The Rain Stopped

Inside the house.

Auntie looked up at the wall clock, staring blankly into space.

The table before her was laden with dishes, all of them already cold, almost unchanged from when Lin Qiye had left.

After an unknown amount of time, Yang Jin reached out and used his chopsticks to place a piece of meat into Auntie's bowl.

"Mom, eat."

"Sigh..." Auntie shook her head and let out a long sigh. "Your brother ran out in the middle of dinner. Why isn't he back yet? You don't think something happened to him, do you?"

"Don't worry, he'll be fine. Maybe some of his classmates saw that his eyes were better and insisted on dragging him out for a meal." Yang Jin spoke softly, trying to reassure her.

Hearing this, Auntie visibly relaxed, but then she began to worry again.

"But he didn't take an umbrella."

"Mom..." Yang Jin stood and pointed out the window, speaking calmly.

"The rain has already stopped."

The rain had indeed stopped.

Hazy moonlight broke through the clouds and spilled across the silent, deserted night. Everything was still.

On the empty lot nearby, the shattered notice board had already been taken away, and the flesh and blood scattered across the ground had been cleaned away completely. Only the vicious blade marks on the ground remained, silently recounting everything that had happened the night before.

Perhaps tomorrow morning, someone would discover these mysterious cracks. They would come up with countless guesses, but they would never know the truth.

A few drops of rain slid down from the eaves and fell into a muddy puddle, sending ripples spreading across its surface.

Splash!

A foot stepped into the puddle, kicking up a spray of water.

In the darkness, a small black Mangy Dog ambled unhurriedly across the blade-scarred clearing.

A small cloth pouch hung around his neck.

He crossed over the cracks and stopped beside a patch of clean ground.

More than ten minutes earlier, a man's corpse had lain here.

He lowered his head, a faint glow appearing in his pitch-black eyes.

Suddenly, he opened his mouth, and spoke in a low, majestic voice.

"Soul Return..."

Cangnan City, Heping Bridge.

Heping Bridge was a large bridge in the outskirts of Cangnan City. Beneath it ran the Jiangnan Grand Canal, which cut across the entirety of Cangnan City. Countless pedestrians and vehicles crossed the bridge every day, making it one of the city's landmarks.

At the foot of Heping Bridge, small storefronts lined both sides. Above one of the most inconspicuous-looking shops hung an old, bright-red sign.

—Heping Agency.

Like the other shops beside Heping Bridge, it was not large, only a little over two hundred square meters—just slightly bigger than the average Lanzhou noodle shop near a school.

It was inconspicuous not only because its name was too ordinary, but more importantly because the shops on either side were far too eye-catching.

On the left was a wedding planning company decorated in an extravagantly festive fashion, all red and purple, called "Heping Wedding Services."

On the right was a one-stop funeral service shop draped in White Sash and filled with funeral wreaths, called "Heping One-Stop Funeral Services."

Wedding celebrations on the left, all smiles and joy; funeral services on the right, faces as mournful as if their own parents had died.

Sandwiched between those two extremes, Heping Agency was like an invisible shop, utterly incapable of drawing anyone's attention.

If it had any distinguishing feature at all, it was probably its name. Ordinary agencies each had their own specialty: law firms specialized in lawsuits, detective agencies specialized in solving cases, accounting firms specialized in bookkeeping...

But this shop had no prefix whatsoever. It only bore the two words "Heping," making it impossible to tell what exactly it did.

At that moment, beneath Heping Agency.

In the spacious, brightly lit hall, a young man sat on a sofa with his head lowered, staring at the floor tiles beneath his feet in silence.

There were six other people seated in the hall.

"So, you're the Seraph's agent Old Zhao was responsible for finding?" Wu Xiangnan sat on the sofa opposite him, looking at Lin Qiye as he asked.

"That's right."

After a brief silence, Wu Xiangnan slowly spoke.

"My name is Wu Xiangnan. I'm the vice-captain of Team 136 of the Night Watchmen stationed in Cangnan City. The one in black leaning against that pillar is our captain, Chen Muye."

Lin Qiye followed Wu Xiangnan's gaze and saw a man standing silently beside a pillar some distance away, his hands tucked into his pockets as he watched Lin Qiye.

Noticing Lin Qiye's gaze, Chen Muye gave a slight nod.

Wu Xiangnan turned to the remaining four. "Don't just stand there. Introduce yourselves."

At that moment, the woman sitting alone on a single sofa, hugging her knees with her hair still dripping wet, slightly raised her head, revealing a pair of reddened eyes.

"Night Watchmen Team 136. Frontline combatant, Hong Ying."

Lin Qiye knew her. She was the one who had brought him here.

After Hong Ying finished, the man standing beside her with a towel still in his hand spoke with a smile.

"Night Watchmen Team 136. Frontline combatant, Wen Qimo."

Then the girl huddled up beside them, likewise crying her eyes out, lifted her head slightly and said softly, "Night Watchmen Team 136. Combat support and part-time field medic, Si Xiaonan."

"Night Watchmen Team 136. Long-range fire support, Leng Xuan," said the man sitting nearby with a Sniper Rifle in his arms, his voice cold.

Once everyone had introduced themselves, Wu Xiangnan spoke again.

"Student Lin Qiye, right? Regarding Zhao Kongcheng's death in battle... do you have anything else to add?"

"I've already made it very clear." Lin Qiye spoke calmly. "Zhao Kongcheng deployed the Boundless Void Domain and fought the Ghost-faced King to the death alone. In the end, they perished together."

"Were you at the scene when they fought?"

"I was."

"How did you enter the Boundless Void Domain?"

"I glared at it, and it opened."

Wu Xiangnan opened his mouth, his brows knitting slightly. "Can you describe their battle in more detail? For example, how did Zhao Kongcheng kill the Ghost-faced King?"

"He swung his blade and slashed out a massive black crescent, cutting off the Ghost-faced King's head," Lin Qiye said.

"A black crescent..." Wu Xiangnan frowned as he pondered it.

Just then, Chen Muye, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly spoke. "It was Life-Annihilating Flash Moon. Old Zhao used Ghost God's Pull... and activated his Forbidden Ruins."

Wen Qimo spoke in surprise. "Life-Annihilating Flash Moon, Sequence 083? That's a high-risk Forbidden Ruins!"

"I never thought... Uncle Zhao was actually right. I used to think he was just narcissistic..." Si Xiaonan pursed her lips and spoke weakly.

"No, he was narcissistic." The corners of Chen Muye's mouth rose slightly, a trace of reminiscence flashing through his eyes. "I imagine even he could hardly believe it when he first saw his own Forbidden Ruins, right?"

"If we'd been there, he definitely would've pestered us, saying his Forbidden Ruins was the coolest out of everyone's..." Hong Ying seemed to recall an amusing scene, and the corners of her lips lifted slightly. But the light in her eyes soon dimmed.

Wu Xiangnan looked into Lin Qiye's eyes and spoke again. "One more question. Judging from the Ghost-faced King's corpse, its fatal wounds were a series of blade cuts, along with inexplicable burn marks... but Life-Annihilating Flash Moon doesn't seem to possess such properties. What happened?"

Lin Qiye frowned. Looking Wu Xiangnan in the eye, he spoke slowly, one word at a time.

"I've already made it very clear. Zhao Kongcheng faced the Ghost-faced King alone and fought to the very end... In the end, he solo-killed the Ghost-faced King!"