Before the Downpour

Patter, patter.

Drip, drop.

Rain poured down.

In an alley somewhere in Jiangcheng District.

Outside.

Camera shutters clicked without pause.

That morning, passersby kept craning their necks toward the cordoned-off area.

Police from the General Affairs Bureau had sealed off the scene, setting the nearby crowd abuzz.

"What happened?"

"Did someone die?"

"What's going on?"

Officers at the perimeter began clearing the crowd, reminding everyone not to post recklessly on Tremble or other social platforms.

A white outline marked where the body had lain.

Blood had sprayed across the alley as though the victim had become a human fountain.

The scene looked like hell on earth.

Li Chaoyang's eyes were cold.

"That's the fifth."

"The Rainy Night Killer has struck again."

Since the start of the new millennium, strange incidents had been cropping up one after another.

But in more than a decade as a police officer, Li Chaoyang had never seen anything like this.

"The killer snapped the victim's bones with his bare hands."

"And there's... this."

Li Chaoyang stared grimly at the bent steel pipe beside the alley.

The killer had left the murder weapon at the scene without a care.

What made no sense was this:

There was a handprint on the metal pipe!

Someone had squeezed it into the steel!

Could a human being really... really do that?

Li Chaoyang lowered his gaze.

Chen Lin came over with a young man in police uniform. One look at his green expression told Li Chaoyang he had just graduated from the police academy.

The sight reminded Li Chaoyang of his own university days in Jingzhou.

"Sir, this is Chen Chaosheng."

"He was assigned to our General Affairs Bureau two days ago."

As Chen Lin spoke, the tall Chen Chaosheng snapped off an earnest salute.

Li Chaoyang waved a hand. "No need for that."

"What do we have so far?"

Chen Lin gestured to Chen Chaosheng.

Chen Chaosheng cleared his throat and began reading from his notebook.

"The victim was a forty-seven-year-old woman who drove a taxi in Jiangzhou City."

"At approximately 1:17 a.m., her taxi's location data became abnormal."

"She remained unreachable until around three in the morning."

"Then... at 5:20 a.m., the General Affairs Bureau received a report that she'd been murdered."

"We're checking road surveillance around the area and the time her location data went wrong to identify the passengers she carried before she died. But for some reason, none of the cameras caught anything."

Chen Chaosheng looked baffled.

In modern society, surveillance systems covered nearly everything.

That was especially true in the economically developed Jiangzhou Region.

Yet ever since the Rainy Night Killer's first murder,

not a single camera had caught a glimpse of the culprit.

Not even for one frame!

Could any human really avoid every camera?

And then there was...

Li Chaoyang looked at the handprint on the steel pipe.

Was the culprit even human?

Jiangzhou Normal University.

The first floor of Building 16.

A large ideological and moral education lecture.

Fang Xian never skipped classes in his major.

But he occasionally skipped general courses like this one, where attendance barely mattered.

His roommates and the guys next door were much the same—oh, except Li Yang. He never skipped class. When everyone else signed up for anime clubs and esports clubs at the last club fair, he joined Jiangzhou Normal University's Advanced Mathematics Association!

Holy crap.

The name alone was enough to scare anyone off.

At the lectern, Yu Bo, director of the Student Affairs Office, surveyed the turnout and smiled. "Very good... every seat's taken."

In the back row, Fang Xian scrolled through his phone while Xiao Jiu slept beside him, rump sticking up.

Of course every seat's taken.

Just look at Zhang Yuhang, Chen Kang, and the rest, gawking like lovesick fools.

These guys usually sit in the back with me, but today they abandoned me.

Why?

Who else but Song Yizhou?

The goddess of the School of Literature, a stunning beauty who embodied every fantasy anyone had ever had about a bookish girl.

Enough!

Fang Xian took a deep breath and looked out at the pouring rain.

For some reason, his heart was pounding hard.

It felt as though a hand were tugging at it.

He hadn't used any Ghost Story powers these past two days, nor had he gone to the Red Building. He should have been fine.

Maybe I should book an appointment online... No, should I ask Auntie Yao Hui first?

Fang Xian found the WeChat contact named [This Is Huihuizi].

Her profile picture was a cartoon rabbit.

After dinner at Changzhao Reservoir, Huihuizi had gotten her way in the end.

She had gotten Fang Xian's WeChat contact.

No need. I'll just go straight there.

That was Fang Xian's decision.

Song Yizhou sat in the front row, with Gao Lu and Lü Yaoyao on either side of her. Farther out sat a fairly handsome guy.

According to Chen Kang, he was Qiao Minming, Song Yizhou's classmate in Chinese Language and Literature Class 151.

In a major where each class had only two or three guys, someone that good-looking was a rarity among rarities.

Word was he'd been pursuing Song Yizhou hard lately.

What the hell?

Is Song Yizhou some kind of succubus?

And now that this classmate's shown up, what happened to Yu Feng?

Where did that big guy go?

Fang Xian felt a little guilty toward Yu Feng.

Song Yizhou had mentioned it over dinner last time.

Yu Feng had gone home through the rain and caught a nasty cold that lasted a whole week.

It was all my fault.

Fang Xian thumped his chest, wracked with guilt.

Then he turned and saw Xiao Jiu sleeping soundly.

No, it was all Xiao Jiu's fault!

Xiao Jiu, I'm going to make you answer for what happened to Yu Feng!

With that, Fang Xian began pinching Xiao Jiu's chubby cheeks.

"Jiu? Jiu?"

Still half-asleep, Xiao Jiu made a drowsy little sound.

In the front row.

Song Yizhou had spotted Fang Xian in the back row long ago.

Since they'd returned from the reservoir, Fang Xian hadn't sent her a single message.

It was as if that business with the selfie had never happened.

Song Yizhou felt a little conflicted about it.

But only a little.

"Miss Xu didn't come back last night, did she?"

Gao Lu was chatting with Lü Yaoyao.

The best way to turn two enemies into friends was to give them a common enemy.

"Hmph."

Lü Yaoyao pursed her lips. "First of all, I'm not spreading rumors. But Miss Xu staying out all night is nothing new. I heard her new boyfriend drives a Meiher. A car like that must have swept her right off her feet."

Lü Yaoyao remembered that Xu Wanyi was supposed to be in this lecture too. She looked around. "Wait, is she not here? I'm definitely reporting her!"

She scanned the room. "Hmph, she's not here after all!"

"Caught you."

Before Lü Yaoyao could say another word,

Xu Wanyi walked in.

She didn't spare Lü Yaoyao or the others a glance and headed straight for her close friends in the law school.

"Hmph. So she did show up."

Gao Lu sighed.

Song Yizhou sensed something strangely off.

She watched Xu Wanyi.

But she couldn't put the feeling into words.

She only felt that this girl was somehow different from yesterday.

Fang Xian jerked his head up.

He rubbed his eyes.

He stared at the woman.

What's going on?

Is no one going to say anything?

What on earth is wrong with her?

Fang Xian looked around.

No one else seemed to have noticed anything.