The twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month.
North Wind City lay wrapped in silver, snowflakes drifting down in flurries over the teeming city streets.
God North Wind had fallen on the third day of the twelfth lunar month. A full nine days had passed, yet the ancient city remained packed inside and out with countless North Wind Believers.
Some had come specifically to mourn North Wind.
People knelt and kowtowed toward the spot where the North Wind God Statue had vanished, seeing the gods off on their final journey.
Some could not accept Lord North Wind's death and still clung, deep in their hearts, to a thread of unrealistic hope.
It was self-deception, but they were also desperately waiting for a miracle.
Others were unwilling to leave the sect. In this darkest, blackest hour, only by staying amid the crowds could they find a sliver of security and a measure of comfort.
The atmosphere within the city was oppressively dreadful.
Hu Jiaojiao wore a face full of sorrow as she led First Squad on patrol, maintaining order throughout the city.
Nine days ago, on the very day the God had fallen, she had received a special assignment from her city lord grandfather:
Protect the families of her two close friends.
Yet after investigating for days, Hu Jiaojiao had discovered in astonishment that both of her former close friends' families had vanished.
If one or two people had gone missing, they might have met their end on the Night of the Fifteenth last month.
But all of them had disappeared?
Hu Jiaojiao realized that someone must have beaten her to it!
As for whether that person had protected her close friends' families or ruthlessly killed them, she had no way of knowing.
Hu Jiaojiao had been deeply dejected and returned