First Contact

Whale City Police Station.

Beep, beep, beep.

Phones rang constantly inside the emergency call center. Over a hundred operators answered calls, wearing headsets as they patiently listened to callers. It was part of daily life in busy Whale City.

One operator picked up the phone in front of them and said, "Hello, this is the 110 emergency service."

"Hello, someone here has passed out. He looks a lot like the fugitive the Whale City police issued a wanted notice for half an hour ago. I don't know if it's him. Please come take a look. My location is..."

The operator froze for a moment at what the caller said.

The fugitive had passed out?

It sounded a little ridiculous, but the caller calmly gave a precise location, so the operator followed procedure and reported the information.

Before long, the report reached the investigation team's phones.

In Whale City, three plainclothes men wore glasses. Through their lenses, the buildings appeared coated in a faint golden glow.

On the roads, where that golden light blanketed the streets, occasional black stains were visible, but they were scattered and did not form a continuous trail.

"The sun's radiance will disappear at night. We need to find him as soon as possible," a stubbled man said gravely.

"Captain Luo, someone called in saying they saw the fugitive passed out on the ground," a young man said, bringing his phone over.

Captain Luo looked at the junior member of his team. "Are you sure?"

"He might have switched to someone else. We need to get to the next victim quickly," the other man said, his expression grim.

"Come on. Let's take a look."

With that, the three got into a police car and headed for Ke Meng's building.

A few minutes later, Ke Meng greeted three plainclothes officers and one uniformed officer at the entrance.

"Were you the one who called?" Captain Luo asked, sizing Ke Meng up.

"Yes."

Through Captain Luo's glasses, the pavement here shone gold, with a few black stains standing out against the golden light.

The stains were still fresh, proving that someone from Shadow Stream had indeed been here.

"Upstairs?" Captain Luo spotted some fresh stains leading toward a doorway.

"He passed out right at the turn in the stairs," Ke Meng explained, opening the door for them.

The three exchanged glances without saying a word.

But the atmosphere abruptly grew tense, and all four officers drew their pistols.

"Send in a drone to check," Captain Luo ordered.

"Yes, sir!" A small drone flew out through the police car's window and entered the doorway at a steady speed. It switched on its light and aimed its camera up the stairs, revealing a man lying on the ground. His shadow fell across the wall, deep and dark.

Inside the car, the officer controlling the drone carefully moved it closer and aimed at the man's face.

"It's him, Captain Luo!" the officer called out.

Captain Luo switched on his radio and reported, "Building Zero, Building Zero, we've located the suspect. The location is..."

"Copy," came a voice over the radio.

Lowering the radio, Captain Luo began asking Ke Meng what had happened.

"He was standing over there looking at the rental notice, and I happened to recognize him. Then, when he went upstairs to look at the place, I snuck up and knocked him out. That's what happened," Ke Meng explained.

Captain Luo eyed him suspiciously. Someone that dangerous had simply been knocked out?

Had he taken no precautions at all?

He had initially thought it was a false report, but the footage transmitted by the drone convinced him that it really was the man they were looking for.

The harmless-looking landlord in front of him seemed to be more than he appeared.

As far as Captain Luo knew, the fugitive was extremely cunning and difficult to catch, let alone with such a crude tactic as attacking him from behind.

Before long, several police cars sped over and stopped near Ke Meng's home.

Armed soldiers, plainclothes officers, and many others gathered around Ke Meng and set up a police cordon.

Some curious passersby were ushered away and forbidden from entering.

At the convenience store on the first floor, the Chen mother and daughter were also asked to leave by the police. They were told not to approach and to wait outside the cordon for news. The officers were apprehending a fugitive, and they could return to business once he had been caught.

When Chen Momo came out, she saw Ke Meng chatting with the police beside a patrol car and wanted to go over, but since she was not the caller, she was not allowed to stay nearby.

Strictly speaking, Ke Meng should also have waited outside the cordon, but Captain Luo did not let him leave. He felt there was more to Ke Meng than met the eye and wanted to ask him a few questions later.

Captain Luo carefully took a box from inside his jacket. When he opened it, a wave of heat washed over them, as though the temperature around them had risen by about ten degrees.

Ke Meng saw that the small box was made of jade. Inside lay a little badge two centimeters in diameter, its surface emitting light on its own.

Just looking at the badge made Ke Meng feel incredibly hot.

Holding the badge, Captain Luo looked at the nearby officers and the soldiers streaming over. "Prepare to apprehend him."

"Stay here. Don't wander off. I still have some questions for you," Captain Luo told Ke Meng, instructing him to remain beside the police car.

"Sure." Ke Meng nodded, though his eyes remained fixed on the badge in the captain's hand, his face full of curiosity.

What was that thing?

If Big-Faced Cat were here, Ke Meng would only need to look for fifteen seconds to find out, but Big-Faced Cat was still upstairs.

The officers surrounded Captain Luo, guns in hand, and slowly climbed the stairs to apprehend the fugitive.

A little while later, the officers came down drenched in sweat, carrying a black transport bag. The fugitive was presumably inside.

Ke Meng had not seen how they apprehended him. All he knew was that the badge was hot-unbelievably hot. It reminded him of summer weather in the south, when outdoor temperatures reached around forty degrees.

After coming downstairs, Captain Luo walked around the area with the scorching badge box, then returned to Ke Meng.

"Did he enter your home?" Officer Luo asked, his face covered in sweat.

"No." Ke Meng shook his head, gradually beginning to sweat himself.

"That makes sense. I just checked the entire staircase. He probably never made it up there." Officer Luo closed the little box, and most of the heat vanished.

But the lingering heat in the air did not dissipate so quickly, and Ke Meng could not help sweating.

"Officer, what is that thing? Why is it as hot as a furnace?" Ke Meng asked, pointing at the small box in Captain Luo's hand.

"You want to know?" Officer Luo looked at him.

"Yes."

"Then tell me exactly how you knocked him out." Officer Luo vigorously wiped the sweat from his neck with a towel, watching Ke Meng's expression as he did.

Ke Meng's face showed curiosity, without any fear.

He had remarkably strong nerves, but Officer Luo was more interested in how Ke Meng had knocked the man out than in his personality.

"I was holding a big stuffed toy at the time. I hit him in the back with it, then followed up by hitting him in the back of the head. That knocked him out," Ke Meng explained again.

Why couldn't he get past this question?

Ke Meng thought he had been a little impulsive. He should not have knocked the fugitive out. It would have made much more sense to lock the first-floor entrance, trap him upstairs, and then call the police.

But he had already knocked the man out. What was done was done, and there was no room for regret.

Now Officer Luo kept pressing him about how he had knocked the fugitive out. He had probably realized there was something unusual about Ke Meng.

"Is it hard to get close to him?" Ke Meng asked.

"Extremely," Officer Luo said with a nod. "Without special abilities, a sneak attack won't work."

As Officer Luo spoke, a plainclothes officer beside him interjected, "That stuffed toy is probably a special item. Could you let us take a look?"

At this point, they had practically laid their cards on the table.

They would not discuss such unconventional subjects with ordinary people.

But there was clearly something unusual about Ke Meng. An ordinary person would have struggled to ambush that cunning man.

The police had encountered citizens like Ke Meng who had acquired special items by chance before, and they had experience handling them.

After speaking, the plainclothes officer felt he had sounded too stern and rephrased:

"We'll register it, not take it away from you. If a serious incident happens someday and your item is involved, you'll be held responsible."

"If you feel you can't handle it, you can turn it over to the police. There's a reward for handing it in. Don't worry too much. The country has no shortage of these things, and we won't force you."