Only after hanging up did Huang Li think of the crucial problem-Chai Si was still tearing through Blackmoor City with a suicidal abandon, as though nothing stood in his way.
Huang Li could hardly be blamed for being slow to react: people who could immediately calm down and think after watching a truck thunder toward them existed only in fiction.
"Wait, you told them the whole area," she said, jerking upright. "Then when we reach our destination, won't we be driving straight into a police cordon?"
Chai Si had given them a sizable area precisely to spread the police out and keep them guessing about his direction; overall, however, Huang Li's understanding was entirely correct.
"Watch what you say," he said, wrenching the car off the main road and into a dark, narrow alley with a sharp turn. "You're talking like a criminal."
Huang Li hurriedly steadied herself and came to her senses. "Oh, right, you 'kidnapped' me into this car..."
"Right. Remember that. In a little while, it'll be the only truth."
The other wing mirror didn't survive either, getting knocked off against the alley wall. The already dented Mercedes-Benz ignored the garbage cans blocking its path and plowed straight into them-with a clang, a garbage can tumbled over the windshield, briefly plunging the interior into shadow.
The garbage bags burst, and the car drove straight through a flying shower of trash, getting filth dumped all over it. The wipers swept away a banana peel, only to smear sticky liquid across the windshield.
The car was a write-off anyway.
"What's your plan?" Huang Li asked.
"Open the glove compartment in front of you," Chai Si instructed. "There's a Cable Tie inside. Take it out and tie your hands."
Huang Li raised her eyes and stared hopelessly at the sky for several seconds before finally accepting her fate.
She found the Cable Tie and held it between her teeth. After much effort, she barely managed to loop it halfway around her wrists, but couldn't fasten it, so she had to ask him for help-Chai Si reached over while driving and pulled the Cable Tie tight.
As he withdrew his hand, he couldn't help frowning: the Cable Tie was wet with saliva. He gave her a cold look, then wiped the back of his hand hard against the shoulder of her denim jacket.
Huang Li chuckled.
"This goes against every survival principle I've ever had," she muttered, holding her hands up before her face like a bound bouquet.
"You don't need to worry about surviving." This wasn't the Nest.
"All right, then what am I supposed to do in a minute? You surrender, and I get gloriously rescued?"
"Don't be stupid."
Chai Si drove back onto a minor road. The pursuing police cars were no longer visible behind him, but he knew this was only temporary. There were bound to be police cars already patrolling and watching the area; at any moment, they could appear in the rearview mirror and latch onto him again.
"We're almost there," he said, watching the roads around them. "I'll slow down, but I won't stop. It's almost time. Be ready-you could need to detect the Phantasm at any moment. Do you want minor injuries or serious ones?"
Huang Li stared at him. "I want no injuries."
"If you think you can convince the police with nothing but your word and not a scratch on you, suit yourself. If you don't want to get hurt, it'll depend on how fast you react."
"What do you mean?"
A moment later, Huang Li understood what Chai Si meant.
The moment the sign for Brublan Community College Station came into view, Chai Si slowed down. He unfastened his seat belt, pushed the door open, and leaped out, rolling across the road before getting to his feet and sprinting toward the subway station-the driverless car immediately veered off course, sliding toward the middle of the road.
"Just you wait! I'm demanding a new contract when I get back!" Huang Li swore, shouting from the car behind him.
After a pause, she shouted again: "It's coming! It's really coming!"
The Phantasm had indeed entered Huang Li's detection range, aboard the next subway train approaching the station.
Chai Si didn't look back, but as he raced down the station stairs two at a time, he faintly heard a dull crash from somewhere along the road.
It didn't sound serious, and was much better than he had expected. It seemed that even with her hands bound, Huang Li had managed to get the car under control in time.
Chai Si planted one hand on a subway turnstile and vaulted over its barrier, landing like a jaguar. His towering, six-foot-six frame made only a faint sound as his feet touched down.
Several young men who had been loitering nearby, whispering to one another and passing around something he couldn't make out, turned to look. They immediately laughed and cheered, "Nice moves, man! What, even guys in suits can't afford a ticket?"
Chai Si ignored them. Within a few breaths, he had rushed down onto the platform. He immediately slowed, glanced around, and blended into the waiting crowd as though nothing had happened.
He checked the time: 10:33.
His suicidal driving had actually gotten him here three minutes ahead of the train.
There must have been plenty of witnesses to him jumping out of the car and running into the station. Once the police arrived, they would immediately realize their suspect had entered the subway station; naturally, their next step would be to seal the exits and send officers down to search-now he could only wait and see whether the train or the police arrived first.
He drew a deep breath and carefully ran through every step of his next moves in his head.
The slightest mistake would leave him trapped.
The first thing to deal with was...
Chai Si looked up at the security camera mounted in a corner of the platform.
Blackmoor City's subway system had been completed and put into service around 1905, and most platforms still retained their early-twentieth-century appearance. The surveillance equipment installed in recent years always looked somewhat out of place on the old platforms.
If he was recorded, it would cause trouble later even if he managed to escape pursuit now.
He took a remote control no longer than an index finger from his pocket.
The remote had a small plastic display, currently lit with a line of text-[Countdown: 127 days, 21 hours, 36 minutes].
Below the display were a button labeled "repce" and another labeled "cancel." Aside from looking cheaply made, it gave no indication of what it was for.
Chai Si raised the remote, aimed it at his throat, and gently pressed "repce," then tucked it back into his trouser pocket.
Not one of the people waiting around him looked up at him. Most had their eyes glued to their phones; others wore earphones, staring blankly at the tracks before them and the platform across the tracks-the opposite platform was completely empty.
In fact, even someone watching Chai Si the entire time wouldn't have understood what he had just done.
When Chai Si first received the little remote from a Hunter working with the Family faction, he hadn't thought much of it.
