Chapter Three: Please Kill Me

Chenxing checked his pulse and silently shook his head. Jiming no longer smiled. Zhiwei knelt and closed Zhou Lin's eyes. His skin was already cooling. Then a bloody hand emerged from the tiny white bag. It seized his collar and dragged his body through an opening no wider than a palm. All three lunged after him and caught only flattened paper. The bag ignited, leaving a receipt in its ashes. PURCHASER: XU ZHIWEI. MERCHANDISE: ZHOU LIN. PAYMENT: ONE INCOMPLETE DEATH. BALANCE: SIX NIGHTS. On the back, someone had written: Welcome back, daughter of Xu Manqing. Zhiwei stopped breathing. Xu Manqing was her mother, missing for fifteen years. Her last known location had been South Huai Street, a fact never released to the public.