Kevin, Keryn and Mick all fell silent. For a moment they did not know what to do. Captain Ko sipped his tea, while looking around and seemingly taking the moment to rex a. The clo the wall showed that it was almost 3 AM in the m, and they only had a few hours before sunrise.

  Kevin scratched his jaws and head, then took a deep breath before asking: “Captain - you tell me a bit more about the Blue Envelope - ”

  The horrified screams ing from the ste unit interrupted Kevin before he could get the questions out. The captain and Keryn shot out from their seats and opehe door.

  The two men locked inside were struggling and kig, their eyes were full of fear but unfocused. Bck cw marks and handprints appeared on their faces and necks. The man with a ku his leg was having it worse, as his shirts and trousers were all torn up, as if invisible hands were g at them.

  Captain Ko spped a few talismans onto the wall, but they instantly burned off. He had no choice but to run to the living room, pulled out a small inse burner and rushed back, yelling: “Stop! STOP!” There was a lot of oily-looking ash in the burner, not anything near regur inse ashes. He yelled at his officers as he grabbed the ash from this burner and spping it onto the twling men’s body: “You! Go find my woks and pans, scrape as mu as you , NOW!”

  Kevin immediately uood what the captai, so he rushed into the kit and started pulling out all the cookware on the shelves and in the drawers.

  Keryn and Mick came along to his side, and were haw pans, whose bottoms seemed already scratched and abnormally .

  “Scrape the bottoms, and collect the ash.” Kevin put oal wok upside down on the ter, with a small bowl on his side and a small metal spoon in his right hand, “Ashes from the bottom of a wok, they could ceal a living human from the eyes of paranormal entities.”

  “Fuck! It’s almost scraped already!” Mick found a metal spoon and started scratg like Kevihe bottom of the metal pan was almost like new, with only spots of bck char here and there, not much for him to scrape.

  “Just get all you !” Kevin put some crumbs of char from the metal wok into the small bowl: “Even a little helps!”

  Mick looked around and fixed his eyes oove i. The stove was quite , but the cooking grates showed some signs of use. He immediately headed over there and picked up one grate - there was a trace amount of ash on it, not much, but way more thatom of the pan he was handed.

  “Do grate ashes work?” Mick picked a grate and put it in front of Kevin: “There’s some here!”

  “It should - it’s the same stuff.” Kevin nodded.

  “Need some help here! Get some ash my way!” Captain Ked with his voice raised.

  Mick, Keryn and Kevin gathered a small bowl of ash as fast as possible and brought it to Captain Ko. Ie unit, the two men were still moaning, screaming and struggling. Their shirts were torn off and there was ash smeared all over their faces, shoulders and chest. It seemed to have helped, as the handprints and cw marks stopped appearing. But their legs were still utack, and the remaining ashes in the captain’s mini burner was not enough.

  “Okay. Let’s hope this helps.” Captain Ko smeared the st bit of it he scooped from his burner owo men’s soles. Theook the small bowl from Keryn and put the ash owo men’s knees. “Get more, now! Just in case.”

  After another round of ash, the cw marks and handprints finally stopped appearing on the men’s bodies. Captain Ko had to wake both up using cold water and pg spients uheir noses, before leaving them ie unit again.

  “The curse still lingers in your house?” Kevin asked the captain after taking a deep breath and weighing his words.

  “No it’s handled. But this is just one of the reasons I ot let you go out before sunrise.” Captain Ko checked his meical watch: “We’re less than two hours away from sunrise. You guys go get some more sleep. I’ll take care of all of this.”

  “They’re - they’re gonna live to testify, right?” Kevin’s question was quite hesitant.

  “What - of course, what the hell do you take me for? ” Captain Ko was stunned by the question at first: “I’m still yoddamned captain! I don’t do things like that!”

  “Okay, okay! Our apologies, captain.” Keryn immediately pulled Mid Kevin behind her: “Good night captain, we leave when sunrise, right?”

  “Yes. But here’s a better option for you - you e with me to the Northern District, to meet with some people iy. To be precise, I arranged a meeting with cilman Ding’s office.” Captain Ko them.

  “You’ve got a meeting with cilman Ding? Again?” Keryn narrowed her eyes.

  Captain Ked: “You’ll know more about it tomorrow. Because not everything is ironed out yet. Are you ing or not?”

  Keryn exged looks with Kevin and Mick, then the captain: “We’ll tell you tomorrow.”