I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 68
Half an hour later, the taxi dropped me off near Wanghai Park in the Nanqi district of Shenzhen City. The gloomy sky continued to unleash a storm.
Not far away, thunder roared, and lightning streaked across the sky. Heavy, dark clouds pressed down from above, as if trying to shroud the entire city.
“It seems like the park is closed.”
Near Wanghai Park, the driver, looking through the taxi’s windshield, which was being constantly cleared by the wipers, gazed at the police cordon ahead with some suspicion. “Young lady, are you sure you’re meeting your relative here?”
It looks like he’s a kind-hearted driver…
“Just wait a moment. I’ll ask them.”
Subtly glancing at the driver’s seat through the rearview mirror, I pretended to take out my phone and brighten the screen, then opened WeChat.
?Why is it raining so heavily? I haven’t even brought in my clothes.?
?Haven’t you heard the news? There’s been a typhoon recently. What’s going on??
?Property management! @Manager of Wujia Apartments, my computer has no internet. Please report it for maintenance!?
Perhaps in the driver’s eyes, I appeared to be contacting my so-called “relative” while sitting in the back seat. However, in reality, I just opened my Wujia Apartment resident’s group chat, glanced at the messages, casually swiped my phone screen a few times, typed a few words, and then deleted them.
Afterward, I leaned over to the window, rolled it down, and quickly surveyed the surroundings.
“That breakfast place over there.”
Pointing towards what seemed to be a breakfast shop selling steamed dumplings and buns next to the park, I said with a slightly anxious tone, “Just stop there.”
“Okay.”
The driver turned the steering wheel, and the car headed in the direction of the breakfast shop, stopping in front of it shortly.
“Is this the place?”
“Yes.”
I put on a “happy” expression, took out my phone, and showed the payment code to the driver: “How much is it?”
“32 yuan.”
The driver glanced at a few people eating inside the breakfast shop. “It’s pouring outside. Be careful.”
“Alright, thank you.”
After paying, I showed the driver the payment confirmation on my phone. “See, I’ve paid!”
“Mhm.”
The driver still appeared somewhat skeptical, but he probably felt that taking me to the breakfast shop before Wanghai Park would be a lot safer. His guarded expression relaxed a bit.
With a “click,” I opened the car door, unfurled my umbrella, and cautiously walked through the water, which was already almost a centimeter deep on the ground, toward the breakfast shop. Thankfully, the pair of platform white sneakers I had bought had a height-boosting effect, with a soft insole, or else my feet would probably be soaked by now.
“Good morning!”
When I was less than three meters away from the breakfast shop, I pretended to be familiar with the place, walked up to a table with a mother and daughter, and then waved to the waitress, saying, “Dumplings and a glass of soy milk, please.”
Turning to the mother and daughter beside me, I asked, “Auntie, do you know why they’ve sealed off Wanghai Park?”
I did all of this mainly for the benefit of the driver behind me. Since I got into the taxi, he had been suspecting whether I had been deceived or was planning to do something foolish. He was extremely nervous. In real life, there are indeed a small number of drivers who are morally questionable or easily influenced by impure intentions. Some may have lecherous thoughts and tend to act inappropriately, especially when they see a young girl like me, which can sometimes affect their ability to think clearly. Such situations do exist, but I believe that the majority of people in this world are decent and well-intentioned.
At least the taxi driver who brought me here seemed to be scarier or perhaps even more afraid than I was when he accepted the job. The legal system in our country is still far from perfect, and some judgments can be quite extreme. For instance, a burglar breaks into a house, gets scared by the homeowner, stumbles and dies while fleeing, and then the homeowner is ordered to pay tens of thousands to the burglar’s family. Or there are cases where someone sees their neighbor’s “vegetables” looking tasty, so they steal a bunch without permission, cook and eat them, leading to food poisoning, and the neighbor ends up in court… Such cases are numerous and make people wary.
So, in a normal situation, a regular taxi driver picking up a young girl like me, who looks no older than 12, on a rainy day, with the destination being a deserted park in the Nanxiwan Residential Area, would be hard-pressed not to have some doubts. In history, there have been cases where taxi drivers failed to notice a passenger with suicidal intentions and drove them all the way to a bridge, where the passenger then got out and jumped into the river, ending their life. The driver was ordered to compensate the passenger’s family.
The taxi companies in Shenzhen City have regulations that state that during regular operating hours, drivers cannot refuse passengers. Passengers have the right to file complaints if they are refused service. Interestingly, there is also a regulation here that states that children under the age of 8 and those under 130 cm in height cannot ride in a taxi alone. I am 138 cm tall, which puts me outside the definition of “child” according to these regulations.
Regardless of whether I was deceived by an online acquaintance or had suicidal thoughts, as long as something happened after I took the taxi, the driver would be held partially responsible. If I were the driver, I would also inquire thoroughly. At the very least, I would want to ensure that the “young lady” I transported had adults watching over her upon reaching the destination.
“Is Wanghai Park closed? I’m not sure.”
Due to my harmless appearance, the mother in front of me looked outside at the pouring rain with some curiosity. “We’re on vacation these days, and I brought my child here to play. We didn’t expect such heavy rain, so we came here to take shelter.”
