The Red Moon hung overhead, bathing the crossroads in a dusky crimson glow.
"Who are you?"
Yue Shan stopped in his tracks, his gaze locked firmly on the middle-aged man standing in the middle of the road with his hands clasped behind his back.
The four behind him stopped at the same time.
Zhou Ling reacted the fastest. Her short hair swung as her right hand had already reached for the pouch at her waist.
Zhao Tie did not reach for a weapon. His gaze passed over the crossroads toward the Green Gang's base, his nostrils flaring slightly as though he were smelling something.
Only after a moment did he frown and step half a pace forward, leaning close to Yue Shan's ear. "Captain, there's a heavy stench of blood over there. At least a dozen people are dead."
Yue Shan's eye twitched, and the fingers of his left hand moved soundlessly at his side.
This was their squad's internal hand signal: stay steady, do not act rashly, prepare to spread out.
The two unfamiliar young men moved to the rear, hands resting on their sword hilts. Their expressions were tense; clearly, they had never encountered a situation like this before.
Zhou Ling's fingertips left the cord fastening her pouch and instead gripped the hilt of the short blade at her waist.
Zhao Tie took half a step back and, without drawing attention to himself, shifted to the flank of the group.
The five-man formation changed from a straight line into a slightly spread arc.
"Why exactly have you stopped us, sir?"
Only then did Yue Shan speak again, his voice several degrees sharper than before. "Could it be that you intend to make an enemy of the Anomaly Suppression Bureau?"
Under normal circumstances, his blade would already have left