“What … is… that?” when Jason and Jianmen followed Caroline to the garden, they saw that the rose he and Caroline brought back from the movie set was planted on a piece of empty land. But now, the rose was surrounded by shed petals and only had a small bud where its full bloom should be. The bud seemed to have something inside of it - something that was emitting light and flickering.

 

“I don’t know what happened. I just stuck it in the ground and it just shed the petals and became… this.” Caroline raised both her hands and said: “It doesn’t feel dangerous like the ghosts we encounter… so I was wondering what it is.”

 

“I… I’ve been holding it all day and I haven’t felt anything.” Jason said: “I just felt that I’d like to hold onto it.”

 

“You’re right. You guys were just on your paths of cultivation, it is quite natural that you could not sense it.” Jianmen knelt down and gently felt what was inside of the rose bud: “How do I put it… in short you’ve been manipulated!”

 

“What?” Caroline and Jason asked at the same time.

 

“Don’t worry, it will be a good lesson for you as well. Long story short, this is a kind of minor spirit. It does not have a mind of its own yet, but it will release certain kinds of smell and aura that inspires the good will of stronger beings in order to gain protection.” Jianmen drew a circle around the rose with his finger and said: “Consider this a small project of yours: take care of this thing until it blooms. The basics are the same with taking care of a plant. And of course, you can feed it a little bit of your Xuanli everyday.”

 

“Minor spirit? Like a baby, infant ghost?” Jason asked.

 

“Not necessarily. Minor spirits are just spirits that are in a weaker state. Some spirits are in the same state all of their life cycle. Some spirits are indeed in the human equivalent of an infant state. Ghosts that you encountered before are technically spirits. But the word ‘spirit’ is just too broad and general, like the word ‘animal’. Minor spirits like this can be really weak and vulnerable, that’s why some of them have their instinctual ways of seeking protection. Inspiring goodwill from stronger beings is one of them. ” Jianmen stood up: “This circle should protect it from most harm. All you need to do is take care of it and maybe try to understand it better. Once it blooms there will be a quiz.”

 

“Oh, come on Boss!” Jason complained.

 

“Way to take the fun out of raising a spirit.”

 

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“Dispatch, dispatch, this is detective Aimee and Thomas Chaver, we’re approaching 256 South West Los Gamos Street. I repeat, this is detective Aimee and Thomas Chaver, we’re approaching 256 South West Los Gamos Street. Any status update?” at dusk of the same day, Thomas was speeding their squad car with the police alarm on, Aimee was on the police radio.

 

“Detective Chaver, there are at least 5 suspects in the house, Officer Singh and Officer Lee are under heavy attack and pinned down. Suspects are heavily armed and dangerous. We are sending in SWAT teams.” the police radio responded.

 

“Got it, we’ll try to get Officer Singh and Officer Lee out of the scene and let SWAT handle it.” Thomas said loudly to the police radio: “How heavily armed are they?”

 

“Automatic weapons. They seemed to be holding off in the house, but they are likely to escape. All units approaching the scene be careful.”

 

The address they were heading to was right around the corner, and they could already hear the gunshots. Thomas drifted through the turn and tried to approach a stranded police car ahead. Two policemen were hiding behind the left side of the car and using the car as a barricade. Gunshots were being fired from one lone house at the right side of the road onto the police car, the car was already completely totaled and broken, looking like it could fall apart at any moment. On the ground there was a small pool of blood, which seemed to be from the officers.

 

Whoever was in the house clearly saw Aimee and Thomas approaching, so they started firing at their car as well, a few bullets hit the car’s hood and right side of the backdoor but they were unable to stop the car.

 

With a quick and skillful swerve, Thomas stopped his car slightly behind the stranded car, making their car mostly behind the stranded car away from the line of fire with the head of the car pointing to the direction they came from. But just right when Aimee and Thomas got off the car, a projectile was fired from the door of the house and struck the side of the stranded police car.

