacking a ‘woof’ onto the end won’t make it any better either! Humans aren’t fools. Nobody will believe you’re dogs!” The several wolves formed by the illusion immediately let out a few quiet whines and obediently backed away to the side. A slightly petite figure came walking over from not far away. She was a short-haired girl wearing a black short skirt and a dark red coat. A lock of hair on her forehead curled slightly upward. She looked no older than sixteen or seventeen, yet her expression was unusually calm and mature. She stepped out of the shadows, walked straight through the wolves with lowered heads, and then saw the male corpse lying by the road. A barely visible trace of gloom flashed across the girl’s face. She crouched beside the corpse and examined something. One wolf approached from the side and conveyed some information in a low, muddled growl. “...The smell of rain?” The girl frowned and looked up at the sky, which had been clear for the past two days. Although it was nearly dusk, the sky visible between the high-rises still looked clear and bright, without the slightest gloom. Only the sunlight was gradually dimming. After a moment, she seemed to understand something. She lowered her head again to confirm the horrifying wound on the male corpse and muttered, “...Rain, heart, frog stink...” At that moment, a phone ringtone suddenly came from the small bag at her waist, interrupting her muttering—the ringtone was the opening theme from the 1986 version of Journey to the West. The short-haired girl answered the phone before the monkey could perform its fourth somersault. “Hello, who...? Oh, right, it’s me.” She pressed the phone to her ear and waved a hand around, signaling the following wolves to guard the scene, then stood and walked a short distance away. “I’ve arrived. My wolves noticed something off here first... We didn’t catch it. Came up empty.” The girl sighed, her gaze falling on the unlucky corpse. “It was ‘rain.’ An entity ‘rain frog’ spawned with it. But this rain should have been only a local projection; its range of effect was just one person... Yes, very unlucky. A ‘rain’ that fell for only one person. By the time I arrived, it had already stopped. The depth here has already returned to L0, and the ‘rain’ has detached from the boundary zone.” The girl paused. The voice from the earpiece seemed to be giving instructions and asking questions. She listened patiently for a while, then glanced again at the corpse nearby. “...Medical personnel? Send someone to collect the body. How could an ordinary person survive an encounter with a ‘rain frog’ alone? His heart is gone... Tsk. I’ll stay here and watch. Don’t forget to bill the overtime separately.” Some middle-aged leader’s rambling came from the phone, but the girl had already lost patience. She gave a few perfunctory replies and hung up. Then she sighed again, walked back, beckoned to a wolf standing guard nearby to lie down, and sat directly on the wolf’s back. Propping her chin on her hands, she looked at Yu Sheng’s corpse. “Poor guy. I wonder if he has family, dying alone here... Sigh, I’ll keep you company for a while... Dying in ‘rain’ must be cold, right? Too bad I’m not that match girl; otherwise I could send you off warm...” The girl muttered to herself and waited patiently for the cleanup personnel to arrive. After a short while, she heard the roar of an engine from the direction of an intersection several dozen meters away—a noise that practically shook the earth, as if a heavy armored vehicle dragging a shipping container, burning firewood as it went, had come barreling over ten speed bumps in a row. Even the wolf beneath her butt was startled by the commotion and nearly jumped up—but with a person sitting on it, it didn’t. Then the girl looked toward the sound and saw a large van creaking and rattling its way over from the intersection. When it crossed the speed bump, it trembled as if it were the Soviet Union in 1991. The girl rose unhurriedly from the wolf’s back and watched expressionlessly as the large van crossed the speed bump and stalled. Then several burly men in black tactical suits, equipped with full high-tech gear and armed to the back teeth, jumped down from the vehicle and began pushing it from behind... Another middle-aged man, robust, with a slightly dark complexion and wearing a brown coat, got off the car. Behind him came a young woman in a white dress with brown shoulder-length hair. The two glanced back rather helplessly at the team members pushing the car, then turned and walked over. When the two came close, the short-haired girl finally could not help muttering: “Honestly, can’t your Second Team apply to the higher-ups for a new car? The Special Affairs Bureau shouldn’t