After White Jack left, the tide of crows receded. Not a single feather remained.
After all, this was a police station office. It had to be kept clean and tidy.
Ke Mingwei sat quietly in his office chair alone. A moment later, a young, uniformed police officer came up from downstairs.
"Sir, is there a situation?" the officer asked, glancing around the room.
"It's nothing," Ke Mingwei said, shaking his head. "Get back to work."
The young officer nodded and quickly went back downstairs.
Ke Mingwei unlocked his phone and glanced at the screen. He had received an anonymous text.
[Anonymous User: Oh, right. Mr. Rain Crow, I am a man of my word.]
[Anonymous User: So, I am about to fulfill the promise I made during our first meeting. Do you remember what I said?]
Ke Mingwei stared at the attached photo.
It showed a figure bound to a chair with ropes. Blazing fire covered the human silhouette. He threw his head back within the flames, screaming in despair.
Ke Mingwei fell silent.
Of course he remembered what White Jack had told him during their first encounter.
...
"Let me ask you this. If I kidnap your son next time, will you make the same choice? Can you guarantee that you'll still be so 'righteous' and 'selfless'?"
"Consider this a warning. I didn't broadcast this to the public today. You should be thanking me for keeping your identity a secret... but next time, I won't just take your son. I will reveal our little game to the entire world."
"I will ruin your reputation and make sure the whole world remembers your hypocritical face."
...
Ke Mingwei's eyes shifted, his brow furrowing deeply.
He felt a sudden surge of irritation. Aside from the Clock Maker, White Jack was another problem that desperately needed solving. Moreover, White Jack was entirely different from the Clock Maker. This was the first criminal who actually knew his true identity.
Ke Mingqing, Ke Linye... White Jack would very likely target one of them. But it could also just be a smokescreen. Perhaps White Jack was aiming for his other children, or even his wife.
The only thing Ke Mingwei knew for certain was that trying to predict a madman's actions was nothing but a path to self-destruction.
After a long moment, he took a deep breath, slipped the phone back into his shirt pocket, and threw on his police jacket. Clamping an unlit cigarette between his lips, he headed downstairs.
...
...
In another corner of the city, it was high noon. Within the restricted zone, on the platform of an abandoned train station.
[Main Quest 1 (Phase 4) Refreshed: Cooperate with Rain Crow to defeat the supervillain Clock Maker, and kill the children of the Clock Alliance.]
Ke Mingqing sat on a public bench, quietly staring at the blood-red text floating in the air.
'A new main quest finally popped up,' he thought.
Ever since the battle at the Leijing port ended, his Quest Panel had been quiet for a long time. He wasn't sure if it was because he hadn't met the necessary conditions to trigger the next stage.
He looked down and opened his phone's messaging app, only to find that Rain Crow hadn't texted him.
"I have two chances to fake my death and escape right in front of me," he muttered. "It's time to consider whether I should leave. Faking my death using the Clock Maker would be a hassle, but White Jack is a different story. Putting on a one-man show would be a piece of cake."
Listening to the chirping of the August cicadas, he silently weighed his options.
"As it stands, every main quest can be completed using the 'White Jack' identity. There's no real need for 'Ke Mingqing' to exist anymore."
"As long as my family thinks I'm dead, my true identity will never be exposed. It solves everything once and for all."
Ke Mingqing mumbled to himself. He glanced at the date at the top of his phone screen and suddenly had a thought.
"Oh, right. My oldest brother's birthday is in a few days. Why hasn't anyone in the family mentioned it? Well, this is a good thing. When that night comes and he realizes all his siblings forgot his birthday, only for White Jack to remember and bring him a cake... he'll be so incredibly moved he'll piss his pants, right?"
"Okay, I can start ordering the cake now. What kind should I get? I'll order a Rain Crow fanboy edition. The old man will be thrilled when he sees it."
Ke Mingqing's lips curled into a smirk. As he was muttering to himself, he suddenly heard the sound of approaching footsteps.
He paused and turned his head slightly toward the noise. A teenage girl was climbing the stairs up to the platform, her eyes cast down at her sandals.
