Chapter 3: Calamity
Chen Ling’s pupils contracted sharply!
But the moment he blinked, the blood-red characters on the floor vanished in a flash, as if they had never existed.
A hallucination?
Chen Ling stood frozen in place. Those few words had drilled straight into his brain, impossible to forget.
[We are watching you]
Chen Ling whipped his head around!
In the empty living room, it felt like pairs of invisible scarlet pupils were observing him. This sensation of being stared at was exactly the same as in his nightmares.
He stood stiff as a statue for a long while before forcing himself to take deep breaths.
“Maybe staying up late these past few days preparing for the Enforcer exam wore me out. My nerves are just too tight…”
“But that was something the original owner of this body did. It shouldn’t have anything to do with me… Could something have gone wrong when the two souls fused, damaging my mind?”
“I’ve heard that severe schizophrenia really can cause indistinguishable hallucinations…”
Chen Ling temporarily suppressed the fear in his heart, trying to explain everything scientifically. A fierce hunger surged up.
He casually grabbed a grilled sausage from the cutting board and swallowed it in two or three bites. Only then did he come back to his senses a little.
“Maybe I need a psychiatrist.”
Spooked out of his wits, Chen Ling didn’t even have the mood to wash his face. He threw on a black cotton coat in a hurry and pushed the door open.
Even so, the freezing air rushing in from behind the door made Chen Ling shiver.
This was Chen Ling’s first real contact with this world after regaining consciousness. He took a deep breath, ready to face all the unknowns and hardships.
Yet when he casually looked up at the sky, a “holy shit” still burst out of him.
The light of early morning scattered from the east. Dreamlike blue ribbons floated above the small town, seeming close enough to touch yet impossibly far away.
Aurora.
Daytime aurora.
Chen Ling stood at his doorstep, staring blankly at the sky full of auroras for a long time, muttering to himself:
“What the hell… is this world?”
……
“Damn it, why is this road so hard to walk?”
“The weather’s too cold, and it just rained hard last night. The mountain path is all frozen over. Be careful.”
“Dawdling the whole way, and now it’s dawn.” The man wiped the sweat from his temple. “How much further?”
“That mass grave is right up ahead… we should be there soon.”
Two staggering figures climbed over the peak and finally saw the dense clusters of dirt mounds not far away. Some mounds were new, some old. The vast majority had no inscriptions—just a wooden plank stuck in front, or some item from the buried person’s life.
But after last night’s downpour, many of the mounds here had washed apart. Wooden sticks and other items were scattered messily everywhere. The scene was a total wreck.
What the two didn’t expect was that the mass grave was already sealed off with strips of yellow caution tape. Over a dozen figures moved through the cordoned area, their expressions somewhat grim.
“Enforcers?”
Seeing those eye-catching black-and-red uniforms, the man’s eyes went wide. “Why are they here!”
“They already found out?” The woman’s face turned deathly pale. “Is it… is it Ah Ling? Did he go find the Enforcers? Is he really not dead?”
They thought they’d killed Chen Ling, yet the very next day Chen Ling came back on his own. Add the Enforcers suddenly appearing at the burial site… there was almost no other explanation.
“No…” The man stared hard at those figures. “District Three’s Enforcers, even handling criminal cases, send out three people at most! Sending out over a dozen at once like this, it can only mean…”
“A Calamity… appeared?”
The woman seemed to think of something, and cold sweat instantly soaked her back!
“Could that monster in the bedroom be…”
“Run!!” The man grabbed the woman’s wrist and turned around to get away from here.
Just then, an icy voice came from nearby.
“Halt.”
The two froze instantly.
An Enforcer ducked under the caution tape and slowly walked up to them, eyes slightly narrowed.
“Who are you two? What are you doing here?”
“I… I…” The woman stammered, unable to get the words out.
“We’re here to see our son.” The man spoke as calmly as he could. “He’s buried here. Today is his death anniversary.”
