The suited man was looking toward the wall around the residential compound.
The compound here was somewhat like Workers and Peasants Sixth Village. Several residential compounds were connected, separated by iron fences and a series of narrow paths.
Inside the walls were rings of greenery. Some had trees planted among them, grown tall, or covered in ivy that turned the iron fences into walls of vines.
The footsteps and panting came from behind that greenery.
Some lurid suspicions surfaced in the suited man's mind, and they found their way into mine as well.
I didn't have those thoughts, though.
Even now, I couldn't sense any yin energy, but I knew the ghost the suited man had mentioned must be behind the greenery.
The suited man paused only briefly, glanced over, then continued walking with a little hum.
I stared at the greenery. Sure enough, before the suited man reached the corner, a figure rushed out from behind it.
The staggering runner passed through the trees, shrubs, and iron fence, appearing right on the road.
His hair was a mess, as if he hadn't groomed it in ages. His clothes were equally careless: a loose short-sleeved shirt and wrinkled slacks that clearly weren't worth much. His eye bags were heavy, nearly black, and the flesh on his cheeks looked ready to sag right off his face.
He looked like a down-and-out middle-aged man.
But unlike an ordinary down-and-out middle-aged man, black skin showed beneath his loose shirt. The black skin bulged and contracted, like some kind of machine, expanding and shrinking in a violent yet rhythmic motion.
When he turned around to face me, I could see what that patch of black really was.
It was his lungs.
Dark fluid seemed to ooze from the black lung lobes, leaving stains on