Mangy dog

Xie Zhi patted Ji Tan's flailing legs and instructed, "Hold tight!"

Ji Tan obediently tightened his arms around Boss Xie's neck.

The neighbors from Broken Line Street had vacant eyes and rigid limbs. They walked by swinging their legs out, their joints dragging their muscles along, looking very much like zombies in an apocalypse movie.

Xie Zhi swung the red sledgehammer, sweeping away the people lunging at them. With Ji Tan on his back, he leaped up and ran and jumped swiftly across the piles of junk in the old warehouse.

The leader in the black robe did not pursue them. He climbed onto the platform where the corpse lay and gestured. The two gatekeepers who had thrown Ji Sinan out earlier darted out of the darkness and firmly blocked the entrance.

"You destroyed the food bestowed by our god! Hand over what you're hiding in your jacket, and I can pray for the god to forgive your sins!"

Ji Tan felt the faint warmth against his chest. "He wants the proposal."

There were few places to hide in the warehouse. The furniture was all scrap, and the piles were not high. Those people had lost their reason, unafraid of pain or falling, and charged straight into broken wood and sharp metal. A lanky man suddenly burst out of a junk pile, his long, blackened fingernails shooting straight for Xie Zhi's ankle.

Xie Zhi hammered the man back into the pile of timber. The warm proposal pressed tightly against his back with the momentum. Raising an eyebrow slightly, he replied offhandedly, "Yeah, probably one of our company's competitors."

Ji Tan ducked the flying wood chips. "...That's some intense corporate warfare."

Xie Zhi laughed. "Director Ji, today I'll teach you a business secret-there's nothing a round of golf can't solve."

As he spoke, he suddenly accelerated and leaped into the air. The red sledgehammer slammed into the black-robed man's lower back, sending him flying straight into the hole the long-nailed man had just made.

"Whew, a hole in one! I'll give you a hundred-thousand bonus when we get back." Xie Zhi turned his head and lightly bumped the head resting on his shoulder.

"Thank you, boss! You're so generous!" Ji Tan hastily played along.

Xie Zhi swept everything off the platform in one motion and jumped onto it with Ji Tan.

The fallen candles touched the black slime on the floor and the tablecloth, and flames roared up. Fire encircled the altar.

The two gatekeepers and the neighbors climbing out of the wreckage surged toward them from every direction. But when they reached the fire, they stopped, stamping back and forth like agitated livestock, not daring to advance.

"Ghouls, or people on the verge of turning into Ghouls, are drawn to light but fear large fires," Xie Zhi explained quietly. So in an emergency encounter with Ghouls outside the city, fire could be lit to keep them at bay.

Now they only needed to hold out until the TS Special Operations Unit arrived.

The black-robed man got up, raised the bone in his hand, and shouted a string of incomprehensible, obscure words. Something surged out of the bone. Ji Tan could not see it, but he felt a ripple in the air.

The instant the ripple struck those hesitant half-human, half-Ghoul creatures, they went berserk as though pumped full of stimulants, charging into the ring of fire and straight toward the platform of stacked old timber.

"They aren't all Ghouls yet! You'll go to prison for killing them too! Heh heh heh!" The black-robed old man let out a strange laugh. For a moment, it was hard to tell whether he was shouting a slogan or simply expressing his delight.

Ji Tan looked at the neighbors' ashen faces, his scalp prickling. "How do we tell them apart?"

Xie Zhi held out a hand. "Lend me the proposal."

Ji Tan pulled the proposal out of his jacket's inner pocket, not daring to waste a second.

The thick stack of A4 paper landed in Xie Zhi's hand and instantly became a transparent golden book floating in the air. Xie Zhi put an arm around Ji Tan. "Jump!"

The instant more than a dozen bluish-black hands clawed at the platform, the two leaped together, and the altar built from rotten timber shattered. In midair, Xie Zhi rested one hand on the golden book and solemnly proclaimed, "Death is permitted here!"

At those words, all the Ghouls collapsed at once. Within moments, death swallowed them, and they fell silent.

"No-" An inhuman shriek escaped the black-robed man's mouth. His entire body seemed to melt, becoming thick black slime. In the end, only the empty black robe and that rotten leg bone remained.

Ji Tan stood on a broken plank, grimacing at the humanoid things around him that seemed like corpses yet were not. He could neither open his mouth nor move his legs.

With his hand on the golden book, Xie Zhi slowly descended to the ground, his face pale and his breathing rapid.

"What's wrong?" Ji Tan took the proposal, now A4 paper again, and hurriedly caught Xie Zhi as he slumped sideways.

"TS Special Operations Unit on a mission!" Dazzling light shone through the gaps in the sheet-metal door. Like police officers in the movies, the silver-clad Order Operatives arrived late.

High-powered searchlights illuminated the entire warehouse. The silver-clad officers rushed in and scanned the scene.

"Ghoul Suppressant!" The captain in the lead quickly assessed the situation and issued an order. Two members pulled spring-loaded injectors from their pockets, inserted cartridges full of medicine, and injected the necks of the people lying on the floor, one by one.

