That Year, That Night, That Shooting Star

A bizarre, demonic wind swept past.

Nothing happened.

Only an utterly ordinary student ID disappeared. Yet that alone was enough to send chills down one's spine, especially for someone who dealt with supernatural incidents every day.

"????"

Charles was instantly startled. He reflexively looked around several times, but could not find anything at all. Uneasily, he turned to Constantine.

"What happened?"

Charles knew very well that the gust just now had definitely not been caused by natural factors.

"Gulp~"

Constantine stared blankly at his empty hand, his eyes trembling violently. He pursed his lips as though still savoring the sensation from moments ago.

"This is..."

Constantine could clearly tell that someone had snatched the card from his hand.

Such speed!

Was it some unusual person?

Or Demons from Hell?

No. Some of the defensive measures on him had not been triggered, so it probably had not been a malicious attack... As he thought this, he seemed to realize something.

"No! That Imp!"

Constantine dashed toward the second-floor window. He first swept his gaze over the grassland outside the farm and found nothing. Then, greatly puzzled, he raised his head to look at the sky.

He had only intended to check the weather.

However.

He really had hit the jackpot.

There.

As the Evil Spirit was bound, the dark clouds had slowly dispersed.

Within the golden sky.

Constantine could vaguely make out a flickering figure high above, looking down in a certain direction—the direction where the taxi had vanished, weaving crookedly down the road.

His face instantly drained of color, and his pupils contracted.

"Charles."

Constantine swallowed.

His voice was grave.

"What?"

Charles was clearly still completely confused, constantly searching the wooden cabin for suspicious people.

"You're finished."

Constantine turned back to look at his friend, then stuck his head out to glance at the sky again. Upon sensing that warning gaze, he immediately shrank his neck and hastily retreated into the house.

"What do you mean? I can't get my car back?" Charles found Constantine utterly baffling. He had not found any hiding Evil Spirits or supernatural beings in the cabin.

"Forget about your car. You've gotten yourself into huge trouble." Constantine wiped away the cold sweat beading on his forehead. At this point, he could barely even pretend to remain calm.

"Huh?"

Charles was completely stunned.

"That Imp has someone backing him. I think he'll definitely go complain about you." Constantine swallowed, as though he had already figured out the personality of that sinister middle schooler.

"He's protected by Angels?"

Charles let his imagination run wild.

"Much scarier than that."

Constantine hesitated at the window, wanting to confirm whether he had seen wrong. But in the end, he chose to pull himself completely back into the cabin.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Charles felt that Constantine was like a Riddler who ought to be dragged off for a beating, but that did not stop him from turning pale in alarm at those words.

Scarier than Angels?

What kind of backing would that be?

Protected by God?

"No, why am I the one who's going to be in deep trouble? Why aren't both of us going to be in deep trouble?" Charles caught the key point. Once again, he experienced Constantine's shamelessness.

Wasn't he too quick to distance himself?

He stared speechlessly at his old friend, while Constantine's shameless behavior continued.

"I wasn't the one trafficking a minor. I'm just a passerby passing through Metropolis. Tomorrow... no, tonight, I'm leaving Metropolis overnight."

As he spoke.

Constantine began packing his things, even forgetting about burying the poor woman in the house. To be fair, he really did run fast.

After slapping a talisman onto a door in the room, Constantine entered it and vanished without a trace. At that moment, the dumbfounded Charles had not even recovered from his shock.

"My car..."

He was still grieving over his most valuable possession.

As for Constantine's behavior, Charles had long grown used to it. It was just the familiar "betrayal." Die a few more times, and he would no longer feel quite so angry at Constantine.

The setting sun sank beyond the city's skyline, dyeing the streets a dusky orange. Ian's taxi had stopped by the roadside, not because he had reached his destination, but because he had encountered a traffic cop.

"Please step out of the vehicle and show me your driver's license." The officer's eyes held the professional vigilance of his trade, and his expression grew especially stern when he saw how impossibly young Ian looked in the driver's seat.

There was no helping it.

That taxi looked as though it had just suffered a bout of road rage, while Ian looked far too youthful to be a teenager qualified to take a driver's test.

"Here it is."

Ian shoved open the warped car door and climbed out, then calmly pulled out a worn ID holder. He casually waved the document around in front of the officer a few times.

It was very fast.

Dizzyingly so.

Then he slipped the document back into his pocket.

"Hand it to me directly. I didn't see it clearly."

The traffic cop frowned, his gaze deeply suspicious.

"Officer, you must not like doing eye exercises when you wake up in the morning." Ian took out the document again and handed it directly to the officer, who accepted it and began inspecting it carefully.

The information on it was naturally all fake.

However.

It was convincing enough to pass for real—if one asked why, it was certainly not because Ian specialized in forging documents. Before leaving the cabin, he had "picked up" this little item from Constantine.

Psychic Card.

It allowed others to see the appropriate identification they were supposed to see. It was an extremely useful little magical tool—Ian had actually noticed Constantine swiping his student ID.

But he had not made a fuss. Instead, he respected the law of conservation of matter, gave Lavoisier's reputation a little boost, and chose to let some of Constantine's matter flow into his own possession as well.

"You're nineteen?"

The traffic cop inspected it seriously for several minutes and found nothing wrong with the document. Still, he remained suspicious of Ian. In his eyes, the boy before him looked fifteen or sixteen at most.

"Yeah. People always say I have a baby face."

Ian truly never blinked when he lied.

"Hmm?"

The traffic cop neither agreed nor disagreed. His gaze repeatedly shifted between the document in his hand and Ian's face before he finally returned the document to Ian with a slightly strange expression.

"What happened to your car?"

The officer looked toward the taxi. Its front end was simply too horrible to look at.

"Well..."

Ian was still trying to come up with something when the parked car began slowly sliding forward. It slid faster and faster, then crashed into a fire hydrant with a bang.

"Mm, that's how it got damaged."