be this hard up... I think the equipment on any one of your team members is enough to replace this wreck.” “Shh!” The robust middle-aged man quickly waved his hand at her words, lowered his voice, and glanced back at the stalled car and the subordinates pushing it. “Don’t say that... You don’t understand the situation. Our Special Affairs Bureau has special circumstances. The car is just in bad shape today. Replacing it is absolutely out of the question...” “Big organizations really do have a lot of troublesome matters.” The short-haired girl curled her lip, clearly not very interested in the topic, then turned to the petite woman in the white dress who had come with them. “Good afternoon, Doctor Lin. It’s been a while.” “You should say good evening, Little Red Riding Hood.” The white-dressed woman called Doctor Lin smiled faintly. Her lips were thin, giving her a restrained and reserved look. “How is the injury from last time?” “Almost healed,” the short-haired girl called Little Red Riding Hood said, flexing her right wrist. “You know, wolves generally recover fairly strongly...” “Human recovery is actually the strongest—it’s just that humans are always quite resistant to getting injured,” Doctor Lin corrected seriously. “...Oh,” the short-haired girl answered perfunctorily, then shifted the topic back to the corpse on the ground. “Let’s look here first. Victim, male, appears to be in his twenties. His heart was removed by a rain frog. Time of death is approximately two hours ago. I haven’t searched the body yet, so I’m not sure whether he carried ID... Right, to preserve the scene.” As she spoke, she glanced at Doctor Lin doubtfully. “You came all this way... Don’t tell me you’re planning to treat even someone like this? Can this even be treated?” “No, I’m not a god,” Doctor Lin shook her head, bending toward Yu Sheng’s corpse as she spoke. “I just came to take a look. My home is very close to here...” She examined the body for a while. Besides confirming the wound, she also checked the deceased’s belongings and found his ID. “The deceased’s name is Yu Sheng. Twenty-four years old. Registered address is No. 66 Wutong Road, Old Town,” she said, looking at the thin card that represented his identity and comparing it with the deceased’s appearance. “Captain Song, later use the Bureau’s equipment to look into it and see if we can contact his family.” The robust middle-aged man beside her grunted in acknowledgment. He also leaned in to glance at the ID in Doctor Lin’s hand and could not help frowning. “Why is the photo on this so blurry?” When Little Red Riding Hood heard that, she also leaned in curiously and looked at the ID found on the deceased. The portrait on the document looked as if it had been smeared with a layer of grayish-black stains. The entire face was obscured, and no details could be seen at all. Doctor Lin rubbed at the stains with her fingers and found she could not rub them clean at all. The stains were tougher than expected and almost covered the entire document. “I can’t even see the name clearly,” Little Red Riding Hood muttered. “I can’t make out the ID number either. You’ll have to take it back and read the chip with a machine...” The middle-aged man called Captain Song sighed rather helplessly and nodded. Looking at the remains on the ground, he said somewhat regretfully, “What a pity. If only we could find the victim’s ID... There are too few clues like this.” Doctor Lin also nodded regretfully. Looking at the bloodstains on the ground that had been washed by rainwater until almost no trace remained, she said, “...There isn’t even a body left. It will be very difficult to determine what happened at the time.” Little Red Riding Hood listened to the two of them talking and seemed to be quietly thinking about something. Then she suddenly raised her head and looked at the white-dressed woman beside her. “Good evening, Doctor Lin.” “Good evening, Little Red Riding Hood,” Doctor Lin smiled and greeted the short-haired girl. “How was the patrol?” Little Red Riding Hood looked around and reached out to stroke the head of the nearest wolf. “There was ‘rain’ here, and an entity ‘rain frog’ may have spawned, but no victim should have appeared.” Doctor Lin looked relieved. “That’s good.” The sound of an engine came from not far away. The battered large van chugged to life, and then the engine noise gradually evened out. Several armed agents who had been pushing the car earlier came panting around from behind the vehicle. The one in front walked over. “Captain Song, the car is running. We should...” The robust middle-aged man called Captain Song nodded and walked toward his team members. “All right, let’s head back to the Bureau. Oh, and don’t forget to bring Doctor Lin.”