The Creatures that We Are

Meditating on the sofa in the living room, Gao Yang slowly opened his eyes.

It was early morning. It had stopped snowing outside the window. The sun cast hazy light on the remaining snow in the backyard, the white striking.

Lithe Snake and Nine Frost had finished their shift. They sat at the dining table, drinking soy milk and playing xiangqi[1].

Hong Xiaoxiao and Can had long woken up. And they had been busying themselves in the kitchen. Can had a tray in her hand carrying two cups of hot coffee and two pieces of toasted bread, one of which was topped with spam.

“Hurry, hurry!” Hong Xiaoxiao was more eager than Can.

“Geez, stop hurrying me…”

Can walked up to Gao Yang with excitement and nervousness. “Captain, you’re up. Fancy a coffee to pick you up?”

“Thank you. I’ll have some later.” Gao Yang rose to his feet, about to wash up.

Thud, thud, thud. Gray Bear walked down the stairs from the second floor, face flushed. After scanning the room, he suddenly broke into strange laughter with his hands on his hip. “Haha! Haha! Ha!”

A second later, Gao Yang and Can picked up the coffee on the table almost reflexively to splash it at Gray Bear.

And theirs were the lighter attacks.

Lithe Snake, who was about to win the game, lifted his hand and sent the chess piece pao flying toward Gray Bear’s left eye. Nine Frost shot to his feet at the same time to kick at Gray Bear’s abdomen.

Gray Bear had been prepared. He cocked his head to dodge the chess piece while tensing the muscle of his abdomen to take Nine Frost’s kick. The force wasn’t that great.

The hot coffee Gao Yang and Can splashed at him, on the other hand, did quite the damage.

“Ugh, it’s hot…”

Gray Bear quickly backed away, wiping his face with both hands.

“Congratulations, Gray Bear. Your Jeer hit level 4.” Gao Yang was the first to come to the realization.

“Haha!” Gray Beer visibly lit up. “How is it? Quite effective, yeah?”

“Not bad.” Gao Yang nodded. With quite high Willpower and Charisma, I still fell for it.

Gray Beer took the Support Rune Circuit out of his jeans pocket, shaking it. “I leveled up after one night, unlike a certain someone, who spent two days and a half to level up Telepathy.”

He tsk-tsked. “It’s not good for men to last too long in this.”

Thud. Nine Frost threw a punch at Gray Bear’s face. Gray Bear caught his fist, and the force of it hit him like a gust of wind coming from an airdryer, shaking Gray Bear’s beard for a second.

“Uncle Bear!” Can blushed. “Don’t make a dirty joke! Be considerate to us women.”

“Oh, are there women here?” Gray Bear pretended to look around, his gaze settling on Lithe Snake. “Ah, there is a petite chick here.”

Swoosh. Lithe Snake threw a throwing knife at him. Gray Bear raised his transformed right arm and blocked it.

Gray Beer stopped talking. Nine Frost and Lithe Snake quickly calmed down, surprised by the strong hostility and reaction they had shown earlier.

Lithe Snake and Nine Frost were both fighters, and their Willpower and Charisma wouldn’t be that high. Thus, they had less resistance to Jeer than even Can.

Gao Yang smiled. “It seems you can now taunt particular targets. That’s a substantial leap.”

“Oh!” Can caught on. “Uncle Bear, I was wondering why you were being so annoying. So you were experimenting.”

“What else can it be?” Gray Bear grinned, tossing the Support Rune Circuit to Gao Yang. “Captain, don’t have me stay and watch the house in future missions.”

“You hate watching the house so much?” Gao Yang asked on purpose.

“Yeah! If you tell me to stay again, I’m gonna lure all the enemies in with Jeer and play Werewolf with them!” Gray Bear pretended to be angry.

“Good idea,” said Lithe Snake. “Then I’ll leave an arm here and blow all of you up.”

“Piss off!”

Gao Yang went to the bedroom with the Rune Circuit. Hong Xiaoxiao was already there, chatting with Ke Yo while lazing on the bed. They giggled in excitement, seemingly talking about something interesting.

