Breakfast

Better get something to eat first... Sun Hang thought.

As for the rescue operation and those missing people, he was in no hurry at all—he had never felt any goodwill toward those people, only disgust... What did their lives or deaths have to do with him?

After all, when they gave their orders, they had never treated the lives of Temporary Investigators as anything worth considering... Now that people on his level were in trouble, they finally knew how to panic?

"Panicking won't help." Sun Hang muttered under his breath. He got to his feet, parked the SUV in a random open-air space, shoved his hands into his pockets, and strolled toward the commercial district.

Inside the anomalous zone of the former South City Public Cemetery.

The hands on the dial were nearing five o'clock, yet there was still not the slightest sign of dawn. Beneath the Blood Moon, the deep night sky resembled a heavy curtain of dark crimson velvet, sealing the heavens shut.

A temporary operations outpost had been set up. The white tents marked with red crosses occasionally rang with the groans of the wounded, while a light truck in the corner of the camp carried a row of corpses covered in white sheets.

Yang Qi sat in a folding chair, staring at the tablet in her hands with a deeply furrowed brow. At the cost of more than twenty lives, they had finally mapped out the anomalous zone's boundaries. Aside from South City Public Cemetery, the barren mountains to the northwest, the stream area to the south, and an abandoned village to the east had all been "replaced" with their appearance from sixty-five years ago.

"Damn... The affected area is much larger than we imagined..."

Yang Qi let out a long breath. Just then, the phone in her pocket suddenly rang.

"Hello? Yang Qi of the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute." She picked up the phone and answered.

"How is the rescue operation progressing?" The voice on the other end belonged to an authoritative middle-aged man. Yang Qi recognized it—the caller was the second-in-command of the Tianfu City Management Committee. Within Tianfu City, his authority could truly be described as second only to one.

"The boundaries of the anomalous zone have been determined, but casualties are considerable. We are currently regrouping at the camp and will conduct a second survey after daybreak," Yang Qi reported.

"What is the specific progress? Do you have any leads on the missing people?"

"Not yet... We have no leads," Yang Qi replied.

"No leads?" The man's tone was clearly dissatisfied. "Didn't one of the hunters resonate with an anomaly?"

"The Blood Moon's power is too strong. Night Fiend has shown clear signs of losing control. I have ordered all Anomaly Hunters to temporarily withdraw from the operation and return to the area once the Blood Moon disappears," Yang Qi said.

"But as far as I know, the hunter who resonated with the anomaly was not Night Fiend... Has he withdrawn as well?"

"Although he has not undergone any mutation, he is still an infected person. To be safe..."

"Researcher Yang, get one thing straight. We are racing against time. We cannot adopt the most conservative plan for every matter. Since this hunter has shown no obvious abnormalities, have him return to the operational area immediately!"

"I refuse!" Yang Qi said at once. "You are not on site, so you do not understand the situation here. This Blood Moon is more powerful than any Blood Moon observed in the past thirty years! We cannot take that risk... If we lose that hunter, even our last lead may be cut off! If my decision leads to any consequences, I am willing to bear full responsibility!"

"Do you think you can bear that responsibility? You should have seen the list of missing persons already, shouldn't you?" The voice on the phone had become faintly angry.

"I have." Yang Qi answered neither humbly nor arrogantly. "But since I am the on-site commander of this rescue operation, I have the right to assign the personnel involved, unless you remove me from my post directly. But under normal procedure, at least half of the Management Committee must approve that decision before it takes effect."

"Very well... I will not remove you from your position," the man said slowly. "But I hope that in forty-eight hours... no, thirty-one hours, you will give me a satisfactory result."

The other party hung up... Until the very end, he never said what punishment awaited Yang Qi if she failed to complete the mission, but the threat behind his words was unmistakable.

Tianfu City, downtown, some nameless alley.

Sun Hang had originally planned to grab a meal at Golden Arches on the commercial street, but because he did not know the way, he wandered into a residential area instead.

The buildings here were all old houses left over from the last century, and even the streets were paved with bluestone slabs polished incomparably smooth by time. A thin morning mist hung over the road, giving Sun Hang the strange illusion that he had stumbled into a hidden paradise.

The air was damp, partly because of the morning fog and partly because of the steam rising from the large bamboo steamers placed along the street. In a city just beginning to wake, breakfast shops were naturally the first to open their doors.

Before the sky had fully brightened, the breakfast shop owners had already set tables and long benches outside their storefronts, lit their stoves, and set up their pots.

Dan dan noodles, tofu pudding, hot-and-sour rice noodles, Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake... At a glance, the street was filled with Tianfu City specialties. Some elderly men who had risen early were already seated on chairs by the roadside, leaning on canes and carrying birdcages as they waited for their breakfasts to be served.

Sun Hang picked a table that looked reasonably clean and sat down. After glancing at the menu hanging outside the shop, he said to the owner busy inside, "One bowl of wontons. Uh, no spice."

"One bowl of wontons? How many liang?" the owner asked, then lowered his head and continued working.

"Liang?... Then give me ten." Sun Hang glanced at the wontons on the chopping board waiting to be cooked. They were much larger than the wontons he remembered. Ten should be enough to fill him up... And if they were not, he could always buy something else somewhere else.

"Got it! One and a half liang of wontons, no spice!"

"Hey, young man, I can tell you don't know how to eat these." An elderly man beside him, his beard and hair both white, shook his head regretfully after hearing Sun Hang ask for no spice. "You don't understand. When those piping-hot wontons come out and you drizzle a spoonful of red chili oil over them... Tsk, that's the real deal!"

Just as Sun Hang was about to come up with some excuse to brush off the nosy old man, a scent unique to "food" suddenly drifted into his nostrils.