“Hi Captain Ko, how you’re doing?” Marcus walked into the captain’s offid stayed just where the frame of the door was.

  “Sit down. I have an assig for you.” Captain Ko appeared to be quite annoyed, pointing directly at the chair in front of his desk.

  “Yes, captain.” Marcus plied and id ba the chair to appear i yet still fident and ready to a and: “What’s the matter? Anything a-packed? Or is there some new breakthrough?”

  “her.” Captain Ko sighed and threw a thin folder onto the desk: “Take a look at this file.”

  Strange as it was, Marcus still picked the folder up and ope - it was the file of an officer, ohat was young and oective track, from the 15th Prect, which was located in the deeper parts of the South-Western District.

  “This Officer Mick Cramer seemed like quite the young man.” Marodded as he read through the final parts of the file: “Three High endations, one Medal of tribution to Local unity. This almost seems like a - well - ”

  “A child from a ected family aiming for some kind of path into politics?” Captain Ko scoffed: “Yeah, indeed. But as you might be thinking right now - why am I showing you this? Isn’t 15th Prect the perfect pce to stay until this kid makes detective? Well, you see, this particur young officer finds this kind of path too safe and too - arranged. So he requested a trao another prect, ohat is more down to earth, whi rich well-ected family talk, means closer to where the as are at. And guess which prect is so lucky to have him?”

  Marcus almost jolted from his chair, and he immediately started shaking his head: “Wait, captain - I might be desk-bound for now, but I am almost fully recovered, and I am fully caught up with all the iigation - ”

  “Too bad, her Pahaik nor Lance spare the moment to mentor a new and up-and-ing youive. And Sai is young as well, too junior to mentor anyone.” Captain Ko shook his head: “And, to be ho, you are the most qualified detective to do so. I just ran the o firm it, and I believe my math is correct - you are the oh the highest solve rate on cases, aren’t you?”

  “I thought Keryn was the oh the highest solve rate?”

  “Yes, teically, but Lance is not much of a talker, is she? She’s not gonna be a good mentor, at least not now.”

  “What about Shrevas? His number couldn’t be that far off, plus he has more experience.”

  “Pahaik is leading the iigation, he ’t be distracted. her Lance.” Captain Ko tapped his desk with his knuckles and stared Marcus right in the eye: “Tomorrow will be his first day. He has to gh some onb process in the m so you meet him at noon. This is an order, don’t screw it up. Got it?”

  Marcus sighed and looked up at the ceiling, theantly: “Fine, I’ll babysit. But I want to get off desk duty.”

  “Exactly what I had in mind. Bring him along with the iigation, but keep him safe.” Captain Ko pulled another folder and started looking through the dots inside: “You’re excused. And, uh, take today off if you need, sider it an additional injury day for taking one for the team.”

  Marcus went back to his desk full of frustration, he was almost ready to jump bato the a, and with the experience he had in the past few days, he felt like he was close to finding out the ao all of this, or at least a lot of useful clues leading up to the final answer.

  After thinking for a short moment, he made a decision. He went to his locker room and the lost and found room to fete casual looking clothes, then immediately hopped on a taxi to head to the docks of the Mud River, where he failed to find anything useful st time.

  Because it was early in the m, the taxi ride only took a little over half an hour. The docks were quite crowded now, with the local farmers and fishermeing up produd fresh fish stands and visitors from all over the city. The smell of barbecue fish, crab and shrimp dumplings and the slightly salty smell of raw fish steaks filled the air, and Marcus couldn’t help but go and browse through a few of the stands, and he ended up with a paper bag full of skewered fried fish balls, oic bag of fried fish steak, and a paper cup of local rice wine. He o blend in with the crowd, he told himself.

  Strolling through the crowd, Marcus gradually approached the pce where he id Sitch. After these few days, the docks were already ed up. There weren’t even traces of police tapes blog the area off. The entire brutal fight and the subsequent occurrence of the Blood Rainbow, whided up with at least one dead and many injured, now seemed to be well fotten.

  The er where Sitch id a out his st breath was now occupied by a meek ale looking old woman with a hunched back, standing behind a stand selling flowers. Even visiting at an early m like right now, this was nowhere near a good spot for oo set up a stand.

  “Do you want some flowers, young man?” The old woman looked at Marcus with an anticipating look: “See, I have these fresh sunflowers, and roses and lilies, they are fresh off my garden, ones my old husband and I cultivated together with heart. Care to buy some?”

  “Do you have Chrysanthemums?” Marcus asked.

  “I’m sorry - but no - ” The old woman sighed and shook her head: “It’s hard to get the seeds these days. Rumor has it that they may get banned some day.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “It’s just a rumor, because it’s almost - ” The old woman was almost about to say something, before she shook her head once again and decided to ge the subject: “Anyway, do you want to show remembrance of a friend or a family member? I have some white roses and some lilies if you’d like.”

  “Give me a lily then.” Marcus sighed.

  After spending half a dolr on a white lily, Marcus put it down in the er. Thehahe old woman and moved on to other areas of the docks. After colleg his thoughts and calming the guilt inside him, he focused his Qi in a into a quasi-meditative state, where his reas would bee slow but his senses would be enhanced so that he could hear and see more clearly.

  “... it happened again, this time in the South-Western District.” The faint voice of a worried man creeped into Marcus’ ears: “I - I fear for my family, should we leave the city?”

  “Then you should have started saving - the relocation tax is no joke.” The voice of another man responded: “If you try now, you may be able to have a down payment after a few months if you work hard. When you have relocated, you pay from your new pce.”

  “... it just makes no sense, why do I have to pay taxes for leaving? I swear, this city is sug everything from us …”

  “Shh… be grateful that the unity collective iated a lower number.”

  “... yes, but they raised the prices for prote talismans again - how do we even make it through this?”

  “Let’s stick together - and we may have to start hunting in the deep forest if we o.”