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Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0005.txt | Prologue
IT WAS THE FIFTEENTH DAY of the seventh lunar month, and the sky was still dark.
Night owls large and small had already returned to their nests. At this time, even the busy streets of Dragon City had begun to empty. Only the occasional insect call emerged from the bushes—sometimes there, sometimes not, making you feel nervous and jumpy.
It was 2:30 a.m. Dew began to appear and the air grew moist, sticky with humidity.
Perhaps it was the wind that made it appear as if the shadow of something constantly hovered in corners. Walking down the street, it seemed like something was always behind you, staring.
It was at this hour that Guo Changcheng walked into the courtyard of 4 Bright Avenue, clutching his notice.
Guo Changcheng, having lost both of his parents at a young age, had been brought up by relatives. He had an unremarkable appearance, had stumbled through a third-rate university, and in terms of personality, was unsociable and cowardly. Unable to find a job after graduation, he had stayed at home doing nothing for the larger part of a year. Some time later, his second uncle, who'd begun to rise through the ranks in the Ministry of Public Security, had forged the necessary connections to find a useless job for his useless nephew, to at least give him something to do.
Guo Changcheng had assumed his future would involve wearing a uniform, parking himself in the gatehouse, making a pot of tea when he got there, working nine to five, and welcoming and bidding farewell to visitors…until this peculiar "Letter of Acceptance" arrived.
When Guo Changcheng first received it, he'd thought someone had made a mistake. In very official Communist-red print, it declared:
Comrade Guo Changcheng,
Congratulations on your acceptance into our department. Here you will enjoy the benefits of a State Civil Servant, while also bearing the weighty responsibility of serving the people. We hope that from this day forward, at this new job, you will be passionate about your work, respect your position, forge ahead with determination, obey your leaders, love and stand in unity with your colleagues, and contribute to the social stability and national prosperity of the country.
On August 31 (the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month) at 2:30 a.m., please bring your Resident Identity Card and this Letter of Acceptance and report to our department in a timely manner (Address: 4 Bright Avenue, first floor, HR Department).
On behalf of all the employees in our department, we welcome you as our good comrade.
People's Republic of China, Ministry of Public SecuritySpecial Investigations DepartmentX year, X month X day
Usually, when asked to report at such a bizarre time, a normal person would assume there was a typo and would at least call ahead to confirm. But Guo Changcheng had always been terrified of social interactions, and staying at home for more than half a year had given him a severe case of telephone phobia. As soon as he even thought about having to call someone, he felt so stressed that he couldn't sleep for nights on end.
He procrastinated in this way until midnight on the day of August 31, and he still hadn't made the call.
And so Guo Changcheng came up with an idea that he thought would be the best of both worlds: he decided to pull an all-nighter. At 2:30 a.m., he would go take a look. If no one was there, he would go to the nearby McDonald's and make do for the night. Then, at 2:30 p.m., he would go back. Either way, he would be there at the correct time.
In the middle of the night, all public transportation had stopped running. Guo Changcheng's only option was to drive himself. With much difficulty and the help of a GPS, he finally found the right place.
It turned out that 4 Bright Avenue wasn't right on a street but rather in a well-hidden courtyard. Guo Changcheng stood at the yard's gate and examined it closely for a long while before using his cell phone light to find the house number on a little plaque under the thick ivy. Below the building number, a tiny row of words carved into the rock said: Special Investigations Department. Under that was a Public Security logo.
The landscaping inside the courtyard was very well done. At the entrance was a parking lot, and when you walked in, there was a row of pagoda trees with leaves so thick and dense they resembled a small forest. Only a narrow path was left open. After Guo Changcheng passed through, he finally saw a little building that looked like the gatehouse.
There really was someone inside—the lights were still on. Through the window, Guo Changcheng saw a uniformed silhouette wearing a police hat, with a newspaper in hand. Once in a while, they flipped the page. Guo Changcheng took a deep breath, so nervous his hands were sweating. His empty brain didn't even have time to consider why the doorman was still at work at this hour.
"I'm here to report, this is my letter of acceptance. I'm here to report, this is my letter of acceptance. I'm here to report, this is my letter of acceptance."
Guo Changcheng mumbled to himself like he was reciting a textbook, the lines tumbling around and around in his mouth dozens of times. He finally gritted his teeth, walked over, and knocked shakily on the gatehouse window. Before the person within had fully looked up, Guo Changcheng said, in a breath as weak as thread, as if uttering his last words, "I-I'm here to acceptance… This is my letter of report…"
Confused, the middle-aged man in the gatehouse put down his newspaper and asked, "Huh?"
In spite of his efforts, he'd still managed to mangle his lines. Guo Changcheng wanted to cry, but he didn't have the tears. The stress turned his face into a purple sweet potato.
Mercifully, the man saw the letter of acceptance in his hand and immediately understood. "Oh… Oh! You're our new comrade, right? How should I address you? Oh, I see it! Xiao-Guo! We haven't had a new person in quite a few years. So, not easy finding this place, is it?"
Guo Changcheng finally let out the breath he had been holding. He loved people like this, warm and brimming with enthusiasm. As long as the other person's mouth was moving, he only had to nod or shake his head. No need to string words together.
"Let me tell you, you're in luck. It just so happens that our boss is here tonight as well. Come, I'll take you to meet him."
As soon as Guo Changcheng heard that, his hair stood on end. He didn't feel lucky at all—rather, he felt a puff of misfortune float up from his head like a ghost.
Guo Changcheng was good for nothing. Powerful people, such as bosses, were his greatest fear. Ever since childhood, the mere sight of a teacher made his calf cramp. If he saw the principal, even from twenty meters away, he would still change paths to avoid them. He was clearly a law-abiding citizen, but every time he saw the armed police who stood guard on National Day, he reacted like a mouse who'd spied a cat, which made other people throw suspicious glances his way.
Meet the boss? You might as well ask him to go meet a ghost!
Just as cold sweat began to pour out of him in buckets, there came the sound of footsteps. A young man walked out of 4 Bright Avenue's little garden with long strides. There was a cigarette in his mouth, and his hands were shoved in his pants pockets. He was tall, with upright shoulders, thick brows, deep-set eyes, and a defined nose. He was very handsome, even if his expression was a little dark.
The man's brows were furrowed, and he walked so fast that wind seemed to rise in his footsteps. The message on his face was clear: "Don't block the way, don't bug me, and fuck off."
In a stroke of misfortune, Guo Changcheng happened to meet his gaze and was immediately terrified by those black eyes, beautiful yet cold. His instinct told him that this hot guy had a bad temper.
But when the hot-tempered hottie realized who Guo Changcheng was, he suddenly braked. In the next moment, his expression transformed, fluid as that of a master actor. That thunderous look was abruptly one of sunshine and open skies, with a kind smile that spread naturally across his face faster than one could turn a page. Along with that smile, two shallow dimples appeared on his cheeks. The cigarette still in his mouth made the corners of his lips seem a bit crooked. With his eyes crinkled a little, he seemed as if he might be up to no good—but just the right amount of no good, which lent him an approachable air.
"See, speak of the devil! Come, young man, and get to know him. This is our boss." The doorman gave Guo Changcheng a shove. Guo Changcheng stumbled forward half a step and heard the person behind him say loudly, "Director Zhao, we finally have a new coworker."
Director Zhao extended a hand toward Guo Changcheng, open and friendly. "Hello, hello! The warmest of welcomes."
Guo Changcheng rubbed his damp palms on his pants as if his body wasn't under his control and then, embarrassingly, extended the wrong hand. He shrank back at once like he'd been electrocuted. The armpits and back of his T-shirt were immediately soaked in sweat. A new world map slowly took shape on his shirt.
Director Zhao didn't give him a hard time. Instead, he patted Guo Changcheng's shoulder as if nothing had happened. Casual pleasantries rolled easily off his tongue. "Don't be nervous; all the comrades who work here are friendly and united. Now, today's your first day, so I should take you around and introduce you to everyone, but the thing is, today's also a special day. We're honestly just too busy. We might not be able to get you properly settled for a bit; I hope you don't mind.
"Later, I'll take charge of throwing you a welcome party. Though it's the middle of the night now… Hey, how about this. I'll get lao-Wu to take you inside to find Wang Zheng, our head of HR, and ask her to complete all your onboarding procedures. Then you can go home and rest for the day. Come back and report tomorrow morning, okay?"
Guo Changcheng nodded hastily.
For all that Director Zhao had been burning with impatience before, at this moment, as they stood there and talked, his speech was unhurried. It didn't make his conversation partner feel iced out or dismissed. He was clearly very smooth when it came to dealing with people.
"Sorry, there's something urgent I need to take care of, so I have to head off. If there's anything you need, just come find me directly. Don't be shy. From now on, we're all family. Sorry for the trouble you took to make the trip today!" Director Zhao smiled apologetically at Guo Changcheng, then waved at lao-Wu before rushing off.
Lao-Wu had to be a loyal fan of Director Zhao. Even though he'd just listened to a round of empty bullshit that had nothing to do with him, he was as happy as a clam. As he led Guo Changcheng into the office building, he went on and on, "Our Director Zhao is young and capable, has an even temperament, and doesn't ever throw his authority around with anyone or in any situation…"
Guo Changcheng, still fear-struck from the misfortune of meeting his boss, was too scattered to pay proper attention as he listened. Like an echo bug,1 he could only nod agreeably.
Because Guo Changcheng had always been too afraid to look people in the eye, he completely failed to notice that old Mr. Wu, who was leading the way, was as white as a sheet under the lights. His lips were bloodred, the corners of his mouth extended all the way to his ears, and as his mouth opened and closed, one could see that he was missing a tongue.
Inside the office building, people were coming and going, and they all looked extraordinarily busy.
At this point, the weirdness of the situation finally began to properly dawn on Guo Changcheng. Ordinarily, even if an urgent matter required working overtime until midnight, would the staff of the gatehouse and HR department need to keep them company?
Beside him, lao-Wu explained quietly, "Xiao-Guo, don't get the wrong idea. In the future, as long as there aren't any major cases, you'll mostly be working during the day. It's just these couple of days out of the year during the seventh lunar month when we're so busy that night and day tend to blur together. You get something to show for it, though! Overtime pay is three times your usual, and your monthly bonus will be double too."
Guo Changcheng was even more baffled. What was this stuff about "the seventh lunar month is so busy" supposed to mean? Did criminals have mid-year summary meetings and experience exchange conferences too? Following the lunar calendar?
But fear of coming across as stupid made him too embarrassed to ask. He just nodded, confused. "Mm."
Lao-Wu continued, "I usually work the night shift. We have a different colleague in the gatehouse during the day. You probably won't see me that often in the future." He sighed. "The truth is, I'm happy to spend time with you young people. Did you just graduate? From which school? What were you studying?"
Guo Changcheng described his unimpressive academic background, ashamed. At the end, in a voice as thin as a mosquito's buzz, he added, "I'm not very good at studying."
"Aiya, what do you mean?! You're a university student!" Lao-Wu hurriedly continued, "I just love cultured young people. I'd never be able to do it. When I was younger, my family was poor. When I was seven or eight, I attended a sishu with the xiansheng2 in the village for a few years. All these years later, I've pretty much given everything I've learned back to that xiansheng. I can't even read most characters; I can barely read the newspaper."
What year was this? A sishu?
Once again, Guo Changcheng didn't understand, but he was still afraid of seeming stupid, and embarrassment kept him silent.
Happily, lao-Wu said, "Here we are!"
Guo Changcheng looked up to see "Department of Human Resources" in large text on the door, written in red on a white background. The red struck him as off somehow, but he had trouble putting a finger on why. After giving the words a long stare, it suddenly clicked: that rusty red was the color of dried blood!
Standing beside Guo Changcheng, lao-Wu knocked on the door. "Is xiao-Wang here? I brought a new comrade who'll be joining us. Can we bother you for a second to complete the onboarding process?"
After a beat of silence, an airy, female voice came from inside. "Mm, coming."
The voice seemed awfully distant, but also as if it was floating right by his ear. When Guo Changcheng heard it, he shivered reflexively. A chill brushed the nape of his neck.
But lao-Wu, seemingly oblivious, chattered on. "I'm so sorry, xiao-Guo, making you come all this way in the middle of the night. But there's no helping it—our xiao-Wang is just like me. We can only work the night shift, so all the new employment procedures need to be done at this time."
Wait…
What did he mean they could only work the night shift?
Why couldn't they work during the day…?
A fresh layer of icy sweat gushed out of Guo Changcheng's back. Trembling with fright, he finally steeled his nerves and swept his eyes across the passing employees. With a single glance, he saw a person wearing a uniform float past him, his feet unmistakably not touching the ground…
Or rather…he…h-h-he didn't have feet!
The door to the office creaked open in front of them, the hinges emitting a hoarse moan. A young woman in a white dress appeared. In a wisp of a voice that made Guo Changcheng erupt in goosebumps, she said, "Did you bring your letter of acceptance and your ID?"
Cold, gloomy wind billowed out from the office. Guo Changcheng's heart felt like it was suspended in his throat, no longer beating. He held his breath and looked up slowly. His gaze slid across the white dress, unsullied by even a single speck of dust, and finally landed on the girl's bare neck…
A gurgling noise rose from Guo Changcheng's throat as if he were being choked. Mouth agape, eyes so wide that they threatened to fall out, he took a step back. Fear coursed through him.
Upon closer inspection, he saw what looked like a red thread around the woman's neck. But it was no accessory—it lay too close to her skin… Rather, it was a tight line of stitches that held her head to her neck!
A frigid hand came to rest on his shoulder. From right by his ear, lao-Wu's voice said, "Hey, xiao-Guo, what's wrong?"
Guo Changcheng whipped his head around to stare directly at lao-Wu's face—a face that looked as if it were made from papier-mâché, with a large, bloody mouth that reached his ears.
Earlier, Guo Changcheng had foolishly thought that meeting his boss would be worse than meeting a ghost, and now he was suffering the consequences of his words. Tonight he'd not only met his boss—he'd met some real ghosts!
His dear uncle truly had found him just the loveliest, most extraordinary job. |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0007.txt | THE STREETLIGHTS were no brighter than fireflies. They did little to illuminate the night through which a girl fled, darting across the uneven cobblestones. She suddenly tripped and fell, knees slamming into the ground.
Fingers twisting nervously in her shirt, Li Qian gasped for air. The summer night was so humid that it was like trying to breathe inside a steamer basket. All she could hear was the thunder of her own heart and the sound of approaching footsteps.
That rustling could only come from old soft-soled fabric shoes. There was a sluggishness to the steps, a shuffling that suggested an elderly person whose legs were no longer what they'd once been.
She whipped her head around, but other than tiny bugs flitting randomly under the light, there was nothing behind her.
Li Qian was a pretty girl with delicate features, but at the moment her hair was a mess; much of it had come loose and was plastered to her skin with sweat. Her lips were as pale as her face. No one could be beautiful under the circumstances, not even her. Her expression slowly contorted into something strange—a look of fear, or perhaps resentment.
She leapt up. "Don't even think of following me!" Teeth gritted, she snarled, "I shook you off once, and I can do it again."
The footsteps stopped.
Li Qian rolled up her sleeves. Her pale arms prickled with goosebumps despite the summer heat and humidity, as if she was chilled by something invisible. She snatched up a brick from the ground. The inescapable sound of the footsteps all around her felt like rot spreading through her bones.
There could be nothing more petrifying than seeing nothing.
Li Qian started screaming, flailing the brick around in a panic. It grew heavier and heavier, its rough surface rubbing her palm raw. Exhaustion spread black spots across her vision. Gasping, she bent over, leaning her weight on her knees. Her gaze drifted to the ground.
Her pupils immediately contracted, and her whole body began to shake. The brick dropped from her hand onto her toes, exposed in her sandals, but she seemed not to notice. With great effort, she backed up a few steps, then sat down hard as her legs gave out.
The shadow… The shadow!
She was right in front of the streetlamp. How could there be such a clear shadow in the pool of light it cast?
It was like a splash of ink on the ground. Who knew how long it had been there, watching her?
Li Qian lay paralyzed, but the shadow remained upright.
Are you guilty? If not, why are you afraid of the shadow?
She thought she heard a sharp laugh.
Early in the morning, before 5 a.m., the phone on the bedside table rang as if trying to wake the dead.
Zhao Yunlan had worked all night. After getting home, he hadn't even undressed, just rolled straight into bed. It felt as if he'd barely drifted off before being dragged back to consciousness. Expressionless, he opened his eyes; his heavy lids accentuated them, making his double eyelids even more pronounced. He stared at the ceiling with something like hate.
Three seconds later, like a corpse reanimated, he finally lurched upright. His head felt like it was full of glue, but he managed to grab his phone from the bedside table.
To say Zhao Yunlan's apartment was as messy as a doghouse would be a grave insult to dogs everywhere. Clothes were strewn all over the bed and floor; it was impossible to tell whether he planned to wash or wear them. All manner of junk was piled on the queen-sized bed, some of it almost beyond human imagination. The lone sock draped over the corner of a laptop was one thing, and the presence of sunglasses and an umbrella wasn't wholly bizarre, but it would be a stretch to explain the tall hat folded from white paper or the huge jug of cinnabar powder.3
All of this clutter had been pushed into a heap, leaving only a nest big enough for one person to lie in—and he'd probably dug out that space just before lying down.
Zhao Yunlan answered the call, looking ready to unleash a torrent of abuse. "What now?"
On the other end of the line, Wang Zheng got right to the point. "Director Zhao, there's been a death."
"When?"
"Last night or early this morning."
"Where?"
"University Street."
"Mm…" Zhao Yunlan rubbed his face, expression savage. "Send lao-Chu to check it out."
"Chu Shuzhi went to Xiangxi for a work trip."
"What about Lin Jing?"
"He was lent to the Netherworld."
"Then Zhu Hong—no, scratch that. It was the full moon yesterday, so she asked for leave. Who's left?"
"Me," Wang Zheng said. "But it's nearly sunrise, so my shift is ending soon. Otherwise, there's Daqing and the new intern, Guo Changcheng."
Zhao Yunlan yawned and said, listlessly, "Have Daqing go with the intern to take a look. Let the kid get his feet wet."
Almost inflectionless, Wang Zheng said, "Intern Guo Changcheng can't go anywhere just now. When he came to report last night, he passed out from terror. He may simply be asleep now, rather than unconscious, but regardless, he still hasn't woken up."
Zhao Yunlan paused at that. Then he asked, "What scared him into passing out?"
"Lao-Wu and I." Wang Zheng gave a scrupulous report, concluding with, "I told you ages ago to have a professional funeral store make lao-Wu a proper body. Zhu Hong's hands are clumsier than her feet. Even the beanbags she sews leak everywhere. No papier-mâché person she makes will ever pass for human."
Zhao Yunlan sat silently on the edge of his bed. Recognizing his lack of available minions, all he could do was sigh sleepily. "All righty, I'll be there shortly for a look. Tell Daqing to wait for me."
After hanging up, he yelled in frustration, swore, then took three minutes to wash up before speeding toward University Street.
As Zhao Yunlan passed through the intersection and decelerated, a black shadow descended from the sky. Like a grenade, a round animal slammed into the hood of his car, nearly denting it. The metal clanged with the impact.
Zhao Yunlan immediately stomped on the brakes, sucking a sharp breath through his teeth. He stuck his head out the window. "This is a motor vehicle, sir, not your litter box! Could you please take it easy?"
Perched on the hood was an utterly black cat. Atop the mere suggestion of a neck was a face like a persimmon; his body was a perfect sphere. With great effort, he sucked in his belly while folding his hind legs beneath him. Only after overcoming those challenges could he extend his front legs—short compared to his round belly—and assume a dignified sitting pose.
