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 relax and rest. The clock on the wall showed that it was almost 3 AM in the morning, and they only had a few hours before sunrise.

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

The horrified screams coming from the storage unit interrupted Kevin before he could get the questions out. The captain and Keryn shot out from their seats and opened the door.

The two men locked inside were struggling and kicking, their eyes were full of fear but unfocused. Black claw marks and handprints appeared on their faces and necks. The man with a knife stuck on his leg was having it worse, as his shirts and trousers were all torn up, as if invisible hands were clawing at them.

Captain Ko slapped 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 incense burner and rushed back, yelling: “Stop! STOP!” There was a lot of oily-looking ash in the burner, not anything near regular incense ashes. He yelled at his officers as he grabbed the ash from this burner and slapping it onto the two struggling men’s body: “You! Go find my woks and pans, scrape as much bottom as you can, NOW!”

Kevin immediately understood what the captain meant, so he rushed into the kitchen and started pulling out all the cookware on the shelves and in the drawers.

Keryn and Mick came along to his side, and were handed two frying pans, whose bottoms seemed already scratched and abnormally clean.

“Scrape the bottoms, and collect the ash.” Kevin put one metal wok upside down on the counter, 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 conceal a living human from the eyes of paranormal entities.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

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

“Just get all you can!” 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 on the stove in the kitchen. The stove was quite clean, 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 than the bottom 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 Ko urged with his voice raised.

Mick, Keryn and Kevin gathered a small bowl of ash as fast as possible and brought it to Captain Ko. In the storage 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 claw marks stopped appearing. But their legs were still under attack, and the remaining ashes in the captain’s mini burner was not enough.

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

After another round of ash, the claw marks and handprints finally stopped appearing on the men’s bodies. Captain Ko had to wake both up using cold water and placing spicy condiments under their noses, before leaving them in the storage 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 cannot let you go out before sunrise.” Captain Ko checked his mechanical 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 your goddamned captain! I don’t do things like that!”

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

“Yes. But here’s a better option for you - you come with me to the Northern District, to meet with some people in the city. To be precise, I arranged a meeting with Councilman Ding’s office.” Captain Ko nodded at them.

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

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

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