The young woman hurriedly walked down the hall, hugging a folder to her chest. She had bangs level with her brows, a fair and clear face, and big eyes. The dazzling smile never seemed to leave her face. She looked like a student still in school, with an unspeakable freshness. This was one of the RZ Unit’s¹ support personnel, Xue Xiaolu. 

At the end of the hall, an office door opened from inside and a dark, skinny man walked out. Seeing her, he called, “Xiaolu.” 

“Liao-da-ge, is Captain Hu there?” 

The man nodded and turned sideways to make way for her. 

Strictly speaking, the RZ Unit amounted to a military organization, but its administration had become independent long ago. It specifically targeted the mysterious blue seals that had shown up at some unknown time. The personnel who composed it were generally separated into two parts: field personnel and support personnel. The support personnel included scientific research personnel and medical personnel. 

This Liao Chenyuan was an example of a field agent, a sniper by training. He was very amiable, but not much of a talker; he was always somewhat reticent. 

Xue Xiaolu knocked on the door and went in. Hu Bugui was on the phone. He made a gesture at her. 

Without leave, Xue Xiaolu came over to him and sat down, putting the folder she was holding on Hu Bugui’s desk. An unsecured photograph accidentally floated out from inside. She bent down to pick it up. The photograph was of a delicate-featured young man looking a little impatiently at the camera but still forcing a proper enough smile. 

After a minute, Hu Bugui put down the phone. His eyes fell on the photograph in Xue Xiaolu’s hand, and he frowned. “Has everything been collected? Is there news of him?” 

Xue Xiaolu shook her head. “Fang Xiu and Qin Luo have been conducting a thorough investigation. They’re about to hit bottom. Fang Xiu says not even the old South-East Asian drug barons could hide like this. We can probably be certain that he's disappeared.” 

Hu Bugui opened the folder, his fingers tracing the words “Su Qing, male, twenty-four years old.” He put a cigarette in his mouth and was silent. 

He sat there wrapped in black clouds, each of his cells issuing the warning “I’m in one hell of a bad mood.” 

Xue Xiaolu didn’t dare to disturb him. She could only look down at the young man in the photograph. As she looked at him, her thoughts went astray. On the one hand, she consoled herself that as a normal woman, there was nothing unusual in letting her imagination roam when she saw a picture of a handsome young man; on the other hand, she was inwardly shrieking—damn, this Su Qing’s looks really were noteworthy; what was his relationship with Captain Hu? 

Captain Hu had only sketchily said that the blue seals had fixed on him while he had been with this person. Under the circumstances, it was likely that he would get dragged in, so he had sent people to check his residence and confirm his safety. 

So Xue Xiaolu’s reasoning was as follows: had he been a random bystander, the blue seals, who didn’t all suffer from persecution complexes, wouldn’t have seen just anyone as a threat. So the two of them must have shown a certain degree of intimacy at the time. But if he had been a friend, how could Captain Hu not even know where he lived? 

So there were only two possibilities: either this was an online friend he had just met, or he was a one-night stand. 

Xue Xiaolu’s feminine instincts told her that their “earnest” Captain Hu wouldn’t go out to meet online friends like a youngster. This had to be a one-night stand, had to be!  

She visualized it: after his assignment, an exhausted Captain Hu was hanging around dead bored at a bar. Then this Su Qing walked in. Captain Hu’s eyes lit up. He pounced and put the moves on, all this and that, and then…

“…Xiaolu?” 

Hu Bugui looked up and found a strange smile on the young woman’s face. Her consciousness had floated off to regions unknown. She didn’t react when he called her name, so he rudely picked up the folder and hit her on the head. “Comrade Xue Xiaolu.” 

“Oh, right!” Xue Xiaolu nearly swallowed her own tongue. 

Hu Bugui glared at her irritably. “Go contact public security and collect information about missing persons. See if there’s any worthwhile information. Get to work, don’t just sit here in front of me.” 

Xue Xiaolu blinked. “Captain Hu…I’m actually Dr. Lu’s assistant, not a specialized data assembler.” 

Hu Bugui picked up the phone on his desk. “Fine, I’ll ask Lu Qingbai for you whether he needs your assistance right now…” Before he finished, Xue Xiaolu had already fled at the speed of light. 

The office door shut, and Hu Bugui picked up the photograph Xue Xiaolu had left behind—Su Qing, twenty-four years old. He sighed and scrubbed his own face, thinking, I have to find him. This child is innocent. 

Meanwhile, the innocent Comrade Su Qing was starting his chaotic life in the grey house. The course of his life, which ought to have followed the usual pattern of living to old age and dying of sickness, had suddenly jumped the track, traveling on an increasingly out of control wild road. 

After further conversation, Su Qing learned that Cheng Weizhi was a university professor. He immediately recovered his equilibrium. He had been feeling that he had ended up here because he was meeting divine retribution for not studying, but this Professor Cheng, who had studied, was in the same straits as him. 

How did the blue seals select grey seals? 

Professor Cheng explained: “I’ve been observing for a long time and have found that emotions can’t be absorbed among the blue seals or between blue seals and grey seals. One out of five people can become a grey seal, so with that criterion, during their ‘feasts,’ they search for suitable grey seals to fill vacancies.” 

“So how did you get here?” Su Qing asked. 

