Twenty-five years ago, on a late night in Luocheng, the searing heat of the day had faded.
Palm trees swayed in the high night wind, one streetlight after another. Like a relay race, they passed their orange halos down the long, undulating road and into the distance.
The light passed through countless people's dreams and half-open windows, shining upon the cracked asphalt and illuminating the dark red, viscous blood that snaked through the fissures.
The cracks were soon filled with blood.
The blood gently overflowed, slowly spreading before trickling into the dark maw of a storm drain, making a dripping sound.
In this pool of blood lay a wet rope, already soaked black.
The rope was wrapped around a woman. From behind her motionless body, it stretched toward a massive, dark silhouette, but its middle section had been lifted into the air by a hand.
Kai Luonan looked at the rope in his hand, then at the massive resident not far away.