Xia Zili looked up and stared at him in silence for a moment before snapping, "You really are here."
"Where else would I be? What do you want?" Ke Mingqing tilted his head.
"Mom told me to bring you home for dinner."
"Oh."
With her hands clasped behind her back, Xia Zili walked over and asked, "What have you been doing?"
"Me? I met up with Rain Crow this morning," Ke Mingqing said casually.
"With that bipedal Crow Man?" Xia Zili blinked, sounding skeptical.
"Who else?" Ke Mingqing's tone carried a hint of bragging. "Jealous?"
Xia Zili suddenly went quiet.
She frowned, then slowly relaxed her brows a moment later. Bringing her hands out from behind her back, she handed him a pineapple popsicle.
"So considerate? Thanks, sis." Ke Mingqing took the popsicle.
"What did you two talk about?"
Xia Zili dusted off the wooden bench and sat down beside him.
"Stuff about the Clock Maker. He said someone working for the Clock Maker might have slipped into my inner circle," Ke Mingqing said. "But I'll smoke them out in the next few days. Nothing to worry about."
Xia Zili stayed silent for a moment. "Could you just... stop going out there?"
"Why?" Ke Mingqing asked.
"What if you die?" Xia Zili whispered. "What's so great about that Crow Man anyway? Is he really worth risking your life over?"
Ke Mingqing leaned back, propping himself up with one hand on the bench. He raised his other hand high to block out the sun, but the bright rays still leaked through his fingers.
"A person needs something to look up to. Otherwise, there's no point in living," he said.
"Brother." After a moment of silence, Xia Zili suddenly spoke.
"What?"
Ke Mingqing froze. He seriously suspected that Xia Zili had been possessed by her witch persona again. He quickly turned his head, but he didn't see the signature flicker of blue flame at the corners of her eyes.
"Brother, brother."
Xia Zili repeated, her voice completely flat.
"Could you not call me that so out of the blue? It's creeping me out."
"I'm not allowed to call you that?" Xia Zili suddenly frowned.
"Of course you can. You're my little sister, but you don't usually—" Before Ke Mingqing could finish, she cut him off.
Xia Zili lowered her eyes and asked softly, "Right. You know I'm your sister, so shouldn't I be worried about you?"
Ke Mingqing was stunned. It took him a long moment to squeeze out a single word.
"You should."
She took a deep breath, lifted her head, and looked him right in the eye. "Then can you please listen to me? Can you stop treating my words like they're just wind blowing past your ears?"
"I haven't."
"You brush me off every single time. You always dodge the question."
"All right, I won't brush you off this time, okay?"
"Good. Then listen."
"I'm listening."
"Perk your ears up. Don't move. Look me in the eye."
"Want me to spin in circles and bark a few times too while I'm at it?"
"Take this seriously," Xia Zili practically growled.
Ke Mingqing didn't dare say another word.
She looked up, then looked down again, speaking slowly. "Listen to me. I don't care who you idolize, and I don't care how important that Crow Man is to you. I just want my stupid brother to stay safely by my side instead of disappearing at the drop of a hat all day! You never reply to my texts, and every time you come back, you're covered in injuries."
The girl paused, her words tumbling out faster and faster. "Once, you even got dragged to that bar... You almost died. You were one step away from dying!"
By the end of her sentence, her voice had grown hoarse.
Ke Mingqing sat in stunned silence for a moment. He turned his head to look at the girl's clear profile. Her drooping bangs obscured her face.
Neither of them spoke. The shrill cry of the cicadas drowned out the silence, blanketing the entire train station.
"All right. I get it," Ke Mingqing said softly. "Don't be mad, okay?"
"Then promise me... you won't go anymore..."
Xia Zili's voice was terribly weak, almost completely swallowed by the deafening cicadas.
Ke Mingqing lowered his head, staying quiet for a long while. "You know, I figured out you were Ember a long time ago. I knew even before you confessed it to me."
Xia Zili froze slightly.
Ke Mingqing continued, "My girlfriend told me. Since she's a player, she can see other people's super-human species panels. In truth, the very first time she laid eyes on you, she knew exactly who you were..."
