So-Called Karma 8

A faint scraping sound drifted up—the shuffle of shoe soles on the steps, like a mouse skittering through the cracks of a cabinet.

The sound climbed the stairs, floor by floor, until it stopped at the door.

Silence. Yan Xianchuan held her breath. The person outside stayed still too. After a long pause, they turned and walked away. She heard the door to the left open.

The neighbor was back.

Yan Xianchuan didn't rush to check. If she were alone, she would've joined the chaos downstairs, but she wasn't alone anymore. She couldn't afford to take risks. Every move she made had to keep the person in the bedroom safe.

So she stayed put, listening as the door clicked shut and the whole building fell quiet again.

But the silence didn't last. A fresh wave of clamor began.

Someone had set a house on fire. Thick black smoke billowed in all directions, carried by the wind. It was like a death knell—wherever the smoke spread, chaos and slaughter followed.

This disturbance was more intense than the last. The delirious ordinary people had mostly died in the streets. This time, the main fighters were espers. Yan Xianchuan observed that their powers seemed stronger than before.

Greater lethality meant the conflict was escalating.

Car roofs were torn off. Trees snapped. The powers varied, and the destruction they caused was equally diverse.

Yan Xianchuan even saw someone morph into a giant red chili pepper, making everyone around them cry and cough uncontrollably until they coughed up blood and died.

Another person summoned a flying wheel that whirred as it spun, its edges lined with sharp barbs, slashing anyone nearby—flesh tearing, blood spraying.

The man laughed loudly, but someone else froze his head solid. He tried to cut it off with his wheel, only to slice his own head off instead.

The scene was both astonishing and absurd. It didn't look like a fight between espers; it looked like a catalogue of bizarre, gruesome deaths.

As Yan Xianchuan watched intently, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the burning building had gone out at some point without her noticing.

The fire had been enormous, engulfing the entire structure from top to bottom, and had begun spreading to neighboring buildings. But since it was far from their rest stop, she hadn't paid it much mind.

The espers busy fighting certainly wouldn't stop to put out the fire. Even if someone were still clear-headed, they probably wouldn't have the power to do so. Only if all the water-affinity espers in town gathered together could they possibly extinguish it.

It wasn't the townsfolk, so it had to be the Church.

That was why she was shocked. How had the fire been put out so silently? She hadn't sensed a thing. By the time she noticed again, only the charred, yellowed exterior wall remained, the flames that had been licking at it all gone.

If it were the work of an esper, that person was at least B-rank.

That person was a threat, and Yan Xianchuan knew deep down that a large-scale testing ground like this would never have just one high-level esper stationed.

The second wave of chaos ended as the sun set.

More corpses littered the streets, most of them mangled and broken, few left intact. The deaths were far more miserable now.

A faint scent of blood drifted through the window into the room. It wasn't strong—like a fish just taken from the freezer, its skin slightly softening, giving off a mild fishy smell.

Yan Xianchuan was used to such smells. That didn't bother her; dinner was what mattered.

Skipping a meal wouldn't hurt a healthy person, but Lu Mingqiu was injured. The wounded needed care.

There was a water dispenser in the living room with half a tank left, so they wouldn't run out of drinking water.

She got up from the sofa, walked to the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge door with its peeling paint, pleasantly surprised to find there was still something inside.

A bottle of some drink—no label, no date, but the cap was sealed tight. Probably the Church had deliberately removed the packaging to make it look like their own supplies, to keep residents from getting suspicious.

But without a production date or expiration date, just looking at the liquid inside, there was no way to tell how long it had been sitting there.

Yan Xianchuan thought about it and decided not to take it. In the crisper drawer, there were two chocolate-nut bars with a production date a year ago, just one month past expiration.

There were also a few shriveled potatoes, dry scallions, and half a tomato that had grown moldy. Black fuzz had hollowed it out from the inside, leaving only the dark red skin stuck to the glass shelf.

