In the photograph lay the prison van that had ferried Xiao Qianxue; its rear gate gaped like a broken jaw.
Inside was hell on earth, blood smeared over every corner like spilled paint on rusted steel.
SWAT bodies lay strewn in a crosshatch, limbs draped like fallen scarecrows.
Their punctured flesh had dried to iron-brown, a stink that needled Mom and Dad as the photos shook in their hands.
“Just so we’re clear.” The officer straightened his cap, his voice dropping like cold iron.
“Besides the people on scene, you two are the third to see these.”
“No one else knows what happened.”
They froze like deer in headlights.
“Xiaoxue did this?” Dad’s voice cracked, a thin blade of panic.
Mom’s face went chalk-white, like paper in rain.
“That’s right.” The officer’s words fell like stones in a well.
“She killed every SWAT officer in the van.”
“Then she slipped out without so much as a ripple, like a shadow leaving water.”
He waved the others out, a sweep like cutting smoke.
He dragged over a stool and sat, the legs scraping like flint.
“The door shows no sign of damage, not a scratch.”
Fear sat in Dad’s throat like ice before he could speak.
“How did it end up like this, honey? Do you think Xiaoxue would do that?”
“I… I don’t know.”
He pictured his girl, cute as spring blossom.
She slept in a little, like a cat in sun.
She bent rules at school, yet her grades gleamed like polished jade.
At home she was a lazy bug, curled on the sofa watching anime.
She got rowdy at dinner, like sparrows squabbling over rice.
And then… right, those red eyes.
Dad slammed the table; the crack jumped like thunder, jolting Mom and the officer.
“So it started then,” he murmured, fingers grinding through hair like combing thorns.
“She was normal before. It was that night.”
“If you know anything, tell me,” the officer said, words clipped like marching boots.
“Say it, will you!” Mom yanked Dad’s shoulders and shook him, her voice fraying like a worn rope.
“I shouldn’t have given in so easily…” Regret hit him like a stone as the night flashed back.
His daughter stood alone at the window, moon-breeze lifting her long gold hair.
Under her bangs, one eye gold, one eye red, burned like twin embers in the dark.
Her flawless face held something knotted, like silk snagged on a thorn.
“Don’t tell, Dad~,” she’d said, the whisper soft as falling petals.
“That was the night…” He spoke in a slow murmur, words drifting like dust.
The officer took notes, pen scratching like a cricket.
Mom could only gape, her breath snagging like thread.
“So that’s why,” Mom blurted, words tumbling like beads.
“Every night she’d let her hair fall and cover her eyes.”
“I thought she was just lazy, so I didn’t mind.”
“No wonder I kept dodging her gaze when I talked to her.”
“It was because of this!”
“You idiot, why didn’t you say it!” Her anger flared like a brushfire.
“You hid a change that big in our own daughter!”
“She must’ve carried so much pressure alone, like a boulder on her back.”
“Look, now it’s blown up—are you happy?”
She gripped his shoulders and shook, her voice rasping like sand.
“Ma’am, calm down.” The officer kept writing, the pen tapping like rain, but his eyes lifted.
“What do we do now?” Their heat cooled after a while, like embers under ash.
They looked at the officer, who set his notes aside.
“We can’t say yet.”
“We need to catch the suspect first.”
“Orders will come down soon; I’ll pass them along.”
“I’ll have lunch sent up.”
“Rest for now.”
He set the chair aside, grabbed his notebook, and left, closing the door like sealing a lid.
Soon after lunch, the officer returned, footsteps dull like drums.
“We just got a notice.”
“You’ll be observed here for two days.”
“Then you can leave.”
The two showed no change, faces blank like masks.
“Alright then,” he said, and stepped out.
“What good is leaving anyway?” Dad’s smile hung crooked, like a cracked crescent.
“When these two days pass, we’ll go find our daughter.”
Mom’s voice steadied, a spear planted in earth.
“I just hope she stays safe for these two days,” she said, hope thin as a candle flame.
“Finally, back to daylight!” The blonde girl stepped over rubble, heading for the spot where she’d first entered the cave.
The sun blazed high, new-bright like a fresh coin.
“Did I black out a whole day?”
Dropping combat mode, Little Loli rubbed her eyes.
Bright sunlight filtered through layers of shade and fell in dappled patches on her skin.
Gurgle—the complaint rolled from her belly like a drum in a hollow.
“So hungry I could die,” she groaned, hands clutching her stomach like a cold stone.
She trudged back to camp, feet kicking dust like ash.
She popped open the suitcase and pulled her emergency rations.
“Back from the brink at last!”
She chomped into the bread she’d brought from home, a bite clean as a wolf’s snap.
She cracked a bottle of water and gulped, glug-glug, until the hunger eased like a receding tide.
She stowed her stuff and took out her phone from the pack.
9:30 glared on the screen, digits sharp as neon.
“So it really is the next day,” she muttered, disbelief floating like mist.
Her phone rang, a buzz like a bee trapped in glass.
“Who is it?” she asked.
Only Brother Zhuo and the crew knew this number.
“It’s me, Miss!” a thin man chirped, his voice fluttering like a sparrow.
“What is it?” she asked, twirling a loose strand by her ear like silk.
Her legs swung idly, pendulums in the shade.
“At ten thirty I’ll send food and daily goods to the spot you named.”
“I’ve got fresh intel too.”
Hearing the blonde girl’s clear voice, the man’s tone warmed like water over coals.
“Alright. Be careful. Don’t get tailed,” she said, her warning sharp as a knife’s edge.
“Promise!”
He pictured a beauty worrying over him—nothing of the sort—and his heart soared like a kite.
“Food’s coming soon. Bath first.”
She hopped down from the little slope, landing light as a cat.
She skipped toward the creek she’d used before, steps bright as beads.
A breeze lifted her waist-long hair, gold flashing like sunlit wheat.
Under the sunlight, she shone.