This big kitty with his persimmon face took a quick look all around. Seeing no one nearby, his whiskers quivered as he slowly opened his mouth. A rather deep male voice emerged. "Cut the bullshit and get out here. Can't you smell it?"
The smell in the air was indeed unspeakably disgusting. Zhao Yunlan parked on the side of the road and got out, then immediately covered his nose. Brow furrowed, he asked, "What is this stink?! Did you let one loose?"
The massive black cat ignored him and jumped down, hitting the ground with the force of a thunderbolt. Wiggling his butt directly at Zhao Yunlan, he prowled on ahead, radiating majesty and confidence.
Quite a few police cars were already parked on the other side of the road. Caution tape had been slapped across the entrance of a narrow alley.
Rummaging in his pocket, Zhao Yunlan finally found a tattered work ID. The young officer by the caution tape had his back to the crime scene, looking green around the gills. He took the ID and barely glanced at it before shoving it against Zhao Yunlan's chest and making a dash for the wall. He leaned against it and threw up, unable to bear it anymore.
Zhao Yunlan grasped at his bird's-nest hair, which looked like a horde of animals had stampeded through it. "Is my beautiful ID photo that revolting?"
The black cat had gone a few steps ahead. Seeing Zhao Yunlan dilly-dallying, he had to turn back, giving him a long meow. His fur stood on end.
"Okay, okay, okay, don't rush me. Aiya, this smell could kill you from ten paces." Zhao Yunlan ducked under the caution tape.
As soon as he was on the other side, someone hurried over to greet them. Voice muffled by the tissue clamped over his nose, he asked, "Are you the comrade from the Special Investigations Department?"
Within the Public Security System was a mysterious department called the Special Investigations Department. It was no low-level division, but no one knew exactly what those people did or what their procedures were. The simple fact was, whenever someone from the Special Investigations Department showed up, it meant the order had come directly from above and there was no room for argument.
But if they didn't come, there was no way to find them.
They were within the Public Security System, but in many ways independent from it. The organization was very secretive, with no transparency as to what they did or why. Without special permission, the media couldn't even catch a glimpse of the SID, never mind get close enough to interview them. No one knew what their criminal procedures were or how they built their indictments. The only thing that was clear was that once a case was handed to them, it vanished into a black box.
Nothing was shared with the public but the case's conclusion, shrouded in mystery—and sometimes the staff of the SID were even more mysterious than the work they did.
Their case reports were comprehensive, detailing the cause, the course of events, the conclusion, the suspect's identity, and the circumstances that led to apprehending the perpetrators. Every step they'd taken was plainly laid out with meticulous logic and clear formatting. There was no fault to be found.
The only problem was that by the time any given case was closed, the culprits were all dead.
The officer in charge at this particular crime scene was an older man by the name of Yang. He shook Zhao Yunlan's hand, curiously looking him up and down. "What do I call you?" he asked politely.
"My name's Zhao—Zhao Yunlan. Please, just call me xiao-Zhao."
This was a shock for lao-Yang, who had certainly not expected the current SID director to make an appearance. Director Zhao looked to be about thirty years old, which was a little young for the job. He was tall, lean, and very good looking. But his shirt was wrinkled, its top two buttons undone and only half of the hem tucked into his pants. Between that and the veritable bird's nest on his head, he was rather unkempt.
Lao-Yang exclaimed, "Aiyou! You're Director Zhao! Wh-why, I should have realized. I just didn't expect such a young, promising leader!"
Zhao Yunlan, accustomed to this reaction, smoothly offered a few pleasantries in return.
At the sound of a "meow," lao-Yang looked down, barely in time to see a dark shadow race up to Zhao Yunlan's shoulders via his pant leg. It was a black cat with deep green eyes. A green-eyed black cat materializing at a murder scene should have been extremely creepy, but this potentially creepy cat bro was so plump that he seemed more like a lucky cat beckoning fortune in.
The overall effect was that Director Zhao's head seemed on the verge of being pushed off his shoulders, which gave the cat a bit of a comical air.
Lao-Yang and the cat stared at each other for some time. "This… This is…"
Zhao Yunlan awkwardly hiked up his pants, which had nearly been dragged down by the cat's weight. Tilting his head, he laughed dryly. "This is our Director Kitty. Ordinarily, he supervises our work very closely, and since he saw us goofing off and chatting, he's unhappy now."
"…"
Lao-Yang was at a loss.
The black cat meowed smugly, his long tail swishing impatiently. When he lifted his head, Zhao Yunlan immediately understood. He grasped a little tag from around the cat's neck and worked it free from the rolls of fat to show lao-Yang. "This is a special permit from the SID. It's exactly like our work ID, giving him access to any crime scene. Don't worry, he's an old cat. He won't cause any trouble."
Still silent, lao-Yang was starting to think there was bullshit afoot.
After lao-Yang made a round of calls confirming that the man with the bird's-nest head and the cat weren't frauds, Zhao Yunlan and his master cat finally entered the crime scene.
The closer they got, the thicker the stench became.
A girl's corpse lay inside the narrow alley, wearing a shirt that said "Dragon City University Orientation." Her eyes were wide and unfocused, her limbs were splayed out, and her mouth was agape. Her abdomen had been sliced open by a sharp implement and the organs had been removed, leaving her like a big doll with its stuffing pulled out.
Lao-Yang had the tissue back over his nose, his features twisted.
The fat cat on Zhao Yunlan's shoulder uttered a long yowl, jumped to the ground, and circled the corpse twice. He then stopped at a spot and sat, looking up at Zhao Yunlan. He seemed almost as well trained as a drug dog. Zhao Yunlan walked over, putting on wrinkled gloves pulled from his pants pocket. He felt around the area where the cat sat, then carefully lifted one of the corpse's arms.
Lao-Yang craned his neck. On the ground, where it had been hidden by the arm, was half a bloody handprint.
The handprint was starkly inhuman. The palm was as small as a child's, but the fingers were at least twenty centimeters long. Lao-Yang, a lifelong officer, had never seen such a thing. As he stared in shock, he heard Zhao Yunlan say in an unusually serious voice, "As of now, the Special Investigations Department is taking charge of this case. Follow-up procedures will be completed within two business days."
Before lao-Yang could answer, Zhao Yunlan pointed at a small, dilapidated door on the wall next to them. "And what might this be?" |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0008.txt | THIS WAS A SIDE DOOR on Dragon City University's perimeter wall.
Dragon City University was a renowned institution with a long history. Like many other schools, DCU had relocated its main campus to the city's outskirts. Within the city proper, where land was worth more than gold, only a fraction of the administration offices and a few graduate departments remained on the old campus. As a result, the few students there were outnumbered by tourists.
Zhao Yunlan had been standing at the entrance to a dorm building holding the black cat for half an hour when Guo Changcheng finally arrived. That was when Zhao Yunlan began to realize that the intern he had so hastily greeted the night before was a useless embarrassment. Guo Changcheng shrank into himself when he walked, shoulders hunched; his head was always down as if he was ashamed, and his hair nearly covered his eyes. All of this, along with his funereal, all-black attire, made him seem lethargic. He resembled nothing so much as a mushroom swaying in the breeze.
Narrowing his eyes, Zhao Yunlan whispered to the cat in his arms, "What do you think Wang Zheng said to him? You'd think he'd been forced into a life of crime."
The black cat yawned lazily. "Mama Zhao, you're exaggerating."
Guo Changcheng shuffled up to them, for all the world as if he'd been kidnapped and dragged into the mountains to be a bandit's bride. On the verge of tears, he mumbled, "…told me to meet you at the crime scene."
Very deliberately, Zhao Yunlan asked, "Sorry, who did you say sent you? Can you speak up, or do we need to get you a microphone?"
Guo Changcheng shuddered violently. "W-W-Wang, Wang—"4
"Meow," Daqing put in.
Disappointment darkened Zhao Yunlan's mood. The previous night he'd brushed past Guo Changcheng without registering that his new employee could barely string a sentence together.
He went through the motions in a tone that didn't quite sound sincere. "You already know what we saw at the crime scene, right? This is the dorm the victim lived in. Come with me and we'll take a look."
He turned and entered the dorm as he spoke but didn't hear anyone coming in behind him. Looking back, he saw that Guo Changcheng's eyes had locked on to the fierce-looking auntie who oversaw the dorm; fear had struck Guo Changcheng silent and rooted him in place. Zhao Yunlan could only rein in his temper and gesture patiently, as if calling to a dog. "Why are you standing at the door like an idiot? I already spoke to her. You don't need to announce yourself. Just come in."
It would've been better if he'd kept his mouth shut. As soon as Guo Changcheng heard, he reflexively straightened up and announced himself, "I-I'm here!" Then, realizing he'd made a fool of himself, he went completely stiff; he became a blushing plank in the entryway.
This time, Zhao Yunlan bit his tongue. His first impression of the intern could best be summed up as "What a dumbass."
Inside the girls' dorm, room 202 was a standard double. The black cat jumped down from Zhao Yunlan's arms and carefully inspected under the bed and cabinet, then leaped to the windowsill, where he lowered his head and sniffed. Suddenly, he turned his head and sneezed heavily.
Guo Changcheng had suffered a great scare the night before, but now, after some observation, he had confirmed that his attractive boss did in fact throw a shadow in daylight. Mustering up the courage to study Zhao Yunlan more closely, he concluded that, although the overnight shift had done a number on Zhao Yunlan's appearance, he might be genuinely human. Thus reassured, he finally relaxed a little and stuck close to his boss's heels, like a little tail.
Zhao Yunlan reached into the box of cigarettes in his pocket and took one with the ease of long practice. Putting it between his lips, he lit it, then went to the window and patted the cat's backside in a signal to move over. Bending toward the windowsill, he squinted and exhaled a puff of smoke.
The smoke's smell wasn't pungent. It held a note of mint and a refreshing herbal scent, and combined with his subtle cologne, it had a relaxing effect. It took a special kind of talent to be so ragged and yet so provocative.
"Look," he said. Guo Changcheng obediently looked down. A shudder racked him at the sight of a print on what had been an unmarked windowsill—the handprint of a human skeleton.
Zhao Yunlan leaned closer and sniffed it calmly. "There isn't any stench. Only an old, experienced cat would be able to smell it."
The black cat's mouth opened. "So it wasn't this?"
Suddenly hearing the cat speak, Guo Changcheng whipped his head around hard enough that his neck cracked.
Zhao Yunlan shook his head within the smoke, looking pensive. Disregarding Guo Changcheng entirely, he turned to the cat and said, "I'm afraid not. Things that can kill don't smell like this."
As he pushed the window open, his gaze inadvertently fell on Guo Changcheng, who was so pale that he seemed like he might drift away. It was clear that his entire view of the world had been toppled and his nerves were tying themselves in a bow. Zhao Yunlan couldn't help wanting to mess with him. "Okay, kid, get up there and see what's outside the window."
"Um…" Guo Changcheng replied.
"What do you mean, 'um'? Smarten up, young man! Hurry!"
Guo Changcheng swallowed hard. He stuck his head out and realized just how high up the second floor was, and his knees went weak. But the thought of turning to Zhao Yunlan and saying "I'm too scared" was clearly even further beyond his courage and communication ability.
Ultimately, the poor child was caught between a rock and a hard place. His boss was more frightening, so he could only climb onto the balcony window, slow as a snail. There he crouched, too afraid to stand up, clutching the lattice as if his life depended on it. Immobilized by fear, he found he could only move his neck. He turned his head with great effort, trembling as he surveyed his surroundings.
Just then, far too clearly, he saw a reflection in the window. Instantly, every hair on his body stood on end. Terrified and panicked, he realized that the glass wasn't only reflecting him!
Impossibly, a skeleton lay where he was crouched. The bones of its hand went straight through his ankle, lined up exactly with the handprint on the windowsill, and it was peering into the room.
Guo Changcheng quickly looked down, but there was nothing there!
For a time, he couldn't tell whether his vision or the window was lying to him. His chest went cold. Even his breathing trembled. Then the skeleton turned, meeting his gaze in the glass…and in the skull's empty eye sockets, Guo Changcheng saw what seemed to be a person.
The person's head and body were covered by a cloak and wholly shrouded in black mist, and there was something in their hand…
Before he could get a good look at what the person was holding, a man spoke from below. "Hey, are you a student?! What are you doing hanging out the window?"
The voice badly startled Guo Changcheng, whose nerves were already shot. In a stroke of misfortune, there was a bit of slippery moss on the windowsill; he lost his footing and fell victim to gravity. Zhao Yunlan leaped into action and made a grab for him but only managed to catch a fistful of Guo Changcheng's helmet-like hair. Guo Changcheng screamed. In shock, Zhao Yunlan lost his grip and just let him drop.
The black cat sat on the windowsill, tail a-swish. "Meow—"
Director Zhao cursed as he raced down the stairs. "I can't fucking believe this."
Seeing Guo Changcheng falling, the person who'd spoken up made a hurried attempt to catch him. He was a man with a lean build who, even at the height of summer, was wearing a long-sleeved shirt. He looked clean cut and gentle with rimless glasses that contributed to an elegant, intellectual air. He'd been holding his lesson planner but had dropped it when he reached for Guo Changcheng.
"Are you all right, Tongxue?"5
Thankfully, having only fallen from the second floor, Guo Changcheng was fine, if a bit shaken. Panicked, he turned to look at the windowsill he'd fallen from, only to find it completely empty. It was as if the skeleton hanging outside the window and the black-cloaked figure in its eyes were figments of his imagination.
Legs turning to jelly, Guo Changcheng plopped onto his backside.
"Did you twist your ankle?" The bespectacled man bent down slightly to check on him. "School rules strictly forbid climbing on buildings. It's too dangerous. Now, I won't give you any demerits this time. Let me take you to the school clinic?"
Guo Changcheng replied, "N-no need, I'm n-n-not…"
Nervousness always left him tongue-tied, even less able to speak clearly than usual. He felt that he'd probably been born a useless lump of wood. What path could he take through life that didn't require leeching off a partner? Here he was, first day on the job and already losing his mind.
Zhao Yunlan, having bolted down to the ground floor, grabbed Guo Changcheng by the collar and yanked him upright. What he really wanted was to take off his shoes and dual wield at this precious boy's face, but with someone else present, he could only swallow his temper. He turned to the man in the glasses and extended a hand. "Hello, we're from Public Security. The last name's Zhao. And with whom do I have the honor of speaking?"
Their gazes met, and they both froze.
Out of nowhere, Is he an instructor or the school hottie? flashed across Zhao Yunlan's mind.
Something flickered over the hot…instructor's…face. He seemed to instinctively avoid Zhao Yunlan's hand but quickly recovered. Clearing his throat, he touched his hand to Zhao Yunlan's for the merest fleeting instant before letting go. "The honor is all mine. The name is Shen—Shen Wei. I teach here. I'm sorry, I mistook that officer for a student staying behind for the summer."
Shen Wei's hand had the chill of a corpse fresh from cold storage. Zhao Yunlan couldn't help giving him another glance, but Shen Wei refused any eye contact, using the excuse of picking up his scattered lesson plans to avoid his gaze. Zhao Yunlan began to help, and the two of them reached for the same piece of paper at the same time.
Under the circumstances—one of them reaching for his own paper, the other simply trying to help—Zhao Yunlan should have been the one to withdraw. Instead, it was Shen Wei who hastily pulled back, as if burned. His lips were pale, but a trace of crimson tinted his cheekbones.
His entire reaction was peculiar for a first meeting. It was as if he feared Zhao Yunlan, but it was more than that. If a criminal with a guilty conscience came face-to-face with a police officer, in addition to being nervous, they would try to sneak peeks at the officer's reaction rather than fully avoiding their eyes.
It was all rather baffling. Zhao Yunlan started to observe Shen Wei carefully.
The world held all kinds of beauties. Sunny, refreshing, dashing, delicate—the possibilities were endless. But there was one type, like fine porcelain, that at first glance seemed pleasant enough to look at, but not entrancing. Such gentle, elegant beauty didn't brashly demand attention, but someone with a discerning eye would be drawn in, captivated by the exquisiteness before them.
That was the nature of Shen Wei's appearance. The longer you looked, the more his beauty was revealed.
Zhao Yunlan had no preference between men or women, and what's more, he'd been single for a few months. His suspicious gaze changed as lust crept in. His heart, despite the inappropriate timing, skipped a beat.
Just then, the massive spherical black cat wriggled his way over to Shen Wei's feet. It almost seemed like he was under the influence—after sniffing Shen Wei carefully, neck extended, the cat glued himself to Shen Wei's leg, meowing piteously. This lordly cat, normally gluttonous and lazy, noble and cold, had never carried out his obligations as a cat so earnestly before. Zhao Yunlan froze at the sight of him shamelessly nuzzling into Shen Wei's pant leg. Daqing even looked up, as if kissing up to Shen Wei, and stretched his laughably short front legs toward Shen Wei's knees, begging to be held.
He picked up the cat, who didn't mind the chill of his touch. With a softer meow, the cat curled into a ball, purring and nuzzling against Shen Wei's hands.
Shen Wei petted the cat's head. "What an intelligent cat. Does he have a name?"
"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said. "His name is Daqing. Pet name: Fatty. Nickname: Big Dumb Fatty."
The black cat yowled, fur standing on end as he scratched at Zhao Yunlan. Zhao Yunlan easily evaded his claws and scooped the cat into his own arms, giving Guo Changcheng a look.
Guo Changcheng steeled himself and approached. Opening the document folder he held, he withdrew a female student's ID, trembling as he passed it to Shen Wei. Speaking to a stranger was intensely difficult for him, but he said, "Sh-Shen-laoshi, h-hello. Could you take a look? Does this person look familiar?"
Shen Wei pushed his glasses up, masking the faintest trace of panic and smoothing out his expression. "I don't know her. I don't think she's taken any of my classes. So the rumors that something happened to a student last night are true?"
Zhao Yunlan studied him, alert to every microexpression. "Yes. This ID was found on the deceased. Where can we find more background information on this student, Shen-laoshi?"
Shen Wei avoided his demanding gaze. "You can try asking at the registrar."
"Where might the registrar be?" asked Zhao Yunlan immediately. "Would you be so kind as to take us there?" Shen Wei stiffened, but Zhao Yunlan pressed on. "Or is it too much trouble?"
Tightening his grip on his lesson plans, Shen Wei paused. Finally, he reluctantly said, "Follow me." |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0009.txt | DRAGON CITY UNIVERSITY'S original campus had been built during the Chinese Republican era, and it bore the weight of a century of history. There were ancient trees everywhere you looked, creating a canopy that practically blotted out the sky. The architecture of the school buildings hidden within dated back to the days of European Concession; they seemed incredibly old and somehow desolate. Only the administrative office buildings near the west entrance had been built in recent years. They were tall enough to stand out among the older buildings—a sore thumb that ruined the ambiance of the campus.
As soon as they entered this brand-new admin building, Zhao Yunlan's eyelid twitched reflexively. The building had eighteen floors.6
There had been a time when some real estate developers avoided the number eighteen when numbering floors for residential buildings. But as housing prices skyrocketed and the market boomed, no one could afford to care about that kind of superstition anymore.
A cold, eerie draft came from up ahead. It might have just been the air conditioning. From his place on Zhao Yunlan's shoulder, Daqing shivered, sharp claws unsheathed and hooked firmly into Zhao Yunlan's shirt.
Once on the elevator, Shen Wei said, "That student's ID said she was in the math department. Their faculty office is on the top floor." He pressed the button for the eighteenth floor.
Out of nowhere, Zhao Yunlan asked, "Shen-laoshi, are you not curious about what happened? Most people have a few questions when they stumble into something like this."