She crouched down and pulled open the freezer drawer. It was packed full. Ice had creeped up over the edges, making it impossible to pull the drawer out.

Yan Xianchuan had to smash the ice with her hands, sweep the shards to the floor, and then pull the drawer out. Unsurprisingly, she found several pieces of meat inside.

A forearm, a few ribs, and some chunks that probably came from a thigh.

She pushed that drawer back and pulled out the next one. A neck, more ribs, a chopped-up lower leg... They were arranged neatly, making efficient use of every inch of space, with almost no gaps.

Great.

She'd heard that human meat has seven times the protein of beef, tastes like chicken, and is crunchy. But Lu Mingqiu definitely wouldn't eat that.

Besides, this meat was bad—tainted with drugs. Even if it were edible, they shouldn't eat this kind.

Yan Xianchuan pushed the drawer back, took the two chocolate bars, closed the fridge, then stubbornly began rummaging through the cabinets, trying to find something else edible.

The kitchen looked like it hadn't been used in a long time. A layer of dust had settled around the stove. The cabinets were sparse: half a bag of salt, half a bottle of soy sauce, vinegar, moldy jam.

Bowls and plates sat stacked crookedly, and despite being in the cabinet, they were covered in dust.

Apart from that, there was nothing else. Yan Xianchuan searched the entire kitchen and didn't find even a single piece of rock sugar.

Maybe she should check the bedroom.

She thought this and immediately went to the room belonging to the diary's owner. The wardrobe was empty—she'd already checked. The desk had two small drawers, padlocked. Yan Xianchuan yanked the locks off with her bare hands, pulled them open, and searched thoroughly, but only found a stack of paper with scribbled lines that looked like nothing recognizable.

In the other drawer, there was a small bag of cookies, milk-flavored. She set them on the table next to the chocolate bars, then walked to the bed, knelt down, lifted the bedskirt, and looked under the bed.

Then she came face-to-face with a pair of wide-open eyes.

A very familiar face, the same as the girl in the photograph, except her eyes were bloodshot and her lips were purple. She was clearly long dead.

She must have died before they entered the house; otherwise, she would have heard breathing.

The dead girl blocked the under-bed space completely. Yan Xianchuan, displeased, reached out, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out from under the bed, then leaned in to look again.

There were only a few shoeboxes scattered under the bed. Nothing else.

No luck.

She went to the bathroom to wash her hands, then took the three items she'd found and brought them to the master bedroom. "This is all the food I could find," she said glumly. "This chocolate expired a month ago, but it's still edible."

"If that's not enough, there's a neighbor next door," Yan Xianchuan said seriously. "I can go take some from his place."

"No, no need for now," Lu Mingqiu quickly stopped her. She took one chocolate bar. "I'll just have this. You have the rest."

Yan Xianchuan shook her head and piled everything by the headboard. "You eat it all. I'm not hungry."

She then left the bedroom, went to the kitchen, washed two bowls, filled them with water from the living room dispenser, and brought them back. "Drink some water."

Sick people should drink plenty of water—that was a big truth she remembered well.

"Thank you," Lu Mingqiu said, taking the bowl and taking a sip. "But I can't eat all of this. Let's split it, okay?"

Yan Xianchuan was about to say something, but Lu Mingqiu interrupted, "If you don't eat something, how will you protect me?"

Hearing that, Yan Xianchuan had no choice but to pinch a couple of cookies and put them in her mouth.

The cookies were hard, with only a faint milky flavor, but somehow, they tasted sweet on her tongue.

After resting all afternoon, the painkillers had worn off, but Lu Mingqiu had recovered a little. There was only a dull ache now.

"What's happening outside?" she asked.

"A lot of people died," Yan Xianchuan replied, giving a brief summary of what had happened. Then she added, "Oh, by the way, I saw the girl who wrote the diary."

"Under the bed in the second bedroom."

Lu Mingqiu sat up straight, immediately on guard, but before she could act, Yan Xianchuan added, "She's already dead."

Lu Mingqiu frowned. "Let me go look."