“Then why were you running?”
“…Because we’re scared.”
“Scared?”
“So many Enforcers deployed at once—the Gray Realm is intersecting here, right?” The man swallowed. “Maybe a Calamity crawled out of it too… We’re afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.”
“Oh? You know quite a bit.” The Enforcer raised an eyebrow in surprise.
The man squeezed out a pale smile.
“Sir Enforcer,” the woman asked cautiously, “did a Calamity really escape from the Gray Realm?”
“That’s classified.”
The Enforcer answered flatly. “You won’t be visiting your son today. Head back… What you saw here isn’t allowed to be spread. You know the rules, right?”
“Know them, know them.”
“Go.”
Hearing those two words, the man finally relaxed inside and immediately turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Their hearts skipped a beat.
“Leave your names and addresses.” The Enforcer pulled out a pen and paper. “Confidentiality protocol requirements. Please understand.”
“Chen Tan, Li Xiuchun, 128 Hanshuang Street, District Three.”
Once recorded, the Enforcer let them leave. He crossed the yellow caution tape, walked up to a man in a black coat, and handed the document over.
“Brother Meng, I asked. They’re here to see their son.”
Han Meng held a thick cigarette between his lips and took a deep drag. Pungent smoke mixed with his breath, scattering in the cold wind.
He glanced casually at the document and spoke calmly:
“Send a few people to follow them quietly. There’s something wrong with them.”
“…Huh?”
“Hanshuang Street is at least ten-plus kilometers from here. For them to arrive at this hour, they left by four in the morning at the latest… and the rain hadn’t stopped then.
Who goes up a mountain to pay respects in a rainstorm before dawn?
Also, this is a mass grave. It’s where people with no family or those who died far from home get buried. As parents, why would they bury their kid here?”
That Enforcer froze, then slapped his forehead. “Right! Why didn’t I think of that?”
“…Xiao Qin, how exactly did you pass the Enforcer exam back then?”
The Enforcer called Xiao Qin laughed dryly twice and changed the subject directly. “By the way, Brother Meng, did a Calamity actually crawl out of the Gray Realm last night?”
Han Meng didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled a palm-sized device from the inner pocket of his coat. In the center of the device was a compass-like needle mechanism, with different colored zones marking the scales, clear and obvious.
“Is this the Calamity Pointer?” Jiang Qin examined the device curiously, reaching out to touch it, only to get the back of his hand smacked hard.
“This thing is extremely precious. When you get promoted to Enforcer, you’ll naturally get your day to touch it.”
Jiang Qin rubbed the back of his hand bitterly. “How does this thing actually work?”
“It’s a device that detects the danger level of a ‘Calamity’. Once it’s turned on, whichever zone the needle points to indicates what magnitude of ‘Calamity’ fluctuation appeared nearby. If it’s just a simple Gray Realm intersection with no ‘Calamity’ crawling into the real world, it won’t react.
The higher the Calamity’s rank, the more violently the needle shakes.”
Jiang Qin nodded and spoke with some worry:
“Brother Meng… there shouldn’t be a ‘Calamity’ that crawled out, right?”
“Most likely not. After all, if a ‘Calamity’ really descended through here yesterday, District Two and District Three would’ve been in chaos long ago.”
“That’s good.”
“Just to be safe, we still need to finish the test.”
As Han Meng spoke, he switched on the Calamity Pointer. Seeing this, the other Enforcers all looked over curiously.
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
The Calamity Pointer showed no reaction.
Just as Han Meng breathed a sigh of relief, the needle on the compass suddenly twitched violently!
The needle swept frantically across the differently colored zones. A piercing screech tore out from inside the device. Han Meng’s pupils shrank instantly, and he subconsciously let go of the Calamity Pointer!
Bang——!!
Countless parts shattered into the air. The sharp broken edge of the needle grazed Han Meng’s cheek, instantly leaving a streak of scarlet blood!
The Calamity Pointer…
Exploded.