Hearing Lin Shuo started
talking, Anne smiled brightly.
“My name is Anne, I am in
charge of the Asia branch of Global Lifeform Research Organization. Global
Lifeform Research Organization is a national public service organization, our
purpose is to research mysterious lifeforms worldwide and develop their
applications thereof.”
My companion here is Wei
Xingshan, head of the Asia Mobile Unit.”
When she finished the introduction,
Wei Xingshan had finally recovered from the shock from the starling. Standing
upright, he gave Lin Shuo a perfect military salute.
Lin Shuo nonchalantly gave the
sturdy giant a glance and didn’t say anything.
“We apologize for visiting you
unannounced, and this is the reason,” as she spoke, Anne reached into her purse
and retrieved something wrapped in a piece of white cloth. She unwrapped the
item slowly and showed it to Lin Shuo.
Lin Shuo was
indifferent up to the point he saw the scale in front of him. His faced dropped
slightly.
He sniffed a
couple of times to get a better smell of it.
A familiar
smell. Behind his spectacles, his eyes squinted. Reaching out, he took the
scale from Anne.
He examined
it carefully. The scale was the size of two palms. Under the sun inside the
adobe house, the scale was completely black with a peculiar copper-like glow.
When he
tilted it a bit, he could see a three-finger wild dark red line in the center.
A gut-wrenching
feeling overtook him. Turning page, he thought to himself, “it’s it?”
The starling
who resting on the desk fluttered it’s wings, flew over and landed on Lin
Shuo’s shoulder. He joined Lin Shuo at examining the scale and said, “Shuo ge, how is this possible?”
“It was
impossible before, it is possible now.” Lin Shuo held the scale closer to his
nose and sniffed again, “It is it. And the smell is fresh, it had fallen off no
more than a month ago.”
“it was
still alive?” The starling fluttered it’s wings anxiously, “I thought it was…”
“No point in
speculating,” Lin Shuo interrupted the starling and looked up at Anne, “Where
did you find this?”
“Eastern
federal district of Russia, northern part of Heilongjiang.” Replied Anne
immediately. “Two weeks ago, 182 people disappeared from a village
approximately 20 kilometers north of Heilongjiang. Seventy-three of them are
Chinese citizens.”
During the
Russian police investigation, they discovered what looked like crawl marks of a
giant creature along with this scale.
Heilongjiang bothers both China
and Russia so it hindered the Russian police’s ability to continue with the
investigation. In addition, this entire incident was very bizarre so the
Russian government contacted our organization and hope we will take over the
investigation.
This incident was of high
interest to our organization because…”
“Hold on!” With a raised hand,
Lin Shuo interrupted Anne’s narration. Frowning, he asked, “You said, this
scale appeared near Heilongjiang?”
“Yes,” confirmed Anne.
“That’s impossible!” The
starling refused to believe what he heard.
It wasn’t just the starling,
even Lin Shuo found it hard to believe.
He recognized this scale. Or to
be more precise, the owner of the scale.
This is a snake scale.
If one scale is the size of two
palms, then how big is the body?
Six years ago he entered Mount
Kunlun with his father and seen the owner of the scale with his own eyes.
That was the largest bizarre
creature that Lin Shuo had every seen.
At that time, it was bathing in
thunderous rain, as if it was trying to transcend1!
From what he had witnessed
first hand, the giant bizarre creature had died in the mysterious thunderous
rainy night six years ago.
But the scale in front of him
said so otherwise.
As it turned out, it was time
to venture out after all.
It was quite inside the house
when Lin Shuo was staring at the scale pondering.
Finally, Lin Shuo broke the
silence, “So what was the purpose of your visit, Miss Anne?”
“To capture this mystical
creature, of course.” Miss Anne answered eagerly, as though she had been
anticipating his question all along. “Everybody knew that you are the best of
the best in the circle of hunters.”
“Capture?” Squinted Lin Shuo
again, “If you are just some amateurs, I can see why you’d use the term
‘capture’. But you being from the Global Lifeform Research Organization should
be no amateurs. You should know that
when facing a creature like this, you’d be lucky to stay alive.”
___
Note:
1.
An update to my original footnote on
transcending. Ancient Chinese believed that animals that lived a long time
(over 500 or 1,000 years) will transcend. As the act of transcending is considered
to be against nature, many a times thunders will strike down the creatures
trying to transcend, so it’s risky business. Pardon me if this is not entirely
accurate, these are concepts that one grows up with and never really questioned
what “transcending” really means… It simple made so much sense when you hear
it. J
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