Chapter 1: Prologue

Prologue

00.

A fine, drizzling rain fell incessantly. Old houses stood on both sides of the stone alley, the last traces of daylight blurring against the window lattices on the second floor. The cramped alley began to fall into a drowsy slumber from its depths, the sound of dense rain falling on the flagstone path like the indistinct, murmuring dreams of the old houses.

A woman walked into the old town, beginning to look back suspiciously at the darker corners of the alley. Several times, she felt as if she heard whispers, and the darkness at the base of the old residences always seemed to surge with clusters of living shadows. She felt someone was watching her; perhaps those stone-built old houses were truly alive, squinting at her with drowsy eyes.

She did not carry an umbrella, and the drizzle soaked her clothes. She walked faster and faster through the rainy alley in a disheveled state, distraught, gradually appearing as if she were running for her life.

The alley suddenly came to an end, a pitch-black river channel lying across the mouth of the alley. There was no bridge over the river, but there was a path to follow along the riverbank. She looked at the two paths to her left and right in a state of panic, unable to decide which way to go, subconsciously hugging her chilled arms. After hesitating for a moment, she took a step toward the right, then shrank back and stood still, her neck stiffly turning toward the direction of the river channel. There was no glimmer of light in the river. She knew she shouldn't look into it; the darkness in the river channel was thicker than the starless, moonless sky, as if a deformed Abyss were cutting across the edge of the Ancient Town. Yet that Abyss was calling to her, and she looked in.

A wooden window on the second floor above her head creaked open, as if blown open by the wind, or perhaps pushed open from the inside by an invisible hand. On a locust tree by the river, a crow screamed, kicked off the treetop, flew straight up to the roof, swept over the gray tiles from six hundred years ago, and flew across the riverbank.

The woman trembled, her back pressed tightly against the stone wall of the old house.

01.

A city two thousand kilometers away was covered in thick snow. A two-story red-brick building from the middle of the last century lay lazily, half-collapsed, in the center of the modern city. It had little aesthetic value and no historical significance; it was as if a city demolition crew had torn down half of it and then forgotten the job, leaving it to sit there brazenly in the city center.

People hurried past it, their attention always drawn away by the grand modern office buildings surrounding it. No one cared about this half-collapsed red-brick building, and no one thought to ask why it was still there. As time passed, its existence became a matter of course.

A black domestic car stopped at the entrance of the red-brick building. A bald, sixty-year-old man stepped out of the car. He wore a woolen jacket on his upper body and slightly baggy corduroy trousers below, clutching a briefcase, his face full of surliness. He paused at the entrance, impatiently looking up at the broken window on the second floor without glass; a blue plastic bag hung ostentatiously from the window frame, shaking triumphantly in the north wind.

He seemed even more annoyed, letting out a heavy snort through his nose.

Downstairs was a half-dead auto repair shop; the owner seemed to have the audacity to believe this dangerous building would not continue to collapse. The haphazardly painted car logos outside the repair shop displayed its range of services, from BMW to Baojun, from Smart to QQ—it was all-encompassing. A notice from the municipal government telling it to get out was posted on the wall alongside an advertisement for renting an excavator.

The man caught a glimpse of the dazzling wall, frowned, and pushed open the faded green wooden door. A young man with long hair was squatting on the ground in front of the door, stripping a tire. He looked up at the man in confusion, as if he didn't recognize him, but then grinned knowingly, saying, "Boss, you look so handsome dressed like this today; one look and I know you're a leader."

The man glared at him and walked through the grease-stained workshop without a word, heading straight for the glass door at the end of the shop. Behind the door, on the left, was a crude restroom, and on the right was a stairwell extending downward. The cement-plastered stairs were in disrepair and had begun to crumble, the dirty walls on both sides covered in footprints on the lower half and mold spots grown from dampness on the upper half. In the middle, a few notices were pasted crookedly, roughly reading "No public urination" and "Year-round recruitment for KTV princesses, QQ number:".

The man glared at the notices with disgust, his clean leather shoes stepping into the stairwell, and walked all the way down. From the second basement level, the cement on the stairs began to peel off in large chunks, revealing the red-brick foundation inside, yet the stairs continued to rotate and extend downward endlessly. He kept walking, and before he knew it, the stairs under his feet turned into smooth marble. Finally, the light of the electric lamps gave way to a firelight that seemed both real and illusory. A massive gatehouse was embedded in the underground fortress, and two stone-carved Pixie at the entrance were looking him over with a foolish, simple expression.

Before he could even speak the Secret Language, the gate opened silently. A stern-looking middle-aged woman stood inside the gate, wearing a long dress that wrapped her up tightly. She said unceremoniously, "Hurry up, Pei Shu, you're already late."

The man sighed, "Liu Li, how have you been lately?"

"It's about to get worse," the woman said irritably.