Shen Wei lowered his head slightly. "It's the victim who's important here," he murmured. "I'm just doing what I can to help you investigate. As for the rest of it, what matters is that you know about it. Whether I know or not isn't important."
Zhao Yunlan touched the cat's back, absentmindedly stroking the black fur. "Not many citizens are so willing to cooperate with our work these days. Our Daqing never gets close to strangers, but he took a real shine to you."
Shen Wei smiled. He spoke sparingly, as if every word were as precious as gold. "Anyone would do the same."
Just then, as the elevator reached the fourth floor,7 it suddenly shook and jolted to a halt. The overhead lights flickered twice, perhaps due to faulty wiring. Panicked, Guo Changcheng looked up at Zhao Yunlan, but the man seemed oblivious; he didn't even blink, just continued to study Shen Wei, deep in thought.
A man's voice came faintly from the intercom. "Shen-laoshi, what takes you to the eighteenth floor?"
Shen Wei's expression remained unchanged. "There's been an accident involving a girl from the math department. These two are police. I'm taking them up to the math department to gain a better understanding of the situation."
"Oh." The person speaking seemed slow to react. There was a pause before they continued, voice weak and sluggish. "Okay. Please be careful."
He'd just finished speaking when everything returned to normal. The lights steadied, and the halted elevator continued upward with a creak, as if nothing at all had happened.
"Scared?" Shen Wei turned around, still only looking at Guo Changcheng while surreptitiously avoiding Zhao Yunlan. "That was probably the building security guard. Last semester, a student died by suicide, jumping from the roof. Since then, if anyone not from the math department wants to go to the top floor, the security guard stops the elevator and asks a few questions to keep such a thing from happening again."
Guo Changcheng released the breath he was holding, looking faintly nauseated; Zhao Yunlan, however, gave the intercom a considering glance.
The elevator reached its destination, shaking the whole way. The eighteenth floor was desolate, with not even a mosquito or gecko present to provide a spark of life.
Zhao Yunlan couldn't help but sneeze a few times.
Shen Wei immediately stopped. "Officer Zhao, do you have a cold?"
There was a kind of gentlemanly righteousness to the way Shen Wei lowered his head. Just looking at him was so pleasant that it was nearly impossible to suspect him of anything.
Rubbing his nose, Zhao Yunlan said, "No, no. It's just that I took one step into this hall and smelled the miserable scent of math homework. Allergies, you know?"
Shen Wei's eyes crinkled politely at the joke.
"Don't laugh," Zhao Yunlan said seriously. "Not that I'm afraid of you laughing. When I was a student, teachers were my mortal enemies. One homeroom teacher confidently predicted that I'd grow up to be a little thug. No one ever would've imagined that I'd become a cop. But when I ran into him at a school anniversary and wanted to show off a little, guess what he said?"
"What?" Shen Wei was looking down, watching where he was going, but somehow his side profile gave the strong impression he was listening attentively.
Zhao Yunlan quipped, "That old cynic said, 'You think I was wrong, Zhao-tongxue? Look at you now—a typical thug in a uniform."
Zhao Yunlan was used to dealing with all manner of people. He was chatty and articulate, with a silver tongue, and now he quickly dispelled the awkward atmosphere. As the trio walked on, Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei continued chatting, still subtly probing each other for information. The echoes of their steps rang off the walls. But hidden beneath the sound of their voices and casual laughter was another noise: the footsteps of a fourth person.
Quiet steps dragged along the floor, rustling like the soft fabric shoes of an elderly person.
The administrative building was constructed in a tower style. As with most such structures, an elevator stood at its center, encircled by the floors' hallways.
Guo Changcheng couldn't help noticing that Zhao Yunlan's watch was silently changing in a peculiar way. Color was spreading from its center, where the hour and minute hands met: a smudge of crimson, darker than vermilion but lighter than ruby, expanded across the watch's face like ripples on water. This metamorphosis made Zhao Yunlan's watch seem like an expensive piece of art. The metal straps buckled around his slim, pale wrist gave a strangely uncanny impression of luxury.
Guo Changcheng hesitated. In a small voice, he said, "Director… Director Zhao, your watch…"
"What? Is it turning red?" Zhao Yunlan, who was walking ahead, turned back with his signature smirk. "Know why?"
Guo Changcheng shook his head in total honesty.
Still smiling, Zhao Yunlan said, "Violent ghosts like to wear red. This building's feng shui isn't very good. Something filthy could be hiding just about anywhere. Maybe that's what's being reflected."
Guo Changcheng paled as he glanced reflexively at Zhao Yunlan's watch. This time, the glass showed him a person: an old woman of average build, maybe a bit plump, dressed entirely in black…and looking expressionlessly back at him!
Guo Changcheng's footsteps stopped abruptly.
But Zhao Yunlan only laughed, as if he hadn't noticed a thing. He twisted a small knob on the side of his watch, and a cloud of mist erupted within, washing the redness away in a heartbeat. When he looked again, he saw a clean men's watch of very ordinary design. Its display showed no trace of either creepy red or reflected female ghosts.
"Haven't you seen those balls under computer mouses that can change color? Same principle. This silly kid—you can tell him anything and he'll buy it." Zhao Yunlan abruptly stopped teasing and turned to Shen Wei. "Shen-laoshi is an intellectual who believes in atheism. I'm sure you don't believe in ghosts, do you?"
"As the old saying goes, 'Even the most esteemed of scholars does not speak outside the bounds of his knowledge,'" Shen Wei said. "No one can say for certain whether or not ghosts actually exist. Personally, I think that if they exist, then they exist; if they don't, they don't. There's no need to investigate too deeply. 'Ask not of the people, but of ghosts and gods' was only done by incompetent rulers in ancient times. If people can't even figure out their own problems, isn't it an absurd waste of time to wonder whether ghosts and gods exist?"
He spoke in a very scholarly manner, but his answers danced smoothly around the question. Seeing no use in probing further, Zhao Yunlan smiled and moved on as if nothing had happened. "Shen-laoshi, you teach the humanities?"
"Mm. I teach language classes, as well as a few humanities electives."
"Ah, that explains it. You know, I heard from a friend in real estate that residential buildings are rarely built like this anymore. Nowadays, it's usually only commercial office buildings over a hundred meters tall that are built in this tower style. Apart from how hard they are to clean, they don't have open space to allow for natural lighting, so they aren't too comfortable to live in. I think that's the meaning of 'bad feng shui.'"
Zhao Yunlan took his pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and shook it. "Oh, right—is smoking allowed here? Do you mind?"
Shen Wei shook his head. Zhao Yunlan flicked the pack with one hand, his other hand in his pocket, and fished a cigarette out with his lips. Eyes slightly downcast, he lit it. A few seconds later, he exhaled a cloud of white smoke with the casual air of an experienced smoker.
Shen Wei had seemed determined not to speak much, but evidently this was a final straw. Brows furrowed, he said, "Smoking and drinking are bad for your health, and Officer Zhao is still so young. It's best to do such things in moderation."
Zhao Yunlan smiled but didn't respond. Hidden by the cloud of smoke, his expression was impossible to make out. Fine ash fell from the cigarette's tip; intentionally or not, some of it landed on Shen Wei's shadow. Zhao Yunlan's gaze swept across the floor, and then he wafted the smoke back toward himself. "In our field, day and night run together sometimes. It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but that does make it easy to develop bad habits."
It seemed Shen Wei wanted to say something else, but as the words reached his lips, he bit them back forcefully. When he spoke again, it was on another topic entirely. "There aren't many departments on the old campus, so there isn't much faculty presence. On all eighteen floors here, only the south-facing offices are in use. Most of the other rooms are empty. Turn here and you'll reach your destination."
Mold and moss liked to grow in lonely, empty corners, but so did other things.
For whatever reason, the looping hallway of the building didn't have curved corners; instead it had abrupt sharp angles, which were a huge taboo in feng shui. Superstition aside, it was visually jarring, and anyone approaching a turn had no view at all of what was around the corner. If two people happened to be walking toward the same corner from opposite directions, they would be on a collision course.
Shen Wei led the way, Zhao Yunlan followed closely behind, holding the cat, and Guo Changcheng brought up the rear. As they came toward a corner, Guo Changcheng had the sudden feeling that something was about to lash out of those dark shadows. He could no longer pay attention to the conversation, focused only on that corner ahead. There, dim light shone through a window that was open at a very uncomfortable angle. Its lattice shadow spread across the floor in a stark delineation of light and darkness.
At the edge of that shadow, Guo Changcheng noticed something moving, as if a person were hidden there and stealthily poking their head out. And then…a shape like a hand emerged!
The shadow hand's fingers suddenly splayed wide, making a fierce grab for Shen Wei's feet.
Shen Wei appeared oblivious, but Zhao Yunlan grabbed his arm and dragged him back half a step.
"Right, I just remembered something," Zhao Yunlan said, tapping some cigarette ash into the shadow. The shadowy hand recoiled as if burned. "Where is my mind? We got this case in a rush, so I need to speak to the chancellor or their administrative assistant about what the school needs to do to cooperate. Would you be able to help us get in touch?"
Now, finally, Shen Wei looked at him. The corners of the professor's eyes gently tapered into a line, slender and elegant, like a delicate brushstroke trailing off. The way his gaze slanted out through his glasses verged on seductive, in an otherworldly way.
He could have stepped out of a supernatural tale, like a scholar who stole the heart of a female ghost and whose image she'd lovingly captured in ink. In such stories, even if the subject of the portrait was as clear as the moon and as smooth as jade, this image of them would still inevitably be tainted by the artist's sinful aura.
Shen Wei looked down, smiling shyly. The dark seductiveness had evaporated. "You're right. I really can't be of any help here, and I might even be a hindrance. The offices on the southern wall are all the math department. You can just go in and inquire. I'll go speak to the chancellor."
"Thanks." Zhao Yunlan extended the hand he'd been keeping in his pants pocket and shook Shen Wei's hand with a smile. After an unremarkable goodbye, he waved Guo Changcheng along and strode arrogantly into the office area, intern in tow.
For some reason, after a few steps, Guo Changcheng looked back.
Shen Wei had yet to take even a single step from the spot. He'd removed his glasses and was absentmindedly wiping them with the corner of his shirt. In the dim hallway, his shadow stretched out, long against the floor, looking lonely and dejected. The eyes that had so determinedly avoided Zhao Yunlan were now fixed on his back.
There was a dark distance in that intense gaze. His expression held both a sort of restrained yearning and an affection that was almost palpable…but at the same time, there was deep, crushing pain.
Out of nowhere, Guo Changcheng got the feeling that the man had been standing there for thousands and thousands of years.
Shen Wei watched Zhao Yunlan until he turned the corner, then finally noticed Guo Changcheng looking at him.
A polite smile spread across the young professor's face. He put his glasses back on, as if donning a nonchalant facade. He nodded at Guo Changcheng in acknowledgment, then disappeared into the elevator, as though everything Guo Changcheng had seen was only the misconception of an apprehensive young intern.
"Director Zhao, that man, he…"
"Haven't you realized that, wherever this is, it's not the math department?" Zhao Yunlan interrupted. He reached out to wipe the heavy dust on a windowsill, carelessly rubbing the dust between his fingers. "We're being taken for a ride," he said evenly. "Do you think it's a coincidence? Or did that Shen-laoshi do it on purpose?"
Perhaps because Zhao Yunlan looked relatively young, or perhaps because his attitude had been easygoing and warm the entire time, Guo Changcheng gathered up enough confidence to ask, "Then why did you let him go? If he brought us here on purpose, why…"
With one hand holding his cigarette and the other back in his pocket, Zhao Yunlan turned and looked at Guo Changcheng through the swirling smoke. Guo Changcheng's mouth snapped shut.
"He's an ordinary human—I checked. You're new, so it's okay if you don't understand these things. We'll teach you as you go." Zhao Yunlan's voice lowered. "In this country, we basically have the same authority as our colleagues in other departments. Even without proof, we can interrogate citizens, ask them to cooperate, suspect them, or even lawfully detain them and bring them in for questioning. But there's one thing above all that: we absolutely do not have the right to keep an ordinary human in a dangerous situation. If anything happened to them, the consequences would be more than anyone could bear."
His tone wasn't harsh—quite the contrary. He was speaking very gently. Perhaps it was the shadowy frigidity of the hallway that made Guo Changcheng shiver.
Zhao Yunlan had already turned away. "As you can probably imagine, the cases that come to us don't often go through the usual public prosecution procedures. Under certain circumstances, we have the right to deal with those particular wrongdoers on the spot. That kind of authority can be a dangerous thing, so there are rules we must abide by. Do you know what the first one is?"
Guo Changcheng shook his head slowly, then realized the other man had his back to him and hadn't seen. He flushed in fresh embarrassment.
"Whether dealing with a human or a ghost, without conclusive proof, you must assume they are innocent." Zhao Yunlan seemed to have eyes on the back of his head. Having answered his own question, he patted the black cat's rump. "And you, Big Dumb Fatty—what was all that earlier? You were sucking up like a stupid dog!"
The black cat swiped rudely at him and jumped out of his arms, then strode aggressively to stand in front of them. "I just think there's something strange about that Shen-laoshi. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but being close to him makes me very comfortable."
"You also feel comfortable when you get close to wandering ghosts, and you especially love hiding dried fish in subterranean caves where corpses were hidden," Zhao Yunlan pointed out icily.
"You know that's exactly what I mean, dumbass human," said the cat disdainfully with a fwip of his tail.
Guo Changcheng had no idea how to respond.
The hallway grew dimmer as they walked, as if they'd entered a dark, endless tunnel. Zhao Yunlan reached for his lighter. It lit with a flick, and the small flame danced restlessly, silently ripping a tiny hole in the boundless darkness. His smile had disappeared. In the firelight, his face had an unhealthy pallor, making him seem tired, but his gaze was intensely focused—darker, in a way, than what surrounded them. A rotting smell came up from the depths of the darkness. Guo Changcheng couldn't help covering his nose.
"I hate circular halls like these," Zhao Yunlan said softly. "I hate everything that circles around and around—life and death, again and again, unending."
Hearing that stretched Guo Changcheng's nerves as far as he could bear. And then there came a cracking sound, one that immediately made him think of the sound of a gun being cocked on TV. Before he could even ask, he felt the sudden sensation of a light exhalation over the back of his neck. He jumped.
"Get out of the way," Zhao Yunlan said, as calm as if he were holding a plate of hot dumplings and asking someone to move over.
Guo Changcheng had already flung himself to the ground, nearly wetting his pants. A gunshot rang out in the darkness. A piercing scream came from behind him. If he'd had fur, it would have been standing up more than Daqing's when someone touched the cat's butt. His heart beat with such ferocity that it seemed to echo in his chest. It felt as if he'd been terrified into a heart attack.
As he sat on the floor, disheveled, he looked behind him. The weak glow of Zhao Yunlan's lighter showed a shadow on the wall the size of a five- or six-year-old child. At first glance, it might have been ink someone had smeared there. And at the center, in what would be its chest, there was a bullet wound. A pool of crimson was spreading from it in all directions, as if it were capable of bleeding.
"What is that?" Guo Changcheng asked. There was a shrillness to his voice that even he didn't recognize.
"Just a shadow. Don't get worked up over nothing." Zhao Yunlan reached out and wiped at the black shadow. The bloodred substance began to flake off the wall at his touch, like old, damp paint.
"The… The shadow of what?"
Zhao Yunlan paused, then snapped his head halfway around with a creepy smile. Guo Changcheng could almost feel his soul being dragged in by the man's frighteningly black eyes. Then, in a bone-chilling whisper, Zhao Yunlan said, "You know, sometimes a person can have more than one shadow."
Without a sound, Guo Changcheng slid down the wall like a limp noodle.
Zhao Yunlan was speechless.
"It's all your fault." Daqing's tail stood straight in the air as he circled the unconscious Guo Changcheng. This poor little intern was adding fainting into his daily routine. The cat flicked his tail unhappily. "What good does scaring him unconscious do?"
"I didn't do it on purpose." Zhao Yunlan kicked Guo Changcheng lightly. The intern slid down further against his leg with absolutely no reaction. "Who knew this fella was sound activated and would faint from a few sentences? I figured at worst he'd piss himself or something."
Daqing was pointedly silent.
"That way, I can pay his bonus with adult diapers." Zhao Yunlan reached down, picked Guo Changcheng up, and threw him over one shoulder. He looked like he was carrying a sack of potatoes that jostled with every step. His movements were nimble, but his tone was acidic. "Tell me, whose relative is this, that he just got shoved under my eyelids? What a pain."
"Apparently an important leader who recently arrived in the ministry is this kid's uncle," Daqing said.
Zhao Yunlan asked, expressionless, "Someone who just arrived? Doesn't he know the Special Investigations Department doesn't answer to the Ministry of Public Security? Sticking some mortal here with me—does he want his nephew to earn the honor of perishing in the line of duty?"
Daqing meowed. "Why didn't you say anything when the order came? What's the point of complaining at me now, you shameless kiss-up?"
"Who cares if I'm shameless? What matters is not dying of hunger." Zhao Yunlan stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, slapping the kitty's head lightly. "Also, those of you who have nothing to do all day but pretend to be high and mighty, ask your conscience this: where do you think your jobs, your pay and bonuses, the benefits during holidays, and even the right to do your work without being affected or disturbed by any other departments come from? Do you think they were blown in by the wind? Don't I have to go make those connections? What is shame? Can you eat it? Does it taste good?"
Daqing, whose steady diet of imported cat food had gradually given him a more international body type, closed his mouth.
"Besides, as soon as he was assigned, his name was on the Soul-Guarding Order. I thought he'd have some special powers! How was I to know the Soul-Guarding Order is as susceptible to politics as I am?"
The black cat listened as he ran his mouth, but daring to joke about the Soul-Guarding Order was too much. "Enough nonsense!"
The Soul-Guarding Order had existed since ancient times. It served to conduct Netherworld business in the mortal world, act as a medium between yin and yang,8 and coordinate the Three Realms.9 Historically, it had fallen under the Imperial History Bureau. After the People's Republic of China was founded, the Soul-Guarding Order came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security. That was when the Special Investigations Department had been established.
The current director of the Special Investigations Department, Zhao Yunlan, was also the Guardian. This Guardian was equally comfortable in the Netherworld or in banquet halls. He was talented and smooth, able to hold his alcohol and exchange cups with anyone in the Three Realms. Eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, or putting on a show—he was an expert at it all.
The old cat looked on coldly. If Zhao Yunlan hadn't had the dubious fortune of inheriting the Soul-Guarding Order, those skills alone would have been enough to guarantee him a bright and promising future.
"What happened in the hall just now?" Daqing, unable to bite the hand that fed him, could only cough dryly and change the topic. "Why did your Clarity watch sound the alarm like that?"
"There's something following us," Zhao Yunlan said. "But it ran when I shined the light on it. It probably isn't malicious."
"It's not the killer?"
"No. You think I can't tell the difference between a newly formed ghost and something so tremendously evil?" Zhao Yunlan lugged Guo Changcheng as he paced up and down the hallway. "You saw the handprint next to the corpse, right? 'Bones thin as a match, fingers long as a whip.' So far I can't say for sure what it is, but I do know it's not human. This intern sure is solid—he weighs a ton. I have to dump him somewhere."
As he spoke, Zhao Yunlan came to a corner and tossed Guo Changcheng down, but he still had enough conscience to not leave him for dead. Hiking his pants up, he squatted down and took a little bottle from his pocket. After pouring its contents in a circle around Guo Changcheng, he bit his own middle finger and smeared a drop of blood between Guo Changcheng's brows. The moment the blood touched Guo Changcheng's skin, it was completely absorbed. The poor intern's complexion improved at once.