Xia Zili's eyelashes fluttered. Her lips barely moved as she asked, "So you were just putting on an act?"
Ke Mingqing ignored the question. Instead, he said, "Do you remember that night you were badly injured by that vampire on the overpass? You managed to run back, but you ended up in the wrong room. You crouched next to my windowsill, absolutely covered in blood. I honestly thought I'd seen a ghost. Scared the life out of me..." He suddenly chuckled. "But a second later, I realized it was just my little sister."
Xia Zili said nothing.
"You were hurt so badly back then... I was too shocked to even speak. Really, what I wanted to tell you was, 'Stop being a magical girl. You're my sister. It breaks my heart to see you injured like this.'"
Ke Mingqing paused. "Think about it. I used to be an orphan with no family. And even before I became an orphan, I was an only child. I had no siblings. Whenever my parents went out when I was little, I'd get locked in the house all by myself, staring blankly out the window... I used to close my eyes and imagine how wonderful it would be to have a brother or sister."
The corners of his mouth lifted into a small smile. "And then, you came into my life."
He lowered his eyes slightly. "After I moved in with your family, you were the first person who ever treated me like true family. You are my only sister. Whether it's in this life or the next, you'll always be my first real family member, my one and only little sister. That's why I don't want to see you get hurt."
Speaking up to this point, Ke Mingqing suddenly fell silent for a few moments.
"But... you show up on camera every day. You fight so incredibly hard out there. And I know you even take deliberate detours to fly over my school sometimes, just in case some bad guy targets me."
"If I went up to a sister who was working that hard and told her, 'Stop being a magical girl, it's way too dangerous, just be a good girl and stay at home'... what would you think?"
Xia Zili slowly lifted her head, staring blankly at his downcast eyes.
Seeing that his sister remained silent, Ke Mingqing smirked in a self-deprecating manner.
"Right? You'd never agree to it... Because we're so much alike. We're both ridiculously stubborn."
Xia Zili opened her mouth but no words came out. Her eyes rimmed with red. After a very long silence, she finally spoke.
"You could have told me that."
Ke Mingqing was stunned.
"I'll stop," Xia Zili muttered. "I won't be a magical girl anymore."
He slowly turned his head to look at her in utter disbelief.
"Brother, I'm forgetting more and more things..." As she spoke, she looked up at the train station. It should have been a familiar place to her, but only a few hazy fragments drifted through her mind.
And the words in her diary.
But stripped of the memories that backed them, those words were nothing but the childish, dry, monotonous scribbles of a kid. It was hard to even imagine what had actually happened on those days.
Every time, she had to stare at the diary for ages just to conjure up the slightest realization—so that really did happen back then?
'A witch is such a greedy creature,' she thought. 'She is insatiably siphoning away my most precious memories bit by bit, refusing to leave a single scrap behind.'
"But I guess this is a good thing..." Xia Zili suddenly said, blinking.
"A good thing?" Ke Mingqing listened to her self-destructive tone.
"Yeah. Once I forget absolutely everything... you won't be my brother anymore. I definitely won't acknowledge you. Who'd want to claim a total stranger as their brother?"
She lowered her voice. "That way, I might actually feel a sense of relief. Sounds weird, doesn't it?"
"Why?" Ke Mingqing asked.
"Who knows," Xia Zili mumbled.
"Wow, does that mean we'll have to get to know each other all over again? What would we even become?" Ke Mingqing stared blankly up at the sky.
"Hmm... who knows."
Xia Zili repeated, a faint trace of a smile lingering at the corners of her lips.
...
...
Time slipped quietly by, and August 15th finally arrived.
[Good morning, esteemed Red Name Player, "Ke Mingqing".]
[The current time is 08:00 AM on Wednesday, August 15th. The remaining time for the "Exterminate Superhumans" quest is: 135 days, 16 hours, and 0 minutes.]
Ke Mingqing woke up right on time that morning. Opening his eyes in bed, he grabbed his phone and checked the messages in the "Loving Family" group chat.
[Ke Linye: Does anyone remember what day today is?]
