“Sir, the mission tanked, and a state-backed shadow group slipped in like a cold wind under the door.” In a cramped office, the middle-aged man sat, back to the room, listening like a stone in a still pond. “Not a single one came back?”
“Not one. And the way they died…” The adjutant stalled like a needle catching on silk, stepped forward, slid photos across the desk like black ice, then retreated to his post.
“I’ve lived long, seen steel flash and blood steam, but never deaths like these.” The man turned his chair, photos heavy as wet leaves in his hand. “This was a freak squall. That kind of person by the girl’s side—don’t blame our oars, blame Heaven’s blind clouds.” He let out a long, wind-worn sigh.
“Intel says the girl only enrolled this year and just crossed paths with Joanna. She wasn’t using their hired bodyguard.” The adjutant’s words fell like measured rain.
“What’s the use telling me now? The birds have flown. The one blessing is, someone’s here to sweep the ashes.” A long-dormant smile flickered like a lamp behind fog.
Seeing that small break in the clouds, the adjutant matched it with a practiced grin. “They’re going all-in to hunt that blonde monster-girl. We…” He looked up, eyes searching like a dog at a crossroads.
“Just cooperate. Clear the thorns first.” The man’s tone was flat as a blade on stone.
“Yes.”
“Waaah!” The blonde girl clawed her way out of sleep like a kitten out of tall grass, rubbed at her eyes till pink tide-marks showed what last night washed in. Her fingers raked her hair like a small comb through straw. The cave was the same quiet cave, and the sun climbed from the east like a golden carp scaling a waterfall.
“How much longer do I live like this…” A yawn spilled like warm steam as the blonde girl wriggled out of her sleeping bag.
At the mouth of the cave, she planted her hands on her hips and drank in a lungful of air, cool as spring water from stone. Her golden eyes brightened like coins catching dawn. “Let’s tidy up first.” She bent, scooped up her wash kit like gathering herbs. “Combat mode,” Little Loli marched to the creek, feet light as dragonflies.
“Sorry, water, but I’m a clean freak, okay~” She smiled, a playful crescent moon, filled her tooth-cup, dabbed on toothpaste, and went glug-glug like a brook swallowing pebbles. A fairy-faced blonde stood in a forest painting of glass-green stream and moss, washing in a scene that could hang between mountain mists.
After a round of splashes, she flicked her hair; the dewdrops on gold strands flashed like beads of sunlight strung on silk.
Carrying her kit, Little Loli returned to the cave side, stowed everything neat as stacked bamboo, then fished out a bottle of milk and a piece of bread. “Awoo.” She sat carefully, like perching on a reed, took a small bite from the bread, then sipped milk like tasting snow.
My chest feels tangled, like reeds in a crosswind—why? The feeling came first, then the stillness held.
So the blonde girl sat on a little slope, legs swinging like bell ropes, savoring her own breakfast and a brief pocket of quiet as clear as a mountain pool.
“Where do we start?” The discount dad and discount mom slid into the Benz like two pebbles into a black river, fired the engine, and pulled away from the police station.
“They’re gone. The hunt begins.” A cop stepped out into light like a heron to a bank, eyes on the retreating car.
“Copy. Plan is live!” Captain Chen barked into his phone; SWAT poured into gear like bolts sliding home, then into hulking black box trucks that waited like iron whales. Even the armored trucks in the garage woke with diesel breath.
In the garage, seven or eight SWAT carriers and the precinct’s only two armored trucks rumbled like thunderheads. The place looked busy as an anthill, yet moved with a metronome’s calm.
“Yo, quite the parade.” A youth in a blue cloak strolled up, gaze skimming the bustle like a kite over fields. “More army hands are coming to help. Those old fossils were stubborn rocks, but today they say yes like reeds in wind.” Captain Chen rubbed his chin, baffled.
“Only the win matters; the path is dust.” The blue-cloaked youth repeated his favorite creed like a bell. “Call me when you roll. I’ll sit inside a bit.” He turned, and in a breath vanished like a shadow through a door crack.
“Why does today feel off?” The discount mom sat shotgun, eyes on streets thin as winter branches. The sidewalks held few souls, the air a cold hush.
“Doesn’t matter. Maybe we’ll find Xiaoxue faster.” The discount dad’s mind was a single arrow. His daughter was the fire in his chest; all else was smoke.
As the Benz neared an intersection, a heavy truck, coiled like a spring, stomped its throttle and lunged for the crossroads. “Honey, watch out!” The discount mom snapped her head and saw the hurtling mass like a mountain sliding.
“What?!”
A few minutes earlier—
“Hello?” Little Loli had just sipped milk when her phone trilled like a bird. The call came from the skinny man. “Miss! That Benz you told me to watch just rolled out of the station!”
Earlier, the blonde girl had sketched her situation for the skinny man and asked him to watch her parents at the precinct like a lantern on a dark road. He had agreed with a pat on the chest, and this news let her loosen a knotted breath.
“But the city feels wrong today, like a storm about to break.” The skinny man leaned against a white sports car like a gull on a rail, parked not far from the station.
At the same time, “All units, move!” Captain Chen’s voice cracked from radios like a whip. A hidden underground gate yawned open, and police transports rolled out like a steel river. A truck with a mounted machine gun growled among them. In the lead, a modified Audi prowled, door-to-door with an orange-yellow Skull Horse supercar.
The few people on the street saw the convoy’s rolling thunder and dove to the sides like minnows. Roads the Benz had taken were suddenly sealed by police tape and barriers like nets. The whole area felt cut off like an island in fog.
“Even I’m excited now. I hear the girl’s that man’s son’s girlfriend, and that kid’s been neck-deep lately, heh.” The blue-cloaked youth’s grin curled like a blade. His foot stamped, and the car leaped, overtaking the Audi like a hawk over a crow.
“Let’s finish it in one swing.” Captain Chen sat in the Audi, face hard as granite. Lines of armored vehicles tailed tight as geese on the wing. No sirens howled, but the big POLICE letters weighed on bystanders like a low sky, and cars peeled away like leaves from wind. “What big thing is coming?”
“Uh… Miss.” The phone rang again, the skinny man’s voice quivering like a plucked string. “Every road your parents took just got sealed. I wanted to tail them and see where they’re headed.”
“Sealed?” Little Loli’s brow knit like drawn thread. “By who?”
“The cops!” A brutal crash exploded on his end like lightning splitting a tree. “Miss! Something just slammed into something else—huge sound!”
Please, no—don’t let it be that. Fear rose first, hands shaking like leaves; then thought chased it. A news alert flashed across her screen like a knife of white.
!!! As Little Loli feared, one glance at the news and her bright golden pupils pinched tight like stars snuffed by cloud.