Having done all that, Zhao Yunlan gave Guo Changcheng a fierce smack on the head and cursed under his breath. "Useless thing."
"Enough fooling around, Yunlan. Look at your watch."
Zhao Yunlan glanced down just in time to see the face of his watch, Clarity, turn red again. A sharp yowl from beside his feet signaled him to follow Daqing's gaze.
An old woman clad in her graveclothes stood behind them. For all he knew, she'd been there for some time.
As soon as her eyes met his, she turned to leave. But after only a few steps, she stopped again, as if wanting to lead them somewhere.
"This is the new ghost you were talking about? A new ghost out in broad daylight like this?" Daqing extended his stumpy legs and gave chase, meowing in complaint. "Are you blind, you gay fool?"
Zhao Yunlan hurried to catch up. "Fuck off. Can't you see she can't speak? Can't you see there's still some life to her? Can't you see she's walking with two legs, not floating in midair? Who's the blind one here, Big Dumb Fatty?"
Still bickering, they turned a sharp corner. The old woman disappeared. What she'd led them to was a flight of stairs heading to the roof.
Daqing sniffled and sneezed. "What a massive amount of resentment."
Bending down to pick him up, Zhao Yunlan said, "Looks like it was her who brought us here, not Shen-laoshi. Maybe he really doesn't have anything to do with this. Let's go check it out."
Carefully, they walked up. The stairs felt soft underfoot, as though made not from cement but from some living thing—or rather, countless "living things" that now reached from the shadows, clawing at whatever dared to enter their territory. But the moment they touched the hem of Zhao Yunlan's pants, they were thrown back.
"It's a given that every school is allotted a quota of suicides each year. As long as the number isn't higher than that, it's not a huge problem," Zhao Yunlan said. "But I've heard that Dragon City University has had far too many for three years in a row. Most buildings here on the original campus are old and not very tall. Only the newer ones are high enough to guarantee no one can survive hitting the ground, so they're a magnet for suicides. The other buildings aren't so bad, but this building is where darkness and shadows converge. It's all corners inside, with lots of large L-shaped rooms and hallways, so once impurities are drawn in, they're stuck. Since they build up over time, a ton of resentment must be accumulated here."
They reached the top of the stairs as he finished speaking. The small door to the roof was locked, with only a weak sliver of light managing to filter through. Zhao Yunlan took a transit card from his breast pocket, thrust it into the lock, and gently turned it. The metal door, nearing the end of its life, creaked open. Holding his lighter aloft, Zhao Yunlan slowly walked through.
The roof of the eighteenth floor offered a wide view. Down on one side was Dragon City University's greenery, like an old-growth forest; on the other was the heavy traffic of cars and people crowding the city's main street.
At the roof's edge stood a girl with her back to him.
Zhao Yunlan opened his mouth carefully. "Hey…"
He'd barely begun to speak when she suddenly, with no warning, climbed over the railing and jumped.
Out of sheer reflex, Zhao Yunlan lunged forward to grab her. By anyone's standards, it was a swift response. He clearly managed to catch the back of her clothes, but his fingers went right through. Then she was gone, as if she'd been nothing but a mirage.
The cat bounced over like a rubber ball. "What is it? Was it human?"
"She was too fast." Zhao Yunlan subconsciously rubbed his fingers together. "I didn't have time to figure out whether she was…"
Zhao Yunlan had been born with his third eye open. Since childhood, he'd been able to see ghosts as plainly as he could humans, so a fleeting glance hadn't been enough to tell him whether she was human or something else. Before the cat could speak again, there were hurried footsteps behind them. Zhao Yunlan turned and recognized the same girl, now walking slowly up to the roof, head down. Her features were too blurred to make out her expression.
This time, her pace quickened before he could get a single word out. She raced to the edge as if trying to beat the lunch rush to the cafeteria and flung herself over. Zhao Yunlan reached out and grabbed her shoulder, but the same thing happened again. His hand passed through her, and she vanished into thin air.
After that, it was like jumping to your death was the latest craze. Girl after girl, each one blurry-faced and rushing as if to get to the market, appeared and then dashed to leap from the roof. Zhao Yunlan made grabs for all of them, but not a single one was corporeal. Beads of sweat began appearing on his forehead.
At first, Daqing was at Zhao Yunlan's side for each girl, but after the eighth jumper, the cat sat off to the side. His tail swished impatiently behind him, left to right, like a pendulum. "Give it up. These are either earthbound spirits or lingering consciousnesses from suicides here."
Zhao Yunlan ignored the advice. He was strong in short bursts and had some martial arts training, so beating up the occasional thug wasn't a problem. But overall, years of poor habits and a lack of exercise meant he wasn't all that fit. After only a few rounds he was already a bit winded.
The black cat sighed. "One can be fooled once or twice, but not a third time. Eight times now and you still can't tell she's not human?"
"How do you know all eight are the same person? Can you prove there's no human here but me? How do you know that when the next one runs out, we'll still be in the same physical space as we were a moment ago? Will you be able to discern whether or not she's human the moment she runs out? Remember, the third regulation is 'Never assume.' Or did you gobble that one up with your cat food?" Zhao Yunlan gave the cat a stern look.
The black cat, who was often annoying and rude, twitched his tail sheepishly. "Scolding me…?" he muttered. "This old cat's lived for thousands of years, yet you dare act like a boss and scold me, you brat?"
Zhao Yunlan erupted. "If you don't shut up, I'm taking away your cat food!"
Daqing was a cat who knew how to pick his battles. His tone changed at once. "Meow—"
Just then, a ninth jumper appeared. As soon as her face was visible, Zhao Yunlan yelled, "Miss, wait!"
But the girl turned a deaf ear. Like all the others before her, she hurled herself toward Mother Earth like an arrow shot from the bow.
"Fuck!" Once again, Zhao Yunlan's hands closed on nothing. He slapped the icy-cold railing fiercely.
"Mm…" Daqing came closer and rested his front paws on the railing, sniffing carefully. "Actually, what you're saying makes sense. Some earthbound spirits, like Aunt Xianglin10 relentlessly repeating her tales of woes, do reenact their deaths over and over again. But they're usually not in such a rush to die."
"Then what is it?" asked Zhao Yunlan.
"Resentment." Daqing took on a solemn expression—no small feat for a cat with a face like a pancake. "Suicide is a type of death seen as defying fate. There's a high chance that souls that die this way won't enter the reincarnation cycle. Even worse, some souls become incomplete when crossing the chasm between life and death, yin and yang. That leaves them wandering the mortal world long after they've forgotten how they passed on—confused even in death."
"Places where resentment is concentrated often make people feel uncomfortable, but can it actually hurt someone?" Zhao Yunlan asked. "I've never heard of a case like that."
The cat paused. "No, I've never heard of that either. But resentment is caused by incomplete souls. Like will consume like, and once they've reached a certain amount of power, they can manifest physically. That's why I suspected the girl we saw was a manifestation of resentment from the shards of countless suffering, devoured souls."
"What can the physical form do?"
"Nothing, really. Resentment isn't the same as evil. It's not as aggressive. Anyone who can be misled or even hurt by resentment is often guilty of something to begin with," said the cat. "But these ghosts don't have the innate power to touch the victim's body, let alone slice her open. There's nothing to investigate here. Let's leave."
Zhao Yunlan hesitated.
The black cat sighed. "When you should have some shame, it's like an alien concept for you; when you should be flexible, you're stubborn. The Soul-Guarding Order has been passed down for millennia now. The regulations were reduced to nothing but a page of hollow words ages ago. Why do you keep clinging to them?"
"No, I still think—" Zhao Yunlan broke off. A tenth girl was approaching the roof.
Human and cat tensed at the same moment.
The girl's eyes passed over them, unseeing, as she slowly made her way to the railing. Like the nine previous phantoms, she abruptly hoisted herself up onto the railing and jumped. But Zhao Yunlan, suspicious from the moment she appeared, made a lunge for her and got his arms around her waist. The sudden weight made the veins in the backs of his hands stand out. He'd caught a living, solid person.
Green eyes wide with shock, the cat leaped onto the railing.
Zhao Yunlan's hold on the girl was precarious. He couldn't bring all his strength to bear. In that position, holding on with only the strength of his arms, even a child would have felt heavy, never mind a grown adult. He had one leg jammed between the bars of the railing while the entire top half of his body dangled over.
Hanging below the railing, the girl suddenly seemed to wake up. With an ear-splitting shriek, she reflexively began struggling. Zhao Yunlan could only yell in her ear, "If you keep squirming, you'll fall and there'll be nothing left of you but a flat dried persimmon! Settle down!"
A loud snap came from the railing. Perhaps it hadn't been repaired in years, or perhaps their weight was just too much for it, but regardless, it started to give way.
Zhao Yunlan seemed oblivious, still talking to the girl. "Don't worry, don't worry, just hang on—"
Another snap rang out, interrupting him, as the railing finally broke.
There was weird laughter by Zhao Yunlan's ear, like the roof was mobbed with people—spectators indifferent to his plight. They cackled, enjoying the show.
"Meow!" Daqing yowled as if someone had stepped on his tail.
At that critical moment, as the railing fully collapsed, someone kicked the little door to the roof open. A figure rushed out in a blur of impossible speed.
Zhao Yunlan had managed to shift his weight to his heels and lean back. He wrenched himself around with the girl still in his arms and shoved her toward the new arrival—then he stepped wrong, his foot finding only empty air. One now-free hand found a grip on the ledge, leaving him hanging from the eighteen-story building.
Only then did Daqing finally recognize that it was Shen Wei who'd burst onto the scene, long after they'd thought he'd left.
Shen Wei immediately pushed the suicidal girl behind him, knelt, and grabbed the arm by which Zhao Yunlan was dangling. "Your other hand! Give me your other hand! Hurry!" |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0010.txt | ZHAO YUNLAN HESITATED, but then, despite the fierce wind atop the tall building, he met Shen Wei's eyes and saw himself in their depths—himself and, somehow, the night sky, impossibly intermingled. For some reason, looking up into those eyes, Zhao Yunlan instinctively let go and placed everything, including his insignificant little life, in Shen Wei's hands.
He regretted it the moment he let go. Is lust rotting my brain?
In the next second, Shen Wei hauled him up by sheer force. His unimposing, scholarly appearance belied an unusually powerful grip—Zhao Yunlan's wrist was rapidly going numb, his fingers purpling. The friction pushed his sleeve up to the elbow, scraping a layer of skin from his forearm.
Then he was being held tightly in Shen Wei's arms as they both collapsed on the roof—tightly enough that his bones creaked in protest, as though Shen Wei were hugging something he'd lost long ago. A strange feeling stirred in Zhao Yunlan when he glanced at his wrist and saw the bruises from Shen Wei's hold on it.
Zhao Yunlan struggled lightly, and Shen Wei seemed to come back to his senses. He released Zhao Yunlan, adjusting his glasses as if taking refuge behind a mask.
As a worldly and experienced man, Zhao Yunlan had an exceptional gift for reading even the subtlest nuances in someone's expression. His eyes glinted. Shen Wei's awkward reaction had betrayed that he too had felt a certain…pull.
A certain attraction…
Ah. So Shen Wei hadn't been afraid of him when they first met. The stiff body language and reluctance to meet his gaze seemed more like unease rooted in shyness.
"You were in the nick of time. Thanks to you, I'm not swinging from the building like a pendulum for the university clock tower." Zhao Yunlan pulled a pack of wet wipes from his pocket and handed one to Shen Wei as he wiped the blood and grime off his own arm. "Here—for your hands."
The brush of his fingertips against Shen Wei's could have been accidental. Shen Wei's fingers were like a touch-me-not plant, shrinking back at the barest touch.
The burgeoning desire Zhao Yunlan had been feeling turned into a lit firecracker. It exploded spectacularly, leaving behind a sea of red paper that spelled out "love affair." Every nerve in his body was alight. But the dance of romance was one he knew well; there was an art to its push and pull. After that delicate overture, he pretended not to notice anything.
Turning to the girl on the ground, he asked, "What's the deal here, young lady? Going through a breakup? Got yelled at by a prof? Failed your thesis defense or an exam? Look at you brats here—your families provide for your every need, but you're all so bored out of your skulls that—"
The girl's sudden wail interrupted him as she burst into tears.
Shen Wei regained his senses at last. Very low, he said, "That was too dangerous."
Zhao Yunlan continued without missing a beat. "Exactly! Do you hear your professor? Don't you know how dangerous that was? But come on now, stop crying. We'll talk once we're downstairs. We'll have the school clinic look you over, and then we definitely need to have a chat with your parents."
Shen Wei stood and glared at Zhao Yunlan, then turned to the girl, face darkening. For a good half a minute he said nothing, only stared sternly until her sobs died down from fear, leaving her sniffling and hiccuping.
It reminded Zhao Yunlan of his grandpa, who'd passed long ago. His grandpa had also been a traditional, well-educated man who was friendly and cordial to others and always accommodating. He never would have scolded anyone by swearing or raising his voice, let alone raising a fist. But any time he'd genuinely gotten angry, that dark look on his face had been enough to bring every one of the family's younger brats back into line.
"If someone else were hurt because of you, would you carry that guilt to your grave?" Shen Wei insisted.
Falteringly, she said, "I… I'm sorry…"
Zhao Yunlan rubbed his nose awkwardly. "Well, no harm done. But you do need to reflect on this properly, young lady. Think about yourself. Think about your parents. At your age, what's so hard that you can't get over it? Come on, stop crying and get up now. Let me take you to the clinic."
He glanced at Shen Wei to see if he had anything to add, but Shen Wei didn't react. Zhao Yunlan went to the girl and bent down, helping her to her feet. She seemed barely able to stand, so he supported her weight as they descended.
Back inside on the top floor, he saw Guo Changcheng lying exactly where he'd been left. But before the boss could say anything, Daqing eagerly ran over and landed a barrage of "Meowvenly Meteor Paw" against Guo Changcheng's face.
The girl's suicide attempt had alarmed a lot of people. The previously desolate hallways seemed to have suddenly returned to the realm of the living, and many of the teaching staff poked their heads out to ask what was wrong.
Under so many curious eyes, Guo Changcheng slowly came to, letting out an inhuman wail. Face covered in blood, he opened his eyes and found his boss standing close by, supporting a young lady and looking rather the worse for wear.
Pointedly, Zhao Yunlan said, "Young people like you need to exercise more. It won't do to let your blood sugar crash so easily in our line of work."
Under the crowd's watchful gaze, Guo Changcheng didn't dare make a sound. He looked down in shame.
After a moment's consideration, Zhao Yunlan said, "How about this. I've still got some work to take care of, so take Daqing and look into the victim's background. Will you be okay if you're the only person I send?"
He emphasized the word "person," while Daqing, off to the side, licked his paw smugly. The cat meowed annoyingly, making Guo Changcheng shudder. Zhao Yunlan gave Guo Changcheng a benevolent pat on the head and turned to leave.
Shen Wei's expression was still dark, but he said nothing. Someone tried to ask him what had happened in a small whisper, but he only shook his head absentmindedly. It wasn't until they were out of everyone's sight that he subconsciously pressed his fingers to his collarbones. Something like a pendant's outline was faintly visible through his thin shirt. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath, then hurried to catch up.
As they headed down, Zhao Yunlan asked, "What's your name?"
"…Li Qian."
"Which department are you in? What year?"
"Foreign Languages department… First-year graduate student."
"Are you a local?"
Li Qian hesitated before nodding, half a beat late.
"What was that all about just now?"
This time, Li Qian didn't respond.
Zhao Yunlan glanced at her pensively. This girl named Li Qian had an unmistakable smear of heavy darkness under her eyes. Her gaze was empty, her eyes bloodshot, and her forehead ashen, as if she were knocking on death's door. From head to toe, she radiated misfortune.
Shen Wei suddenly said, "The Foreign Languages program has a high grade requirement for students who want to take humanities electives. Have you been in any of my classes?"
After a careful glance at him, Li Qian nodded.
Shen Wei spoke like a born lecturer. His voice was low and pleasant to the ear, words coming at an easy, steady pace. He sighed and said gravely, "Life and death are of great significance. In all of my classes, I tell my students that in this world, there are only two acceptable reasons to give your life. The first is to die for your home and country, by which you fulfill your duty. The other is to die for someone who truly knows you. In that way, you fulfill yourself. Outside of those things, treating your life lightly is an act of cowardice. Do you understand?"
"I…" Li Qian's voice trembled, but she regained control of herself and pursed her lips. "I'm sorry, Shen-laoshi. I was… I was really just acting on impulse. I wasn't thinking clearly. The blood just went to my head, and I rushed out there and almost dragged…"
She looked at Zhao Yunlan, then hung her head again. Director Zhao was incredibly handsome and his expression appeared kind, but somehow Li Qian was still a little scared of him. When their eyes met, she unconsciously shrank back against Shen Wei's side.
Zhao Yunlan got out a cigarette and lit it, then gave her the faintest hint of a smile. "You don't know what came over you? Miss, I've only ever heard of someone killing somebody else on impulse. Someone killing themselves on impulse is a rare sight indeed. What, were you possessed?"
At the word "possessed," Li Qian immediately paled.
Zhao Yunlan refused to go easy on her. "What were you afraid of? Tell us the truth. What exactly did you see up on the roof?"
Li Qian let out a dry chuckle. "Just… Just the roof. What else is there to see?"
"Well, I saw…" Zhao Yunlan gazed straight ahead and exhaled a languid breath of smoke. "When you jumped, I saw a lot of people up there. They were all watching you and laughing."
Li Qian hugged herself as shudders racked her body. She was clenching her teeth so hard that from up close the grinding was audible. Zhao Yunlan observed her for a moment, flicked his cigarette, and then reached out to push her shoulder. "All right, in you go. We're here."
After greeting the teacher on duty at the clinic's entrance, Zhao Yunlan passed Li Qian over to Shen Wei, then went to stand near the entryway, cigarette still dangling between his lips.
Right out in front, there was a man-made creek with a small bridge over it. Zhao Yunlan leaned against the wooden railing lazily. Slowly, he blew a puff of smoke over his watch. The white smoke dispersed quickly, leaving a thin haze within the watch face. An old woman's face faded in and out of view, as if she were meeting his gaze through the watch.
"The old cat wasn't wrong. A newly made ghost who died within the last seven days, showing up on Clarity in broad daylight? Not even a neighborhood committee official in life would be that fierce, usually." Zhao Yunlan raised a brow as he muttered to himself. "So, Granny, where did you come from?"
At the sound of footsteps behind him, he gently wiped the watch plate. The silhouette within vanished. Unhurriedly, he blew a few smoke rings, then turned to see Shen Wei approaching with a small tray of first aid items. Setting the tray aside, Shen Wei caught hold of Zhao Yunlan's scraped arm without leaving him room to protest. Eyes lowered, he rolled up Zhao Yunlan's sleeve carefully before reaching for some distilled water.
"I can do that myself," Zhao Yunlan said.
"How would you propose to do that?" Shen Wei kept his head down. After rinsing the scrape with the distilled water, he cleaned it with cotton, a bit at a time. All the while, he held the arm as if it were a fragile treasure. "Let me know if I'm too heavy-handed."
"A quick rinse with tap water would've been fine."
Still not looking up, Shen Wei said, "In this heat, there's a risk of infection if it's not cleaned properly."
Shen Wei's eyelashes were very long. With his head bowed, his features appeared delicate. The shape of his eyelids was so perfectly defined that they might have been drawn on. With every blink, his lashes fluttered ever so slightly, and Zhao Yunlan's heart fluttered along with them.
Zhao Yunlan had extraordinary self-confidence, but he wasn't confident enough to think he could make anyone fall in love at first sight. Besides, Shen Wei looked virtuous, with a hushed, tranquil air—not the sort of shallow person whose heart could be stolen by appearance alone.
