Chapter 002

Chapter 2: No One Was Hurt

Dusk was coming. Slanting sunlight flowed in from The End Web and spilled between the forest of towers like pale gold. But deep in the Old City, in places the sun could not reach, the alleys had already fallen into dimness.

A damp chill hung in the air that did not match the dry air outside the alley, and tiny ice chips were melting fast into the cracks between the bricks. They were a kind of proof that something unusual had happened here.

Several black shapes flashed across gaps between buildings, then dropped to the alley corner as if weightless. Their edges trembled and quickly hardened into wolf shapes. The blurry faced shadows prowled and sniffed, then slowly gathered together. The leader lifted its head to the sky and let out a clear howl: “Awoo…”

“Bang!” A stone hit the Shadow Wolf square on the head and shoved the howl back down its throat, while a sharp voice snapped from the building’s shadow: “Quiet. No howling in the city, and don’t tack on a ‘woof’ either. Humans aren’t stupid. No one is going to think you’re dogs.”

The wolves formed from phantoms gave a few small whines and stepped aside like well trained guards. A small figure walked toward them.

It was a short haired girl in a black skirt and a dark red jacket. A lock of hair at her forehead curled up, and though she looked sixteen or seventeen, her expression was steady and mature. She walked out of the shadows, went straight past the wolves with their heads lowered, and saw the male corpse lying by the road.

A faint shadow crossed her face. She knelt by the body to check it, while one wolf stepped close and rumbled out information in a deep, muddled voice.

“The smell of recent rain?” She frowned and raised her head to the sky that had stayed clear the last two days. It was almost evening now, yet the slice of sky between the towers still looked clean and bright. No haze. Only the light was fading.

After a moment, she seemed to understand. She looked down again at the gaping wound in the man’s chest and muttered, “Rain, heart, the stink of a frog.”

Just then, a phone rang in the little pouch at her waist. The ringtone was the opening theme from the 1986 Journey to the West TV show.

She answered before the Monkey King could finish his fourth somersault.

“Hello, who is… oh, right, it’s me,” she said, holding the phone to her ear and waving a hand to tell the wolves to guard the scene. She stood and walked aside: “I’m here already. My wolves sensed something off here first. We didn’t catch it. Missed by a step.”

She sighed and looked at the unlucky body. “It was rain, and an Entity called Rain Frog formed with it. But this rain was only a local projection. The range hit one person only. Yes, very unlucky, a rain that fell for only one person. When I got here it had stopped. Depth has already reset to L0. The rain has detached from the Borderland.”

She paused. The voice in the earpiece asked questions and gave orders. She listened patiently, then glanced again at the body.

“Medical staff? Just send someone to collect the corpse. A normal person who meets a Rain Frog alone never survives. His heart is gone. I’ll keep watch here. Don’t forget to add overtime to the bill.”

A middle aged leader kept nagging on the phone, but her patience was done. She agreed to a few things and hung up.

She sighed again, called a wolf over, had it lie down, then sat on its back. Propping her chin in her hands, she looked at Yu Sheng’s body. “Poor guy. I wonder if you have family. Dying here alone… I’ll stay with you a bit. Dying in the rain must be cold, right? Shame I’m not the one from The Little Match Girl. Otherwise I could send you off warm.”

She spoke softly and waited for the cleanup team. After a while, the growl of an engine came from the street corner dozens of meters away. The sound was like an armored truck dragging a shipping container, burning firewood all the way while hitting ten speed bumps, enough to rattle the ground. Even the wolf under her flinched. It almost sprang up but remembered a person was sitting on it, so it did not.

She looked toward the sound and saw a big van creaking in from the corner. It shook over the speed bump like the Soviet Union in 1991.

Unhurried, she slid off the wolf’s back and watched without expression as the van lurched over the bump and died. Several burly men in black tactical suits, loaded with high tech gear from head to toe, jumped out and started pushing the van from behind.

A sturdy, dark skinned middle aged man in a brown jacket got out next. A young woman in a white dress with brown hair over her shoulders followed him. The two looked back at their men pushing the van with helpless faces, then turned and walked toward the girl.

When they got close, the short haired girl could not help muttering: “Seriously, can’t your Second Unit apply for a new vehicle? The Special Affairs Bureau can’t be that broke. I think the gear on any one of your guys could buy a better van than that.”

“Hush,” the sturdy man said at once, waving his hands and lowering his voice as he glanced back at the dead van and his men pushing it: “Don’t say that. You don’t know the situation. Our Special Affairs Bureau is special. The van is just having a bad day. We must not replace it.”

“Big organizations always have a lot of trouble,” the girl said with a small pout, clearly bored by the topic. She turned to the young woman in the white dress: “Good afternoon, Dr. Lin. Long time no see.”

“More like good evening, Little Red Riding Hood,” Dr. Lin said with a calm smile. Her thin lips made her look restrained and reserved. “How is that injury from last time?”

“Almost healed,” Little Red Riding Hood said, rolling her right wrist. “You know. A wolf’s recovery is usually pretty strong.”

“Humans recover best of all. They just hate getting hurt,” Dr. Lin said seriously.

“Oh,” the girl said, and steered the conversation back to the body on the ground: “Victim, male, looks in his twenties. A Rain Frog took his heart. Time of death is about two hours ago. I haven’t searched him yet, so not sure if he has ID on him. I waited to keep the scene clean.”

She looked at Dr. Lin with doubt: “You came all this way… are you planning to treat this? Can this be treated?”

“No. I’m not a god,” Dr. Lin said, bending to examine Yu Sheng’s body. “I just came to take a look. This is very close to my home.”

She checked the wound and then the man’s belongings, and found an Identification Card.

“The deceased is named Yu Sheng, twenty four years old, registered address is 66 Wutong Road in the Old City,” she said, comparing the thin card to the face. “Captain Song, use the bureau’s equipment later and try to contact his family.”

The sturdy man grunted and leaned closer to look at the card in Dr. Lin’s hand. He frowned: “Why is the photo so blurry?”

Little Red Riding Hood leaned in too, curious, and looked at the Identification Card they found on the man.

The photo looked smeared with a gray black stain. The whole face was smudged. No details at all.

Dr. Lin rubbed at the stain with her finger, but nothing came off. The grime was tougher than she expected and covered almost the whole card.

“Even the name is unreadable,” Little Red Riding Hood muttered. “The ID number too. You’ll have to take it back and have a machine read the chip.”

Captain Song sighed with helplessness, nodded, and looked at the pile of remains on the ground with regret: “What a pity. If only we could find the victim’s Identification Card. We have very few clues right now.”

Dr. Lin nodded with the same regret as she stared at the blood marks on the pavement, already washed almost clean by the rain: “Without even a corpse left behind, it will be very hard to learn what happened.”

Listening to them, Little Red Riding Hood seemed lost in thought. Then she suddenly looked up at the woman beside her: “Good evening, Dr. Lin.”

“Good evening, Little Red Riding Hood,” Dr. Lin said with a smile, greeting the short haired girl. “How is the patrol?”

Little Red Riding Hood looked around and stroked the head of the nearest wolf: “It rained here, and an Entity called Rain Frog may have formed, but there should be no victim.”

Dr. Lin’s face loosened in relief: “That is good.”

The engine coughed to life down the street. The battered van chugged, then the sound smoothed out. The armed officers who had been pushing it came around the back, breathing hard. Their lead man walked over: “Captain Song, the van started. Should we…”

Captain Song nodded and walked toward his team: “Alright, head back to the bureau. And do not forget to bring Dr. Lin.”