Night Watchmen, and the Lowly Vermin

Lu Yuan was almost upon him.

"Wait! Hold on — I'm still useful to you!"

He stopped.

Pete's eyes lit up. He pressed on quickly:

"The Black Rat Gang has resources and intelligence channels you simply don't have. Spare me, and whatever we dig up, I'll make sure you hear about it first — every single time. Isn't that a deal worth making?"

Seeing Lu Yuan pause, Pete pressed his advantage:

"And look at your situation — you've already been targeted by that shadow. From everything I know, nobody it's ever fixated on has walked away alive. You can't want the same fate."

Lu Yuan tilted his head slightly.

The offer tempted him, honestly. He was just a broke student — there was no way he could match a local gang's reach and intelligence networks.

"Speak."

Pete swallowed and forced a smile:

"The Black Rat Gang has been quietly tracking the shadow across the whole slum district for a while now, and we've actually turned something up. First sightings go back four or five years — people spotted it preying on slum residents even then. The death toll was low at first, and witnesses were scarce. But these past couple of years, the numbers have been climbing. Based on what the Gang has confirmed alone: last year, over a hundred people were killed by it. This year will probably be worse."

Lu Yuan's eyes went wide. "Over a hundred? That many? And even more this year?"

His heart sank.

The slums saw plenty of death every year — gang violence, starvation, disease. But over a hundred people killed by some inexplicable creature, and that was only what the Black Rat Gang had managed to document — this was already serious.

Lu Yuan frowned. "For an abnormal situation like this, shouldn't the Local Governor be penalized if it isn't reported to the Night Watch Bureau?"

Pete shrugged. "Who said they didn't report it? We have people inside the Bureau, and they say it was filed last year. There just hasn't been any response. The bigwigs simply don't care about what happens here."

"That's not good at all."

"In the eyes of those high-and-mighty people," Pete said, "everyone in the slums is just lowly vermin. Why would they spend a moment worrying about whether we live or die? People die here in droves every year — a hundred or so annually doesn't even register on their radar."

Lu Yuan genuinely couldn't understand it. How could something like this be allowed to continue unchecked?

The Night Watchmen were an official organization established specifically to handle abnormal threats — Aberration Events, foreign spies, and anything else outside the ordinary. Not just the Red Maple Empire; every nation had an equivalent bureau. In Lu Yuan's estimation, they were something like the special forces or intelligence operatives he'd known about in his previous life.

By any measure, the current situation was already serious.

"Is there anything else?"

"One more thing — that creature seems to have no interest in Gene Warriors. It only goes after ordinary people. Probably can't even harm us. So there's no real need for you to worry, friend."

The two of them looked at each other. A silence fell.

"It came looking for me a few days ago," Lu Yuan said calmly. "If I weren't as capable as I am, I'd probably be dead."

Pete stared. He blinked.

The fact that the shadow had shifted from preying on ordinary people to going after Gene Warriors — everyone could tell that something significant had changed about the creature.

Honestly, even now, a thread of unease ran through him. He didn't know whether the thing would come for him again. It was strange, that creature. Genuinely strange. That was precisely why he was taking all of this so seriously.

"You know," Pete tried again, "you've actually been targeted. And from everything I know, no one it targets ever survives. You really don't want to—"

"Give me your contact information," Lu Yuan said.

He pulled out his phone with an easy smile.

Pete exhaled in visible relief and produced his own phone. They scanned QR codes and added each other as contacts.

Seeing that Lu Yuan was satisfied, Pete nodded eagerly and then tried his luck:

"And by the way — the Black Rat Gang carries real weight in this district. If you ever felt like joining up—"

"Get lost."

Pete flinched back two steps. He dropped the subject immediately.

He wasn't about to join some outfit like that.

"The two upstairs — you'll handle them?"

"Leave it to me," Pete said at once. "I'll take care of everything."

"Come on, then."

Lu Yuan led Pete back into the building.

The whole building was perfectly silent.

He turned to Pete. "Deal with them."

Pete walked over and crouched beside the green-haired thug. Despite several broken bones, the man was still conscious. When he saw Pete approaching, his eyes brightened with desperate, hopeful relief.

"Pete — big bro—"

Pete, expression utterly blank, placed a hand on his throat and squeezed.

*Crack.*

The green-haired thug died on the spot.

Pete then quietly disposed of the unconscious red-haired thug as well.

He hoisted both bodies onto his shoulders — one to a side — and turned toward the door.

"Oh, one more thing," Lu Yuan said.

Pete: *???*

"The broken window — who's paying for that?"

He was flat broke. He couldn't afford window repairs. He still had gene serums to save up for.

"I'll pay! I'll pay! I'll transfer the money straight to the landlord myself!"

Pete shot him a wide grin as he glanced back. "Mr. Lu — I'll be taking the bodies, then?"

"Go ahead."

Pete carried the two corpses out the door, and — in a curiously considerate gesture — eased it shut softly behind him.

Lu Yuan let out a slow breath and looked out the window.

The darkest hour before dawn. Outside, the neon lights blazed on, as bright and indifferent as ever.

He pocketed his phone after adding Pete as a contact.

The building was utterly still. The other two tenants' doors remained firmly shut, not a sound from behind either of them — not the faintest sign of anyone home. That was the survival logic of the slums: keep quiet, keep your head down. Getting mixed up in other people's trouble could get you killed.

He was nearly done when he noticed something.

A friend request was waiting on his phone.

He glanced at the contact note.

Zhuo Ming.

The classmate he'd run into at the Sandy Rock Palace.

He accepted it without much thought.

After a moment's pause, Lu Yuan knocked quietly on Li Qinghe's door.

She must have been standing right behind it — the door swung open at the very first knock.

She was in a plain white nightgown, phone held tightly in one hand, eyes moving warily over where the two men had been lying in the hallway. Her expression was still faintly unsettled.

When she saw Lu Yuan, something in her face relaxed, and a warm, relieved smile broke through.

"Little Yuan! What happened just now?"

"Sister Qinghe — why are you out here?"

"I heard the gunshots and woke up. There was nothing for so long after that. I wanted to come check on you. I also called the police."

Something warm moved through Lu Yuan's chest. In this whole world, who else would come to his door at a moment like this?

"I'm fine, Sister Qinghe. Don't worry. Just give me a moment to wrap up here."

Li Qinghe nodded, glanced once more toward the now-empty hallway, and said, "I'll head back to my room, then."

She went back inside and closed the door.

Lu Yuan exhaled and looked out at the pre-dawn dark.

The darkest hour before dawn. The neon lights still burned, unchanged.