Professor Cheng gave a bitter laugh. “That day, my son made a fuss about wanting to eat McDonald’s. There isn’t one near our house, so I had to get on the subway to go buy it for him. Somehow, they got their eyes on me—I didn’t even have time to bring home what I bought.”  

Su Qing nodded and thought profoundly, when a person was unlucky, he could get food stuck in his teeth drinking cold water. 

But could you call this being unlucky? This wasn’t a natural disaster, it was pure man-made calamity. The next day, when he went into the main hall to eat, he saw the frosty guards and the row of puffed-up self-satisfied white coats and thought, There are some people who can make others unlucky. 

Su Qing’s protection as a newcomer would probably continue until his first “use.” The Type 4s who had already been warned once didn’t come mess with him again. They only watched him and Cheng Weizhi from far away with hateful looks, like a pack of wild dogs with their eyes on distant prey, waiting to pounce, so hungry their eyes were red. 

On the surface, Su Qing concentrated on eating and drinking, but inwardly he kept watch on that bunch. He had been on friendly terms with some rogues and delinquents. He knew that when these people had lost “turf,” they had to get it back. At a time like this, there were only two ways to resolve the problem: those with money pulled out the money, those without money could only pull out the bricks. 

Su Qing chewed on his chopsticks and thought it over. It seemed that the kings of hell weren’t going to get in his way for now. He had to deal with these little devils, or else the lives and property of the masses would be in danger. 

Cheng Weizhi had seen the day before that Su Qing was like a child spoiled by a nanny, chewing his chopsticks while he ate, not chewing his food for ages after putting it in his mouth. He went over and tapped him. “Eat properly.” 

Before, Su Qing had found it extremely annoying when people said this to him—hurrying him even while he was eating. But this time, these words suddenly made him feel warm inside. He felt there was still someone looking after him and actually put his head down and started to eat in earnest. 

The fainting Type 3 from yesterday saw that no one was watching him and came over, too. He introduced himself, and Su Qing learned that this joker was named Tian Feng. His timidity didn’t come from the type of his energy crystal; he seemed to be a natural born rabbit. He hadn’t been in the grey house long and hadn’t even been “used” once, and he was already scared out of his mind. 

As he was speaking, the “nudist” female comrade ran over to hug his leg, scaring Tian Feng into a yelp. He leapt up like a lit firecracker and knocked right into a bushy-bearded man with a white towel tied around his head and utensils stuck into the towel like flowers. Knife, fork, chopsticks, and spoon fell all over the ground. The bushy-bearded man was irate: “My flowers have all wilted!” 

Tian Feng looked at him, trembling. “I’ll…I’ll plant some more for you…” 

The bushy-bearded man made a delicate gesture, pointed to Tian Feng, then brought an iron fist down on his shoulder. In a coquettish grumble, he said, “As if I’d want flowers touched by a layman like you!” 

His punch wasn’t serious, but Tian Feng’s little body couldn’t handle it. He backed up two steps and plopped onto the floor, the back of his head hitting a table leg. A bowl of eight-treasure congee fell off the table, all of it pouring onto his head, turning him into a beautiful dragonfruit flower. 

This accident attracted the unstoppable laughter of several surrounding lunatics. Some laughed too merrily. They jumped onto the table, turning over dishes. Vegetable juices splattered, plates and bowls flew. Even the people sitting dully waiting to be fed got involved. The lunatics flipped the table and knocked the dull ones over like dominoes, one falling into the next, making a spectacular sight on the floor. 

All the white coats frowned. One of them blew the whistle hanging around his neck. At his order, a guard by the door fell out and shot once towards the ceiling. Bang—as if a pause button had been pressed, everyone in the main hall simultaneously settled down. 

Su Qing had been pulled aside by Cheng Weizhi when the riot started, withdrawing from the great stage of carnage. While no one was paying attention, he quietly stole a fork and a table knife from a table and put them in his pants pocket. 

When the meal ended, Su Qing saw the Type 4s from the day before crowding towards him while the white coats weren’t paying attention. Su Qing pushed Cheng Weizhi aside and told him to go on ahead. Cheng Weizhi uneasily turned back to look at him. Su Qing squeezed out a smile and mouthed the words “Don’t worry, it’s all right.” 

Then he stuck his hand in his pants pocket. The chill of the metal seemed to give him the power to remain calm. More and more people crowded towards the exit; this was the most suitable time to take advantage of the confusion—a hand suddenly landed on Su Qing’s shoulder, pulling him back. 

In that instant, Su Qing fell back in the direction of the tug. Then he turned and pulled out the fork hidden in his pocket, stabbing hard at the center of the back of the person’s hand. 

He was a young man—true, he was kind of a loser, but when he jabbed with all his strength, you definitely couldn’t call it light. The person gave a shriek at once. The skin on the back of his hand was torn. Su Qing took the opportunity to stamp on his lower body—and he didn’t just stamp, he twisted. The fierce-acting Type 4 fell to the ground, eyes rolling straight up in pain. 

Su Qing stuck the bloody fork back into his pocket, put on his most contemptuous, most badass expression, and looked at the man. Before the white coats alerted by the shriek could crowd through, he quickly squeezed into the crowd and ran. 

It was a long time before his heart rate calmed down. Su Qing seemed to have experienced a great adventure. He felt that he had never in his life been so fucking cool. 

---

Translator's Note

¹归零队 - 归零 (gui ling), return-to-zero, is a form of data transmission in which the signal returns to zero between pulses; I’m translating it with the acronym because it’s snappier.