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There were about ten sets of documents, almost all of which were labelled as ‘classified’. They covered the details of all similar cases that took place within the past twenty years, including a list of crime scene locations, death counts, simplified autopsy reports of every victim, and even witness statements of those who had gone missing for a couple years and showed up unexpectedly on a certain midnight.
Looks like this special task force really is dealing with ‘vampires’.
According to Kou, a vampire biting someone could lead to two possible results: The person would either wind up dead after their blood was sucked dry or turn into a retainer. The former would leave behind a dried corpse as evidence, while the latter would not, as they would follow their master and exit the scene instead and eventually be regarded as a missing person.
Despite only having less than ten reports in hand in total, the witness statements were sufficient to prove that the instigator of the case possessed fairly similar behavioural characteristics with the rumoured ‘vampires’ - though I still was not certain enough that they were actually vampires.
“This is a lot to go through.” A sigh exited my lips as I scanned through the papers. “Looks like we’ll need a few days to finish it up.”
Given this amount of data where the characters outnumber the spaces, it’ll definitely take a while to digest every nook and cranny.
“Hmm…it’s exactly as what the netizens conclude on the online forum. The ‘vampires’ usually roam around the back alleys and areas where few people pass through,” Kou said while flipping through the list of crime scene locations.
“How on earth do you read so fast?” I gasped.
That document is over fifty pages long!
“I’m just skimming through the section labelled ‘Address of Discovery’. The rest is still new to me.” She handed the document over to me, which only provided addresses in words - no maps were attached.
Being a resident in Hong Kong for three years, I have memorised all the districts and their geographical locations, as well as the names of all the main streets. However my memory did not extend as far as the name of every single street, let alone being able to answer a sophisticated question such as where one was situated.
“Do you…say, remember the name of every street?” I knew that Kou had an excellent memory, but would she be bizarre enough to carve the whole map of Hong Kong into her brain?
“Not really, I mainly take reference of the districts. Though in fact, I did play a game of memorising street names in my childhood, so I can tell the locations for some of the streets out there.”
And that’s an answer I did not see coming at all.
“Who would invent a game like that…” Honestly what kind of adult would make a game out of recitation for kids?
“It was me, I did it to entertain myself!” Kou pointed at her own smiley face, as if the simplicity of her tone normalised what she just said. And seeing how my eyes widened in amazement, she added, “I borrowed an atlas of Hong Kong from my parents at that time and recited it to myself at home. The game’s actually pretty interesting, but it’s also much harder than I imagined. Like, it took me a week to memorise the names of all the streets in the Central and Western Districts, as well as the Southern District.”
“Umm…” I honestly had no idea where to butt in.
Should I ask her if she played the game with herself because she didn’t make any friends as a kid, or should I just go along with her speech and agree that the street names of those two districts aren’t easy to memorise?
“Anyways, information on dry corpses makes up most of the intel we currently have, and these cases have been occurring all across Hong Kong.” In the end, I decided to bring our conversation back to the documents at hand.
“Yes, it’s not just the urban areas. There’re also some occurrences in the rurals…huh? This seems a bit off.” Seeming to have noticed something, Kou gestured to take the document back for a second check.
“What seems off?”
“Most of the ‘vampire’ cases took place in the Eastern District and the areas nearby.” She indicated the section which documented the addresses. Indeed, the records did align with her observation.
“The Eastern District? That’s not too far from here.” Kou and I resided in Kennedy Town, which was to the west of the Eastern District. The nearest spot was accessible on foot from where we lived. The only issue was that the district as a whole was quite big in size: If we were to head to its far east, for example Chai Wan, it would cost us a ride to get there.
“Are there any more recent cases?” I had some thoughts in mind.
“There was a dead body discovery case on the news a couple days ago. It’s now also classified as one of the ‘vampire’ cases by the police.” After searching through the documents, Kou passed me a record sheet.
Oh, so soon? That’s…some sort of efficiency from the police…I guess.
“Where’s the location? It slipped my mind,” I asked.
“Marble Road in North Point,” she confirmed almost instantly.
North Point…it’s in the west of the Eastern District. A walk from here would do…it’s decided!
“The sun’s still up. Let’s head over there to investigate after a meal.”
I took a glance at the digital clock on the desk.
“1:30PM.”
The meetup with Mr. Chong was around noon, and we’ve been discussing the case since he left - only to realise now that we still hadn’t eaten anything.
“But why?” Kou asked in confusion.
“Well of course, to search for clues that could’ve been overlooked!” I mean what else could it be? An afternoon walk?
“If you’re talking about clues, I believe the police have already done their job. Is there really a need for us to repeat it?”
“There could be some that the police were unable to locate, say, the traces and residue of magic, which sounds like a mageka’s work, doesn’t it?” Since she still did not seem to figure out my intent, I chose to speed things along.
The reports provided by Mr. Chong failed to mention a single detail about the abilities of the ‘vampires’. This gave me the idea that there might still be some remaining traces of magic at the scene of the dead body discovery, which could possibly give us a lead on the identity of the ‘vampires’.
“Mmm that makes sense.” Finally she got it. “Then let’s get going after we eat. Sakura, I wanna have fried rice.”
“Who said you can place orders!” I exclaimed, irritated. “Come on, we don’t have the time for that. Just settle with some smoked salmon pasta for now.”
There aren’t any of the necessary ingredients for fried rice at home, and most importantly, there isn’t any cooked rice left from last night! How am I supposed to make that right now!?
Actually freshly cooked rice could still be used to make fried rice, but my skills were not advanced enough to make it taste like leftovers - or perhaps it was the high standards I set for myself that prevented me from proceeding with things I knew I could not manage.
“Don’t you think you should show some appreciation for my hard work dealing with our client?” At the sight of me refusing her request, Kou immediately clenched her arms around mine and nagged.
“But there aren't any ingredients for cooking fried rice at home. What can I do about it?” I struggled to escape, but she just would not let go.
“But I’m really craving some….like Hokkien fried rice…” She put on a pitiful face and continued nagging, “It’s been so long since I last tasted Sakura’s Hokkien fried rice…”
It’s all good in the hood until she pinpoints what she actually wants. Hokkien fried rice? That’s a hell lot of ingredients to prepare! But for real, does my Hokkien fried rice really taste that great? She’s just joking, right?
There was no sign that she would stop her act anytime soon. With a sigh, I struck her a deal, “we don’t have fried scallops, diced chicken and shrimps, and it’s too late to be shopping for them at this hour. How about this: We’ll have pasta later, and I’ll cook you some Hokkien fried rice tomorrow instead, okay?”
She nodded satisfactorily with sparkles in her eyes. Such a pushover.
“By the way, Sakura, have you ever been told that you have the qualities of being a teacher?” Kou threw a question out of nowhere when I was putting on an apron in the kitchen.
“Not at all, and neither did I think so about myself, especially when I’m not good with kids.” I have always assumed that my rocket-high standards would undoubtedly put children through misery. “What makes you say so?”
“Because you’re pretty good at coaxing others.” She smiled.
Her response on the spot triggered an avalanche in my head.
“It’s just because you’re constantly weighing all these absurd requests on me!"
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