Strangely enough, however unusual the Phantasms from the Nest looked, they seemed to follow rules similar to those of the real world: the more exquisite, expensive, substantial, and well-made something looked, the greater its value and usefulness. If a Phantasm actually felt as though it were made of thin plastic, its function was bound to be very limited.
But the Hunter had smiled confidently and said, "Try it and you'll see. Its function is limited, but it's very practical."
She took out her phone, switched on video recording, and handed it to Chai Si before standing in front of its camera.
Watching the phone screen, Chai Si saw the Hunter leisurely raise the remote, point it at her throat, and press "repce."
The next moment, her entire head on the screen became a huge, snow-white goat's head. The goat-headed figure wore a floor-length black robe, like some demonic creature that had just stepped out of a medieval horror tale.
Looking past the screen at the Hunter herself, he saw she hadn't changed: her not-quite-curly hair was tied back, and she wore outdated skinny jeans and sneakers-however he looked at her, she looked like the mother of a middle schooler.
Most astonishingly, even in the first few seconds of footage, recorded before she pressed "repce," the Hunter's head and face had been replaced with a goat's.
"Impressive, right?" The goat's head on the screen opened its mouth and said, "Press the button, and your real appearance won't be recorded. On any device, you'll look like a big goat head. The effect even extends back to one minute before you pressed the button-if you forget to replace your appearance, you still have a minute to make up for it! You don't often find such considerate Phantasms in the Nest."
It was exactly what Chai Si wanted.
After a few simple tests, he quickly made his decision. "The Family faction will take it. Twenty thousand dollars."
The only pity was that this Phantasm could exist for only six months after leaving the Nest-which was also why Chai Si valued it at only twenty thousand. By any measure, a six-month lifespan was simply too short.
"Don't feel too bad about it," the middle schooler's mother said with a smile as she prepared to leave. "It's only because Phantasms eventually expire and disappear from the human world after leaving the Nest that those of us in the Hunter trade can keep working."
True enough.
Chai Si didn't know how many years the Nest had existed, but its history presumably wasn't short. Generation after generation of Hunters had brought untold numbers of Phantasms back to the human world. If they could exist forever, the world would long since have turned into a chaotic science-fiction movie.
Anyone reviewing the surveillance footage afterward would discover that at 10:33, a goat-headed figure in a long black robe stood on the outbound platform. Standing beside the stairwell, it occasionally glanced upstairs, then lowered its head and propped its face on a large hoof, like a thoughtful goat weighed down by worries.
That was Chai Si listening to the sounds in the station-as for the goat's hoof, that was his raised hand shielding his face.
After all, to the naked eye, he still looked like himself. Naturally, the less he exposed, the better.
At 10:34, a faint commotion came from within the subway station.
Hurried footsteps passed above the stairs. Someone asked, "What's happening outside?" Someone else asked, "Are the trains still running?"
It seemed the police cars had arrived.
Chai Si glanced at the platform display. The outbound train would also arrive at 10:36.
He took a deep breath-the outbound and inbound trains would enter the station at the same time, which meant a difference of even a second or two could mean life or death for him.
10:35.
Several people suddenly came charging down the stairs, shouting and yelling, startling the nearby passengers as they leaped down onto the floor-they were the same young men who had been whispering by the station entrance and had complimented Chai Si earlier. One looked back and swore, "Why the hell are there so many blue bags here?"
Chai Si walked behind the stairs and stopped at the edge of the platform, near the tracks. "Blue bags" was a slang term, because police uniforms were blue; some people shortened it to "bags."
He heard several sets of footsteps rushing toward the stairs together, all falling in the same urgent, heavy rhythm drilled into them by training, mixed with the rubbing of bulletproof vests and holsters.
There were no more than thirty seconds left until 10:36.
One more second, he thought through gritted teeth. Just one more...
At last, a faint rumble echoed from the distant subway tunnel. It was still so far away that it felt almost imaginary, vibrating against his nerve endings.
"Everyone on the platform!" a voice suddenly shouted. "Stay where you are! We're apprehending a suspect for dangerous driving!"
Chai Si smiled.
The instant everyone's attention turned toward the speaker, Chai Si leaped off the platform and landed lightly beside the rails, like a big cat slipping soundlessly off a roof.
By the time a passenger finally noticed and gave a quiet cry of alarm, he was already sprinting across the tracks, lunging toward the opposite platform-
"Stop!" someone shouted behind him. "Or we'll shoot!"
But the train gave them no chance to fire.
Due to arrive at 10:36, the train carrying the Phantasm roared out of the tunnel, hurtling toward Chai Si. Its bright headlights illuminated half his body and the platform mere inches ahead of him.
I've discovered that Shanghai has a certain force, which I'd like to call Shanghai Gravity. How does it manifest? It's easy to get in and hard to get out. Put nicely, it's like an American university; put less nicely, it's like a pyramid sche-
Oh dear, I still have to go there again. I'd better shut my big mouth.
Anyway, I got to the airport at eleven thirty yesterday morning and endured the wait all the way until four thirty in the afternoon before finally taking off.
At first, I redeemed some points for a VIP Lounge. I'd even been thinking, I'm only waiting an hour, isn't using a VIP Lounge a bit extravagant? Well, as it turned out, never in my life have I gotten such good value for my money/points. Every single point paid for itself three times over.
Sitting there, I complained to someone about how uncomfortable the VIP Lounge chairs were. They were all uneven and sunken; sitting in one felt like torture. And they called this VIP treatment? Later, after a trip to the restroom, I realized this really was a VIP Lounge. Why? The toilets all had an intestinal cleansing mode... Looking at the instructions on the wall encouraging everyone to bear with it and hold the water in, I felt a little dazed for a moment.
Before you continue