Chapter Four: The People Taken by Light

Before the police reached the observatory, Li Wu removed the borrowed name from Shen Yan's chest. “It is more convenient if Chen Du dies here.” She swallowed the two glowing characters back into her neck. “Shen Yan must leave through the front door.” His phone recovered its signal. News alerts reported nineteen people missing during the aurora. The locations seemed unrelated, but every last image showed the same cold-white streetlamp. On each lamp was Qichen Group's seven-pointed star. The first anchor lay inside a photograph left by the earliest victim. Xu Ning, a night nurse, had sent her mother a selfie from Wangchao Plaza. She smiled wearily before an aurora broadcast. In a shop window behind her stood a child with a black umbrella.