Sun Hang opened an image on his phone. It was a photograph taken before Qiao Liu's Clear Bamboo Bar had burned down.
It was a quiet bar decorated in a postmodern style. Its predominant gray palette, much like the bar's owner, exuded an aloof, frigid air that kept people at a distance. Even the hanging lamps descending from the ceiling gave off cold-toned light.
There was hardly any warm-colored solid wood furniture in the bar. Cold metallic textures complemented sharp-edged decorations, while the minimalist drink menu listed only the names and prices of the beverages in black text on white paper. Even the drinks had names simple enough to understand at a glance, nothing like the gaudy names most bars gave to common cocktails.
The most eye-catching features in the entire bar were the two floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street. There was a gap of roughly forty centimeters between them, and two enormous ecological fish tanks had been embedded inside. Standing before the windows gave one the distinct sensation of being inside an aquarium.
Under the lights, the bubble columns supplying oxygen to the tanks looked exceptionally dreamlike. Colorful fish darted between aquatic plants and artificial rocks. There was even an octopus hiding beneath an oversized decorative seashell, several soft tentacles exposed outside and drifting with the current.
Wait, an octopus?
Sun Hang enlarged the picture and examined it again. He was certain that the thing hiding beneath the shell was an octopus—a living octopus, not some soft rubber octopus toy.
Whether octopuses, cuttlefish, or squid, all cephalopods were marine creatures without exception.
Cephalopods could not survive in freshwater. In other words, the ecological tanks at Clear Bamboo Bar... simulated a marine ecosystem rather than the usual freshwater one?
Those beautiful, colorful little fish were all saltwater fish?
"Interesting," Sun