[Xia Ningzhi: It's back-to-school day! I have to go to school to pick some things up, and I figure I'll tour the university downtown while I'm at it, hehehe.]
[Xia Lingxue: Do you need your big sister to go with you?]
[Xia Ningzhi: No need, I can go alone, no problem!]
[Xia Ningzhi: Does not relying on my big sister anymore mean I've grown up?]
[Ke Mingqing: It just means your big sister is incompetent.]
[Xia Ningzhi: A'Qing is asking for a spanking again. You're coming to the movies with your big sister this afternoon.]
[Xia Zili: I want to go too.]
[Ke Linye: Does nobody really remember what day today is?]
[Xia Zili: What movie are we seeing?]
[Ke Linye: This member has shared a song — "Today is a Good Day".]
[Xia Ningzhi: So tacky. How can a snob like you listen to such a corny song, older brother? At the very least, you should be listening to some obscure, pretentious post-rock or jazz.]
[Ke Linye: Oh, I get it. Kids, this must be one of those tricks, right? The kind where everyone pretends not to know what day it is, only to hit me with a huge surprise later.]
[Ke Linye: No need to hide it. Your big brother knows what you're up to.]
[Xia Lingxue: A'Qing, come over to Zili's room. Zili says it's too hot in the afternoon, so we'll catch a movie after dinner. You can pick whatever you want to watch.]
[Ke Mingqing: Oh, understood, Captain.]
Ke Mingqing yawned and set his phone down. 'Sure enough, nobody remembered his birthday. This is perfect,' he thought.
...
...
Night fell, and Ke Linye sat alone in the dimly lit living room.
Perched in a chair by the table, he tilted his head slightly. He spun his phone around in one hand and gently tapped his fingers against the tabletop with the other.
A long while passed. "Why aren't they back yet?" Ke Linye mumbled to himself. "Does it really take this long to prepare a surprise for me?"
He yawned and smacked his lips. "I'm even getting a little sleepy. What am I going to do with these younger siblings of mine?"
"Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~"
Suddenly, a voice drifted down from the hallway. He could easily tell it was Xia Zili's voice.
Ke Linye blinked, then his clear eyes curved into a smile, his pitch-black earrings swaying slightly.
After a moment, he turned his head just as the figure holding a cake stepped out of the shadows and into view.
It wasn't a teenage girl. Instead, it was an eerily white doll. The creature stretched its already cracked mouth into a wide grin. Its hollow eyes were fixed motionless on Ke Linye.
Ke Linye fell silent. The smile on his face froze.
Suddenly, a flicker of eerie blue fire lit the candles, illuminating White Jack's face. Its lips moved open and shut, singing the birthday song in a voice that was clearly not its own:
"Happy birthday to you~ Mr. Judge—"
The rhythm of the song grew increasingly bizarre. Ke Linye slowly dropped his smile entirely.
Sighing, he looked down at his phone and said expressionlessly, "If you sing with my sister's voice one more time, I'll chop you to pieces and feed you to the pigs. Understood?"
White Jack immediately stopped singing. He pursed his lips and said with a hint of grievance in his tone, "Is there any need to be so cold, Mr. Judge? I just saw that your heartless family completely forgot your birthday, so I went out of my way to come here and comfort you."
Ke Linye lowered his eyes to the "Loving Family" group chat and said calmly, "They didn't forget."
"Stop lying to yourself, Mr. Judge. Your siblings are already on their second movie. Your dear mother finished her facial mask and is tucked comfortably in bed, and your father is too swamped at the police station to slip away. Tick-tock... it's about to hit midnight."
White Jack spread his hands. "Then again, 'lying to yourself' is practically a family heirloom for you people. Every single one of you loves to delude yourselves, and every single one of you is so painfully awkward."
Ke Linye rested his phone against his stomach, leaned his head back against the chair, and closed his eyes.
"Are you done with your last words?"
"That line sounds a lot more like something your oldest sister would say. Given your persona, you should sound a bit more sarcastic. That would be much more like you... instead of threatening people with such a boring tone just because your younger siblings ignored you. Threatening the only person who actually cares about you."
