A strange gust of wind swept through.
Nothing else seemed to happen.
Only a perfectly ordinary student ID disappeared.
And yet that alone was enough to make one's skin crawl, especially for people who dealt with supernatural events every day. The more they thought about it, the more terrifying it became.
"????"
Charles jumped in fright immediately, glancing left and right in reflex, but he found nothing at all. Uneasy, he turned to look at Constantine.
"What just happened?"
Charles knew very well that the gust of wind just now had absolutely not been natural.
"Gulp."
Constantine stared blankly at his now-empty hand, his eyes trembling violently a few times. He pursed his lips, as if still reliving the sensation from a moment ago.
"That was..."
He could clearly tell that something, or someone, had taken the card right out of his hand.
Such speed!
What was it?
Some special kind of being?
Or a demon from Hell?
No, that was not right. None of the defensive measures on his body had been triggered, which meant it was probably not a malicious attack. The moment that thought crossed his mind, it was like something clicked.
"No, wait! That kid!"
Constantine ran to the second-floor window at once. He first swept his gaze across the farm outside, but saw nothing, then in confusion lifted his eyes to the sky.
Originally, he had only meant to check the weather.
However,
he truly did hit the jackpot.
The dark clouds had already begun to disperse along with the spirit's capture.
Across the golden sky,
Constantine could faintly make out a figure hovering high above, overlooking a certain direction.
That was the exact direction the taxi had disappeared toward earlier.
His face changed instantly, his pupils contracting.
"Charles."
Constantine swallowed hard.
His voice had turned grave.
"What?"
Charles was still completely confused, continuing to search the wooden house for suspicious figures.
"You're screwed."
Constantine looked back at his friend, then stuck his head back out to glance at the sky again. The moment he felt that warning gaze fall on him, he immediately jerked his head back and retreated inside.
"What do you mean? My car can't be recovered?" Charles felt Constantine was talking nonsense. He had not found any hidden spirits or supernatural creatures in the house.
"Forget your car. You've provoked something much worse for yourself."
Constantine wiped the sweat now forming on his forehead. At this point, he could barely even pretend to stay calm.
"Huh?"
Charles was dumbfounded.
"That kid has someone backing him. I'm pretty sure he's going to report you."
Constantine swallowed again, as though he had fully grasped the bizarre middle schooler's personality.
"He's got an angel watching over him?"
Charles let his imagination run wild.
"Much scarier than that."
Constantine kept hesitating by the window, wanting to check if he had really seen what he thought he had seen. In the end, though, he chose to pull himself all the way back into the wooden house.
"What are you even talking about?" Charles felt Constantine sounded like some cryptic lunatic who deserved to be dragged off for surgery. But that did not stop him from turning visibly pale.
Something scarier than an angel?
What kind of background was that supposed to be?
Did he have God backing him?
"No, wait, why am I the only one who's screwed? Why aren't both of us screwed?" Charles had caught onto the key issue. Once again, he was forced to appreciate Constantine's shamelessness.
The man was distancing himself from the situation way too fast.
He stared at his old friend in disbelief, but Constantine's shameless behavior only continued.
"I'm not the one who abducted a minor. I'm just an innocent passerby who happened to pass through Metropolis. Tomorrow... no, forget tomorrow. I'm leaving Metropolis overnight."
As he spoke,
Constantine had already started packing his things. He even completely forgot about burying the poor woman in the house.
To be fair, he really did move fast.
He slapped a talisman onto one of the doors in the room, stepped through it, and vanished without a trace. Charles was still standing there gaping when the man was already gone.
"My car..."
He was still mourning the most valuable thing he owned.
As for Constantine's actions, Charles found them painfully familiar.
Just another routine betrayal.
If it happened enough times, maybe he would eventually stop feeling angry at Constantine.
...
The sun sank below the city skyline, dyeing the streets in a dark orange glow.
The taxi Ian had been driving came to a stop by the roadside. Not because he had reached his destination, but because he had been stopped by a traffic cop.
"Step out of the vehicle and show me your driver's license."
There was a professional alertness in the officer's eyes, especially after he saw how ridiculously young Ian looked sitting in the driver's seat.
There was no helping it.
The taxi looked like it had just survived some kind of highway mugging, and Ian looked far too young to seem remotely qualified to have a driver's license.
"Right here."
Ian shoved open the warped car door with force, got out, and calmly pulled out an old, worn document sleeve. He flashed the ID in front of the officer's face a few times.
Very quickly.
Fast enough to make anyone dizzy.
Then he tucked it straight back into his pocket.
"Hand it to me properly. I didn't see it clearly."
The officer frowned, his gaze full of suspicion.
"Officer, you definitely don't do eye exercises in the morning."
Ian pulled the document back out and handed it over directly. The officer took it and began examining it carefully.
Everything on it, of course, was fake.
However,
it was convincing enough to pass.
And if anyone wanted to know why, it certainly was not because Ian specialized in forging documents. Rather, before leaving the wooden house, he had "picked up" this little item from Constantine.
A enchanted ID.
It allowed other people to see whatever identification they were supposed to see. It was an extremely practical magical gadget.
Ian had actually noticed Constantine swiping his student ID earlier.
He just had not made a fuss about it. Instead, he chose to respect the conservation of matter and increase Lavoisier's historical weight a little by ensuring some of Constantine's matter flowed in his direction as well.
"You're nineteen?"
The officer studied the ID for several minutes and still could not find anything wrong with it. Even so, he remained suspicious of Ian. In his eyes, the boy looked fifteen or sixteen at most.
"Yeah. People always say I have a baby face."
Ian truly did not blink when he lied.
"Hm."
The officer neither accepted nor rejected the explanation. His gaze moved back and forth between Ian's face and the document in his hand. At last, with a slightly strange expression, he handed the ID back.
"What happened to your car?"
The officer looked at the taxi. The front end was in such terrible shape it was almost painful to look at.
"Well, it's just..."
Ian was still in the middle of improvising when the stopped taxi began slowly rolling forward.
Then it rolled faster.
And faster.
Then, with a loud bang, it slammed straight into a fire hydrant.
"Yeah, that's how it got wrecked."
It really was as if heaven itself had stepped in to invent a reason for him.
At least, that was how Ian chose to see it.
(End of Chapter)
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