Nie Jiuluo rented a pickup truck from the lumber mill owner and asked the workers if they had any spare coats and shoes for sale. Though there weren’t any new ones, someone immediately took off what they were wearing when she offered a good price.
Xing Shen only took the coat, refusing the shoes, preferring to go barefoot.
Driving out, Nie Jiuluo briefly stopped at the factory gate. Xing Shen whistled, calling Grasshopper onto the truck.
Nie Jiuluo felt a slight sinking in the truck bed and was disgusted, but at this point, she couldn’t be bothered to say anything.
Back on the road, Xing Shen asked her: “What’s the gasoline for?”
“You said there were many people and they had guns. If they haven’t left yet, we’ll start a fire to create chaos. During the confusion… we might be able to rescue Uncle Jiang.”
***
The destination was quite far, at least a forty to fifty-minute drive. Nie Jiuluo concentrated on driving.
Xing Shen stopped asking questions and sat quietly in the passenger seat. After a while, Nie Jiuluo noticed he seemed to be reciting phone numbers.
She listened for a moment and heard him going through them one by one: 139xxxx4695, 139xxxx4696.
Nie Jiuluo couldn’t help but ask: “Are those phone numbers?”
Xing Shen was startled by the interruption, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before saying: “Yu Rong’s internal phone numbers. I’m a bit unclear on them, trying to get the feel right. These days everyone just saves contacts and taps names to call, it’s hard to remember numbers.”
Nie Jiuluo remained silent. He had a point – she couldn’t recall a single number from her contact list.
Yet Xing Shen had remembered hers.
Just as she was feeling sentimental, she heard Xing Shen ask: “Have you met Yu Rong?”
Nie Jiuluo snapped back to reality: “No, just know of her.”
“She’s about your age. Uncle Jiang took Yu Rong in. If we can contact her, she can prepare early. That way, the group at the villa might still be safe.”
As he spoke, he closed his eyes and continued filtering through the numbers he’d been reciting.
***
At ten past three, the car approached the northwest corner of the village. At first glance, the village was pitch black, without a single light showing.
Nie Jiuluo didn’t dare get too close, stopping far away and turning off all lights.
Her night vision wasn’t good, and without professional equipment, it took her a while to adjust before asking Xing Shen: “Is it that tall three-story building? The one with the walled courtyard?”
The building stood some distance from the village residences, like an isolated island.
Xing Shen nodded: “They deliberately chose it, I heard. Didn’t want to be too close to the residents. With over ten people moving in, and rural folks being curious, they wanted to avoid trouble.”
The logic made sense, but every advantage had its disadvantages: if anything happened, no one would know.
Nie Jiuluo sat in the car, studying the building intently, her fingers tapping the steering wheel: “No scent?”
Xing Shen looked embarrassed: “Can’t smell anything. So I don’t know if they’re Di Xiao, human, or half and half.”
“Were the lights on when you left?”
Xing Shen was certain: “Yes.”
Now the lights were off, which could mean several things.
First, everyone had left – if they hadn’t, she could still help while the trail was fresh. If they had left, she’d be helpless.
Second, everyone was still there, just with lights off – appearing calm on the surface but turbulent underneath. This would be manageable; they could use the fire to create chaos.
Third, most had left, leaving one or two to watch for developments. These one or two people could be either inside or somewhere else, also watching the building.
She quietly instructed Xing Shen: “Check if there’s anyone around the perimeter.”
Xing Shen got out, climbed onto the car roof to look around, then got back in: “No one. How about I let Grasshopper scout first? If there is Di Xiao inside, it won’t dare approach, and we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”
That would work. Though Nie Jiuluo was uncomfortable with Grasshopper’s presence, desperate times called for desperate measures. This wasn’t the time to be picky.
Xing Shen put his fingers to his lips, whistling so softly it was barely audible. Grasshopper quickly darted to the car’s side. Xing Shen leaned out through the half-open door, stroked Grasshopper’s neck, and in the next moment, it was sprinting toward the building.
Nie Jiuluo strained to watch its leaping figure: Grasshopper reached the gate, shot up the wall, darted along the top like a wild cat, climbed up the vertical wall…
Xing Shen got excited, quickly opening the door and jumping out: “No Xiao, A Luo, there aren’t any Di Xiao inside!”
And without Di Xiao, no matter how many people there were, Grasshopper would be enough.
Nie Jiuluo pulled on her mask: “If there’s no Xiao, then there are people inside. Keep Grasshopper under control, don’t let it randomly attack people. Also, when we get there, cut the power first. You follow my lead.”
Xing Shen frowned at the first part – in his mind, they should just take down everyone, why show mercy to these people?
But hearing the rest, especially the words “follow my lead,” he suddenly remembered their childhood cooperation in simulated environments. His heart warmed, and he softly replied: “Alright.”
***
The two crept forward, quickly approaching the gate. The snow had left a thin layer on the ground, inevitably leaving footprints, but fortunately, the snowfall had been diminishing earlier and was now getting heavier again. If it continued for another two or three hours, all traces would be covered.
