She walked through the midnight streets, rain running down her pink hair and soaking her body.
Raindrops pattered from the eaves, forming puddles of various sizes across the uneven road. The storm had extinguished the blazing iron barrels by the barricades, and black rain clouds had driven away the already dim moonlight. Only the bright lights of the distant city and the faint glow of neglected streetlamps offered the slightest illumination.
"I finally found you."
Sakura turned around, her pale violet eyes fixed on Qin Su.
The voice behind her continued, "Or rather, you finally noticed me."
"I am Qin Su, the leader of an 'illegal' organization." He placed his right hand over his chest and made a ceremonial gesture.
Sakura's extraordinary hearing let her strip away the sound of rain from the chaotic noise around her, filter out the howling wind and rustling leaves, and finally... discern that the person before her was merely a phantom. He had no footsteps.
"I want to know your purpose."
Put more elaborately: why had Qin Su deliberately revealed his presence to her?
"To help you."
Sakura flatly rejected that answer. "That is not a purpose."
"That is the purpose."
"You have no reason."
Qin Su answered calmly, "Ling is the reason."
Sakura's gaze turned razor-sharp in an instant. She wiped the rain from her face, and that piercing look vanished.
"Perhaps you want to cooperate with me, or perhaps you merely want to know Ling's fate." Raindrops passed through Qin Su's body and fell into the puddles at his feet. He spoke unhurriedly. "Ling is about to become the Twelfth Law-Ruler, and she will retain her sanity."
"How do you expect me to believe something so absurd?" Her voice rose and fell as surprise and suspicion twisted into a violent vortex within