He sighed again and followed the woman through the gate, ignoring the young clerk in the lobby who stood up to greet him, and walked into a conference room, filled with worry. Seven people were already seated around the round table, and the remaining two chairs placed near the door were left for them. The light in the room was very dim, but he didn't mind; darkness helped with thinking, and besides, he was very familiar with this place and didn't need much light. He was also very familiar with them, knowing that what one sees is not necessarily the truth.

Liu Li began to speak; she seemed to be the moderator of today's meeting. "There is no need to introduce the situation again, because Pei Shu is the one who first proposed it."

"Murders happen every year," someone across the round table said abruptly.

"Deviant individuals are born in every generation; people are just like that," another person chimed in, saying slowly, "What is so strange about it? What evidence is there to show that there is a problem now?"

"The data has already indicated the existence of an anomaly," Liu Li interrupted him impatiently. "Chu Jin is the best Calculator, and her observation report is between pages 113 and 149 of Pei Shu's report. I believe you have all read it."

The last mutter was suppressed, and someone was busy flipping pages.

After a while, a hesitant voice said in a low tone, "If the problem lies within our own people, we don't know who is involved, nor do we know who to trust."

Pei Shu said in a low voice, "That is why I suggest using trainees who have not yet graduated; their records are cleaner."

No one at the round table answered. He looked around and realized that even Liu Li was playing dumb.

The silence created pressure. Finally, someone coughed and, bearing the pressure, said as if groaning, "We haven't had a decent Great Mage in sixty years; the trainees are simply unreliable."

These words ignited the fuse.

"The kids nowadays can't even cast a Fireball at fifteen without burning their hands!"

"Magic is fading."

"The best Mage Apprentice from the last class was determined to cook, and now he's a successful three-star Michelin chef!"

"My god, he didn't use any prohibited ingredients, did he?"

"Last semester, not a single person could complete a reasonable spatial complexity analysis experiment."

"Atmospheric control ability is at an all-time low. It actually took 11 people to disperse the smog over 400 square kilometers, and they even argued that this was a new atmospheric condition, completely indescribable, and that the old textbooks were impractical—it's all bullshit; in reality, they couldn't even conjure up a decent storm."

"Actually, they can manipulate the climate; they just can't calculate the Butterfly Effect after a localized storm, so they don't have the guts to cast the spell."

Pei Shu listened for a while, a trace of mockery twisting his gloomy face, and used a low voice that drowned out everyone else to provide the best summary—"When a weasel has pups, each litter is worse than the last."

The complaints came to an abrupt halt, and dark clouds rolled within the low pressure of the conference room.

Liu Li looked at him in astonishment and said with a tone of reproach, "Pei Shu!"

But she immediately became speechless; even though she glared at him sternly for a long time, she couldn't say anything of substance in the way of blame.

"If you all feel there are suitable candidates, you can propose them now," Pei Shu raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the seven people sitting in the shadows. "I am all ears."

Silence weighed heavily under the dark ceiling.

02.

A middle-aged criminal police officer was squatting by the small river in the Ancient Town, head down, smoking. The rain that had been falling for a month suddenly stopped, and the clouds split open a gap above his head. The white sun shone on the damp earth, a layer of water vapor rising from the ground, and his shirt stuck to his body in a very uncomfortable way.

He looked up and once again examined the gloomy and dilapidated Ancient Town across the river. This was not a tourist attraction; almost everyone in the town had moved away, and there were no more than ten households left in the entire town, all of whom were elderly people left behind. Yet a young woman from the city had come to such a place after dark, and had died here.

He patted his head, feeling very annoyed.

"Team Leader Li, Team Leader Li." The most energetic kid among the crowd working across the river was calling him.

It was XiaoZhang, who had just graduated from the police academy. He had just started working and found everything novel; although he had vomited during his first crime scene, it hadn't affected his enthusiasm too much.

He played dumb.

The kid didn't care, waving something in his hand. "Team Leader Li, I found the wallet and the mobile phone! There's still money in the wallet, one, two, three, four, five—five hundred and thirty-nine yuan!"

Damn it. He scratched his hair; it wasn't a robbery-murder.

He looked from afar at the woman the forensic examiner was putting into a body bag. The lower half of her hair was pink; she must have been very young.

The river was not wide, nor was it deep. XiaoZhang waded through the water and came over.

"Cause of death?" he asked.

"Oh, the forensic examiner said it's very likely drowning."

He paused for a moment. "The fatal injury is drowning; what about other injuries?"

XiaoZhang was stumped. "There are no visible injuries to the naked eye."

He stood up with a "whoosh," glaring at the shallow water in the small river ditch. "Don't tell me the victim drowned in this washbasin!"

XiaoZhang swallowed nervously and said with uncertainty, "After the forensic doctor performs a further autopsy, there will be some kind of conclusion, right..."