Lightning split the sky. Night shrouded Hanhai, and unease permeated the East District.
Dark clouds piled downward, as though they might crush the buildings overhead at any moment.
Gao Ming and Zhang Ding stood on the rooftop of the Fu'an Chain Supermarket. Discarded goods filled the open space around them, which had once been a small, now-abandoned children's playground.
Black spots covered the rusty kiddie cars. The merry-go-round swayed in the rain. On a seesaw painted with angels, the plump Fortune lay sprawled on one end, while Zhang Fendou crouched on the other, his eyes brimming with curiosity.
"Homework? Not happening. Not in this lifetime." Zhang Fendou stole a glance at his father's belt and muttered under his breath.
Standing at the edge of the rooftop, Zhang Ding looked grave. "Xia Yang doesn't seem to have followed your instructions. He's covered the Investigation Bureau in paintings. That lunatic seems to be competing with me. He wants to take on the East District Investigation Bureau alone."
"He's not competing with you. He's just a lunatic, pure and simple." Gao Ming couldn't fathom Xia Yang's intentions either. He took out the black-and-white photograph he had obtained from Xia Yang. "As long as we still have the photograph, things remain within our control."
"Are you sure?" Zhang Ding dragged two painting boards out from behind him. They depicted buildings Xia Yang had painted in blood. No matter how heavily the rain fell, the paint never blurred.
The painting on the left depicted the Lishan Investigation Office, and the one on the right depicted the East District Investigation Bureau.
Several metrics were marked on both paintings—danger level, mutation progress, shadow coverage percentage, number of surviving players, and probability of a miracle Easter egg appearing.
"Xia Yang came up with five criteria for evaluating ghost