Then why…
Shen Wei cleaned the scrape and applied ointment, but when he attempted to bandage it, Zhao Yunlan put his foot down.
"It's just a scratch. Who'd wrap something so minor in gauze in such hot weather? Anyone who saw it would wonder what's wrong with me." Zhao Yunlan put out his cigarette, then slung an arm naturally around Shen Wei's back. "I'm going to check on that girl. Shall we go together?"
The gesture turned Shen Wei as rigid as a board. He staggered for a few steps as Zhao Yunlan steered him, flushing from his neck to the tips of his ears. Then he scrambled out of Zhao Yunlan's hold, smoothing his shirt in an attempt to appear composed.
"Why are you like a girl?" Zhao Yunlan smiled nonchalantly, but he switched gears before Shen Wei could catch his breath. "Shen-laoshi, have you ever seen me before today?"
Surprised, Shen Wei met his gaze, mind going blank. For two full seconds, he could only stare at Zhao Yunlan, unable to look away. Finally, his throat a little dry, he said, "I… Yes. I saw you before."
Zhao Yunlan raised an eyebrow and waited for him to finish.
"I…" A conflicted expression flitted across Shen Wei's face. Just as Zhao Yunlan thought he was about to tell a fantastic story of how incredibly their lives were entangled, Shen Wei's tone lightened. "Actually, I saw your team working on a case."
Zhao Yunlan felt a sudden pang of disappointment, as though his hopes had been lifted just to be let down gently. "Oh? When was that?"
"Five or six years ago, during that string of twelve suicides at the twin towers near Wanqing Bridge. It was when I was about to graduate. I'd just moved off campus and happened to be looking at apartments in that area. Because of the deaths, business was bleak for that building, so the rent was cheap. I was one of the few people who felt brave enough to live there."
Zhao Yunlan tried to recall. "I was there, but I'm sure I'd remember seeing you."
"You didn't see me, but I was living on the top floor. I saw you, and I also saw…" Shen Wei paused, schooling his face into an expression of disbelief at just the right moment. "I saw you capture a black shadow from one of the rooms up there. You stuffed it into a bottle, then turned to someone and said, 'I've caught the suspect. Everyone can wrap up.' Except…you were clearly the only person there."
Astonished, Zhao Yunlan asked, "You not only dared to live there but lived on the top floor? You sure had a lot of guts."
"At the time, I didn't believe in that kind of thing. I was a poor college student." Shen Wei lowered his head. Then—not making himself sound any less suspicious—he said, "You can check the records. I'm telling the truth."
From Zhao Yunlan's glance, it wasn't clear how much he actually believed. "That's negligence on my part," he joked. "Regulations say we should've wiped the memory of any bystanders, but the success went to my head and I didn't notice you. My sincere apologies. Did you feel like your whole atheist worldview completely collapsed back then?"
Shen Wei offered a strained, reserved smile but didn't answer.
When the two of them entered the clinic, they found Li Qian sitting up in bed in the room she'd been put in, holding a glass of hot sugar water the doctor had given her. She was backlit against the window, making her expression seem even gloomier.
Zhao Yunlan raised a hand and knocked on the door. Li Qian looked up in alarm. Recognizing him, she slowly let out a breath of relief.
He checked his watch. It still reflected the old woman's shadow, but the watch's hands hadn't turned red. Bizarrely, the new ghost's vitality seemed to be getting stronger.
If signs of death appeared on a living person, it meant their life was about to be snuffed out like a candle. But what could it mean to see life blooming on someone who was dead?
Was she about to reincarnate?
As Zhao Yunlan pondered it, he boldly sat on the bed across from Li Qian and got out a notebook. "Okay, Tongxue, I still need to ask you a few things." Li Qian looked at him, her face pale.
Since Shen-laoshi had made it plain that he knew the nature of Zhao Yunlan's job, there was no need to beat around the bush. Bluntly, Zhao Yunlan asked, "Have you recently been able to see things you shouldn't have?"
Li Qian's expression of utter terror was all the answer he needed.
"I understand now." Zhao Yunlan stared at the spot between her brows. He leaned forward slightly, hand resting on his knee. "But I can tell your third eye hasn't been opened. Theoretically, you shouldn't be able to see anything. Were you touched by these things because your birth chart11 is too troubled, or did you mess with something you shouldn't have?"
Li Qian bit her lip. Her fingers twisted together until her knuckles whitened.
"Oh? Seems like it's the latter. Tell me, what did you touch?" Zhao Yunlan kept his voice low. When she didn't reply, he laughed coldly. "If you don't tell me, you'll be haunted by it for the rest of your life. Haven't you ever heard that curiosity killed the cat? Some things shouldn't be messed with."
"A sundial," Li Qian eventually said, breaking her silence. "It's a family heirloom. It had already turned black from being there for so long. On the back, there's a round plate with lots of inlaid stones that look like fish scales. They're black crystal—similar to wujing stone, the elders said."
Zhao Yunlan's pen stilled. "A sundial?"
Li Qian nodded.
"The sundial goes around once a day; the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, over and over, symbolizing life's endless cycle of reincarnation." Zhao Yunlan sat deep in thought for a while before continuing. "But there's another way of looking at it. Some people believe reincarnation is an endless cycle of killing, the old replaced by the new. What's lost will be lost forever, and what has passed will never return. With a turn of the clock, one can look back, but not go back. With a turn of the reincarnation cycle, though, even if one tried to look back, they wouldn't know which way to look."
Behind him, unseen, a sudden tremor went through Shen Wei.
"What did you use it for?" Zhao Yunlan asked.
Li Qian bit her lip again.
"Okay, let me rephrase. Did you do anything bad with it?"
Her eyes grew wide. "I didn't!"
Zhao Yunlan stared at her in silence.
"I really didn't!" Li Qian curled up, reflexively trying to protect herself. "How could I use something passed down in my family to do something bad? You're full of shit! You…" She coughed, worked up to the point of choking. More harsh coughs followed.
Shen Wei's forehead creased. He walked over and blocked Zhao Yunlan's penetrating gaze, patting Li Qian's back. "Take your time. There's no rush."
To Zhao Yunlan, he said, "She's just been through a significant shock. Whatever it is you want to ask, Officer Zhao, can you not push her too hard?"
Zhao Yunlan raised a brow. "Okay, I'll stick to the most relevant things. One last question. After that, I'll fuck off."
He pulled a picture of the dead girl from his pocket. "Have you seen this student recently?"
Li Qian's gaze swept over the picture. First, she shook her head. Then, as if suddenly recalling something, she grasped the photo and examined it carefully. Finally, she ventured, "I think… I think I saw someone who looked kind of like her yesterday…"
Zhao Yunlan's expression turned serious. "Yesterday when? Do you remember what she was wearing?"
"In the evening." Li Qian thought about it. "Last night, I'd just returned after the library closed. It was probably after 10 p.m. I left campus to buy some stuff. At the entrance, I think I saw someone who looked like her, but I don't really remember what she was wearing… Oh! No, I do remember. She was in an Orientation Week T-shirt. I noticed because I have one too."
"Were there a lot of people wearing that shirt yesterday?"
"Pretty much only students from our school," Li Qian said. "I wouldn't say a lot of people. Most students are at the new campus. There aren't a lot of people here at the old one to begin with."
"Were you wearing your matching shirt?"
"It hadn't been washed, so I didn't want to wear it against my skin. At first, I wore it over my own T-shirt. When the weather got hot later, I took it off and stuffed it in my bag."
Zhao Yunlan considered that. "When you saw her, was anyone else around?"
"Yeah, there were a lot of people passing by, and cars too." Li Qian, realizing he was trying to get at something, asked, "Why?"
"I wasn't asking about the main road. I mean that little alley outside the side entrance to your school. That's where she was walking, right? At the time, was there anyone else in that alley?"
Li Qian began to feel uneasy. Her gaze drifted to the side. She nodded, then shook her head, confused. "I… I don't remember. Maybe…? I think she went that way, but I didn't follow her. That alley's a dead end. Only people who live in the dorms on the east side of campus would take the shortcut through there, so it's usually fairly quiet…"
"You didn't go that way?" Zhao Yunlan interrupted.
"Huh? Ah… I didn't…"
"Why not? Don't you also live on the east side?"
"I…" Li Qian didn't know what to say. She mumbled to herself and then, panicked, she said, "I was taking the long way to go buy something…"
"Didn't you just say you'd already finished shopping and had just left?" Zhao Yunlan interrupted again. His tone was harsh now. "Tongxue, there's nothing I want more than to be a friendly neighborhood Mr. Policeman. I don't want to scare you. But you need to do your part to cooperate with the investigation, so tell me the truth, okay?"
Freshly nervous, Li Qian clutched the hem of her shirt. "I-I am telling the truth."
"Her name was Lu Ruomei. She was a graduate student at Dragon City University too. You're asking me what happened yesterday? I'll tell you: your fellow student was murdered last night." Pausing after every word, focused intently on Li Qian's expression, he said, "The estimated time of death is last night at 10 p.m. That means you may very well be the last person who saw her alive."
Li Qian's pupils contracted as the glass she was holding fell and shattered on the floor. She seemed as if she were in a trance: the corners of her eyes twitched nervously and her fingers, which she had unclenched unconsciously, were trembling. Her lips paled until they were nearly blue.
Zhao Yunlan leaned back and crossed his legs. Lacing his fingers together over his knee, he looked at her. "Why are you so shaken? If the victim's death has nothing to do with you, and you didn't even know her, why are you so afraid right now? Why did you take a detour last night instead of going through that alley?"
A short scream escaped her. Li Qian slumped down, fingers in her hair, and hid her face.
Taking one of her wrists firmly, Zhao Yunlan pulled her hand away. Sternly, he said, "It's no use trying to evade this. Look at me and tell me exactly what you saw."
Li Qian shoved his hand off. In her struggle, the hospital bed shifted. Its metal legs scraped the floor with a rough grating noise.
"I don't know!" Hysterical, she kept yelling, "I don't know! I don't know! Don't ask me! I don't know!"
"Your campus isn't very large." Zhao Yunlan lowered his voice. "Perhaps you passed by her when eating breakfast one day. Maybe you've shared the same study room, borrowed the same book.
"Do you want to know how she died? When we found her, her corpse was lying all alone in the alley. Something sharp tore her open and half of her organs were dug out. We don't know for sure what happened to them, but there was a chunk of her intestine with teeth marks on it, so it's reasonable to think her killer ate them. All that blood… Tch, it was all over the ground. The bloodstains are still there. Also, did you know—"
Li Qian began to scream wordlessly.
Zhao Yunlan was unmoved, as if he had a heart of metal or stone. He didn't let up. "She was still alive when her belly was ripped open. She had to see her own liver, kidneys, and stomach lifted out of her body. She would have been able to hear the chewing as her organs were eaten. Can you imagine what that must have been like?"
Already hoarse from screaming, Li Qian crumpled to her knees on the floor, curling into a ball with her arms around her head.
The doctor on duty heard the commotion and hurried over. "What happened? What's going on?"
Zhao Yunlan thrust his work ID under the doctor's nose, then reached out and shut the door in his face. "Sorry, police questioning. Give me another five minutes. Thank you."
Folding his arms, Zhao Yunlan leaned against the door. He looked at Li Qian again and repeated himself a third time. "Tell me. What did you see?"
Abruptly, this time she answered him. "A… A shadow."
His expression went solemn. He went back to her in large strides and squatted beside her. "What kind of shadow?"
Shen Wei couldn't help but speak up. "Both of you be careful of the glass." He grabbed a broom from the corner and swept the shards off to the side. After a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Should I leave?" and turned to his student. "Here, how about I get you more water?"
Zhao Yunlan waved the offer away. "No, it's good that you're here. Don't leave. I don't have a female coworker with me, and it's against regulations to question her alone." As he spoke, he helped Li Qian uncurl and sit up, then handed her a packet of tissues from the little side table. "What kind of shadow? Take your time."
"When she passed by me, I saw her school T-shirt and realized she was a fellow student. So I greeted her, even though we didn't know each other. She just said, 'Excuse me,' and rushed past. That's when…" Li Qian looked up, shuddering violently. Her eyes were bloodshot. "That's when I saw her shadow—her shadows. She had more than one."
Softly, Shen Wei said, "Multiple light sources will create multiple shadows. Perhaps…"
"That's not it. It wasn't like that!" Li Qian cut him off, voice trembling. "It wasn't that kind of shadow. It appeared out of thin air where there was no light. It was so much darker than the other shadows, and…and worst of all…it didn't move with her!"
The room was suddenly eerily still. Li Qian shook as if her bones were about to come apart. Shen Wei paused, bent over, and patted her head comfortingly. "Tongxue, please try to be calm."
"I saw it, Shen-laoshi. I swear I saw it." Li Qian grabbed the hem of his shirt and burst into tears. "It kept following her. I saw. The second she walked into that alley, it suddenly…it suddenly stood up, like a real person. I was so afraid. I ran for my life.
"I thought I must have been dreaming or having a hallucination, you see? But then you—you just had to ask me. You had to tell me that she…she's already…"
At that point, she seemed to remember Zhao Yunlan's description. She jumped up, pushed Shen Wei away, and bolted to the corner, where she threw up.
There was a rebuke in the look Shen Wei threw Zhao Yunlan.
"Uh…don't worry," Zhao Yunlan said. "This is a pretty minimal reaction. You weren't at the scene this morning. One of our newbies puked so much he practically turned into a sea cucumber."
Shen Wei's gaze turned helpless. He shook his head and went into the hallway, where he got a bottle of water from the doctor, who'd kept looking inside. Then he let Li Qian rinse her mouth and helped her back up. Li Qian couldn't quite stand on her own, but she stumbled back to the bed with Shen Wei's help. Eyes dull, she looked at Zhao Yunlan. "It killed someone, and it'll kill me too. I saw it. It won't let me go, will it?"
Zhao Yunlan didn't answer the question. "Can you describe it for me?"
"I didn't get a clear look, but…it was human shaped. When it stood up, it must have been about this tall." Li Qian gestured with her hands. "All black and a little short, so it looked a bit fat."
Zhao Yunlan's pen stopped moving. Brows furrowed, he repeated, "A little short and a little fat?"
She nodded.
"Is it possible that it's not actually short? Could it have run off as soon as you saw it, so it hadn't managed to stand up fully?"
Li Qian stilled, her reaction even more delayed than before. Then she lowered her eyes, evading Zhao Yunlan's gaze, and nodded again. "It's… It's possible."
Something odd entered the look he was giving her. "And then?"
"Well, then I ran." She kept her head down and Zhao Yunlan scrutinized her in silence. Her fingers were tangled together, the tips turning white.
Finally, Zhao Yunlan let it go. He ripped a page from his notebook and wrote down a string of numbers. "If there are any clues, or if you remember anything new, please contact me as soon as possible. My phone is on 24/7. Thank you for your help." He shoved the note at Li Qian and stood up.
"I'll see you off," said Shen Wei.
"No need," Zhao Yunlan replied. "I'm going to have a smoke outside first. You talk to her. I was a tad brusque just now, so I might have scared the kid. My apologies."
Shen Wei looked at Li Qian. It was impossible to know what she was thinking; she showed no reaction to Zhao Yunlan's words.
Once Zhao Yunlan was gone, cigarette already between his lips, Shen Wei asked Li Qian, "Are you hungry? I can get you some food from the cafeteria later." He kept his voice as gentle as possible.
With Zhao Yunlan's departure, the oppressive feeling he'd brought with him also dissipated. Li Qian found it easier to breathe, and exhaustion finally caught up with her. She shook her head weakly.
Shen Wei said, "Then I'll get the doctor to come stay with you for a while. Rest here for a bit. Once you feel better, you can go back, okay?"
Li Qian nodded.
He began to leave, but after two steps, a thought struck him. He turned back. "Do you have any money on you? If not, how about I leave some with you for now?"
It was clear he meant well. With great difficulty, Li Qian mustered a smile. "Thank you, but there's really no need."
Shen Wei sighed, as if there was something on his mind. Eventually he said, "Some lies are told deliberately, Tongxue, while some are not. The former serve to deceive others, while the latter deceive oneself. Either way, it's very sad."
The words were general enough, but Li Qian froze. Shen Wei dropped his gaze. "Never mind. I wish you well."
Having said that, he acquired a small bottle of ointment from the pharmacy next door, then hurried outside.
Zhao Yunlan was still in the hallway, in the middle of a call.
"I looked into it. This time it's the other side's problem, not ours." It was a woman's voice on the line—but not Wang Zheng's. This woman spoke in a sibilant way, dragging out her final syllables in a faint hiss. It gave her voice a flirtatious note. "Last night, as soon as the Gates of the Netherworld opened, a dozen registered Netherworld souls went missing. Most of them were newly dead, not even seven days postmortem. One, they still yearned for the mortal world, and two, they didn't understand the rules. But it's fine—they can't cause too much trouble. What is a real problem is that a Hunger Ghost apparently also escaped in the chaos."
"I'm sorry, a what escaped?" Zhao Yunlan thought he'd misheard.
"A Hunger Ghost."
"How could they let a Hunger Ghost loose in the Mortal Realm? Are they trying to lose their jobs?" If fury could burn, Zhao Yunlan would be a fire hazard.
"The Netherworld's current government really isn't up to the job. The other side's always been like that. They'll show up if they think it'll benefit them, but they'll vanish into thin air at the first sign of trouble. It's not like any of this is news to you." The woman paused. "One more thing—we got a message from him. I think he's probably going to stop by personally, but I don't dare open it to be sure. Hurry and come back."
"Why would he be coming?" Zhao Yunlan's brow creased. "Okay, got it. Meanwhile, I have a few tasks for you. First, the murder happened right across from University Street, and there's a security camera at that intersection. Maybe it caught something, so get that footage. Second, look into Li Qian, a first-year grad student at DCU. She's studying Foreign Languages. And third, see if the other side can tell us about an old sundial made of black stone with fish scales carved into it. Find out what exactly that is."
Glimpsing Shen Wei's approach from the corner of his eye, Zhao Yunlan lowered his voice. "That's all for now. I have to go, so I'll talk to you later. Keep me posted on any developments."
In the blink of an eye, Zhao Yunlan banished the irritation from his face as he turned, an old pervert magically transforming into a young bohemian. Gently and with great courtesy, he said, "Ah no, Shen-laoshi, you're much too polite. No need to walk me out." |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0011.txt | SHEN WEI SHOVED the ointment he'd picked up toward Zhao Yunlan. "You forgot about this, so I brought you some."
As he spoke, he looked at the scrape on Zhao Yunlan's arm. His brows drew together. "Once you're home, please be careful. Make sure to keep the wound dry, try not to eat anything too spicy, and…" He trailed off. Zhao Yunlan was staring at him in silence. Uneasy, Shen Wei asked, "What is it?"
Zhao Yunlan responded by changing the topic entirely. "Shen-laoshi, are you married?"
Shen Wei froze and answered reflexively. "No. Why…?"
"Oh," Zhao Yunlan said. "Then is there a girlfriend in the picture?"
There was an invasive edge to how he was looking at Shen Wei. It somehow made Shen Wei feel that there was no right answer to the question.
Zhao Yunlan took the chance to accept the ointment, turning it over in his hands. With a hint of a smile, he said, "Forget it. I'd just think someone so young and successful, not to mention meticulous and considerate, would be very popular. But it's none of my business. I'm sorry."
Shen Wei was embarrassed, but Zhao Yunlan only smiled, revealing two dimples, as he added, "Oh, right. Can I borrow your phone for a sec?"
