The sky was a vast expanse of metallic gray. Every cloud looked like a waterlogged sponge, heavy and swollen. A torrential downpour swept down from the heavens, blanketing everything as far as the eye could see. A tall, dark-green cargo truck shattered the dense curtain of rain, barreling down the highway. The words “Pingjiang Post” were painted on its exterior. Its wheels turned with cold indifference, crushing the rain’s futile resistance. The fog lights stretched out before it, trying valiantly to pierce the gloom, only to be swallowed up by the seemingly endless, drowning storm.
After passing through the checkpoint leading to Taoshi, the “Pingjiang Post” lettering on the truck suddenly began to fade, washing away in the rain like old paint. In its place, the words “Taoshi Post” appeared.
The interior of the cargo hold was somewhat empty. Incandescent lights on both sides illuminated the moderate space. Piles of White Cloth, some towering as high as a person’s waist, were heaped across the floor, forming uneven mounds. Qi Ran sat with her back against the front-left corner. Jiang Zhique lay curled on her side atop a stack of the cloth, fast asleep. Her body was slightly tucked, her hands held close to her chest. Qi Ran recognized it as an insecure sleeping posture. Jiang Zhique had always been a person lacking a sense of security, no matter where she slept. Even in her own bed, she would curl up in the same way.
Tao Xiao sat quietly, still and silent. Ever since Qi Ran had taken her out of that strange place, she hadn’t spoken a single word. She just sat there alone, silently, watching everything with her eyes. It didn’t matter when Qi Ran looked at her; she was always the same. She didn’t seem to need sleep. Qi Ran even suspected she didn’t need to eat, because she had never once expressed hunger. Her eating was merely a polite response to Qi Ran making food, and nothing more.
It reminded her of Qi Xin. Her index finger throbbed faintly with a phantom pain.
Qi Ran shifted her gaze from Tao Xiao to the woman sitting on the opposite side of the cargo hold. It was a woman with a very strange appearance. She wore a thick, heavy, pitch-black robe that completely concealed her figure—the kind of thing someone would only wear on Halloween.
Beneath the deep black folds of her robe, Qi Ran noticed a few jet-black feathers peeking out. Compared to an ordinary bird’s plumage, they were much too large, looking to be several dozen centimeters long. The shape of the feathers reminded Qi Ran of the ravens she’d seen in a bird encyclopedia. Along with the Thick-billed Raven, they were the largest crows in the world, reaching over sixty centimeters in height. It was a very beautiful black.
“You look like you have something to say,” the woman called Grey Crow spoke. Her voice was like the sound of gravel grinding together, frighteningly hoarse. “Why not just say it?”
“Beautiful feathers,” Qi Ran said calmly. “Are they a raven’s?”
“You’re even more impolite than I imagined.”
Qi Ran was momentarily speechless. But before she could say anything else, Grey Crow answered the question anyway. “It’s a Black-headed Jay.”
Black-headed Jay? Qi Ran paused, her expression turning slightly odd. The Black-headed Jay was a vulnerable species, a nationally protected animal. Logically speaking, if Grey Crow had a Syndrome like that, wouldn’t any action the Executors took against her technically be… persecution of a nationally protected animal?
“I was born and raised in the Zhongnan Execution Headquarters,” Grey Crow said, as if reading her expression. She let out a rasping, chilling laugh. “The Black-headed Jay was what the doctors studying me told me it was. Do you want to know how a Black-headed Jay hunts?”
“How does it hunt?” Qi Ran asked.
“We usually use our beaks to pierce through the prey’s body,” Grey Crow rasped, “Then we carry it back to the nest, still impaled on our beak, to enjoy it later. We avoid the vital spots, savoring the feeling of the prey struggling in agony on our beak… You know? When a person’s belly is punctured, their insides spill out like quicksilver.”
“Impressive.” Qi Ran clapped, her tone full of admiration.
Grey Crow fell into a heavy silence. She hadn’t anticipated that response. What kind of answer was “impressive”? It was like a kid declaring they were the Destroyer of Worlds, and the teacher simply clapping and saying “Very good, well done!” It made any follow-up completely impossible. She could only force her voice even lower.
