The car drove out of the neighborhood where the Li Family lived and headed north along the road by the Hai River.
The sky was overcast, with clouds hanging low.
Before long, raindrops came pattering down again, striking the windshield with crisp taps.
In the blink of an eye, they joined into a curtain of rain, so dense that the wipers could barely keep up.
Chen Mo slowed the car and studied the street ahead through the rain.
There were few pedestrians on the road. Occasionally, a few coolies without umbrellas held tattered jackets over their heads with their shoulder poles and jogged beneath the arcades.
Half an hour later, the gates of the Anomaly Suppression Bureau came into view.
Chen Mo found a spot across the street to park, then fished a black umbrella out of the back seat.
It was not his first time at headquarters. After showing his token to the guard, Chen Mo made his way around the office building behind the gates and headed for the Merit Pavilion in the central district.
Perhaps because of the rain, there were not many people in the Merit Pavilion—only two or three.
Incense had presumably been lit behind the counter, and a faint scent of sandalwood lingered in the air.
Chen Mo went straight to the bookshelves on either side and pulled out the volume labeled "Minerals, Gold, and Iron."
The booklet was thin. Inside were handwritten entries, each listing a material's name and the merit points required to exchange for it.
A few entries bore traces of revisions, indicating that inventory numbers were being updated in real time.
His finger slid down the entries line by line. Only after flipping through more than half the booklet did he find what he was looking for near the back.