Blood and Dreams (Please Keep Reading!)

Yazhou, North Mountain District, outskirts, six in the afternoon.

Outside a secluded detached house, police tape had long since been put up. Several officers sheltered in the shade of the trees, occasionally raising their heads to sneak glances inside, though they could see nothing. After sighing, they quietly discussed the rumors circulating through the precinct these past few days.

Restless unease.

Only the figure leaning by the doorway had remained utterly motionless from beginning to end.

The motorcycle jacket draped over her shoulders swayed faintly in the wind. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, their expression impossible to discern.

Her physique would have stood head and shoulders above even ordinary men, yet the sharp aura swirling around her body made people afraid to look twice.

"Excuse Me, Wen-jie, I'm late!"

A young girl in a sunhat stepped out of a taxi, carrying two cups of milk tea. After flashing her credentials to the police, she brazenly crossed the cordon and walked toward the person at the door.

"Traffic was jammed on the way here. Apparently there was almost an accident—so dangerous! I took a look at the scene. That truck was huge; it nearly crashed right into them..."

Tong Hua enthusiastically described the Scenes to her superior. "Which just goes to show, fatigued driving is no good. The driver got pinned to the ground and beaten by some auntie. If the Patrol officers hadn't arrived so quickly, his brains would've nearly been slapped out by those Big Cunt slaps—exactly like that idiot from First Team last time, when you pinned him down and beat him..."

Unfortunately, the woman by the door had no interest in responding. She merely glanced at Tong Hua's animated expression and tipped her chin toward the inside of the house.

"Done talking? Come examine the scene."

"Hey, Wen-jie, you're still so serious. I just rushed over from the last scene, haven't rested for over ten hours, and I even brought you milk tea."

Tong Hua put on a show of being wronged, then promptly grew excited again. "But I recently learned gait analysis! Come on, let me see..."

She put on gloves. Once inside, she lowered her head to inspect the entryway of the Living Room, and her expression abruptly turned grave. "Someone has been here."

"Hmm?"

Wen Wen's expression tightened despite herself.

"Looks like it was a woman." Tong Hua crouched on the floor, narrowing her eyes at the footprints in the Dust and taking two small sniffs. "Very unusual—one meter ninety tall, approximately twenty-five years old. Ha, got you. She even smoked here..."

"Was it White Star?" A kind curve rose at the corner of Wen Wen's lips.

Tong Hua turned back in shock. "You can even tell the brand?"

Her answer was a slap to the back of her head, nearly knocking off her Dog Head.

"That was fucking me!"

Wen Wen flew into a rage and pointed into the Living Room. "What bullshit gait analysis? Why don't you just recite my driver's license number? If you're examining a scene, then examine the damn scene properly."

Tong Hua felt like her head had nearly been smacked off. She did not dare show off the gait analysis she had only just learned while her team leader was in such a foul temper, but she could not help worrying: Big Sister is so fierce. Finding a boyfriend must be hard...

Yet even as she muttered to herself, when she raised her head and Looked towards the Crime scene, she still Couldn't help but sigh.

"I just didn't want to look at this."

Couldn't it have been someone else?

A damp wind blew in from Outside the Window. Fine Dust had already Covered with a layer over the table. The lavish dinner had gone untouched, and mosquitoes and flies had long been circling above it.

Beside the dining table, amid the wreckage, five shattered corpses lay scattered everywhere, Shattered, with Blood Plasma sprayed in sharp streaks.

As though a wild beast had burst in and torn them apart in an instant.

An old man, a child, a man, a woman...

In less than a minute, all of them had died.

Tong Hua reached out and pressed her hand against the remaining head on the tabletop. She closed her eyes. Boundless agony surged in with the torrent of memories, piercing her brain in an instant and making her convulse despite herself.

In the vision that appeared before her, the bloodied figure had broken in through the window and lunged at the dining table.

Feasting ravenously.

Male, forty years old, disabled Left Hand, black facial tattoos.

Eyes scarlet red.

Then came, one after another, the agony of being torn apart, the terror of having one's organs devoured, and the despair of losing everything.

"The fourth."

Tong Hua Opened her eyes, suppressing the urge to vomit. "Not the previous perpetrator..."

This was the fourth murder in Yazhou City this week committed by a Blood Thirst Syndrome patient.

Blood Thirst Syndrome, a bizarre plague brought from Central Earth.

Legend had it that White King, one of Central Earth's four Priests, had brought down this curse by betraying the Way of the Chosen.

It spread through bodily fluids, and its symptom was exactly what the name implied... thirst for blood.

During the early stages of infection, patients would gradually experience uncontrollable hunger and a craving for blood products. Once the illness reached the Second Phase, they would slowly lose their reason. During this period, their appetite would gradually turn toward living creatures, their physical abilities would strengthen, and their canine teeth would increasingly protrude. Once they lost interest in birds and livestock and turned their gaze upon their own kind, it meant they had officially entered the Third Phase...

"At least four already." Wen Wen murmured softly.

But as the saying went—when you found one cockroach in your home, it meant there was at least a whole nest somewhere you could not see.

"We need to move faster."

Tong Hua said, "If they keep Eating it like this, a patient might reach the fifth phase next week."