“You don’t seem to understand the situation you’re in.”
“I do, I really do. Honest,” Qi Ran said, her expression earnest as she placed her hand over her left chest. “I’m not bragging, but this is the third time I’ve been kidnapped. I’m an old pro at this. Whatever you want me to do, I’ll cooperate completely. But there’s one word of genuine advice I have to give you first, for your own sakes. The last two people who kidnapped me? They both… ran into serious trouble. One was tougher-talking than the other, each bragging about the huge powers backing them. And then, one after the other, they were gone.”
This was the honest truth. The karmic boomerang from what she’d said to Xie Liusheng—“You and Li Siwen are different”—had come back impossibly fast. The very next day, he was the one in trouble. Li Siwen had at least lasted a month. Xie Liusheng, correctly speaking, hadn’t even lasted a full day, considering he was unreachable for the first two.
Grey Crow was silent for a moment before she spoke again. “Xie Liusheng isn’t dead.”
“You know Xie Liusheng?” Qi Ran asked, puzzled. “Where is he now?”
“Of course she knows Xie Liusheng,” a voice said from another corner. Qi Ran only then realized someone else was there—a young boy. His presence was so faint he was almost merged with the shadows. So faint that without him speaking, he was utterly imperceptible. “There isn’t a soul who doesn’t know that snake with a hidden knife. He fears death more than anyone. He went into hiding the moment things went bad.”
“So… who are ‘you’?” Qi Ran asked. “How about introducing yourselves?”
“You can call us the New World,” the boy said quietly. “As for us, call us whatever you like.”
“And what are you most often called?” Qi Ran asked.
“Silhouette,” the boy said flatly. “Or you can call me Red 109.”
Qi Ran nodded and looked at Grey Crow. “And you?”
“Grey Crow,” the woman rasped. “Or Red 46.”
“Sounds like she’s much stronger than you,” Qi Ran said, turning back to Silhouette. “I remember hearing about someone called Red 76 before, who died at Yue Yunqiu’s hands. Was she also one of your comrades?”
“There are two misconceptions in that statement,” Silhouette shook his head. “First, the numbers are just designations. Order of cataloging in their files. Just as White Cloth is Red 144, it doesn’t mean she is weaker than me, or younger. It simply means she was discovered by the Executors later than I was, nothing more.”
“Second, Executioner Crow was not one of our comrades. We had no involvement in the incident at the Pingjiang Execution Building. I know the Executors claim we orchestrated it, but that’s false. The vast majority of those rumors are just that—rumors. They hold absolute power over the narrative. They say we did something, so we did it. They say our ranks include certain people, so they do. They say we are terrorists, so we are terrorists.” Silhouette’s voice was flat and emotionless. “You never cared about the truth anyway, did you? Honestly, when you found out the New World is just an ordinary organization, weren’t you even a little disappointed? Didn’t we suddenly seem incredibly boring and mundane to you?”
“Honestly? Yes,” Qi Ran nodded. “How old are you?”
“I’ve read your file,” Silhouette said. “Same as you.”
“So you’re seventeen now.” Qi Ran looked at Grey Crow. “And you?”
“Why do you want to know?” Grey Crow asked warily. “I was born in ’94.”
“Twenty-three?” Qi Ran nodded to herself, thinking that Grey Crow was truly a mix of rebellious and obedient. Ask a question and she’d answer, she just had to snap at you first.
“What exactly are you trying to get at?”
“I’m just curious why there’s such a huge age gap among Patients in the Circle,” Qi Ran said. “It’s either young people, twenty-five at the oldest, or old people in their fifties and sixties. You almost never see actual middle-aged people in their thirties or forties. Logically, in a normal Circle, shouldn’t people in their thirties and forties be the backbone?”
“Think about it. People who are thirty to forty now… when were they born?” Silhouette said coolly. “And what was happening then?”
“It’s 2017 now. Thirty to forty years old… that puts them born in the eighties…” Qi Ran’s voice trailed off as she spoke, a sudden realization dawning. “That time period… that’s when the Executor System was being established.”