He got his phone out, but Zhao Yunlan didn't take it. Instead, he lifted Shen Wei's hand and gently held the back of it while he casually entered his own name and number into Shen Wei's contacts. He saved it, dialed the number, and then hung up after one ring.
"Just making sure you have my contact information," he said, pretending to be serious. "If anything else comes up related to the case, feel free to harass me."
Then he tossed the little bottle up in the air, caught it, and waved to Shen Wei. "Thank you so much. I have to go, but after I've closed this case, I'll be sure to treat you to a meal, Shen-laoshi."
This time, he was in no hurry to leave. He shoved a hand in his pants pocket and swaggered off. His silhouette was casual, even careless, but the lines of his body were curved and angled in all the right places. It gave his leisurely stride an air of grace. He was like a peacock with its tail spread, seizing every opportunity to display his colorful plumage and spread his hormones around.
It wasn't until he'd gone a good way off that the bashful unease faded from Shen Wei's face. There was a maelstrom of barely leashed emotion in his eyes. After one last look at Zhao Yunlan disappearing in the distance, he headed in the other direction.
But only a dozen steps later, Shen Wei couldn't help looking back, even though the person he wanted to see had already disappeared from view. When he looked through his phone's contacts, he found a flirtatious "a-Lan" innocently displayed on the screen. As he silently drank in those two syllables, he felt as if a knife were slipping cleanly through his heart, turning the softest part to a bloody pulp. Finally, his narrow lips locked the words away where no one could hear them.
Shen Wei lifted his fingers and caught the faint scent of Zhao Yunlan's cologne. Closing his eyes, he took a slow, deep breath. He didn't know what cologne it might be, but from the very first whiff, it was as if the scent had been haunting his dreams for years on end.
The only sound on the quiet campus was that of bright green leaves falling to the ground. Nothing could have been gleaned from Shen Wei's expression. After a while, the corner of his mouth quirked up in something like self-mockery. Then he looked down and hurried away.
For that brief moment as he glanced down, the faint desolation evaporated. His face tightened, as if carved to reveal a silent, murderous intent.
As for Guo Changcheng, the stupid kid had been tasked with getting a sense of the situation. But since he genuinely didn't know what exactly he should be getting a sense of, all he could do was suck it up and talk to people, stammering the whole time. He was keenly self-aware when it came to his own professional capabilities: in his mind, even the parrots in the flower and bird markets were more eloquent than him.
Close to noon, he finally received a call from Zhao Yunlan. Dejected, he led the weird, talking black cat to the school entrance, squatted down, and waited for their boss to come collect them.
Even the way Guo Changcheng squatted was different from everyone else. He curled into a ball, his hair half covering his face. He and the double-chinned fat cat sitting upright beside him were blatantly out of place, periodically drawing glances from curious passersby. The embarrassing display finally ended half an hour later when Zhao Yunlan arrived. Guo Changcheng, whose legs had gone numb from squatting, limped along in Zhao Yunlan's wake.
As they walked the campus' beautiful, quiet paths, Guo Changcheng kept sneaking glances at Zhao Yunlan's tall, lean figure. His own expression and mannerisms were akin to a sad, worried little wife who had accidentally set the kitchen on fire.
In the half hour he'd spent squatting by the wall, Guo Changcheng had reflected deeply on the series of events that had unfolded in the twelve hours since he'd joined the Special Investigations Department, and now he was overcome with despondency. Hadn't it been just a slightly eerie hallway? Hadn't it been just a little dark and creepy? Hadn't his boss just said something ambiguous? How had it all made him faint?
All along, Guo Changcheng had felt he was woefully unqualified to join the Special Investigations Department, which offered higher pay and better bonuses than anywhere else. And yet somehow, in some unworthy way, he had gotten in. If he wound up unable to keep the job, never mind losing face—how could he possibly tell his uncle?
As these heavy thoughts worried away at him, he looked at Zhao Yunlan, who was carrying Daqing on his shoulders. Due to the cat's great bulk, Zhao Yunlan had to walk with his neck bent, as if he'd suffered a stroke. Yet despite that, he looked handsome and elegant—a handsome, elegant stroke victim. Director Zhao clearly wasn't that much older than Guo Changcheng, but he always seemed so sure of himself, as if he wasn't afraid of anything.
Just then, Zhao Yunlan glanced back. Guo Changcheng hastily averted his gaze.
"What is it? What do you want to say?"
Guo Changcheng looked at the ground. The bangs covering his eyes were a little greasy, resembling a tidy row of black lines.
"If you have something to say, just say it. From now on we'll have to communicate a lot for work. As you get to know me, you'll realize that I'm very good-tempered and straightforward. Even if I get really upset about something, I'll forget about it after a night's sleep."
Zhao Yunlan lied through his teeth without even needing to make notes. Daqing, listening beside his head, nearly threw up from disgust.
"I… I… I…" Guo Changcheng tried to answer but couldn't manage to speak at first. His eyes were red before he finally blurted, "I just think I'm useless!"
Oho, Zhao Yunlan thought, delighted. So you do have some self-awareness!
But he maintained his two-faced act, determinedly putting on a warm, affectionate expression. "Okay, young man. This is your first time out in the field. Why worry about a little setback? Who among us hasn't made mistakes? Let's take it slow. Don't worry, I believe in you. Don't overthink things. Now tell me, what did you find out from the teachers?"
"Oh… Oh!" Guo Changcheng hurriedly produced a notebook from his little crossbody bag. "I found… The victim's name is Lu Ruomei. She was a postgraduate student from the math department, a local from a middle-class family. There aren't many girls in the math department, so everyone usually looked after her, which also meant she got along well with people at school. I didn't hear about her having conflicts with anyone. Recently, she'd been applying for admin positions at the university. She spent quite a lot of time on off-campus activities, so her grades weren't the best…"
He spewed all of this bullshit at length, and for once, Zhao Yunlan actually heard him out patiently. When he finally wound down, Zhao Yunlan even asked, "So what do you think?"
"I think…her grad school application could have given her competitors motive. Or maybe she offended someone during her off-campus extracurricular activities. We can start by investigating her social connections. Perhaps the culprit is among them." Guo Changcheng stopped there and peeked at Zhao Yunlan anxiously, showing no confidence at all. "I… For the time being, this was all I could come up with."
Not addressing whether he was right or wrong, Zhao Yunlan nodded slowly. "Then how do you think she died?"
Guo Changcheng wasn't sure what to make of the question. He could only say cluelessly, "Murdered?"
Zhao Yunlan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Alas, Comrade Guo Changcheng probably didn't even know how to write the words "read the room." He let out a breath of relief when he saw Zhao Yunlan laugh and broke into a timid, foolish smile.
Director Zhao had never had to deal with such a weirdo. There was no way out of this excruciating situation but to push through, no matter how much internal damage he had to suffer in silence. He forced himself into an enigmatic, leaderly stance and said, "You did great. That was very detailed. You have potential."
Guo Changcheng's head snapped up. The man before him was gazing down with a pleasant, kind smile wreathing his face. His eyes and brows were more beautiful than Guo Changcheng could express. Those few words flooded him with warmth and strength, and his face went red. His boss was way too good to him—so good that Guo Changcheng suddenly understood the ancient saying, "A man is willing to die for the one who truly understands him." If Director Zhao cherished and valued him like that, even his life wouldn't be too great a sacrifice.
And so, Guo Changcheng voluntarily took on a task even more difficult for him than dying: calling and interacting with strangers. "Then… Then I'll go investigate her social connections!"
"What's the rush? Zhu Hong is still on duty at the office. I'll give her a call later and ask her to do it," Zhao Yunlan said with the false sincerity of one deceiving a child. "How about this? I'll give you another task that should be a great learning experience. You saw that girl who tried to commit suicide earlier, right? She's an important eyewitness, but I think she's hiding something. I want you to follow her and find out why she's keeping something from us."
Eyes aglow, Guo Changcheng snapped up straight. "Yes, sir!"
"Mm. Go on, then," said Zhao Yunlan with a nod.
Guo Changcheng turned and ran, blood singing in his veins. With his puffed-up chest and gallant movements, one would have thought he was about to throw himself toward enemy fire, not tail someone.
Zhao Yunlan watched the intern go. To the black cat on his shoulder, he said, "Mortals."
Daqing raised his large pancake face. "Doesn't get any more mortal than that."
"The Soul-Guarding Order must've blue-screened." Zhao Yunlan patted the kitty's rump. "I need to go back to the office to check something. Keep an eye on him."
Daqing meowed lazily, sprang from his shoulder like a ball shot from a bow, and rolled away at the speed of light. |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0012.txt | WHEN SHEN WEI ARRIVED back at the clinic with food from the cafeteria, he found Guo Changcheng standing anxiously at the entrance. The young intern was looking to and fro, clearly wanting to go in but just as clearly too afraid. Daqing, the precocious cat, sat off to the side, blatantly ignoring everything. His gut bulged as he groomed his shiny black fur.
"Aren't you…" Shen Wei paused awkwardly. Earlier, precisely none of his attention had been on the person before him now. "I'm sorry, but how should I address you?"
This gave Guo Changcheng a fright, but then he recognized Shen Wei. Facing him, Guo Changcheng felt a lot less nervous. It was clear that Shen Wei was a good person. His presence didn't give off the sense of constant pressure that Zhao Yunlan's did, no matter how kind the boss was being. Perhaps that's the charm of an intellectual, Guo Changcheng thought admiringly. Shen Wei could stand shoulder to shoulder with someone with a powerful aura without seeming weak, and yet when standing beside someone like Guo Changcheng, who was a lifetime member of the Church of Uselessness, he didn't seem at all high and mighty.
"My surname is Guo," Guo Changcheng said sheepishly.
"Officer xiao-Guo, then." Shen Wei smiled. "What brings you here?"
Guo Changcheng hesitated, unsure if he could tell anyone about the task his boss had given him. Unable to decide, he looked down and searched for a clue in Daqing's expression. Daqing, however, was a long-haired cat with a face of glossy black fur. There were no answers to be found there.
Daqing silently face-pawed. In broad daylight, you'd rather consult a cat than form a coherent sentence?
Fortunately, Shen Wei recognized the problem. Seeing Guo Changcheng's internal conflict, he immediately said, "My apologies—I spoke without thinking. I was just asking casually. Sorry, I wasn't trying to pry."
Guo Changcheng lowered his head in shame, even though he didn't understand what he should feel ashamed about.
"Have you eaten?" Shen Wei asked. "I bought a lot. If you'd like, why don't you come in and have some too?"
Guo Changcheng was about to refuse when his stomach growled. The last time he'd had anything to eat or drink had been the previous night—almost an entire day earlier.
While he wavered trying to decide, Shen Wei successfully lured Daqing. "Come, kitty. I bought milk. The doctor on duty probably went to eat too. We'll be quiet and not let anyone see."
Since Daqing was the only source of courage Guo Changcheng had, seeing the cat succumb to sweet temptation left him no choice but to follow.
Perhaps hoping to keep Guo Changcheng from feeling too awkward, Shen Wei tried to make small talk. "Officer xiao-Guo, you look very young—not much older than my students. You haven't been working for long, have you?"
"Today's my second day," Guo Changcheng said truthfully.
Shen Wei smiled. "Then you really must be right around my students' age. How does it feel to join the workforce?"
It didn't feel so great, to be honest. But Guo Changcheng still considered his words carefully. "It's…all right."
As he led them, human and cat, down the school clinic's narrow hallways, Shen Wei's gaze flashed behind his glasses, but he continued as if nothing were out of the ordinary. "Do your coworkers and your…boss…treat you well?"
"Director Zhao's pretty good to me. Oh—he's who was here this morning. My coworkers…" And here Guo Changcheng's expression contorted slightly as he thought of lao-Wu's papier-mâché-like face and how it seemed as though Wang Zheng's head had been chopped off and sewn back on. Painfully, he said, "They're… They're also fine."
"'Director Zhao,'" Shen Wei echoed quietly, before asking, "Is your Director Zhao normally busy?"
Guo Changcheng scratched his head. "He… Probably? I-It's my first day. I really don't know."
"What do you think of him?"
"He's great," Guo Changcheng replied automatically.
Shen Wei looked at him. "Then why are you a little afraid of him?"
Shocked, Guo Changcheng said, "He's my boss! Of course… Of course I…"
As they reached the room where Li Qian was resting, Shen Wei burst out laughing.
He arranged the food on the table quickly and divided the utensils, then ripped the lid off a single-use container, filled it with some warm milk, and pushed it toward Daqing. "Everyone eat. Don't just sit there."
Hunger made his stomach feel like a gaping hole, but Guo Changcheng still didn't have much of an appetite. Back in school, he normally never ate at the cafeteria—not because he was spoiled and looked down on the food, but because as soon as the cafeteria got crowded, someone inevitably came to sit at his table. That was all it took to make him uneasy and kill his appetite, never mind this situation, eating with two strangers in a hospital room.
Li Qian had even less appetite. Given her current mental state, if the doctor hadn't pronounced her fine, Shen Wei would almost have suspected she was on drugs. He also realized that if he didn't say anything, the only sound in the entire room would be Daqing drinking milk, which was painfully awkward. There was no choice but to keep up the small talk. He asked Li Qian, "You said you're a local. Do you live far away? If so, you should go home and rest for a few days. I'll talk to your advisor for you if necessary."
Her chopsticks paused imperceptibly as she hesitated. Finally, she said softly, "My family… My family is making funeral arrangements at the moment. There are a lot of relatives coming to stay, so there's no room for me."
Shen Wei stilled. Li Qian poked at the rice in her bowl faintly with her chopsticks and added, "My grandma passed away two days ago."
He apologized at once. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize. My condolences."
Li Qian lowered her head without responding. She picked at the plain white rice, ignoring the side dishes.
Shen Wei commandeered an extra pair of chopsticks to use as communal serving utensils. Putting some food in her bowl, he said, "I bought some dishes at random. I don't know if it's to your tastes, but try to eat some, at least."
Guo Changcheng, who had been pretending not to exist, suddenly butted in. "When I was younger, I was brought up by my grandma too. She passed away when I was in eleventh grade. Because of that, I took half a year off school."
Both Shen Wei and Li Qian looked at him. He fell silent again before continuing, voice muffled. "I've always been a disappointment. When the other kids bullied me, I was too afraid to hit back or even cry. Any time my grandma found out, she'd take me along when she went to confront the school, then scold me when we got back home. She'd take me to buy yogurt, chocolate, candy, and Qingfeng's veggie buns. But then at home, she wouldn't take a single bite. She left all of it for me. I'd put it to her mouth, and she'd only have a tiny nibble.
"As a kid, I always told myself that when I grew up and made lots of money, it would be my turn to take care of her. I thought I'd buy her yogurt, chocolate, and buns, but…she didn't live to see that day."
Something in his words struck a chord with Li Qian. Tears started to form in her eyes, but Guo Changcheng didn't notice. It was like he was talking to himself.
"One night she passed away in her sleep. No one knew. The next morning, she didn't get up, so I went to wake her, and found…found her. For the next few years, I always dreamed of her. When I wasn't in school, I'd dream she was pushing me every day, telling me, 'Go study, study well.' I finally returned to school. Sometimes, when I got a good grade, she smiled at me. When my grades fell, she sighed and looked tense. Then I finally got to university."
Guo Changcheng looked as wilted as a frost-beaten eggplant. Shen Wei couldn't help patting his head.
Smiling shyly at him, Guo Changcheng said, "I received my letter of admission later than everyone else. I was in the third round of acceptances; everyone else had already accepted their offers—it was September by then. That night was the last time I dreamed of her. She told me, 'You're all grown up now. Grandma can rest in peace. I'll be leaving.' When I asked her where she was going, she just shook her head and said it was the place dead people should go, and the living shouldn't ask about it. It's been years, but I haven't dreamed of her again. Not even once. My uncle said she reincarnated."
Silent tears rolled down Li Qian's cheeks, like beads from a broken string.
"What I mean is…" Guo Changcheng tugged foolishly at his hair. He'd been able to say so much for once out of sympathy. He was on the verge of admiring himself. "Come on, don't cry. When my grandma first passed away, I thought my world was collapsing too. I remember thinking, now I'll never get the chance to be a filial grandson again, so what's the point of studying and working hard? Back then, I would even have traded my life for hers, but…" He sighed. "Anyway, I'm not good with words. I just mean don't be sad. Our relatives who have passed away are still watching over us."
It would've been better if he'd stopped talking while he was ahead. At his last sentences, Li Qian began to shake and sob loudly. It was quickly clear that she was unable to stop, so badly out of it that her hands and feet were twitching unconsciously. Shen Wei hurried to get the doctor. Guo Changcheng, who had never seen someone so utterly devastated, could only stand aside helplessly.
The clinic doctor normally only prescribed medication for colds or diarrhea. He didn't have any experience injecting sedatives. Seeing the state Li Qian was in, he immediately ordered, "Transfer her to the Second Hospital!"
All Guo Changcheng could do was accompany Shen Wei and help take Li Qian from the clinic to an actual hospital. Sitting in Shen Wei's car, holding a girl he didn't know who was practically at death's door, Guo Changcheng watched Dragon City University fade into the distance through the window. More than ever, he felt that working just sucked.
Shen Wei wasn't Li Qian's advisor, her guidance counselor, or someone responsible for overseeing her political ideals. As someone who'd simply taught her in an elective, he had truly gone above and beyond—or at least Guo Changcheng had never seen such a good professor at his own sad little school. It was Shen Wei who checked Li Qian in at the hospital and paid up front for the visit. Once she'd been admitted to the emergency room, Guo Changcheng even saw Shen Wei in the hallway calling his colleagues to get contact information for Li Qian's family.
His tone remained even and scrupulously polite, but Guo Changcheng could still tell there was a problem. While Shen Wei was on the phone with Li Qian's father, he kept stopping mid-sentence, as if constantly interrupted. Eventually, Shen Wei lowered his phone helplessly, then pinched the bridge of his nose and dialed another number.
Call after call after call went exactly the same way.
As Guo Changcheng looked on, he thought that Shen Wei didn't look like a professor informing a student's parents about her health but like a petitioner begging for action. He was speaking to Li Qian's birth parents, her uncles, and her aunties, and every one passed her along like a hot potato. Ultimately, not a single person said they'd come to see her.
Even Guo Changcheng was a little angry. What the fuck?
Domestic woes were outside the jurisdiction of even an honest, upright official. If that was simply what her family was like, there was nothing Shen Wei could do about it. After the final call ended, he folded his arms and leaned against the wall, frowning.
The professor had broad shoulders, a slim waist, and long, slender legs. His shirt cuffs were securely buttoned, and a pair of rimless glasses perched on his nose. All in all, he looked like a perfume ad model, exuding an air of forbidden sex appeal.
He stood there quietly for some time. Guo Changcheng half expected him to open his mouth and curse, but Shen Wei still said nothing. Eventually, although his brow was still furrowed, he looked up and smiled amicably at Guo Changcheng. "Thank you, Officer xiao-Guo. You've worked hard today. Why don't you head on back, and I'll take care of things here. I don't want to get in the way of your other work."
"I… I don't have any other work," Guo Changcheng mumbled. His eyes happened to meet Daqing's as the cat was trying hard to stick his head out of his bag. Under that dark green gaze, he suddenly blurted, "Director Zhao just told me to follow her. He didn't say what exactly he wanted me to investigate and didn't tell me when I should go back…"
After the burst of resolve that Zhao Yunlan had tricked out of him had faded, Guo Changcheng had come to a realization about the arbitrary task he'd been given. He was slow, not stupid. Tailing a sickly young lady wasn't some kind of challenging assignment. Director Zhao probably thought he was underfoot and had found some way to get rid of him. It was true that he had no skills and could be nothing but trouble. Only nepotism had gotten him into the SID, and in less than twenty-four hours he'd already messed up more things than he could count. Who would want such useless trash around?
