The streetlight went out.
Darkness swallowed everything... the walls, the rain, even the breath in Shen Lian's throat.
Then came the sound... the sharp hiss of a blade cutting through air.
Instinct saved him.
He twisted aside just as steel grazed his shoulder, hot pain slicing across his coat. His gun was out before his thoughts could catch up. But there was nothing to aim at... only the rhythm of rain, the echo of footsteps fading into the dark.
"Show yourself!" His voice hit the walls and bounced back empty.
He moved fast, scanning every shadow, his pulse hammering. The rain slowed for a moment... that strange silence before chaos ends... then the lights flickered back on.
The alley was empty.
The wall where the dead man had been was bare. No blood, no body... only a faint smear of red that vanished under the rain.
Shen's chest rose and fell hard. He touched the cut on his shoulder... not deep, but real enough to remind him this wasn't a hallucination. Someone had been there. Someone fast, silent, and cold.
He cursed under his breath.
When the sound of engines filled the street, his team appeared, headlights flashing through the mist. Men in dark uniforms rushed out, voices cutting through static radios.
"Detective Shen!" one of them called. "We got your message!"
"Spread out," Shen ordered, voice low, steady again. "We're looking for two things... a man, possibly dead, and another who tried to stab me. Check every corner, every trash alley, every camera feed. Move!"
As the team fanned out, Shen stood still for a moment, watching the puddles ripple under the streetlight. The reflection trembled... his own figure fractured by water... and for just a heartbeat, he thought he saw something move behind him again.
He didn't turn. He didn't need to. The air told him enough. Cold. Watching.
Meanwhile, the apartment was quiet.
Only the soft hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of rain tapping against the balcony door. Qin Yuelin slept on the bed, his face turned toward the faint golden light from the hallway. His lashes trembled, still wet from earlier tears.
Zhao Liren sat beside him, elbows on his knees, staring blankly at the floor. His hand kept brushing through Qin Yuelin's hair without thinking, as if the simple motion kept him from falling apart too.
"So much happened in just two days," he murmured softly, voice barely audible. "You were supposed to get better, not… whatever this is."
His fingers tightened slightly in the strands of Qin Yuelin's hair. He sighed. "You don't even know how scared I get when you disappear into your head like that. It's like… like you're somewhere else entirely."
The only reply was the steady rhythm of Qin Yuelin's breathing.
Zhao leaned back, closing his eyes. The exhaustion of fear, confusion, and helplessness pressed down like a weight. He wanted to call Shen Lian... to ask what was happening, if he found anything... but his phone lay dead, forgotten somewhere in the kitchen.
"Just sleep," he whispered, brushing his thumb over Qin Yuelin's cheek. "We'll figure it out. Somehow."
Time slipped quietly through the room.
The rain softened to a whisper. The city outside fell into that strange silence that only exists between midnight and dawn.
Around three in the morning, Qin Yuelin's eyes opened.
For a second, he didn't know where he was. The ceiling blurred, the faint hum of electricity weaving into his half-dreams. Then the warmth beside him... Zhao Liren, asleep sitting upright on the bed's edge.
He smiled faintly, sad and tired all at once. Slowly, he got up. The floor felt cold against his bare feet.
He looked toward the door... dark, quiet... then moved silently into the living room.
The couch still had a folded blanket from earlier. He sat down, tucking his knees up, glancing at the clock. 3:07 AM.
"Shen Lian…" he whispered.
He hadn't returned. No message. Nothing. Qin Yuelin realized he didn't even have the man's number. For someone so imposing, Shen Lian had a way of leaving silence behind him... the kind that felt heavier than words.
He sat there waiting. First minutes, then hours. The shadows in the room stretched, faded, reshaped with the moving light. Eventually, exhaustion took him again. He fell asleep on the couch, knees drawn close, a faint line of worry still on his brow.
By then, Shen Lian was at the forensic lab.
The white light above hummed faintly. His shirt was stained, the blood dried along the sleeve where he'd caught the dying man's body.
The forensic pathologist, Dr. Huo, was a thin, sharp woman in her forties... methodical, precise. She'd been with the department for years and had seen every kind of horror the city could throw at her. But when she came out of the back room, her expression wasn't professional. It was shaken.
Shen looked up from where he stood near the metal table. "You got results already?"
She nodded slowly, eyes flicking to the bagged shirt on the counter. "We ran a rush test. The blood on your clothes... and the residue we found on your hands... I cross-checked them against our database."
"And?" Shen's voice was low.
Dr. Huo swallowed, her tone tightening. "The sample belongs to a man named He Mingzhao."
"Who's that?"
She hesitated. "…A murder victim."
Shen frowned. "When?"
She looked at him then... that kind of look that strips the air out of a room.
"Almost a year ago."
Silence.
The hum of the light grew louder, somehow.
Shen didn't move. Didn't blink. The words hung there between them, heavy and wrong.
Dr. Huo set the file on the table, her fingers trembling slightly. "We even rechecked it. Same result. DNA match, no error. The man whose blood you brought in... he's been dead for twelve months."
Shen stared at the paper. His reflection flickered faintly across the metal surface...his own face, pale, unreadable.
Then, faintly, almost under his breath, he said,
"…What the hell did I see out there?"
The lights above flickered once... just once... before going still again.
And the chapter ends.