“Get out of the way,” Zhao Yunlan said, as calm as if he were holding a plate of hot dumplings and asking someone to move over.
Guo Changcheng had already flung himself to the ground, nearly wetting his pants. A gunshot rang out in the darkness. A piercing scream came from behind him. If he’d had fur, it would have been standing up more than Daqing’s when someone touched the cat’s butt. His heart beat with such ferocity that it seemed to echo in his chest. It felt as if he’d been terrified into a heart attack.
As he sat on the floor, disheveled, he looked behind him. The weak glow of Zhao Yunlan’s lighter showed a shadow on the wall the size of a five- or six-year-old child. At first glance, it might have been ink someone had smeared there. And at the center, in what would be its chest, there was a bullet wound. A pool of crimson was spreading from it in all directions, as if it were capable of bleeding.
“What is that?” Guo Changcheng asked. There was a shrillness to his voice that even he didn’t recognize.
“Just a shadow. Don’t get worked up over nothing.” Zhao Yunlan reached out and wiped at the black shadow. The bloodred substance began to flake off the wall at his touch, like old, damp paint.
“The… The shadow of what?”
Zhao Yunlan paused, then snapped his head halfway around with a creepy smile. Guo Changcheng could almost feel his soul being dragged in by the man’s frighteningly black eyes. Then, in a bone-chilling whisper, Zhao Yunlan said, “You know, sometimes a person can have more than one shadow.”
Without a sound, Guo Changcheng slid down the wall like a limp noodle.
Zhao Yunlan was speechless.
“It’s all your fault.” Daqing’s tail stood straight in the air as he circled the unconscious Guo Changcheng. This poor little intern was adding fainting into his daily routine. The cat flicked his tail unhappily. “What good does scaring him unconscious do?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” Zhao Yunlan kicked Guo Changcheng lightly. The intern slid down further against his leg with absolutely no reaction. “Who knew this fella was sound activated and would faint from a few sentences? I figured at worst he’d piss himself or something.”
Daqing was pointedly silent.
“That way, I can pay his bonus with adult diapers.” Zhao Yunlan reached down, picked Guo Changcheng up, and threw him over one shoulder. He looked like he was carrying a sack of potatoes that jostled with every step. His movements were nimble, but his tone was acidic. “Tell me, whose relative is this, that he just got shoved under my eyelids? What a pain.”
“Apparently an important leader who recently arrived in the ministry is this kid’s uncle,” Daqing said.
Zhao Yunlan asked, expressionless, “Someone who just arrived? Doesn’t he know the Special Investigations Department doesn’t answer to the Ministry of Public Security? Sticking some mortal here with me—does he want his nephew to earn the honor of perishing in the line of duty?”
Daqing meowed. “Why didn’t you say anything when the order came? What’s the point of complaining at me now, you shameless kiss-up?”
“Who cares if I’m shameless? What matters is not dying of hunger.” Zhao Yunlan stubbed out the butt of his cigarette, slapping the kitty’s head lightly. “Also, those of you who have nothing to do all day but pretend to be high and mighty, ask your conscience this: where do you think your jobs, your pay and bonuses, the benefits during holidays, and even the right to do your work without being affected or disturbed by any other departments come from? Do you think they were blown in by the wind? Don’t I have to go make those connections? What is shame? Can you eat it? Does it taste good?”
Daqing, whose steady diet of imported cat food had gradually given him a more international body type, closed his mouth.
“Besides, as soon as he was assigned, his name was on the Soul-Guarding Order. I thought he’d have some special powers! How was I to know the Soul-Guarding Order is as susceptible to politics as I am?”
The black cat listened as he ran his mouth, but daring to joke about the Soul-Guarding Order was too much. “Enough nonsense!”
The Soul-Guarding Order had existed since ancient times. It served to conduct Netherworld business in the mortal world, act as a medium between yin and yang,8 and coordinate the Three Realms.9 Historically, it had fallen under the Imperial History Bureau. After the People’s Republic of China was founded, the Soul-Guarding Order came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Security. That was when the Special Investigations Department had been established.