"Your Director Zhao doesn't think that," Shen Wei said, his attempt at comfort tinged with exasperation. "Don't overthink it."
Guo Changcheng's depression turned him into a mushroom-shaped storm cloud.
Just then, the doctor came out to inform them that Li Qian had suffered too much shock; that, combined with relentless negative emotions, malnutrition, and low blood sugar, had resulted in her extreme reaction. He had already administered a sedative, so she was asleep. He suggested that she stay at the hospital for observation. Shen Wei had no choice but to fill out yet more paperwork for an overnight stay.
The unlikely trio—two humans and a cat—stayed with Li Qian until the sun set heavily in the west, and still not a single family member came to see her.
"Shen-laoshi, does her family not care about her?" Guo Changcheng asked quietly.
Shen Wei didn't know what to say. He only sighed.
Guo Changcheng sat at Li Qian's bedside and suddenly grasped why she was so sad, why her emotional reaction was so extreme, why she'd sobbed to the point of convulsions and had even tried to jump off a building. Perhaps the only person in the world who'd loved her was no longer there. From now on, there was no one to care about her happiness, anger, sadness, or joy. No one would be watching over her, encouraging her to test her wings while also wishing she could stay a little longer in the nest.
That was how night found them when it fell. |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0013.txt | "RIGHT HERE. Rewind it."
After parting ways with Guo Changcheng, Zhao Yunlan drove back to 4 Bright Avenue. Once there, he headed straight in and watched the security footage from the intersection outside DCU's main entrance three times, start to finish.
By daylight, the office looked far bleaker. The only person on duty in the criminal investigation unit was a female officer who might have been in her twenties. A simple ponytail highlighted her pretty forehead and a clear complexion that was accentuated with light makeup. She was in uniform—at least from the waist up. Her lower body was covered by a blanket, and she sat very still in her seat. All that kept her from looking like she was convalescing was the rosiness in her face.
Half-closed eyes and a lazy expression made it seem like she might drift off at any moment, but her hands were working busily. The blanket on her lap was large enough that one edge reached the floor. When Zhao Yunlan accidentally stepped on the trailing edge, the other side of the blanket slid up. For a moment, it revealed the tip of a python tail, which quickly withdrew. The woman's attention remained fixed on the security footage. Without looking, she reached down absentmindedly to adjust the blanket.
The nameplate on the corner of her desk read "Zhu Hong."
The security footage wasn't very clear. Some sort of magnetic field had caused interference, so the recording stopped and started erratically, and sometimes bursts of static obscured the video. What could be seen wasn't terribly revealing, since the murder had taken place in the small alley by the school's side entrance and the camera was filming the intersection outside the main gate. It caught only the brief moment when Li Qian and the victim, Lu Ruomei, had passed each other on University Street.
The footage timestamp put it at 10:20 p.m. the previous night. Things played out just as Li Qian had described: she left the school and crossed the road to a small supermarket, went inside, and came out after five minutes. On her way back, she happened to cross paths with Lu Ruomei, at whom she nodded politely. At Zhao Yunlan's request, the footage was now paused just moments later. Lu Ruomei had crossed the street and was about to enter the alleyway.
Li Qian seemed to glance casually at Lu Ruomei. The poor quality of the video made it hard to see nuances in her expression, but what she'd seen in that glance had sent her reeling, staggering back in shock.
Zhu Hong stared at the screen for a while, and then her eyes finally came fully open. The pupils in those otherwise-ordinary almond eyes were inhuman vertical slits; the effect was deeply unsettling. "Is she looking at what's under the streetlight?"
Zhao Yunlan nodded. "Can you make the area around the streetlight any clearer?"
Zhu Hong zoomed in, but it didn't do much. "No. I've tried my best."
"In a few days I'll send you to start a part-time graduate degree. Go upgrade your technical skills."
Zhu Hong patted her lap—what would have been a human woman's thigh. "That would take at least two or three years, and I'm like this once a month. How exactly would I explain being absent so often?"
Without hesitation or batting an eye, Zhao Yunlan said, "You'd tell them it was menstrual cramps, dumbass."
She absorbed this in brief silence, then said, "You're always destroying my romanticized fantasy of you, boss."
"You're the one who has the nerve to fantasize about your boss." Zhao Yunlan lightly pushed down on her head. "Are you trying to lose your bonus?"
Her eyes narrowed even more. A long serpentine tongue flicked out between her lips. "If you take me to bed for just one night, you can stop paying me entirely. I'll work for free."
Zhao Yunlan gave her an artificial smile. "Really?"
Zhu Hong was silent again, struck by the feeling that their shameless boss might really be capable of selling his body for profit.
"Propositioning your boss during work hours…" Zhao Yunlan pointed at her. "Very good, Comrade Zhu Hong. You'll be our department's representative to the Party seminar this year. Get ready to work on your thinking and awareness."
Wishing she'd shut her mouth sooner, Zhu Hong hastily tried to move on. "If whatever's there isn't visible on the footage, it must not want to be seen, except by someone with a third eye. That girl was probably only able to see it because she'd used the Reincarnation Dial."
"You managed to find something about that old sundial?" Zhao Yunlan asked.
"Mm-hmm—actually, when you mentioned the old sundial this afternoon, it made me think of something." She bent over and took an old, thread-bound account book from a drawer. "I borrowed this from the Netherworld. You can take a good look through it when you have time. Legend has it that the first of the Hallowed Artifacts from the Netherworld is called the Reincarnation Dial. Its base was made from shards of the Three-Life Rock, and the scales on its back were from a kind of black fish found in the Wangchuan River. The fish are three chi, three cun12 long; their fins are hard as crystal and all point in the same direction."
Zhao Yunlan nodded for her to continue.
Zhu Hong flipped the account book open. "Only the so-called 'Four Hallowed Artifacts of the Netherworld,' including the Reincarnation Dial, are mentioned in here. It doesn't explain where they came from or what became of them, but based on recent events, it seems like they've ended up in the Mortal Realm."
Her tapered fingers slid across the page, and Zhao Yunlan's gaze followed. Under the words "Reincarnation Dial" he saw a little note in a smaller font that said "life lending."
"Life lending?" Zhao Yunlan's brows creased as the unusual new ghost following Li Qian came to mind. "What did you find out about Li Qian? Did anyone around her die recently? Someone who hasn't yet passed their first seven days?"
"Yes," Zhu Hong said. "Li Qian's grandma passed away at the end of August."
Zhao Yunlan leaned back and slowly lit a cigarette. "That must be it, then. No wonder the old lady's soul can appear in broad daylight if the Three-Life Rock is blocking her soul's passage. I wondered why that girl was spewing lies, but borrowing life from the elderly? How could she do such a thing?"
"No, that's not it," said Zhu Hong. "The Reincarnation Dial represents the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening. Just like how the scales of the black fish in the Wangchuan River only lie in one direction, it's only possible for an older person to borrow time from someone younger, not the other way around. Director Zhao, I think you've misunderstood her."
Zhu Hong reached out a hand. Out of nowhere, a piece of rice paper drifted down and landed in her palm. Li Qian's name was written on it, followed by her birth chart in smaller text, and then two blurry lines. It was hard to make out what exactly was written there, but it was clear that the words had somehow been changed.
"The Netherworld looked into it for me," she said. "Li Qian's date of death was altered, yes, but her life span wasn't lengthened. It was shortened."
Zhao Yunlan arched an eyebrow, mildly surprised.
"Reincarnation Dial, Reincarnation Dial, thrice around the Stone of Three, half your life for half of mine, born apart but die intertwined," Zhu Hong recited, then continued. "It means someone with the Hallowed Reincarnation Artifact can use it to exchange half of their own remaining life to bring back someone who's already dead. After that, when one of them dies, so does the other.
"Two years ago, Li Qian's grandma was coming to the end of her life. That was most likely when the girl used half of her own life to bring her back. After you called, I dug into her background. Li Qian's address is registered locally, but before that, she and her grandma lived in the countryside. I called the local village officials, and they told me Li Qian was raised by her grandma. Her parents were always busy with work out of town and never really went back. And what's more, Li Qian has a younger brother. This was all back when the one-child policy was at its strictest, so…you know."
In a family that valued sons over daughters, where the parents desperately wanted a son but didn't want to pay the fine for exceeding the birth limit, the daughter they already had became invisible. Everyone pretended she didn't exist.
Zhu Hong continued, "The village head said the old lady had a sudden stroke two years ago. No one thought she'd make it, but she had a miraculous recovery, just with some side effects. She was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's—what used to be called elderly dementia. I think it was probably caused by nerve damage from the stroke. At first, she was just forgetful, but it kept getting worse. She began to have trouble recognizing faces, and her intellectual capacity declined.
"Then, six months later, Li Qian was accepted into her master's program here in the city. Her parents had no choice but to bring the aging grandmother and their kid here."
"So this 'life for life' probably happened when Li Qian's grandma was sick." Zhao Yunlan flicked his cigarette. "Somewhere back in her hometown, she came across that ancient heirloom, passed down through the generations. It all adds up, but I don't see why she can't talk about it. Why did she need to lie to me?"
"Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances." Zhu Hong spun her chair around with her wrist on the armrest, split-pupiled gaze coming to rest on Zhao Yunlan. The frightening eyes of a cold-blooded creature somehow seemed unusually warm and gentle on her face. "Think about it. If there were someone in this world you loved enough that you'd sacrifice half of your life for theirs, how would you feel if they then started vanishing from your life again?"
Zhao Yunlan's forehead creased. He seemed unmoved, as if still unconvinced. In the face of such a heartrending story, he was not only untouched but examining it for cracks, as if he wouldn't rest until he found something suspicious. Zhu Hong had to wonder which of them was the real cold-blooded one. She sighed quietly.
With a shrug, Zhao Yunlan said, "Okay, Miss Zhu. Lay it out for me."
"Li Qian did a lot of online shopping. I've looked through her purchase history. Almost all the things she bought were health products for the elderly. She didn't have a lot of money to spare, and most of it was earned through tutoring or helping her advisor. Other girls spend far more than that on clothes or makeup, but she rarely bought anything for herself. That alone makes me think she's a good kid. If it's clear that she has nothing to do with the case and she doesn't want to talk about some things, then just leave her be. Don't keep pushing her."
"Material goods don't prove anything," Zhao Yunlan countered. "Sometimes you buy things to make up for not caring for someone anymore…"
He trailed off at Zhu Hong's expression, which said, You cold-blooded, heartless man as clearly as any words.
"Fine," he said. "Let's pretend it happened like that. But if she gave half of her life to the old lady, why is she still walking around while the old lady's dead?"
"In a situation like this, it's possible that an accident happened. The old lady may have passed even though her life span wasn't up," said Zhu Hong. "Lin Jing sent me the list of spirits that went missing yesterday. I checked—she's not on it. She's just floating around out there, and it's very likely the Netherworld doesn't even know yet. If her soul is connected to a living human through the Reincarnation Dial, that might be how she got past the reapers."
Zhao Yunlan considered that. "Mmm."
"What is it?" Zhu Hong asked.
"I just had a thought. I don't know if you noticed, but Li Qian and Lu Ruomei have a very similar build at first glance. Similar hairstyles too. If a stranger saw them from behind, it'd be almost impossible to tell them apart. Then yesterday, they happened to be dressed the same way, and Lu Ruomei just happened to die after they crossed paths. Think about it! There must still be some trace of a Hallowed Artifact on Li Qian from the Reincarnation Dial. And if the grandmother really can evade the reapers, maybe the escaped ghosts think…"
"You're saying that Hunger Ghost might have been after Li Qian all along!"
Zhao Yunlan put out his cigarette and grabbed his cell phone from his pocket. "It's almost dark, and I only left our new useless little thing there with Li Qian. I have to get over there."
"The intern who fainted from fright on his first day?"
Zhao Yunlan gave her an exasperated look, not wanting to discuss it. He was about to leave when he remembered something. "Oh, right. Where's the message from the Soul-Executing Emmissary? Give it to me."
Zhu Hong tilted her chin toward the corner of the desk, too afraid to touch what he was asking for.
It was a small pamphlet. The outside was pitch black, with the words "To the hands of the Guardian: A Lone Soul Sends Notice" written in cinnabar. The interior was an exquisite satin. It opened with a few lines of polite but wordy pleasantries, then briefly mentioned the Hunger Ghost's escape before finally getting to its main point: "Tonight at midnight, this one will pay you a visit. Deepest apologies for the disruption."
The whole message was written in neat calligraphy with long, slender strokes. It was practically a work of art.
Zhao Yunlan flipped open the letter. Frightened, Zhu Hong edged her chair away.
The Soul-Executing Emissary had come into existence in the depths of the Netherworld, but he was not a ghost immortal, nor was he subject to the Ten Yanluo Courts.13 Legend said he had originally been a mere wisp of fiendish energy from the darkest bowels of the Nine Hells. But from this inauspicious beginning, in a rare stroke of serendipity, he evolved to attain a physical form.
He wielded the Soul-Executing Blade, and gods, humans, or any other being, whether from the thirty-three levels of Heaven above or the eighteen levels of Hell below, could be executed by that blade if found guilty. Deities and demons alike bowed their heads to him, and all beings feared him…all but Zhao Yunlan.
Whether he was thick-skinned or boneheaded or just missing reflex tendons14 others had, Zhao Yunlan not only failed to fear the Emissary but found him gentle and refined with a good personality. His only shortcoming was that, whether speaking or writing, the Emmissary's language was just a bit archaic—too refined and flowery.
Zhao Yunlan could tell Zhu Hong was uneasy, so he quickly skimmed the "Lone Soul's Notice" and stuffed it into his bag. "If there's nothing else, you can go home. Leave everything for Wang Zheng on the night shift. Now, you won't have legs again for a few days. You could slip down just hitting the brakes, and it's inconvenient for you to go anywhere. So once you leave work, try not to fuck around. Make sure to get some rest. And oh, right—reach out to Lin Jing for me before you go. If he's finished up what the Netherworld wanted him to do, tell him not to have too much fun and to get back quickly. What is there to do in the Netherworld, anyway?"
As soon as Zhu Hong heard that she didn't need to stay behind and greet the Soul-Executing Emissary, she nodded as if a weight had lifted.
"I'm heading out, then." Zhao Yunlan strode out, dialing Guo Changcheng's number.
When Guo Changcheng realized it was his boss calling, he instinctively stood at attention.
"Why did it take you so long to pick up?" Zhao Yunlan was already worrying. "Is everything okay over there?"
Guo Changcheng was too tongue-tied to speak. It was weird—that morning, he'd managed to speak directly to his kind-seeming boss, but now that Zhao Yunlan was speaking through a phone, that bravery was reduced to crumbs. As with many socially awkward individuals, he found phone calls far more terrifying than speaking face-to-face.
His breathing came faster and faster until Zhao Yunlan started to think answering the phone could frighten him into a heart attack. After listening to a minute of breathless stammering, Director Zhao sighed. "Is anyone there with you? If so, give them the phone. And if not, give it to Daqing."
Guo Changcheng silently handed the phone to Shen Wei.
Fortunately, Shen-laoshi was reliable. He offered Zhao Yunlan a concise explanation of how they'd taken Li Qian to the hospital, including the hospital name and room number. Then he asked, "What, is Li Qian's situation still—" Crackly static cut him off mid-sentence. "Hello?"
It sounded like Zhao Yunlan had said something, but Shen Wei couldn't make out a single word through the static. He went to the window, seemingly in search of a better signal, but where Guo Changcheng couldn't see, he gently opened the curtain to look out. Still showing every sign of being confused, he said, "What was that? Hello? Can you still hear me?"
This time Zhao Yunlan heard him clearly and had just enough time to snap out, "Fuck, get out of there! Right now!"
Shen Wei reflexively narrowed his eyes as a black shadow darted across the reflection of his night-black pupils. In the next moment, the room was plunged into absolute darkness. The glass next to Shen Wei shattered, and Zhao Yunlan's cat let out a sharp yowl and jumped up. A gust of wind blew past the side of Shen Wei's face, leaving a foul stench in its wake—something that reeked of decay, with the pungency of blood.
Zhao Yunlan seemed to have said something else, but it was unintelligible. Utter chaos broke out in the room. The cat was still yowling over the noise of things crashing into each other. Then a loud clash rang out as something flew through the air and slammed into a chair, knocking it over. Shen Wei backed up half a step to get out of the way, and the call dropped entirely.
He maximized the phone's brightness and shined the light around. An unfamiliar voice said, "Be careful!"
It was Daqing who had knocked the chair over, and he was the one speaking now. Poor panicked Guo Changcheng had managed to trip over the toppled chair and had landed on his backside with his limbs in the air.
Shen Wei reached behind himself into the corner of the room and found a mop. Grabbing it, he thrust the wooden handle forward while swiftly leaning back. With a teeth-grating crash, a black shadow flew over his head at great speed. There was a sudden weight on the mop as the handle was chopped into two.
The black shape flitted past, as quick and silent as if it really were nothing but a shadow. It was too fast to make out clearly, and it headed straight for Li Qian, who was still lying on the bed and completely unaware of any of this, thanks to the sedative.
By now their vision was adjusting to the darkness. In the cell phone's dim light, Shen Wei got a good look. The thing's mouth gaped wider than ninety degrees, giving its head the appearance of a sliced-open watermelon.
Guo Changcheng didn't even have time to pass out. He could only stare, eyes huge and mouth hanging open. His heart rate hadn't even picked up, but his mind had gone blank as a whiteboard. His blood all rushed to his extremities, and his skyrocketing blood pressure made his head feel as if it had doubled in size.
There was only a voice inside wildly yelling, What is that? What is that?!
That shadow was revealed to have a human shape. Its long body and sticklike limbs resembled a skeleton's, but it had a massive belly that bulged out terrifyingly. Its arms had become a pair of large sickles. As it roared soundlessly, they slashed down ruthlessly toward Li Qian's abdomen.
Belatedly, Guo Changcheng's scream found its way out of his throat. He gave three shrieks in quick succession: "Ah… Ahhhhh… Ahhhhhhh—!"
Shen Wei's expression darkened as he took a brisk step forward. But before he could act, a human figure was suddenly interposed between the shadow and Li Qian.
It was an old woman who had appeared out of nowhere. She was stocky, with a laughable fake hair bun perched on her head. After materializing out of thin air, she flung her arms as wide as possible. Her round body stretched out like a clumsy old hen as she desperately tried to shield the girl on the bed.
Quick as lightning, Shen Wei stepped back as if he hadn't moved. No one noticed as he hefted the metal chair that Daqing had knocked over and hurled it at the shadow.
The chair smashed directly into the shadow's body, ripping it in half. The creature let out what sounded like a scream of rage.
The split halves of its body were still connected by something resembling sticky strands of lotus root, hanging to the side and swaying. Then bubbles of all sizes began to form at those points of connection, as though it were a pot about to boil over. Like a monster from a persistent nightmare, the two halves shook violently. Horrifying noises came from its mouth as its halves started to fuse into one.
"It's growing back together! It's growing back together again!" Guo Changcheng yelled pointlessly. He was either adding to the chaos or…well, adding to the chaos.
Shen Wei had no choice but to retrieve the chair from where it had ricocheted off the headboard, then brandish it fiercely at the monster. The mild-mannered Shen-laoshi, it turned out, was anything but mild when it came to fighting. Accuracy, steadiness, fierceness—he possessed them all in spades. While everyone around him was still frozen in fear and unsure what to do, he'd already gained the upper hand, striking first and smashing the thing into seven or eight pieces.
Finally, face un-flushed and breathing unaffected, he tossed the chair aside.