Nie Jiuluo used her bracelet to pick the lock as usual, opening first the gate, then the first-floor door.
Inside, it was pitch black. She thought about using a flashlight but held back – this floor might be empty, but who knew if anyone was hiding on the second or third floors? Better to be cautious and not let any light give them away.
Xing Shen scanned the area and whispered: “A Luo, over here.”
He crouched by the wall to the right of the door: “Step on my shoulder.”
Nie Jiuluo steadied herself against the wall and stepped onto Xing Shen’s right shoulder.
Xing Shen steadied her leg with his hand and slowly stood up. Nie Jiuluo felt around until she finally touched the high electrical box, and after some manipulation, pulled the main switch.
Both sighed in relief when she stepped back down: now the whole building was dark, but Xing Shen could still “see” – the advantage was theirs.
Xing Shen quietly and quickly checked all the first-floor bedrooms – empty.
They headed up to the second floor. Nie Jiuluo couldn’t see clearly and had to grip the handrail slowly. Xing Shen wanted to help her but swallowed the words before they came out.
Just as they reached the second floor, Xing Shen froze: a bedroom door was ajar ahead and to the left, with alternating soft and loud snoring coming from inside.
Were they… sleeping?
From the breathing, it seemed like only one person. Xing Shen walked over and pushed the door. Despite being as gentle and smooth as possible, the door had barely moved a degree or two when several objects of different materials crashed to the ground behind it, making a jarring noise.
The sound jolted Xing Shen’s mind, and he pushed the door all the way open. The person on the bed was startled awake, sitting up abruptly and shouting: “Who’s there?”
Naturally, they reached for the switch by the bed.
Xing Shen dodged to the side, quickly saying: “Straight ahead, on bed, one-point-five, head at one-point-three!”
Before he finished speaking, Nie Jiuluo’s figure flashed forward.
By now, her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the darkness, and she could make out the dark shapes. With Xing Shen’s guidance of “target straight ahead, distance one-point-five meters, head at one-point-three meters height,” she was even more precise.
As the person pressed the switch and found no light, they hesitated. At that moment, they felt someone rush up, their head was grabbed, and their jaw met a heavy knee strike. Their mind exploded in chaos, and without even a groan, they passed out.
Nie Jiuluo released their head and whispered: “They deliberately stacked alarm props behind the door, don’t push it.”
Xing Shen felt a bit embarrassed – he hadn’t thought of that.
Alarm props were a kind of earthquake precaution. Some people, hearing earthquake rumors and fearing they might sleep too deeply during a night quake, would set up unstable “props”: like an upturned stool with a beer bottle balanced on one leg, or a wobbly “tower” built from various blocks. The slightest movement would knock these over, making noise to wake people up.
Later, these props were adapted for everyday use, including theft prevention: you might think a door was carelessly left open, but behind it would be a simple stack of household items that would fall at a touch.
The noise just now had been quite loud, likely waking anyone else in the building. They could only hope there weren’t many people – one or two would be manageable, but five or seven rushing in at once would be trouble.
Both held their breath. After a while, a gruff voice came from upstairs: “Gang Zi? Is there a power outage? Gang Zi?”
Only one person left?
This would be easier. Xing Shen took Gang Zi’s phone from beside the pillow and passed it to Nie Jiuluo while whispering: “Help me set the flashlight to maximum brightness.”
Nie Jiuluo complied. Xing Shen took it back, holding the screen against his stomach and covering the light with his palm. In that brief flash, Nie Jiuluo spotted Gang Zi’s pants hanging by the bed.
She grabbed the pants and quietly pulled out the belt.
After a while, footsteps came thumping down the stairs one by one, accompanied by the swaying light of a phone: “Gang Zi, you dead? Why aren’t you answering?”
The voice grew cautious toward the end.
Xing Shen remained silent until the light entered the second-floor hallway, then let out two heavy coughs and walked out with an “mmhm,” taking large steps.
As soon as he stepped out, he moved his palm away, flipping the phone to shine the light directly into the person’s eyes.
Late at night, having bright light suddenly hit their eyes was as good as being blind. The person instinctively raised a hand to shield their eyes: “You son of a…”
Almost simultaneously as they spoke, Nie Jiuluo rushed out from behind Xing Shen. Seeing the gun in the raised hand that was shielding their eyes, she didn’t hesitate. Aiming, she lashed out with the belt.
The strike was perfectly placed, the belt tip like a hissing venomous rattlesnake, whipping heavily across the person’s face. They cried out in pain, dropping both the gun and the flashlight phone. Seizing the moment, Nie Jiuluo charged forward two steps, used the hallway railing for leverage, launched herself up, wrapped her legs around their neck, and executed a mid-air twist, slamming them to the ground.
Even after landing, she didn’t dare release her legs until she was sure they were unconscious. Only then did she push herself up from the ground.
Due to her limited physical strength, she preferred using her legs. She’d used this move before when taking down Dog Tooth and dealing with Yan Tuo. It proved reliable again – in less than ten seconds, everything was settled.