Yan Xianchuan had no choice but to follow her to the second bedroom. The girl was lying on the floor, her body curled up in a stiff, unnatural pose, her skin pale with the pallor of death.

Lu Mingqiu crouched down and examined her closely. Her eyes were bloodshot, with blood seeping from the corners. There were no wounds on her face, but her arms bore many scars—old wounds that had healed long ago. In her hand, she clutched a piece of cloth, which felt damp to the touch.

"When the green smoke spread, she probably hid under the bed with this cloth," Lu Mingqiu said quietly. "The Church released the green smoke. It might be a catalyst, with side effects of delirium and extreme aggression. Those who succeed awaken esper powers; those who fail die. It's a screening process. Each wave of conflict makes the powers stronger. The strong kill the weak—another screening."

"The Church isn't just trying to artificially influence esper awakening—they're treating these people like poisonous insects, like raw materials."

Lu Mingqiu reached out, closed the girl's eyes, then pulled a blanket over her.

"It's been six hours since we lost contact. Reinforcements should arrive soon."

Reinforcements were on the way.

Hei Ge had taken over Lu Mingqiu's role, and she had acknowledged him, so naturally the two shared some traits—both liked to prepare for the worst.

For this operation, the three people in Nanjin City were far from enough. There was no organization base in Lipeia, but on the way, they could pass through Moon City, where they could draw personnel.

Moon City was located in the north, built in the center of a crescent-shaped lake. The water embraced it like the moon cradling a star. It was also a famous tourist attraction.

They took an airship there, coordinated with the airport, and landed directly in Moon City.

Moon City was a city full of ancient charm. It preserved many ancient buildings—eaves, gray tiles, carved beams, painted pillars. The reason this city hadn't been ravaged by the Great Cleansing was simple: the Yan Family.

This was the great city where the Yan family was entrenched.

The Yan Corporation, which sold arms and munitions, had reaped untold profits during the Great Cleansing. The weapons it exported had sparked countless additional wars.

It was no exaggeration to say that nearly a fifth of all firearms during the Great Cleansing were supplied by the Yan Corporation. It was precisely because of this that Moon City, a historical treasure, had been preserved intact.

As soon as they left the airport, they could see many people wearing modified hanfu. This was a unique cultural feature of the city. The locals were proud to live here and actively promoted their ancient culture to outsiders.

The modified ancient garments preserved the traditional basic cuts while incorporating modern trends, adding many contemporary details that didn't hinder movement.

Bai Ge wasn't interested in the pretty men and women lining the streets. He led his two companions and took a taxi directly. After changing vehicles several times, they arrived at the Moon City branch base—a food processing plant.

A plant that made spicy strips.

The semi-automated factory had few workers. They entered through the parking lot, twisted and turned, scanned their identities three times, and finally reached the underground base.

Hei Ge had already sent notice to the base commander and provided a list of candidate espers, briefing Bai Ge on their general abilities so he could choose suitable members.

None of this information was known to Gold Ring and Pepper—their clearance wasn't high enough.

Bai Ge's selection process was simple: a sparring match. He wanted to see who was best in actual combat.

Those who reacted too slowly, had poor control over their powers, or were weak in hand-to-hand combat were all eliminated. Finally, he chose four people: Calamus, Butterfly, Fan, and Pea.

Among them, Fan had x-ray vision; Butterfly could fly and was an excellent sniper; Calamus could conjure throwing knives and control them like hidden weapons, which complemented Gold Ring well. Pea's ability was the most peculiar—in short, she was like a bard, able to sing to grant buffs to those around her. So even though her martial arts were lacking, she still made the cut.

After selecting the four, Bai Ge didn't pause to rest. He headed straight back to the airport, boarded the airship, and flew directly toward Walnut Town.

As the airship took off, the last sliver of sunset was just dipping below the horizon. A deep night rose, clouds obscuring all the stars. But this night would never be darker than the shadows lurking in Bai Ge's eyes.