Chapter 57
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Chapter 57: The Fallen City
“Then I’ll see you next time.”
With a cheerful farewell to the chūnibyō-mysterious figure, Beibei listened as the window creaked open—then shut again.
Would Her Highness the Princess prank her, pretending to leave while secretly staying behind to scare her?
Beibei entertained the thought with some anticipation.
But clearly, she was overthinking it. Her Highness wasn’t that kind of person. She just wanted to get her hands on another solo pull for the gacha.
Due to the current incurability of black-element conditions, all black-element patients were transferred to the northern city hospital. But even that could only postpone the inevitable—a few more years of life, nothing more.
From the city’s southern region to the north, the distance was long, yet for Mi Xiaoliu—who moved on foot and could leap across rooftops by the dozen—it was enough to witness the city’s transformation from poverty to prosperity.
Of course, not all of North City was glittering towers. In the western riverside zone lay a section that could only be called a “slum.”
It was even grimmer than the south. The people here were true vagrants.
Those with a slightly better status or job might afford to live in a converted shipping container. The rest cobbled together shelters from garbage and scrap.
Their daily routine was a cycle of low-paying work and scavenging just to stay fed. Once winter ended, it simply meant it was time to begin bracing for the next one.
They lived to survive—no goals, no dreams. A piece of pork was a rare treat. Trash went uncollected, yet for them it was a treasure trove of novelty.
Sometimes, even trash yielded miracles.
Like Old John, who used to live in a cardboard shack. One day he found that some idiot had driven a luxury scooter into the river. It still looked brand new. After borrowing a crane from the nearby junkyard and fishing it out, he discovered it wasn’t too badly damaged. Splitting the profits with the junkyard, Old John got himself new clothes, found a decent job, and left the slums—thanks to that idiot who drove into the river.
What the average citizen resented as wage-slavery, they coveted as salvation.
This slum was on Mi Xiaoliu’s usual path home from the hospital. Once she left the high-rises, she had to walk across ground-level terrain.
Last time she passed through, some younger folks had tried to photograph her—the vigilante sensation sweeping the city, wanting to treat her like a celebrity. But no matter how they snapped their cameras, all they captured was a blur.
Why would people bring filming gear to such a filthy place? For clout. Viral content. Influencer material.
It started with kind-hearted intentions, but as the place’s notoriety grew, so did the exploitative content: “Just how disgusting is the dirtiest place in Fanzui City?”, “Day One of Living in the Slums: Challenge.”
This time, however, it was eerily quiet.
Last time, there were still some people grilling fish together by the river under the night sky. Now, it was as if all the container homes had been evacuated overnight. Not a soul in sight.
Only the faint reflection of distant city lights cast any glow.
“Master, get out of here. On TV, when it’s this quiet, something creepy is always going on,” Sasha warned, seriously.
“Mmm.” Mi Xiaoliu picked up her pace, striding through the maze of containers with her long legs, practically jogging cross-country.
But just as she passed a red container, a rough, muscular hand intercepted her.
With practiced precision, the hand avoided injury from the sudden impact, clamped over her mouth and nose, and dragged her into the container.
She’d been moving fast—but this hand had reached out the very moment she passed, grabbing her perfectly.
“Don’t make a sound!” the man hissed, pressing a slightly heavy gas mask onto her face.
Mi Xiaoliu struggled a bit, but was overpowered. Maybe their strength was close, but his size gave him the edge. In close combat, size always mattered.
“Quiet,” he whispered again, stern.
“Master, don’t move yet.”
Mi Xiaoliu stopped.
By the faint light, she could see the man was also wearing a gas mask. He didn’t even glance at her, eyes locked on the slits between the containers as he watched outside.
But there was nothing. No figures. Only the tension in the air.
Then—like puppets with their strings cut—several crows dropped straight from the sky into the river.
The sound of high heels clicking followed.
Along the surface of the river, a graceful silhouette shimmered.
“You killed them all?” a voice crackled through the woman’s earpiece.
“Ehh~ some creepy old guy tried to get handsy. I just defended myself! One little slip-up and, well…” the woman in the leather jacket stuck her tongue out mischievously in the air—even though the person on the other end couldn’t see her.
“Keep it low-profile. Make sure no one knows you’re there. Especially not Foboler.”
“I didn’t leave a single witness… Say, there are a lot of talented folks in this city. Can I take some back with me? Fresh blood for the lab?” she asked, taking off her boots and dipping her feet into the river.
The fish that had been playing in the water began floating belly-up.
She cheerfully scooped them out, using tools left behind by the vagrants to prep dinner.
“I don’t care what you do—just complete the mission. There are already urban legends about corpses rising from the dead. Are you trying to spark a zombie apocalypse?” the earpiece barked.
There was a pause.
“Priority one is finding the ‘Little Demon King’. He’s returned to Fanzui City. Don’t forget—you’re just a researcher. No real combat skills. If you didn’t happen to counter Mi, we wouldn’t have even bothered sending you.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll go set up some sentries first.”
After ending the call, the woman wiped the water off her soles in the sand, dug out the grit between her toes, then put her boots back on and left—carrying fish and utensils.
Once they were sure she was gone, the strange man finally released Mi Xiaoliu’s gas mask.
“Don’t take it off yet. Let’s move,” he said, running ahead to lead the way. “You’re just a kid. Don’t you have school tomorrow? What are you doing running around at night?”
Mi Xiaoliu said nothing. Mingxue had warned her not to tell anyone about Beibei.
“That woman’s from Easter. You heard about what happened in Fallen City last month?” He waited for a response, but the girl remained silent.
He sighed and kept going. “I mean the ‘falling people’ thing. You really haven’t heard?”
A month ago, a bizarre event unfolded in Fallen City—bizarre enough to be recorded in human history.
It had been a clear, sunny day, yet the chaos in Fallen City remained unchanged.
First, someone fell—smack—like a mosquito swatted flat. Blood and guts everywhere. Unrecognizable.
In this fast-paced era, a jumper is nothing out of the ordinary. In a place like Fallen City, people barely flinched—as long as the body didn’t land on them. It wouldn’t even make the news.
But what if the fall happened from the top of the tallest building in the city?
What if, moments later, bodies kept raining down, one after another, splattering across the city?
Most of them were dressed like doctors or scientists—white coats soaked in blood.
Even the near-invisible local security forces rushed into action, but the stench of blood filled every alley.
The carnage was so extreme, they couldn’t even identify most of the bodies.
“Later they found out—they were all part of an old organization called Easter.”
They ran all the way until buildings came into view. The man took off his mask, flung it into the river, followed by his grimy coat. Then he reached over and pulled off Mi Xiaoliu’s gas mask too.
Finally, she could see his face.
That strange man who fed medicine to dogs.
He motioned for her to toss her coat too—but Mi Xiaoliu clung to it stubbornly, not budging.
Sasha had told her: “Zip the coat up tight.”
Because what she wore underneath… was far too revealing.