Xing Shen offered his hand.
Nie Jiuluo hesitated briefly before grabbing his arm to help herself up.
Xing Shen said sincerely: “A Luo, we work very well together.”
The saying went “With blade and hound, traverse the dark soil.” Feng Dao and Kuang Quan were meant to be the perfect combination. In the darkness beneath the earth, where torches burned only briefly in ancient times, one might unexpectedly encounter Di Xiao, who often struck in darkness.
At such times, Feng Dao needed Kuang Quan’s sense of smell for direction – up, down, left, right, and distance – requiring perfect coordination. At their best, voice and movement were as one body.
It had been a long time since he’d worked with Nie Jiuluo, and previously it had mostly been in simulated environments. This time, though just a common night raid on a small building, it involved real weapons and real danger. That surge of hot blood – they’d captured it perfectly.
Nie Jiuluo responded coolly: “It was alright.”
***
As for those two men, after being knocked unconscious, they were both awakened by cold water to the face. When they came to, their hands and feet were tightly bound with cloth strips, their mouths gagged, and their eyes thoroughly blindfolded.
Nie Jiuluo held a knife and went behind Gang Zi first, pushing his head down and making a cut across the back of his neck.
Without being able to smell Di Xiao, and with them looking exactly like humans, bleeding them was the only way to check – though even that wasn’t foolproof. What if this species had evolved to the point where even their blood showed no difference?
Gang Zi didn’t understand this and thought they were about to kill him. He twisted frantically, making muffled sounds through his gag.
Blood flowed quickly, not thick. Nie Jiuluo shook her head at Xing Shen, then went to cut the other person’s neck.
Initial judgment: these two were probably human.
They struggled even more violently. Nie Jiuluo first removed Gang Zi’s gag.
Gang Zi coughed several times, and unable to see, spoke in a random direction: “Big brother, sir, no, big sister, boss, boss, we surrender! We surrender!”
He really hadn’t seen who had taken him down, only vaguely aware there were two people, seemingly a man and a woman.
This “surrender” came so unexpectedly that Nie Jiuluo wanted to say something but held back – she stayed silent, letting Xing Shen handle everything.
But Gang Zi couldn’t stop talking, spilling words like an open floodgate before being questioned: “We’re just hired hands. They had us stay here, waiting… waiting to ambush. Said if anyone came looking for the Jiang fellow, we should… should catch them if possible, if not then surrender and pass on a message. Really.”
Nie Jiuluo’s heart chilled: leaving people here to pass messages meant they were confident that even if these two were caught, they couldn’t reveal anything important.
Xing Shen asked Gang Zi: “What do you do?”
Gang Zi finally realized he’d been facing the wrong direction and quickly turned: “Just… just thugs. I’m wanted for assault in Jiangxi, on the run, just take odd jobs sometimes, living off what bosses give us. Really, check my ID, you can look up the wanted list online, my photos are there.”
Xing Shen: “So this time, which boss hired you?”
Gang Zi: “Don’t know, just take the money, don’t ask about bosses.”
“What about the people who were in this house? Where were they taken?”
Gang Zi was even more confused than Xing Shen: “People in the house? Don’t know, when we were called here, it was empty. Though people might have been here before – the beds weren’t made, some still felt warm.”
“What message were we supposed to get?”
Gang Zi cleared his throat and straightened his back: “First, they paid us well for this. You can knock us out and make an anonymous call to have the police arrest us. We’ll do our time and face legal consequences – when the police ask, we’ll say we were knocked out during a burglary.”
Nie Jiuluo was speechless: they’d thought of everything, arranged it all so considerately.
Xing Shen: “What else?”
Since they started with “first,” there must be a “second.”
Gang Zi: “Second, they said it’s cold, your friends should be brought home soon, and you know where to pick them up.”
Nie Jiuluo was startled, but before she could react, Gang Zi continued: “The third message is for Big Eyes, the one with me.”
So the other one was called Big Eyes, who was aware it was his turn, nodding continuously.
Nie Jiuluo angrily stuffed the gag back in Gang Zi’s mouth and removed Big Eyes’ gag – this feeling of being led by the nose was terrible, but they had no choice.
Big Eyes took several deep breaths: “The message I’m supposed to pass on is that it’s cold, the fruit has frozen, so bury it under the tree, and grow new fruit until they’re all gone. There’s even a drawing, in my coat pocket by the bed – I’m in the room by the door on the third floor.”
Fruit? Why this sudden talk about fruit?
Nie Jiuluo was completely puzzled.
She signaled Xing Shen to stay put while she went up to the third floor to get Big Eyes’ coat, checking each pocket as she walked.
Halfway there, she found a neatly folded paper.
Opening it, by the hallway light she could see a fruit tree drawn on it. The drawing was crude, barely more than an outline, and indeed there was fruit on the tree, but the fruit wasn’t growing on the branches.
Dotted lines hung down from the tree, with fruit suspended from them.
Counting them, there were four in total.