Captured

Downstairs, Chen Momo watched her online lessons as usual.

But her eyes kept drifting toward her mother, studying her expression.

Although she saw nothing unusual, Chen Momo still couldn't help looking.

Her mother sat to one side, scrolling through her phone and paying no attention to her daughter's scrutiny.

After a while, however, Mrs. Chen noticed that Momo kept watching her.

"Is there something on my face? You keep looking at me." Mrs. Chen switched to her phone's front-facing camera and examined her face carefully, thinking she might have put her mask on backward. But she hadn't.

"Nothing." Hearing her mother speak, Chen Momo immediately stopped looking.

After that, she kept her eyes on her phone instead of her mother.

Mrs. Chen had no desire to press the matter and went back to scrolling through her phone.

Time slipped quietly by until eight o'clock.

Ke Meng suddenly sent a message saying he was ready.

Only then did Chen Momo sneak another glance at her mother, taking care not to get caught.

But her mother had fallen asleep with her head on the checkout counter. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes motionless, and she looked peaceful.

Chen Momo instinctively looked at the floor beneath her mother. There was no shadow.

She shone her phone's flashlight on her, but there was still no shadow.

The shadow had run away!

Chen Momo shot to her feet, frantic as an ant on a hot pan, unsure what to do.

Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps outside the shop drew closer.

She turned and saw Ke Meng walking into the shop.

He looked at Mrs. Chen sleeping at the counter, then at the floor beneath her feet. Only the chair cast a shadow. She had none.

"Where did your mother go?" Ke Meng asked.

"I don't know either." Chen Momo shook her head anxiously, scanning the convenience store.

"Did you need me?"

Suddenly, Mrs. Chen's puzzled voice came from behind Ke Meng.

Ke Meng turned and saw that a shadow had appeared on the floor, shaped like a woman's.

Without a word, he aimed both hands at the human-shaped shadow and made a scooping motion through the air.

Both his hands turned pitch-black, with dark shadows moving across his palms.

A person's shadow was far larger than the limited surface of his palms, so his hands became very dark after he caught the shadows.

Ke Meng flicked his right hand toward Mrs. Chen's face from a distance. The black shadow immediately vanished, and Mrs. Chen had her shadow back.

The black shadow on his left hand began to wriggle, then shot up his arm toward his torso.

Ke Meng abruptly clenched his fist, catching the shadow's foot and preventing it from moving any farther.

He scooped it up with his other hand, trapping the strange shadow tightly inside his fist.

"Did it work?" Chen Momo asked.

"It worked." Ke Meng nodded.

At the counter, Mrs. Chen slowly opened her eyes, looking as though she had just woken up.

"Mrs. Chen, get some rest here. I have something to discuss with Momo," Ke Meng said.

Mrs. Chen had yet to grasp the situation and didn't know what had just happened. All she remembered was walking around the shop, seeing Ke Meng looking for her, and then waking up a moment later.

So had she been dreaming just now?

"Mom, I'm going with him," Momo said beside Mrs. Chen.

"All right, go ahead." She didn't stop them, watching as they left the shop.

Upstairs.

Ke Meng and Chen Momo went over to the dining table together. On the way upstairs, Momo had kept her eyes fixed on his fist.

Ke Meng had compressed the shadow into his palm without letting any of it leak out, so the back and edges of his hand were no longer black.

"Chen Momo, a shadow has actually invaded you too. You just haven't realized it yet." Ke Meng looked at Chen Momo's shadow. The dog had told him about it.

"Huh? I've been invaded too?" She was startled. She hadn't expected anything to be wrong with her own shadow.

"Yes. I'm going to pull it out." Ke Meng first flicked his hand, forcibly placing the shadow in his palm onto a black ant.

"Do you want me to pull it out? I can do it whenever you're ready." Both of Ke Meng's hands were now free, ready to grab a single target together at any moment.

Chen Momo didn't hesitate. Now that she knew there was a monster in her shadow, she couldn't help looking at it again. "Do it."

The shadow at her feet remained motionless, showing nothing unusual.

But since Brother A-Meng had said so, she naturally chose to trust him.

"Sit down first, then, so you don't faint and fall on the floor."

Ke Meng watched Chen Momo obediently sit down in a chair, then scooped at her shadow with both hands.

The next instant, Chen Momo's head tilted to one side, and her eyes lost focus.

Ke Meng flicked his right hand, and the light returned to Chen Momo's eyes.

"Is that it?" Chen Momo asked.

To her, it seemed as though her mind had gone blank for a moment before she came back to herself.

"It's done," Ke Meng said.

"Wait here a moment." Ke Meng retrieved the first shadow he had caught, holding it in his palm again. Then, with both fists clenched, he went into the bedroom to see Big-Faced Cat.

Chen Momo remained in the living room, examining her own shadow curiously.

In the bedroom, Ke Meng gained no strange new knowledge.

Apparently, both things in his hands belonged to the so-called shadow species, so they yielded no new information.

Ke Meng returned to the living room and placed the two shadows back onto two bugs.

"So, what are you going to do with them?" Faced with something so unfamiliar, Chen Momo felt equal parts fear and curiosity.

"I want to ask where they came from, but bugs can't talk. That's a real headache."

Ke Meng sat in a chair, watching the two bugs with some frustration.

Both little bugs were ants, and once they had shadows, they began to display unusual traits.

First came the shape of their shadows. In the sunlight, the tiny ants cast human-shaped shadows, though their size was limited by the ants' small bodies.

Yes, Ke Meng wasn't mistaken. Those were human shapes.

This suggested that both anomalous shadows might be human shadows.

But could a normal person's shadow leave its body on its own?

Ke Meng himself had no idea how to make his own shadow leave his body, so he was certain these two shadows weren't normal.

"Couldn't you have them write?" Chen Momo shuffled her little chair backward, putting more distance between herself and the two bugs. She was afraid they might leave their bodies again and seize the chance to slip into her shadow.

"That's a good idea."

Hearing Momo's suggestion, Ke Meng nodded slightly.

If the shadows retained the ability to think, surely writing wouldn't be beyond them.

Ke Meng saw that the two bugs weren't walking around. They merely moved the antennae on their heads, seemingly using them to communicate.

"If you two can hear me, walk in patterns to write out who you are and your names..."

Ke Meng tapped the tabletop and addressed the two ants solemnly.

Beside him, Tangyuan remained motionless, using its fur to sense how things were progressing.