The wind in the dead of night carried shards of ice, stinging his face. Lin Mo locked the metal door of the repair shop, his white breath condensing into mist beneath the streetlamp before the wind swept it away. Shield trotted at his feet, its claws crunching through the snow, tail curled into a furry ball—the dog would normally be snoring away in its basement bed by now, but for some reason, it had insisted on coming out tonight.
"Let's go home. I'm freezing to death." Lin Mo bent down and stroked the puppy's head. His fingertips touched its warm skin, a stark contrast to the surrounding cold. He had just replaced the transmission on a broken-down pickup truck, and every bone in his body screamed with exhaustion. All he wanted was to get back to the basement and make himself a mug of hot cocoa.
A pile of snow half a person tall sat beside the dumpster at the alley entrance, a blind spot the snowplow had missed during the day. Lin Mo glanced inside out of habit—he had once caught a repeat battery thief here, and since then, he had developed a habit of checking dark corners. Dynamic Vision suddenly caught something strange: the snow in the corner was not being stirred by the wind. Instead, it was slowly freezing together, as though invisible hands were sculpting it.
He paused and signaled Shield to be quiet. The puppy obediently shut its mouth at once, though its tail still swept anxiously across the ground. Lin Mo softened his steps and moved deeper into the alley along the weathered brick wall. His boots stepped on the ice with barely a sound. Physical Enhancement had made his senses exceptionally sharp. He could hear his own heartbeat, and... a faint sound like