The current director of the Special Investigations Department, Zhao Yunlan, was also the Guardian. This Guardian was equally comfortable in the Netherworld or in banquet halls. He was talented and smooth, able to hold his alcohol and exchange cups with anyone in the Three Realms. Eating, drinking, whoring, gambling, or putting on a show—he was an expert at it all.
The old cat looked on coldly. If Zhao Yunlan hadn’t had the dubious fortune of inheriting the Soul-Guarding Order, those skills alone would have been enough to guarantee him a bright and promising future.
“What happened in the hall just now?” Daqing, unable to bite the hand that fed him, could only cough dryly and change the topic. “Why did your Clarity watch sound the alarm like that?”
“There’s something following us,” Zhao Yunlan said. “But it ran when I shined the light on it. It probably isn’t malicious.”
“It’s not the killer?”
“No. You think I can’t tell the difference between a newly formed ghost and something so tremendously evil?” Zhao Yunlan lugged Guo Changcheng as he paced up and down the hallway. “You saw the handprint next to the corpse, right? ‘Bones thin as a match, fingers long as a whip.’ So far I can’t say for sure what it is, but I do know it’s not human. This intern sure is solid—he weighs a ton. I have to dump him somewhere.”
As he spoke, Zhao Yunlan came to a corner and tossed Guo Changcheng down, but he still had enough conscience to not leave him for dead. Hiking his pants up, he squatted down and took a little bottle from his pocket. After pouring its contents in a circle around Guo Changcheng, he bit his own middle finger and smeared a drop of blood between Guo Changcheng’s brows. The moment the blood touched Guo Changcheng’s skin, it was completely absorbed. The poor intern’s complexion improved at once.
Having done all that, Zhao Yunlan gave Guo Changcheng a fierce smack on the head and cursed under his breath. “Useless thing.”
“Enough fooling around, Yunlan. Look at your watch.”
Zhao Yunlan glanced down just in time to see the face of his watch, Clarity, turn red again. A sharp yowl from beside his feet signaled him to follow Daqing’s gaze.
An old woman clad in her graveclothes stood behind them. For all he knew, she’d been there for some time.
As soon as her eyes met his, she turned to leave. But after only a few steps, she stopped again, as if wanting to lead them somewhere.
“This is the new ghost you were talking about? A new ghost out in broad daylight like this?” Daqing extended his stumpy legs and gave chase, meowing in complaint. “Are you blind, you gay fool?”
Zhao Yunlan hurried to catch up. “Fuck off. Can’t you see she can’t speak? Can’t you see there’s still some life to her? Can’t you see she’s walking with two legs, not floating in midair? Who’s the blind one here, Big Dumb Fatty?”
Still bickering, they turned a sharp corner. The old woman disappeared. What she’d led them to was a flight of stairs heading to the roof.
Daqing sniffled and sneezed. “What a massive amount of resentment.”
Bending down to pick him up, Zhao Yunlan said, “Looks like it was her who brought us here, not Shen-laoshi. Maybe he really doesn’t have anything to do with this. Let’s go check it out.”
Carefully, they walked up. The stairs felt soft underfoot, as though made not from cement but from some living thing—or rather, countless “living things” that now reached from the shadows, clawing at whatever dared to enter their territory. But the moment they touched the hem of Zhao Yunlan’s pants, they were thrown back.
“It’s a given that every school is allotted a quota of suicides each year. As long as the number isn’t higher than that, it’s not a huge problem,” Zhao Yunlan said. “But I’ve heard that Dragon City University has had far too many for three years in a row. Most buildings here on the original campus are old and not very tall. Only the newer ones are high enough to guarantee no one can survive hitting the ground, so they’re a magnet for suicides. The other buildings aren’t so bad, but this building is where darkness and shadows converge. It’s all corners inside, with lots of large L-shaped rooms and hallways, so once impurities are drawn in, they’re stuck. Since they build up over time, a ton of resentment must be accumulated here.”