At least he had finally gotten that "hot potato" off his hands. Li Yun had no interest in watching how the parents, who had spent the afternoon frantic enough to call the police, reacted as they hugged their lost, muddleheaded child tightly to their chests.
The two police officers nearby, however, paled when they heard the sobbing child say that a "strange uncle whose face I couldn't see" had just brought them back. Flashlights in hand, they hurried outside the shop and searched the surroundings.
But where was there anyone left on the street?
Silent as he rose and fell, his entire body seemed to melt into the night. The indistinct figure riding the wind was little more than an illusion flickering at the edge of vision.
Ordinary people could hardly track such movement with their eyes.
Yet Li Yun was heading neither home nor toward the abandoned factory grounds.
The mental fluctuations he released were almost imperceptible, but they quickly picked up faint traces of something unusual.
Soon, the blurred figure found a "target." He lifted the cover of a well-concealed old well chamber, revealing a narrow opening in the concrete layer that had long since sealed it shut—an opening clearly dug through only recently.
Looking into the pitch-black passage, he saw traces of people climbing up and down, footprints, and scraps of clothing fibers scraped off against the coarse cement. Clearly, quite a few people regularly passed through here. He said nothing, merely slipping
quietly inside.
Ever since certain phenomena resembling "living corpses" had been discovered in the sewers last time, although the matter had ultimately come to nothing,
the local Public Security and Special Office had clearly become vigilant.
While investigating and eliminating potential threats throughout the city, including stray animals, abnormal greenery, and unusual concentrations of