When Hong Xiaoxiao saw Gao Yang, she jumped off the bed like an employee getting caught messing around at work, standing to attention. “Captain!”

“Captain.” Ke Yo got off the bed and stood up.

Gao Yang nodded. “I’m here for Ke Yo.”

Hong Xiaoxiao hurriedly ran out of the room.

Gao Yang handed the Support Rune Circuit to Ke Yo. “Gray Bear’s Talent leveled up. You should take this.”

Ke Yo lowered her left hand and held onto it with her right hand, glancing at the Support Rune Circuit with her lips pursed instead of taking the Rune Circuit.

“Don’t you want to level up Strange?”

Ke Yo shook her head and said with little confidence, “Can I really…reach level 4?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You said that none of the Tails had increased their Talents to level 4. Perhaps it’s impossible for us.”

“That’s because you’ve never gotten your hand on a Rune Circuit.” Gao Yang added in his mind, Even level 5 isn’t unreachable, let alone level 4. My Lucky has hit level 5 after all.

“Yeah. The Tails dreamed of getting a Rune Circuit every day, but we never got our hands on one until death.” Ke Yo smiled bitterly. “I’m the only survivor. And now, a Rune Circuit is right within my reach. I only have to take it…”

“Do you think you don’t deserve it?”

“I don’t know.” Ke Yo shook her head.

Gao Yang smiled. “This isn’t given to you out of pity or sympathy. It’s your reward for completing the mission. Take it.”

Ke Yo accepted the Rune Circuit after a few seconds.

She immediately felt energy resonating at the tips of her fingers. There was a strange sense of familiarity that made it feel like the Rune Circuit was something she had been carrying around for years and lost in a careless mistake.

“Thank you, Captain. When should I return it?” Ke Yo put away the Rune Circuit.

“Once you level up.”

“How long will that take?”

“Depends on the individual. It can be one second, or it can be as long as…” Gao Yang grinned playfully. “A whole fortnight.”

“A fortnight?” Ke Yo was surprised. “Who’s so slow that…”

“Hush.” Gao Yang interrupted her quickly. If Qing Ling heard them, he would be dead.

Ke Yo seemed to have sensed a danger too. She nodded.

Gao Yang reminded her, “I’m going out. Relay my orders to the others for me. Nine Frost and Lithe Snake are on breaks. Wang Zikai, Qing Ling, and Gray Bear will walk the perimeters. Can and Nainai are putting on disguises to go out and keep an eye on the Qilin Guild. At two o’clock in the morning, we move. Whatever you don’t plan to take with you, dispose of them starting from now.”

“Okay.” Ke Yo memorized what he said.

Gao Yang headed to the walk-in closet and put on a jacket, a baseball cap, a scarf, and a mask. He was about to head out when his phone rang. It was a message.

Gao Yang glanced at the screen and fell silent for a few seconds.

He turned to Hong Xiaoxiao. “Give me a bigger bag, Little Hong.”

…

City Library, Xijing District.

It was a modern library consisting of two white four-story buildings with an avant-garde design, built at the riverbank upstream of Li Rivers. The entrance sat at the center of the building. From a bird’s eye view, it would look like an open book at the source of the Li River.

That reflected the intention of the design: water was the source of life, and books were the source of thoughts.

Gao Yang had a large black backpack on his back, dressing like a college student. He entered the library with a member card he swiped from someone and headed to the second floor.

He made it across the best-seller shelves and reached the shelves for classic literature, where there were few people. Pretending to be a student looking for books to borrow, he walked around the shelves and browsed the books, hiding the fact that he was looking for a good spot for his purpose. Soon, he found the blindspot of the surveillance cameras.

Waiting before the shelf, he looked up at the books displayed. The sunlight coming through the window hit the spine of one of the books. The title was A Letter from a Strange Woman.

Gao Yang was curious. He reached for it, but then the book retracted, taken by someone else on the other side.

1. Also known as Chinese chess. Since it’s technically a fictional world and the word China is never mentioned, I find it a little awkward to have the word Chinese there. ☜

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