The moment the neon tube exploded in the heavy rain, Lin Shen saw the reflection behind him in the convenience store window - three scaly arms penetrating the glass, with dark red blood scabs condensing between the fingernails.
He held the bronze compass in his arms tightly. This ancient artifact passed down from his grandfather was getting hot. The heavy rain washed away the huge advertisement on the outer wall of the office building. The large gilt characters "The Seventh Cleanup Operation of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau was a complete success" flickered in and out of light in the lightning. In the sewage under his feet, half of a torn-up wanted poster floated. The young man in the portrait had the same face as him.
"The moon is full again." The old beggar on the street corner suddenly said, turning his cloudy eyes to the night sky. Only then did Lin Shen realize that the clouds had cracked into cobweb-like gaps, and where the silver light poured in, all the neon lights went out at the same time. Countless shadows wandered among the tall buildings, like ghosts flying into the sky and escaping from the earth in mythology, or ancient spirits recorded in the "Book of Mountains and Seas".
When the first wolf howl penetrated the rain curtain, Lin Shen finally understood the symbol that his grandfather had drawn on the floor with blood before he died - it was not a totem, but the word "Guixu" written in oracle bones. This steel forest, called the "City That Never Sleeps" by humans, may have been a cage trapping the gods from beginning to end.