The symptoms of the fourth phase were organ mutation and a gradual loss of humanity. By the fifth phase, the rapidly matured host would gain the ability to infect others, and could then spread Blood Thirst Syndrome to new patients.

"The backyard's about to catch fire." Tong Hua scratched her head. "Where's the director? Isn't he back yet?"

"The unrest at Spring City Grotto is getting worse and worse. There might be a disaster spillover. All the higher-ups across Haizhou are watching that side; they can't spare attention for us right now."

To say something heartless—compared to the terrifying Consequences of a grotto spillover flooding One-third of all Haizhou, a few rabid dogs bred by Blood Thirst Syndrome did not even count as a scab-level ailment. They had to wait their turn.

"Those assholes in First Team act like they own the world normally, but when it matters, they're completely useless." Tong Hua Sighed. "Any support from the other teams?"

"Of the seven groups in Second Team, five are all waiting for me, this fool who doesn't know when to advance or retreat, to screw things up so they can carve up the North Mountain Team... At this point, it'll be good enough if they don't kick us while we're down."

Wen Wen lowered her head and lit a White Star, then suddenly asked, "Want me to find Lu Shenzhou and transfer you to another team? So you don't have to sink with me on this rotten ship."

"Bullshit! Betraying Eldest Brother—ptui, Big Sister—means Three Cuts Six Holes!"

Tong Hua jumped anxiously, gesturing at the sky and drawing shapes in the air. "I'm following you, so you have to trust me!"

Once again, her answer was a slap to the back of her head.

"You're an agent of the Security Bureau, not some little gangster girl. What do you mean, following me?"

Even so, a faint curve finally touched her lovely, stern face, nearly imperceptible through the curling Smoke. "Did you find a lead?"

Tong Hua grinned. "A rookie. Didn't hide anything at all—stood out like stripping naked and running through the streets in broad daylight."

"Good. Call Lao Zhang and Little An." Wen Wen wasted no more time and waved her hand. "You go chase this lead first. If anything happens, listen to Lao Zhang."

"What about you?" Tong Hua was briefly at a loss.

"I'm going to have a chat with some 'old friends.'"

Wen Wen finally smiled, bright and open. The uncontrollable ferocity and savagery slowly rose from her brow. "Maybe I'll find something new."

Northern Federation, Seven States, Yacheng—one of the Nineteen Great Cities.

North Mountain District, the most chaotic and lawless district under the city's jurisdiction, with a permanent population of 4.1 million and over one million illegal immigrants without registration or identity.

Gray Industries teemed with all manner of people. The Gang Syndicates that could not bear the light fought one another endlessly, and there was no shortage of rats lurking among them.

From west to east: Sheng He, Dong Di Hui, Bai Tiao Bang, Yi Qi Tuan...

Among all this trash, surely a few of them had to answer for this.

She twisted the throttle.

The motorcycle engine roared, belching Thick Smoke as it howled away into the Sea Breeze.

To hell with whatever rules and brotherhood—

Kill one if there was one; kill a whole house if there was a house!

Ji Jue felt that he was leaving peacefully.

For one fleeting instant, he truly thought he had died. Yet the world after death seemed no different from the one before it—only much colder, and so weightless.

In his grogginess and daze, he forgot where he was.

His soul seemed to rise.

Leaving the Mortal World behind, the clamor receded. He ascended toward the sky, and the Dust vanished.

As though he were soaring.

Looking down upon the earth, gazing into the dome of heaven.

But after freeing himself from his shell, what he saw was not heaven. Rather, it was undoubtedly... hell!

The earth was no longer stable. Blazing Fire and mist surged across it, while ravine-like cracks spread one after another. The sky was no longer whole either; it was Falling apart, collapsing, falling.

Like rain and Meteorites.

Sparse stars burned in the darkness, bursting with Blazing Light.

Thus the sky was burned away, and the darkness scattered in rushing streams. Once the clouds that filled the heavens had been swept away like Dust Haze, all that remained was boundless light.

Behind that expanse of radiance, something seemed to be gradually emerging.

Those blurred outlines overlapped one another, yet remained as clearly divided as rivers and ditches. Like pillars of heaven, they supported the world between earth and sky; yet they also seemed omnipresent, encompassing all things within them.

One was like a sun wheel weeping blood; one was as vast as mountains and oceans; one was tangled bone and blood formed into a throne; one shifted endlessly like Blazing Fire and Electric Light; one rose upward beyond the reach of mortal things; one was square, towering and solemn like palace gates; one radiated from the center, free as though nothing could bind it...

Ji Jue raised his head, suffocating, and looked up.

They, them—no, They—

—were all looking at him!

In that instant, Ji Jue's head felt as though it were splitting apart. His soul and consciousness seemed ready to burn to ashes beneath that Look down, unable to endure any longer. The last thing he glimpsed was white light rushing toward him.

It swallowed everything.

"Fuck, ori—"

Ji Jue shot upright from the brink of death.

In the bedroom, he gasped violently. In the silence, morning rain pattered against the window, while only the sounds of ancient clocks echoed slowly through the room.

Waves of subtle chill spread through the room, carrying a faint musty smell that would not disperse.

After gulping down all the cold water from the day before yesterday in one go, Ji Jue finally woke from that inexplicable, long dream, returning to the Mortal World and remembering where he was.

This was his home.