Saying that, White Jack picked up the lighter from the table and, with a click, lit the final candle that had failed to catch fire earlier.
Ke Linye fell silent.
After a moment, he opened his eyes. Turning his head from the backrest, he glanced at the candles on the birthday cake and let out a self-deprecating scoff.
He clearly hadn't expected that the one keeping him company on this particular night would be this weirdo.
"Whatever. What do you want?" Ke Linye shrugged.
"Nothing. I simply came to celebrate your birthday." White Jack pulled up a chair and sat down. "Can you stop assuming that every single thing I do has some ulterior motive, Mr. Judge?"
"Uh-huh... I suggest you get out of here before they come home. Otherwise, I don't mind sending you off myself."
"Okay, okay. I'll make myself scarce. I'm not the type to overstay my welcome anyway..." White Jack plucked a candle from the cake, clamped it in his mouth like a cigarette, and looked up at Ke Linye.
He paused. "Actually, I just wanted to ask one thing. Are we considered friends now?"
Ke Linye didn't say a word.
White Jack looked helpless. He took a deep drag of the candle and played the sympathy card. "I did save your precious little sister, didn't I?"
At that, Ke Linye turned his head and glanced at the orange peels on the cake. He then raised his clear eyes to meet White Jack's gaze.
"I don't like oranges. I've been allergic to them since I was a kid. If you're going to pick out a cake for me next time, pick a better one. If my younger siblings bought this, they would never make a mistake like this. Do you understand?"
'Yeah, sure, they definitely wouldn't make a mistake like this, because they wouldn't buy you a cake in the first place.'
White Jack scoffed inwardly.
At that moment, a notification panel suddenly popped up in front of his eyes.
[Main Quest 6 (Phase 1) Completed: Use your second identity to establish contact with the anti-hero "Owl Judge".]
[Quest Reward Received: 1 Attribute Point, 7,000 EXP, 5,000 superhuman coins.]
'The world really is just one giant dating sim,' White Jack silently retorted.
[Player's total superhuman coin balance is now: 18,000 superhuman coins.]
[Congratulations! Your EXP has reached the current level cap. Leveling up automatically — Current level progress: Lv. 16 (5,700/8,000 EXP)]
[Detected that Player currently has "1" Attribute Point. Allocate immediately?]
White Jack opened the attribute panel, raised a finger, and quickly allocated the point.
[Congratulations! Consumed "1" Attribute Point. Your "Strength" attribute has increased from "C++ Rank" to "B Rank".]
[Player "Ke Mingqing" current attributes are as follows: Strength: B Rank; Agility: B Rank; Spirit: C+ Rank.]
"Now... you can get out."
Saying that, Ke Linye glanced at the messages on his phone. "They're almost home."
"Then should I take my cake with me?" White Jack licked some frosting off his finger. "That shop hasn't closed yet. There's still time for me to go swap it out for a different one."
"No."
"All right. I'll take my leave then, my dear Mr. Judge..."
As White Jack's voice faded, his figure gradually dissolved into a wisp of lingering smoke, leaving behind only the bright flicker of candlelight.
Ke Linye remained silent for a long time, staring blankly at the group chat on his phone.
[Xia Ningzhi: If you guys can't finish your popcorn, could you bring it back for me? I haven't had any in ages.]
[Xia Zili: Speaking of which, wasn't today our oldest brother's birthday or something?]
[Xia Ningzhi: Huh, that was a thing? Why didn't anyone remind me?]
[Xia Lingxue: It's fine. Five more minutes and this miserable day will be over.]
[Ke Mingqing: For real? Happy birthday, bro.]
[Xia Zili: Happy birthday.]
[Xia Ningzhi: Is it too late to buy a cake now? Don't panic. I know Red Lotus. I'll have her use her Wind and Fire Wheels to deliver a cake straight to our house.]
Ke Linye suddenly chuckled. He let out a long breath, raised a single finger, and snuffed out the candles on the cake with pitch-black moonlight.
The light vanished, and the living room was plunged into darkness, the chorus of cicadas echoing through the night.
"Whatever... I guess it isn't too bad," he said.