The thin light blue energy ribbon was the dead man’s last bit of memory, and since he was already dead and thus not fighting back, Jianmen was able to pull the full piece of memory before he got beat up and abandoned at this place.
With a certain level of respect and awe, Jianmen closed his hand that held the ribbon, and visions of the man’s brutal beating and what happened before starting flashing right in front of his eyes.
The man’s eyes were indeed removed by the mob that beat him up, and it was a mob led by a tall, bald and bulky man with a scar on above his left brow and a knife tattoo right below his neck. The main one that beat the dead man was another bald man with piercings on both of his ears and his nose, and the same knife tattoo on his left forearm.
Jianmen then fast-forwarded through the memory, and he found that the man indeed was the one who broke into the storage unit and stole the box. But he was way too curious, so he decided that he wanted to open the lead box and take a peek inside.
There was indeed an old-looking scroll inside the box, and the man’s eyesight blurred for a second the moment he had his eyes on it, and then he instantly felt a sense of chill, anxiousness and fear of impending danger. So he decided to call up his associate and asked to meet up earlier than previously agreed. Jianmen fully knew what the feeling meant - it was one of the many kinds of reactions someone can have when they come into contact with a very small amount of unclean energy - not enough to change or mutate them or heavily impact their behavior, but enough to weaken them and make them more prone to possession and other kinds of direct or indirect paranormal harm.
But the moment the man walked out of the building of Bulky Stud Storage Space, he was snatched by the mob that beat him up and dragged into this very building. He tried to fight back once but the mob shattered two bottles on his head and pulled him back. They then proceeded to take away the scroll from him and opened it up in the previous room. The man tried to get away again, and then the mob jumped on him, broke a few of his teeth and dragged him to the current room.
The mob then held this poor man down by his hands and feet, the leader of the mob opened the scroll narrowly, seemingly only reading a very small portion of the content, and then he took out a dagger with magical symbols and patterns engraved on its blade and handle.
The leader of the mob started chanting some sort of spell, it was the first spell that wasn’t cast by himself. He was not familiar with the language of the spell, and since this is the memory of a dying man with no knowledge of supernatural power, he was not able to sense the nature of the spell. All he could feel, was that the man had a terrifying feeling about what the spell may do, and that the dagger started dripping some kind of thick and dark liquid, which actually bubbled and burnt the man’s clothes when it landed on the ground and splashed on impact. And when the mob finally got complete control over the man’s movement, they tore up his shirt and exposed his chest area.
With a careful hand and the help of the other goons, the leader of the mob started carving the symbol on the man’s chest. The man initially felt an intense pain and could not contain his cry, but then the liquid from the dagger seemed to have completely numbed the pain, yet the symbol was still cut and burnt into his chest. And the moment the symbol was completed, streams of energy were drained from the man’s body and onto the dagger, and from the dagger, a tiny and concentrated stream of energy flowed to the scroll and was absorbed by it.
From the point of view of the man lying on the ground, Jianmen was not able to see what the scroll looked like and how it changed or behaved after absorbing the energy. When the whole absorption process finished, the mob proceeded to remove the poor man’s eyes. At this point, the man’s life force was already almost fully drained and his life was already hanging by a thread.
Jianmen stopped the replay of the dead man’s memory, since there was no longer any more useful information for him. And judging from the effect of the spell on the man, it was quite clear that the whole process just happened not too long ago, since the poor man only just died in front of him in that extremely weakened state.
The dagger from the eyeless poor man’s memory was also quite concerning to Jianmen - it was definitely something infused with some kind of evil power. He could not tell anything in detail since it left very little residual energy in the air and the dead man was a civilian, yet he had a gut feeling that it, like the antique scroll, was something way troublesome that any of the mob members thought.
Jianmen cast another detection spell, but this time it could not find anything - seemed like whatever the mob did with the scroll either changed the energy signature of the scroll, or removed the residual energy in the air.
Full of worries and concern, Jianmen left the building and found a payphone nearby - it was strange that at the age of widespread cell phones there still were functioning payphones. He called 911 in the payphone booth, then swiftly left the area.
The sky was getting brighter and it was close to the time to open the grocery store. Jianmen kewn he had to go, but he still did not know what he should do when he’s there. All he had in mind was that he hoped that Shawn would give up the idea of selling the scroll to some unknown and shady buyer when he found out that the scroll had been stolen.
With his full speed, it did not take long for Jianmen to get back to the grocery store. Shawn was not in the store, so he then went to Shawn and Nan’s place.
“Ah, Jianmen, here you are.” Nan was happy to Jianmen at the door: “Are you looking for Shanyi? He left earlier to get more inventory. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Oh?” Jianmen kept his “Fuck!” to himself: “He did! He did … I think I misunderstood him, I thought we’re going together and we’re supposed to meet first. No worries! I’ll go find him! What time did he leave?”
“Well, about twenty to thirty minutes ago. But don’t rush! You can wait for him back at the store or here. Did you have breakfast yet? I have some porridge and soy milk prepared. Might not be as good as your porridge but should still be really good! If you want you can come in and have some!” Nan asked with a wide smile on her face.
“Ah, thank you! But I really need to find him. Maybe next time! ” Jianmen nodded and refused: “I’ll see you tonight! I’ll have some other dishes prepared! You’ll definitely like them!”
With a heavy sigh, Jianmen discreetly cast another detection spell, this time he used more Xuanli, and the silver ball of light was expectedly flying towards the direction of the north of Chinatown.
“Fuck!” Jianmen looked up at the sky: “It’s hard not to take this personally.”
