The speeding minivan, its body as black as spilled ink, smashed through sheets of rain and plowed through puddle after puddle, racing at full speed down the deserted streets.
A rugged-looking woman with deep-set eyes sat beside a man with lowered eyes and exquisitely beautiful features. Seen from outside, the woman and man in the two front seats looked like polar opposites.
The masculine-looking woman irritably ran one hand over her short buzz cut, glanced at the rearview mirror, and said in a gruff voice:
"Manager, it's almost here."
The feminine-looking man turned off his phone screen, lowered the window, and leaned his head out to look behind the speeding vehicle.
Nothing unusual appeared on the streets flashing past, yet a succession of invisible footprints emerged on the stretches of road receding behind them.
The footprints themselves could not be seen directly. Only the shoe prints rapidly appearing and disappearing in the water on the road revealed that their pursuer was still close behind.
The beautiful man slowly drew himself back inside and wiped the rain from his forehead with his cuff, his expression grim.
He lit up his phone screen again. At its center was a human eye resembling a kaleidoscope, eerie and mysterious. Behind the eye, a slowly emerging face was also beginning to take shape, flickering in and out of sight.
"If you'd known it would come to this, why do it in the first place..."
Three people also occupied the minivan's rear seats. A young man as thin as a rake lifted his sunken face, looking terminally ill, and uttered those words in a faint voice.
"Shut up, Monkey!"
Beside Monkey, a square-faced man raised his hand and slapped him, knocking his head straight into the window with a dull thud.
Qiang Haoming irritably shook out