 

The stranded car was flipped as a giant fireball rose through the air, the two broken bodies of the two downed officers were blown to the side, and Aimee and Thomas were knocked back and down on the ground by the shockwave.

 

In Aimee and Thomas’s blurry vision, they saw three men in black and sunglasses with rifles and shotguns in head walked out of the house and slowly approached them laughing and chatting, like they were doing some sort of twisted victory dance.

 

“We’ve got 1 and a half minutes.” one of the men in black walked to the side of Aimee, “Let’s wrap up before the SWAT team got here.”

 

“Oh, but this one smells really tasty.” one man with long curly hair, face tattoo and a lot of lip piercings knelt down by the side of Aimee, “I think I’ll take her home.”

 

“Lloyd, that’s not the plan.” the first man said with a frown: “Or do you want to do the explaining to Soren?”

 

“You know what? Fuck Soren.” the man with face tattoos turned to the first man and cursed: “It’s not even a real name, I bet the Douchebag’s real name is Tom, or Bob. And when I want a snack, I take a fucking snack.” Then before the other two men could stop him, he opened his mouth revealing his two long fangs and bit down on Aimee’s neck.

 

“Fuck off! FUCK OFF!” Aimee’s painful moan and twitching body pushed Thomas out of his state of almost unconsciousness, he sat up and opened fire on the three men, emptying his whole clip and landed his shots on the two standing but missing the one that had his mouth on Aimee’s neck.

 

Blood burst from the two men, but they just flinched and took a few steps back, there wasn’t even a sign of heavy injury.

 

“We got a fighter here.” the silent third man unsheathed a dagger from the side of his leg and walked towards Thomas, and before Thomas could put another magazine in his gun, he sped forward and knocked the gun out of Thomas’s hand. He then grabbed Thomas by the neck and lifted Thomas up and removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of fluorescent green eyes: “Tell me your name, human.”

 

“Fuck you.” Thomas struggled to get the word out.

 

“Okay, Officer Fuckyou, it’s been a pleasure...”

 

“Fuck!” the man with curly hair and face tattoos let go of Aimee and took a few steps back while having his hands around his mouth: “This bitch’s blood burns!”

 

“What?” the man holding Thomas looked back, “What happened?”

 

The man with face tattoos opened his mouth, the first man took a look and found that this man’s teeth, including his two fangs, seemed to have been corrupted by some unknown substance, and this man’s tongue and other parts of his mouth blistered up like he drank directly from a boiling teapot.

 

“Fuck! This bitch is not normal!”

 

Out of nowhere, Thomas felt that he was dropped to the ground, while the strong hand with long fingernails was still on his throat. Then the next thing he saw was the man with fluorescent green eyes holding his left arm without a hand and wrist, crying in a beastly voice in pain.

 

Due to the immense pain and just being nearly choked, Thomas could barely stand up and he could only sit up and support his upper body straight with one arm. And he just saw something that seemed like just out of the movie: another man in black, wielding two machetes, removing the head of the man with fluorescent green eyes from his shoulders with one of them.

 

The other two men growled and lunged at this man just like animals with incredible speed. But this man’s movements were even faster - with a trail of afterimage behind him, his machete danced through one of the men’s neck and arms, cleanly separating them from the victim’s body. Then he dodged to the side and sank the blade of his other machete into the final man’s back of his head.

 

The final man, who was the one that bit Aimee and got his mouth burnt, dropped to the ground face down, still struggling, twitching and growling like an animal, while trying to remove the machete from his head. 

 

The victorious man in black, now with only one machete in hand just chopped off the head of his last opponent. Shortly after his head was separated from the body, the body parts of this man with face tattoos and curly hair started burning.

 

“Please… help my sister...” Thomas tried his best to utter his begging: “Please...”

 

The 4th man in black did not respond, instead, he collected some things like wallets, rings and neck chains from all three of his victims, then went into the house from which the three victims came. 

 

The sound of the SWAT team vehicles approached, and Thomas tried his best to crawl towards Aimee.