“Oh, I see.”
I took the soy milk handed to me by the waitress and discreetly glanced at the taxi I had just taken. Sure enough, once the driver was certain that there were adults watching over me, he quickly reversed the car a few dozen meters, turned the wheel, and disappeared into the heavy rain.
“It’s rare to have a break, and now it’s raining so heavily.”
The middle-aged woman in front of me, emboldened by my presence, began chatting. She was simultaneously helping her three- or four-year-old daughter scoop the meat filling from the dumplings into a bowl of soup.
“It was just light rain yesterday, and now it’s pouring in the morning. If I had known, we wouldn’t have come out.”
I agreed with her enthusiastically. I glanced at the time on my phone, it was 8:30 in the morning.
I had now arrived at the address listed on my ID card: “No. 3, Wanghai Road, Nanqi District, Shenzhen City.” It was originally supposed to be a residential area but had been transformed into Wanghai Park. Many new stores surrounded it, and there were very few customers around. Yet, for some unknown reason, Wanghai Park had been sealed off.
Where should I look for someone now? Or was that Grim Reaper really in a place like this? If she was here, how could I find her? What if she was in danger, or she had started a conflict with the so-called Demon King? What could I do in my current state?
Listening to the heavy rain pouring outside the breakfast shop, for some reason, the line “I can’t do anything” came to mind. Yes, the world had always been like this—a world of routine, loneliness, and ordinariness.
“Hello, your order of dumplings.”
At this moment, a waitress approached with a small tray in hand.
I casually glanced at the menu on the side, raised my phone, scanned the payment code inside the shop, and paid the bill.
“Enjoy your meal.”
The waitress placed the dumplings on my table.
“…”
The rain outside continued to fall, drenching the city and the sky.
*BOOM!*
Suddenly, accompanied by a muffled roar, the previously gloomy sky was illuminated by a strange red fireball.
“What’s going on?” The mother next to me, with her child, curiously stuck her head out of the shop, looked up, and asked, “Is that a signal flare?”
A signal flare?
I quickly grabbed an umbrella and clumsily opened it, then walked outside. In my gaze, a dazzling red fireball was slowly rising from the depths of Wanghai Park, flickering as it scattered dim light around.
On the dark and gloomy horizon, the object resembling a signal flare behaved like a moth drawn to the flame, burning its own life and soaring towards the top of the dark clouds, defying the misty rain and tearing apart the darkness.
?Take this with you. If you ever encounter danger again and want to hide, just light this…?
At this moment, the words from my dream resurfaced in my mind, words I seemed to have spoken before:
?No matter where you are, I will find you.?
No matter where… I will find you…
In that instant, I felt my heart clutched as though by something, and almost instinctively dropped my umbrella and ran towards the direction of the rising fireball.
“Hey, little girl, it’s raining heavily outside. You… Hey!”
Someone behind me, whether the mother or the waitress, shouted a few times, but I couldn’t hear anything anymore.
I quickly crossed the open space in front of the breakfast shop, hopped over the security line, climbed over an unattended railing, and ran into the park ahead.
As an author, it’s that never-ending curiosity in me.
In the pouring rain, I stared at the faint red fireball in front of me, silently pondering.
Where? Where?
“…”
I’m not sure if it’s because being transformed into a little girl affected my sense of distance or if it’s simply because I’m not very physically fit, but as I ran alone into the park in the pouring rain, I still felt that the place where the signal flare was launched from was very far away. I had to run as fast as I could towards the bright spot.
“Rumble, rumble, rumble…”
The somewhat cold rain continued to pour down on my head, completely soaking the hair that belongs to a girl. Some of the hair stuck to my back, while others swayed gently in the breeze created by my running. The fireball in the sky ahead swayed in the pouring rain, climbing higher and higher.
Just like every ordinary human being, we endured our tears, gritted our teeth, and headed towards the only place where we could see the light, burning ourselves little by little in the darkness.
“…”
?You’re still the same as before, retreating to a corner to brood after being injured.?
?This is a bad habit of the demon race. When they are injured, it’s when they are most vulnerable. So, they hide like an injured kitten, licking their wounds alone.?
If it’s her…
I ran at the fastest speed of my life on the cobblestone path in the park.
The rain soaked my cap on top of my head, drenched my T-shirt and shorts, seeped into my underwear, and took away the warmth from the surface of my skin. A noticeable chill surrounded my body from all sides. My newly bought shoes from a few days ago splashed water everywhere as I walked on the waterlogged road. Inside the park, which was usually not well maintained, there were water puddles several tens of centimeters deep everywhere. The pouring rain created ripples as it hit these puddles.
If it were her, she should be…
“Bzzz…”
The fireball in the dark clouds gradually lost its brilliance. I followed the muddy path and reached a grove of birch trees at the back of the park. The firelight above my head disappeared.
“Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip…”
Through the heavy curtain of drizzling rain, my gaze fell upon the girl under a large tree beside the birch forest. She was wearing a black trench coat, her whole body covered in blood, and she held an already used small hand cannon in her hands.
I slowly approached the girl.
“You’ve come…” She said with difficulty as she felt my presence.
“I took down the Demon King who killed you.”