“Tsk, can’t these guys take a hit? You’re paper lanterns in a storm.”
After she loosed her skill, blood-crystal arrows studded the seats like icy thorns, and scarlet streaks whipped across the compartment like slashing ribbons.
“Tch, and you even wore vests.” She stood over a SWAT officer, her hand delicate as lotus root sharpening into razored claws, and she drove them in like knives through wet clay. “It’s just an extra layer of cotton.”
A short while later, every SWAT in the van had shriveled into husks, like leaves drained dry by frost, and she breathed in the warmth like a rising tide. “Strong, fresh blood—mmm. I can feel myself growing stronger.”
She flicked a corpse aside with a lazy kick, like sweeping dust off a step, and twin black claws with a bloody gleam curled from her forearms, barbs budding like thorns, their tips flashing silver like moonlight on steel.
The prison van rolled on smooth as a boat on still water, while no one knew the rear held a little hell, tight as a sealed jar. “That’s that, I’m out—Blood Pool.” The blonde girl melted into a slick of blood like winter sun softening ice, seeped through the seams, slipped past the shell, and whooshed away on the wind like a red leaf.
“What a pitiful bunch of idiots.” After a spell, Little Loli gathered herself by the roadside like mist beading into dew, while the police convoy thinned in the distance like a fading tide. She gave one last look, then streaked off the other way, a golden phantom like a sunbeam loosed from a cloud.
“I wonder if Xiao Qianxue got out.” After they split the bounties like chopping a loaf, everyone sat tight, waiting for that figure like watchers facing an empty road.
“Even if that girl’s body arts are fierce, she’s cuffed, and that van’s packed with SWAT...” Brother Zhuo’s words trailed off like smoke in wind, and the room caught the meaning like a chill in rain.
“Mom, will Big Sister be okay?” Little Tao clutched his mother’s hand like a sparrow to a branch, his eyes bright as wet glass.
“Sweetie, that kind-hearted big sister will be fine.” The woman’s gaze wavered like a candle in a draft, worry pooling like dusk, yet her lie stayed gentle as cotton.
“I believe her too—and I’m gonna marry her someday!” Little Tao’s grin bloomed like a small sun breaking through cloud.
Ten minutes crawled by, the air heavy as thunderclouds over a field. “I’m going out to look.” Brother Zhuo sprang up like a coiled spring, but the guy beside him blocked him like a tree in a path.
“She’s in the cops’ hands—what can we do, punch through the lot of them?” His voice hit like stones skipping across a pond.
Zhuo’s fists knotted like rocks, then loosened like fists unclenching from frost. “Damn it!” He slammed the wall, and soft plaster burst like snow off a ledge.
“Yo, I wasn’t gone that long—miss me already?” The door swung open like a curtain on wind, and a soft, sweet voice rang like a silver bell.
“Big Sis!” Little Tao shot toward the blonde girl like a darting swallow, and she stood at the threshold in her usual skin, golden eyes winking like amber under sun.
“You’re finally back—we were worried sick.” Brother Zhuo, posted by the door like a guardstone, let out a breath like a leaking bellows.
“Hurry to the hospital and pay your mom’s fees.” Little Loli glanced at Zhuo, her tone cool as shade, then flared like a struck match. “And you, big oaf—why’d you treat people like that?” Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes like pearls rolling off silk.
“Alright, alright—I was wrong!” Zhuo dropped to his knees like a felled stump and knocked his head to the floor like a drum.
“Hmph.” Little Loli wiped her eyes, a quick sweep like clearing dew, patted Little Tao’s head like smoothing a kitten’s fur, and strolled inside like a breeze through bamboo.
The big men sat stiff as pins, backs prickling like hedgehogs, sweat beading like rain on stone as they recalled being flattened to the floor.
“In a day, send daily supplies—food and water—to this address.” Little Loli scrawled with a pen like a brush painting reeds, then held the paper up like a sign against the sun.
“I know that place—leave it to me!” The skinny guy thumped his chest like a small drum, trying to lift his shadow like a kite in wind.
“After that, do what you should. News of my escape will spread like wildfire, so aside from bringing me supplies, live your lives.” Little Loli turned to Little Tao’s mother, her gaze warm as tea steam. “Ma’am, these guys will take good care of you and Little Tao.”
“You’re such a good girl—thank you so much!” The mother’s eyes flooded like a spring after thaw. “But why are the police hunting you?” Brother Zhuo’s question broke out like a pebble tossed in a pond.
“That’s not your burden.” The blonde girl gathered her hair into a knot like tying a ribbon on wind, readying for a long trek like a road unfurling to the hills. “We’ll meet again, if fate flows that way.”
Little Loli shouldered her backpack like a traveler to dawn and clicked her suitcase into an easy-carry shape like a blade folding to its sheath. “Oh, and who’s got a smartphone for me?”
“I do!” The skinny man whipped out an iPhone like a magician flashing a coin. “You punk—didn’t you say you couldn’t score an iPhone? Where’d that come from?” the burly man grumbled, his voice gravelly as a cart on cobbles.
“The lady wants a phone and you’re whining?” The skinny man snapped a slap like a twig, and the big guy’s mouth twitched like a line snagged on a rock.
“We’ll keep in touch through this phone then.” The skinny man offered it with both hands like a tribute, and Little Loli flicked it on, fingers quick as sparrows, then pocketed it like slipping a jade pebble away.
“Then bye-bye.” She lifted her things to the door like a dancer raising her sleeves, and in a blink turned into a golden streak like a lightning thread, vanishing from their eyes.
About half an hour later, the police convoy reached a secretive base tucked like a shadow in the hills. “Open the prison van.” The cops ringed it like stones around a well, and two SWAT tripped the mechanism, the rear door yawning open like a slow mouth.
A rank reek of blood slammed into them like a hot wind from a slaughterhouse, and inside the compartment lay smeared trails like dragged brushes, while bodies sprawled crosswise like fallen logs.
The corpses had dried into husks like gourds left in the sun, yet their punctured vests, pitted like beehives, told the shape of their deaths.
“Captain Chen... what is this?” Eyes went wide like saucers, and the SWAT who’d opened the door vaulted in like a cat, finding no trace of the blonde girl, not even a hair.
“I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.” Captain Chen’s brows locked like iron bars, his breath tight as a drawn bow.
“Looks like the cops are useless as ever.” On a second-floor platform, a blue-cloaked youth curved his mouth like a sickle moon.
“But the method was downright brutal,” he murmured, eyes gleaming like ice under starlight.