Silence reigned in the room for two full seconds.
Then Daqing sprang to the head of Li Qian's bed. Whiskers quivering, he said, "Don't just stand there! Hurry up and go. You can't beat a Hunger Ghost to death with a chair. You were lucky just now because the room's full of yang energy. Once you've really angered this thing, it won't be fun."
Shen Wei looked up. He and the cat had a brief staredown.
"That's right, you're not hallucinating," Daqing said, expression solemn. "I am the one talking and you really did just batter a Hunger Ghost to pieces, so don't give me any bullshit about how 'one does not speak of the supernatural.' Get moving!"
Whether it was due to mental fortitude or something else, Daqing hadn't even finished talking before Shen Wei bent down and hoisted Li Qian onto his back. Valiantly, he even asked, "What about that old lady just now?"
"She'll follow. You don't need to worry about her. She's a new ghost, not a living person."
"Oh," Shen Wei said and put atheism behind him. "Officer xiao-Guo, keep up!"
Guo Changcheng was still gawking, his neck stiff as he contorted himself into an awkward shape.
Shen Wei, carrying Li Qian, raised his voice sharply. "Officer xiao-Guo!"
Struggling to get his limbs under him, Guo Changcheng got up as if he'd just woken from a dream. "I… I-I-I…"
"Enough with the 'I's! Open the door for me!"
By this point, Guo Changcheng's brain was fried from sheer overload, so he was only capable of obeying. At Shen Wei's order, he stumbled to push the room's door open.
There wasn't a single thread of light in the hallway outside. The doctors and nurses on duty seemed to have evaporated from the mortal world. Every single room was empty. The whole floor had become a ghost town.
The cat raced ahead, more nimbly than one might imagine from his size. Shen Wei followed carrying Li Qian, leaving Guo Changcheng no choice but to bring up the rear.
Their footsteps echoed all around the empty hallway. A window must have been left open somewhere, because there was a constant eerie breeze blowing around them. It chilled the back of Guo Changcheng's neck and slowly woke his brain from its state of frozen terror.
He couldn't shake the feeling that there was something behind him. |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0014.txt | FEELING OR NO FEELING, Guo Changcheng didn't dare turn around. Having been raised by the elderly for much of his life, he had been fed a lot of superstitious beliefs, including the common one that said to never look back when walking at night. Doing so would extinguish the lamp on each shoulder, and then monsters would come get you.
He was doing his best to keep himself under control, but the scene that had just played out was still vivid in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more petrified he became, as if that thing were about to catch up to him. It didn't look like lamps on his shoulders would keep it at bay. With a belly so engorged it looked pregnant and arms like a mantis' pincers… Guo Changcheng touched his neck. With a head as delicate as his, the thing could decapitate five of him at once without breaking a sweat.
His brain then replayed the image of the corpse in that narrow alley. Guo Changcheng hadn't seen the actual scene of the crime, but from photos, he knew how it had looked: that young woman on the ground, her abdomen cut open.
Look back… Don't look back… Look back…
Guo Changcheng wiped away cold sweat and found himself walking faster. He quickly caught up with Shen Wei, who had Li Qian on his back.
Guo Changcheng had never been a confrontational person. For him, running away was as natural as a cat eating fish or a dog eating meat. It was practically part of his genetic makeup, and right now, his genes were telling him that the safest place was between Shen Wei and the black cat. Bringing up the rear was way too scary.
But at that moment, Shen Wei suddenly stopped walking. Li Qian seemed to have stirred, but she hadn't woken up completely, so she started sliding down his shoulders. He had to stop to adjust his hold on her.
Guo Changcheng could have overtaken him, but for some reason, he instead came to a halt. In addition to not rushing ahead, he maintained his forward-facing position. Stiffly, without turning his head, he twisted his body sideways to take a quick glance back, then leaned against the wall.
It was a kind of protective, alert pose for the sake of the people in front of him. Guo Changcheng had finally remembered something. "I'm a police officer," he said to himself. "I'm a police officer, I'm a police officer, I'm a police officer…"
He kept repeating it in his head, looping it again and again like he was a voice recorder, as if enough repetition would give him some sense of honor and courage.
Unfortunately, the words "I'm a police officer" weren't enough to ward off evil. It accomplished nothing but wasting his breath. He was still on the verge of losing his mind from fear.
As he silently chanted, his vision began to blur. He belatedly put a hand to his face an instant before meeting Shen Wei's shocked gaze…which was how Guo Changcheng realized he had actually started crying. Was it any surprise that Shen Wei was shocked? An hour earlier, Shen-laoshi had still been an ordinary university professor. But in the course of that hour, he had witnessed such bizarre things firsthand: a murderous black shadow, a talking cat, and a police officer who had been reduced to tears right in front of him!
The truth was, Guo Changcheng himself didn't fully understand why he was crying. But then came the swift and unexpected realization that crying was the best possible option for venting his emotions and lessening his fear. It was certainly more useful than endlessly repeating "I'm a police officer."
Taking a deep breath, he began to wail in earnest. But with the wailing came brave words. "H-hurry and run! I-I'll bring up the rear! I-I will protect you guys…!"
Shen-laoshi said nothing. It seemed very probable that he was numb from everything he'd seen, and that was why a hint of a smile flickered in his eyes.
Maintaining their peculiar formation, the black cat rushed to the stairs and raced down toward the first floor. The two men with the unconscious girl were right behind him. Shen Wei was still holding Guo Changcheng's phone to use as a flashlight, and as they ran, its light swept across the corner of the stairwell. Before Shen Wei could make out what the light had revealed, an inhuman scream exploded out of Guo Changcheng.
Even running flat out, Guo Changcheng was fully capable of screaming and crying. Clearly, despite the fact that he was a recluse, Officer xiao-Guo's lung capacity was excellent.
Shen Wei took a closer look. What lay in the corner was a child—but no. No, it was more accurately a fetus, a tiny thing even smaller than a newborn baby, probably premature. Beneath the sparse hair on its scalp, its head was like a squashed ball, broken open in places to reveal the ruin of its skull and brain. Its features were crooked, and its empty mouth agape. It lay there quietly like a medical specimen, staring at them with warped, vacant pupils.
"What are you screaming for?" Daqing admonished loudly. "This is a hospital—of course it's packed full of yin energy. There are plenty more where this one came from. Don't act like some country bumpkin who hasn't seen the world."
"Wh-what is that?" Guo Changcheng managed.
"A little ghost of a fetus that was aborted before it was born." Daqing swiped at the tiny ghost. It vanished, letting out a cry like that of a kitten. "Get moving! The Hunger Ghost is right behind us!"
In a previous life, Daqing must have been a doom-saying crow, not a cat. His words were still hanging in the air when that rotten stench hit Guo Changcheng and Shen Wei's noses. They both picked up the pace. While talking, they'd made it from the second-floor inpatient area to the first floor, only to hear pounding footsteps behind them.
"What now?!" Guo Changcheng asked tearfully, his head somehow unusually clear. "Isn't the Hunger Ghost like a shadow? How can it have such heavy footsteps?"
"I already fucking said, this is a hospital! There're all kinds of things here—the cycle of life and death plays out here every day, not to mention the impurities of all kinds!" Daqing yelled. "Also, are you discriminating against overweight people? We fatties aren't thieves! We don't go around taking advantage of others! What's wrong with being overweight? Being overweight is fine!"
Shen Wei had lost count of how many times he'd been left speechless that night. He couldn't begin to imagine what Zhao Yunlan's work environment was like with employees like these.
Despite having someone on his back, Shen Wei didn't seem tired at all. He was still breathing easily. Now, seeing that the cat was about to explode, he could only coax, "Come now, you two. Don't fight. Where's the exit, kitty?"
Daqing's explosion was undeterred. "Don't call me something so stupid, mortal!"
"Divine cat…" Shen Wei smoothly switched gears. "It would appear we've been down this hallway already. Might the divine cat have some wisdom to share?"
Daqing slammed on his brakes, coming to a stop so abrupt that Shen Wei nearly stepped on him. Only a frantic sidestep prevented it. Guo Changcheng, meanwhile, slumped against the wall like a dead dog, hyperventilating and letting out the occasional tearful hiccup.
Daqing's ears pricked up as he tilted his flat face to the side. In the cell phone's dim light, his feline eyes glowed eerily. After some consideration, he turned back and calmly said, "We've been going in circles."
This time, the heavy footsteps approached from up ahead. Something seemed to be squirming inside the blurry shadows on the wall. On closer inspection, it was dozens of intertwined, humanoid shadows…shadows locked in constant, writhing struggle. They screamed soundlessly, ripping and biting at one another but eternally joined…
In this place, lives came to bitter ends every single day. Those who had lived those lives could only wander its corridors aimlessly, unable to leave. They were consumed by envy for the living, greedy for the scent of life but unable to approach.
Such resentment, such despair…
"Run!" Daqing felt like he'd been yelling the same instruction constantly throughout the evening. All he needed was a starting pistol and he'd be ready to officiate a track meet.
The three humans and the cat managed to stumble into a small storage room. Guo Changcheng, the last one inside, slammed the door shut as if his life depended on it. He plastered his entire body against the rusty-smelling door, holding it closed until the lock clicked. Only then did he finally have time to snort back the snot bubble that had escaped along with his tears, unable to believe he was really still alive. He'd just felt a ghostly hand on his neck, and the dark chill of the touch seemed to linger.
Shen Wei set Li Qian down to the side and hurried to join him. Between them, they moved all kinds of things in front of the door as a makeshift barricade.
But before they could even catch their breath, there was a forceful impact against the door from the other side. The clang was loud enough to drive Guo Changcheng to his knees.
There were two or three more powerful blows, and then silence…until there came the sound of sharp nails scratching at the metal door.
Guo Changcheng had slid all the way down the door, but he was so startled by the noise that he flung himself away as if electrocuted, goosebumps rising all over his skin. Crying, he turned to Shen Wei. "I haven't even gotten my first month's salary yet! Can't I at least see the money I won't even get to spend before I die?"
Thinking it would be somewhat impolite to laugh under the circumstances, Shen Wei adjusted his glasses to hide his amusement.
Guo Changcheng kept sobbing. "Shen-laoshi, do you have any unfulfilled wishes?"
Perhaps hoping to ease Guo Changcheng's terror, Shen Wei gave the question careful consideration before nodding. "I do."
Through tears, Guo Changcheng choked out, "Like what?"
"There is someone I met only by chance. There are no connections between us; to him, I must only be a stranger with whom he's exchanged a few words." Shen Wei spoke gently against the background noise of scratching nails. "But I very much want to see him one more time." |
Officially Translated Light Novels | Guardian - Zhen Hun/Guardian-Zhen-Hun-Volume-01-[Seven-Seas][Kobo]/section-0015.txt | THE MAN WAS MAYBE thirty years old—a guy with an average build, wearing wide-framed glasses and a string of sandalwood Buddhist prayer beads. Once out of his car, the first thing he did was fish his phone out of his pocket, turn on the camera, and aim it at his own face with the hospital in frame behind him.
There in the darkness, he began recording. "Special mission: September 1, 20XX, 9:23 p.m. Baota Road East, Dongcheng District, Dragon City Second Hospital," he muttered. "Mission executor: Lin Jing. Over."
A black SUV screeched up behind him. Zhao Yunlan tore off his seat belt and leaped out. "Unclog your brain and follow me, quickly! We're up to our ears in trouble and you're standing around taking selfies!"
"Oh," said the man called Lin Jing.
"How the hell did I land myself in this situation?" Zhao Yunlan seethed. "Why is my entire team made up of non-humans and dumbasses?"
The whole hospital was shrouded in a black haze, and its immediate vicinity was deserted. None of the bustling passersby on Baota Road East even seemed to see it.
Zhao Yunlan dialed Guo Changcheng and Shen Wei's numbers, neither of which were in service. Cursing to himself, he kicked the front door of the hospital open. Black fog rushed toward him as he intruded, but he barely broke stride even as he drew a palm-sized dagger from under his pant leg, sidestepped, and slashed the shadow in two.
More black shadows came racing out of the hospital. Lin Jing, right on Zhao Yunlan's heels, pulled out a gun and started firing, picking them off without a single wasted shot or a hitch in the Buddhist scriptures flowing off his tongue.
"Is there something seriously unlucky about our useless newbie's birth chart?" Zhao Yunlan looked at all the shadows clogging the hallway. It was like entering a drainpipe blocked with hair. "At the school he attracted a resentful spirit, and now he's attracting ghosts at a hospital. If you dropped him into Investiture of the Gods, he'd just be a Soul-Beckoning Flag."15
"'Form is emptiness,'"16 Lin Jing recited, then he said, "I'll conduct a ritual for him later."
"'Form,' my ass! Either speak normally or shut up!"
Serenely, Lin Jing continued with his recitations… "'Emptiness is form.'"
"Fuck your mother's second uncle!" Zhao Yunlan snarled.
After a moment of silence, Lin Jing pleaded sincerely, "Boss…my mother's second uncle has long since passed, so please forsake these empty forms of wrath and lust."
Zhao Yunlan had nothing to say in response.
His loathing for work could be blamed directly on having people like this as coworkers.
With a deep breath, he tucked his little dagger between his teeth and took out a yellow paper talisman and his lighter. Holding the talisman aloft, he lit it. The tiny flame immediately swelled to a ravenous blaze.
One shadow was sucked in before it could escape. The flame, having fed on a dead spirit, reached a meter in height and surged down the corridor, swallowing the countless little ghosts that didn't manage to escape. It crashed through like a dragon of flame, consuming everything in its path with the force of a gas explosion.
"Amitabha, our Buddha is merciful…" Lin Jing murmured.
Zhao Yunlan's expression was dark. "Enough already."
In less than a minute, nothing remained but a pea-sized flame at the end of the hall, as if the towering inferno had been an illusion as ephemeral as fireworks. Zhao Yunlan strode over, bent down, and lit a cigarette with the tiny flame. Cigarette between his lips, he beckoned to Lin Jing and pushed open the door in front of him. They headed deeper inside.
Meanwhile, the trio taking refuge in the storage room were unaware that salvation was close at hand. As the scratching at the door grew sharper and more frantic, so did Guo Changcheng's breathing. He was teetering on the edge of a breakdown.
Shen Wei could only ignore him. Looking down at the cat, he asked, "What should we do now?"
Daqing was plainly a cat wise in the ways of the world. Calmly, he answered, "I'm sure your call told Director Zhao enough about the situation. No need to worry. We just have to hold out a little longer until he comes to save us."
Shen Wei frowned. "By himself? Is that safe? How will he get in?"
That was the part the professor focused on? Daqing's tail gave a tired swish. "Don't worry. He's got thick skin and tough flesh. A handful of puny little ghosts won't be able to chew through him."
Leaning against the wall, Shen Wei thought about it. "Can't we figure out a way to save ourselves?"
Daqing glanced up at him, a little confused. This Shen-laoshi was far too calm.
"How?" He began to list off what they had to work with. "A mortal; useless trash; someone sedated to the gills; and me, a mascot. Even if the four of us offered ourselves up in a steamer basket, do you think we'd be more than an appetizer for the Hunger Ghost?"
Shakily, Guo Changcheng asked, "Didn't Shen-laoshi smash it into pieces with that chair earlier?"
"Earlier it was famished and desperate to feed, so it didn't watch its back," Daqing said impatiently. "You two are young men, so you have strong yang energy. That weakened it enough for you to get the upper hand. But with the overabundance of yin energy in this hospital, it'll be like it chugged several cases of energy drinks while chasing us. It could even be suffering from over-nourishment by now—oh, fuck, another one?"
The cat was cut off by a child's shrill laughter coming from the corner. Shen Wei looked over and saw a small girl around five or six years old with a sickly, pale complexion. She was squatting on the floor letting out creepy peals of laughter as she merrily grabbed at the black cat's tail.
Before Shen Wei could check to see whether this little ghost had a monstrous face and oversized fangs, a sudden weight settled against his legs. Guo Changcheng was wrapped around them like a koala.
"Save me!" The young officer who had moments ago vowed to protect Shen Wei was now holding on for dear life. He was shaking, his face a puddle of snot and tears, but was still able to yell something he'd been holding in all day. "Ghost! There's a ghost!"
The little ghost had died young enough that her intellect hadn't been fully developed. The mere sight of people was a thrill, and this was a tremendously entertaining development. She let go of Daqing at once and giddily floated over to Guo Changcheng, finding this bear-hugging man highly interesting.
When Guo Changcheng cracked his eyes open and risked a peek down, the girl stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes back. With her face still tilted upward, her head spun 360 degrees on her neck, leaving it dangling in midair while still connected perilously to her body.
Guo Changcheng's eyes rolled back into his skull a full three times, but he gasped for half a minute without managing to pass out. He seemed to take Shen Wei for a real tree, hugging his legs tightly and attempting to climb. A scream arose from the pit of his stomach. "Ghost! Aaaaaah!"
Shen Wei sighed and held on to the waistband of his pants to keep Guo Changcheng from dragging them down and costing him his dignity. He even managed to see the strange humor of the situation, caught between a Hunger Ghost clawing at the door behind him and a little ghost girl dangling her head in front of him.
By the time Zhao Yunlan was only a dozen meters into the hospital, his watch, Clarity, looked like it had been dyed with blood. The watch's hands deviated from their usual course and started spinning wildly, like a compass needle. But no matter how it tried, it couldn't settle on anything. The sheer number of impurities was interfering too badly.
"Hey, fake monk, my stupid watch is acting up again!" Zhao Yunlan yelled to Lin Jing. "If you've got any tricks, hurry up and use them! We've got people waiting for us to save their lives."
Lin Jing promptly sat cross-legged on the floor. Closing his eyes, he started counting his Buddhist prayer beads. His lips moved steadily as he recited scriptures, for all the world like an old monk meditating, then his eyes snapped back open. "Got it!"
The sandalwood beads in his hand rustled. Face blank, he stood and pointed in one direction, every inch the confident charlatan. "This way."
Zhao Yunlan immediately headed in that direction. "How come you were so fast this time?"
Behind him, Lin Jing spoke in his unique, leisurely way. "They're both young men, so their yang energy is naturally abundant. Even with Daqing's black cat yin energy with them, they stand out from this place's ocean of raging yin energy."
Zhao Yunlan froze. "Only two men? What about the girl?"
"There's a girl? Oh, then she's not with them."
Zhao Yunlan frowned. It was hard for him to say what Guo Changcheng would do in this situation, but Daqing was there. Lazy and gluttonous the cat might be, but he still had some professional ethics. Besides, Shen-laoshi was with them.
"That's not possible," he replied reflexively. "There's no way Shen Wei would leave a student behind." They had only met by chance, but he was certain Shen Wei wasn't the sort of coward who'd abandon his student.
"Who's Shen Wei?" Lin Jing asked. "Isn't the new kid's last name Guo?"
Zhao Yunlan couldn't be bothered to explain. "No one you know."
"Mm-hmm," Lin Jing said. "The last time you brushed me off like this, you were dressed up like a suave asshole going off to see the prettiest girl at your university. Every time you get stingy with details and hide something, it means you've definitely met a beauty. Will you at least tell me if this Shen Wei is a man or a woman?"
"Amitabha, 'form is emptiness,'" Zhao Yunlan threw back at him darkly.
Lin Jing had nothing to say to that.
Zhao Yunlan entered the dark, narrow hallway and held up his lighter to survey his surroundings. The hallways branched in all directions, like the deathly silent maze of a trapdoor spider's nest. Why did Lin Jing think Li Qian wasn't with Shen Wei and the others? Had they really had a reason to leave the girl behind, or…
Or did they only think they'd brought her along with them?
At that moment, in a corner of the storage room, Li Qian's eyes opened. |
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