“Just keep paddling, Marcus, don’t stop!” Sitting behind him the broken chair, Marcus’ father encouraged him, pointing ahead with his left hand: “There! You see? We’re almost there! Just keep going! You can do it my son!”

“Dad… my arms are sore!” Marcus replied, while still paddling the water using a flat piece of plastic along with his father: “I wish Mom is here… so we can paddle together… Where is she, Dad?”

“She will meet up with us soon, son. Don’t worry!” Marcus’ father wiped his forehead and tried his best to sound hopeful and upbeat: “Just keep going son, we don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?”

“No… but… my arms are so sore!” Marcus whined and cried: “I - I just can’t go anymore!”

“You can do it! Just believe in yourself!” Marcus’ father said, slightly raising his rate of paddling the water with a piece of broken wood.

“I - I really can’t!” Marcus cried, her young arms finally stopped, almost dropping the piece of plastic into the water: “I can’t! I can’t!”

“You really can’t?” Just this moment, Marcus’ father’s voice turned calm and even a little suggestive: “That’s okay, son. Just rest.”

“I - I can?” Marcus turned back, feeling a sense of unease. His father’s face somehow became dry and no longer weary, even though they had been on the water for hours and had not had even one bite of food. The day was already getting brighter, and Marcus could see that his father seemed unnaturally calm and collected. Even his shirt seemed dry and well-ironed.

“Yes, in fact, we can just meet your mother right now, if you want.” His father responded with a smile and a calm voice, not heaving, not grunting, no sign of weakness or exhaustion, just like casually giving another suggestion that they should go to the park: “Do you want to go meet Mom now, Marcus?”

“What?” Memories of Marcus being grown and a possibly under-valued detective flashed through his head, and he became both confused and somewhat alerted by this oddity: “Why do you say that, Dad? Do you know something?”

“No! What are you worried about, Marcus?” His father scooted closer to him, smiling and extending his hand forward trying to stroke Marcus’ wet hair: “Don’t you wanna go meet Mom?”

“No!” Some of Marcus’ adult memory got back to him, and he immediately slapped away the hand of his father: “You’re not my father! Who are you? ”

“What are you talking about? I am your father, I am your Dad…”

“No, nonono - you’re not!” Marcus immediately moved back, and his Qi was slowly concentrated on his arms: “Who are you!? Why are you here?”

“I am your father. Why don’t you just come with me, let me bring you to Mom…” Marcus’ “father” squirmed and tried to touch Marcus’ head one more time.

“No!” Marcus dodged the hand of his “father”, and unleashed a swift palm strike against his dry and smiling face. The center of his palm made close contact with the cold nose of his “father”, then his face, then the inner parts of his head. The entire frame of his “father” cracked, crumbled and shattered like it was made of thin china or stained glass. Along with the face and body of his “father”, the scene around Marcus also broke and collapsed into darkness.

“What? Why are you doing this?” In the utter darkness, Marcus heard the desperate pleas and cries of a woman, which sounded quite similar to the voice and tone of the rotten woman, but only more lively and more human. “Come on, please. You cannot do this! You cannot do this! Why are you doing this to me!? No! No!”

After a brief moment of silence, the woman’s voice became much more desperate and even somewhat unhinged: “No! What - what the hell are you doing!? These people - they’ll kill me! No! You cannot do this to me! You can’t do this to me! They’ll fucking kill me! You… you lying, cheating bastards! You sick traitor! You sold me out? You sold me out! Damn you! Damn you! Curse you! Curse you! I’ll tell everyone ! I tell everyone about our deal! I’ll tell…”

The woman’s voice was muffled by something, and then the darkness broke, as Marcus woke up on the floor in the house.

“Marcus, glad you’re awake now.” While he was adjusting to the light in the room, Marcus felt someone pulling his arms and helping him sit up straight.

“How long was I out?” Marcus scratched his head while sensing the meridians in his body - his Qi was quite spent, there was only a very small portion of it left in him. Lucky for him, all the collisions and battles between his Qi and the cold energy did not cause too much damage to his meridians - he sensed some bruises and small lashes, but those would gradually heal as long as he kept calm and did not overexert his Qi.

“From what we could tell, we were trapped in here for only about five minutes. But we just woke up not long before you, so it’s a bit difficult to say.” Kevin shook his head.

“How are you? ” Marcus took a look at Kevin’s hands - there were indeed bite wounds on his fingertips, now red but beginning to scar. He then looked at Keryn, who was also sitting on the ground, trying to recover in a meditative pose and with her eyes closed. Her meditative pose was pretty standard and textbook, quite similar to the pose Marcus used when he meditated.

“I - I feel okay, what about you? Are you okay?” Kevin shrugged, but instantly gasped and had to lay back, as his left shoulder seemed to have caused him immense pain.

“Can’t complain. Here, let me take a look.” Marcus nodded and raised his hand above Kevin’s left shoulder. Kevin hesitated for but one moment, then pulled down collar and exposed his heavily bruised skin.

“That bit - I mean that woman’s scratch was quite nasty, huh?” Kevin grunted and inhaled through his teeth as Marcus laid his palm on him and slowly pushed a warm stream of Qi into his muscles and meridians. There were still some very light traces of the dark, cold energy remaining in his tissues, and the warmth of Marcus’ Qi burning it away caused him even more pain as well as the light but visible recovery of the bruises.

“When we’re outta here, have someone take a look at this.” After a short while, Marcus moved his hand away and coughed, because Kevin’s skin showed signs of redness and light burn from prolonged contact with his Qi: “I am pretty sure this should help, but it might not have completely removed her touch.”

“Thank you, Marcus.” Kevin sighed and pulled his collar up, then took a quick look at Keryn: “And, uh, what should we tell everybody when we’re out of here? I assume neither you nor Keryn have registered with the city?”

“No. And I don’t know about Keryn there. But I am assuming no.” Marcus chuckled and shook his head: “Her style is not - well, let’s ask her this when she’s done. Hope she’ll finish soon.”

“I’m done.” Keryn opened her eyes and stood up: “And no, I’m not registered either. So we’d better have a cover story.”

“I checked the door and the wall, there was no damage there. ” Kevin shrugged: “Whatever place we were in, it was only loosely connected to this space we’re in.”

“So, let’s go with something simple then.” Marcus scratched his jaw.