Only then did the captain approach Xie Zhi, stand at attention, and salute. "Sir!"

Xie Zhi nodded weakly and pointed to the puddle of black liquid in the distance. "E-Rank Mutant Ghoul. Seal the bone in a case for testing."

The captain nodded in acknowledgment and personally fetched a silver alloy case. Wearing soft metal gloves, he placed the rotten leg bone inside and sealed it. Then he returned to report to Xie Zhi. "Thirteen civilians on the scene. Eight had already become Ghouls and suffered a second death. Five had not completed the transformation and were saved by the suppressant, but their Sanity is all below 40. They've been given sedatives. The E-Rank Mutant Ghoul with Grace has suffered a second death."

Like zombies, Ghouls were already dead in terms of human physiology. They could still move, however, and some even retained consciousness. If they possessed Grace, they could even advance like those with a Sequence.

That was why killing a Ghoul was called a second death.

Xie Zhi explained this to Ji Tan in a quiet voice.

"Stop talking." Ji Tan interrupted Boss Xie's lesson, because he sounded as though he was about to breathe his last.

Only then did the silver-clad captain notice Xie Zhi's condition. He asked with concern, "What happened to you?"

"Overused my Grace." Xie Zhi waved a hand and simply leaned against Ji Tan's shoulder. He seemed drained of strength, unable even to hold his head up.

"Do you need treatment?" The captain was very anxious.

"No. I'll just spend the night at this local resident's place. You handle the rest." With that, ignoring the dumbstruck unit members, Xie Zhi nudged Ji Tan and demanded that he take him away.

Ji Tan gritted his teeth and whispered, "When did I agree to let you sleep at my place?"

Xie Zhi raised an eyebrow. "There might still be Ghouls in this neighborhood. Are you sure you and your brother can manage tonight?"

Ji Tan said, "..."

Seeing the local resident's difficulty, the silver-clad captain hurriedly asked, "Sir, if it's inconvenient..."

Ji Tan grabbed Xie Zhi's arm and slung it over his shoulders, dragging him outside as he declared boldly, "Not at all! The people and their protectors are one family! Leave him to me. You can rest easy."

The moon stood high overhead.

Ji Sinan stood with his arms folded, staring at the two in the living room.

"Let me explain, bro. Well, actually, Xie Zhi is your friend. You just forgot." Ji Tan tried to rekindle his brother's bond with his roommate.

Sitting on a little stool, Xie Zhi put on a weak, pitiful, helpless expression. "Ji, I swear by Argus, we really are good buddies."

"Hmph. Hmph. Hmph." Ji Sinan snorted three times, turned around, and served a bowl of noodles, setting it in front of Ji Tan. He put the jacket and wok spatula stained with black liquid into a plastic bag, then went out to throw them away.

Ji Tan let out a breath, looked at the lone bowl of tomato noodles before him, then at Xie Zhi's still somewhat pale face...

A short while later, Xie Zhi and Ji Tan each held a small bowl of noodles, squatting on the steps outside and slurping away. They also watched Ji Sinan as he went farther off to discard the trash, guarding against a Ghoul suddenly springing out of the darkness to attack him.

"That proposal of yours is a supernatural item with very high Authority," Xie Zhi said, explaining what had happened that day to Ji Tan.

The proposal possessed the power of rules. Thus, when it came into contact with Grace, its high-Authority power of rules spilled out and activated those Ghouls, making them go berserk according to the world's rule that Ghouls "should go berserk."

Ji Tan frowned. Why did a high-level item act like a monster lure? For now, it seemed not only unable to protect him, but liable to bring disaster upon him.

"It actually belongs to my Sequence." Xie Zhi stroked the stack of A4 paper, unable to resist the attraction of a shared source of power, longing showing in his eyes. "It's no use to you right now, so why not..."

Ji Tan snatched it back and sat on it. "No."

Xie Zhi sat down too, slurped up some noodles, and adopted the manner of someone tricking a child. "This proposal was supposed to be handed to me in the first place. Director Ji, I've already paid your performance bonus. Shouldn't you submit your assignment on time?"

"I'm not your employee anymore. Even my ID number's changed. Sue me if you don't like it." Ji Tan shamelessly dug in his heels and slurped up a large mouthful of noodles.

A gray dog with a bald patch on its head followed the smell over and stood before them, wagging its tail hard.

Xie Zhi picked up a piece of scrambled egg and tossed it to the dog. The dog happily caught it in its mouth, smacked its lips as it ate, then continued staring at their bowls and wagging its tail.

"I'm better suited to using this book right now. It'll make it easier for me to protect you two in the West District. You keeping it..." Xie Zhi paused and pointed at the tail-wagging dog. "It's like this mangy dog finding a hundred yuan. It's good stuff, but it's no use to the dog right now. Better to give me the money, and I'll exchange it for a hundred yuan's worth of eggs."

Ji Tan stared at the smoothly talking Xie Zhi for a long moment, then punched him. "Who are you calling a mangy dog?"