The night was deep, and Ulong City's famous barbecue street was brightly lit, the smoky aroma of grilled skewers mingling with the clamor, creating a unique, bustling urban magic.
Zhang Xiaowai slumped on a faded blue plastic stool, like a salted fish almost dehydrated by the barbecue smoke. In his hand, he clutched a crumpled piece of paper he'd salvaged from the chaotic brawl at the underground auction house—
"The secret of the Tome is hidden in the library."
These few words felt like a heavy, urgent bomb, exploding in his mind. His Ulong Halo hummed at a peculiar frequency, as if mocking him for barely escaping the electrically charged, fire-filled scene at the auction house, only to be dragged into new trouble before his backside had even properly warmed the seat.
Across from him, Liu Piaopiao, still wearing her signature deer-antler hat, though still dusted from their escapade, remained strikingly spirited. She held her magnifying glass, scrutinizing the night market barbecue stall. "The library! Xiaowai, this clue is too crucial! The secret of the Ulong Tome might just be hidden behind a row of dust-covered bookshelves!"
"Or maybe it's hidden under your deer-antler hat," Zhang Xiaowai retorted, rolling his eyes. He casually shoved the paper into his pocket, just about to raise a beer can to calm his nerves, when he was interrupted by Tang Xiaotang's excited shriek.
"Chaos! Mechanisms! Mysterious note!" Tang Xiaotang was pumped up, quickly pulling out a small notebook to record. "Xiaowai bro, this report is definitely going to blow up! Your halo is practically a traffic engine! I've already thought of the title: 'Tome Clue Appears at Underground Auction, Ulong Wage Earner Transforms into Fate Detective!'"
"Adding 'Adventure on Barbecue Street' would make it even more evocative," Liu Piaopiao chimed in, serious as if she were about to publish it herself.
Zhang Xiaowai was completely drained. He looked up at Wang Dazhuang across from him, who was leisurely munching on a grilled corn, his expression infuriatingly earnest.
"When a person of destiny steps out, what's a library? Small potatoes. I can smash through ten bookshelves with one swing." He demonstrated, swinging his security-guard-issue patrol baton. His posture suggested less a detective unraveling clues and more someone preparing to demolish the library's rafters.
"Don't!" Zhang Xiaowai quickly stopped him. "If you smash any more, Ulong City will have to erect a bronze statue of you as a 'Cultural Destroyer.'"
He felt utterly miserable. Recalling the chaos at the auction house, he was truly a disaster-maker in the halo world: the incense burner igniting the curtain, the electrical box exploding, the shadow getting stuck in the ventilation shaft, the iron door locking shut… all thanks to that unpredictable Ulong Halo. If he hadn't run so fast, he might be lying on the front page of the Ulong Evening News right now.
Yet, strangely, while this Ulong Halo was infuriatingly troublesome, every time it stirred up trouble, it would inexplicably produce "mysterious but extremely crucial" clues, as if… an invisible force was forcefully advancing his life's script.
Liu Piaopiao suddenly slapped the table, sending two skewers of grilled chives flying onto Tang Xiaotang's face.
"Zhang Xiaowai, I've got it!" Her tone was as solemn as if she had just received a divine oracle for solving a case. "Your Ulong Halo has evolved!"
"What now?" Zhang Xiaowai hadn't quite registered it.
"Before, it just randomly caused disruptions; now, it can attract key people and information!" Liu Piaopiao pointed at Tang Xiaotang, her voice certain. "Like her—a junior intern reporter who happens to know about the tome and always appears at the strangest times. If that's not the halo summoning her, what is it?"
"Hey, hey, hey!" Tang Xiaotang's eyes widened. "That's my news sensitivity! It's a talent, you know!"
"You know too much!" Zhang Xiaowai said jokingly, but his gaze unconsciously fixed on the sly smile playing at the corners of her mouth. His intuition told him that Tang Xiaotang was far more complex than she let on.
Liu Piaopiao continued her analysis: "Following this logic, your halo now has two passive skills: one is to create chaos, and the other is to attract key characters! We need to try it again, find an opportunity to trigger it!"
"Try it? You want me to blow up the library?" Zhang Xiaowai almost spat out the peanuts in his mouth.
"Of course not blow it up, we just… well, slightly disrupt the order." Before Liu Piaopiao finished speaking, she had already grabbed Zhang Xiaowai. "Let's go! Let's take a walk around the night market's back alley. Maybe we can 'spawn' new clues!"
Tang Xiaotang had already switched her phone to video recording mode and followed eagerly. "Hurry, hurry, Xiaowai bro, tonight's trending topic depends on you! I've already thought of the title: 'Shadow in the Back Alley: A Skewer Unravels a Shocking Secret!'"
Wang Dazhuang also stood up, shrugging his shoulders, and his patrol baton thumped on the ground. "I know the night market terrain well. If anything happens, I'll block it!"
"I think more things happen because of you," Zhang Xiaowai muttered, being dragged along, his face screaming "don't do this."
The back alley was even more dilapidated than he had imagined. Both sides of the walls were covered with advertising posters, faded by rain like skin diseases, and the ground was thick with years of oil stains and discarded beverage cans. The air was a mix of barbecue smoke, sour garbage smell, and—a certain aura of impending "Ulong activation."
Sure enough, Zhang Xiaowai's foot slipped on a loose brick, and with a "thud," he landed on his backside, knocking over a stack of beer crates which clattered and rolled everywhere.
"Halo activated!" Liu Piaopiao excitedly rushed over, ignoring the dust on his behind, and rummaged through the bottom of the beer crates.
"Bingo!" She held up a dusty old envelope, its seal emblazoned with the exact same strange symbol as the fragment of the Ulong Tome.
"The halo has scored again!" Tang Xiaotang excitedly grabbed the envelope for a selfie. "Xiaowai bro, your face is worthy of the number one trending spot!"
Zhang Xiaowai wasn't in the mood to entertain them, sitting on the ground, sighing deeply. "I just wanted to finish my skewers and go home to sleep. Do I really have to be some kind of… paranormal traffic tool?"
Inside the envelope was a note written in a flamboyant hand: "Library, third bookshelf, secret compartment."
Liu Piaopiao slapped the table. "We're going tonight! Target locked: the library!"
"Tonight?!" Zhang Xiaowai almost spat out a mouthful of old blood. "Can't we wait until I renew my medical insurance tomorrow?"
Tang Xiaotang leaned closer to his ear, whispering, "Xiaowai bro, I've noticed a pattern with your halo. The more chaotic the place, the denser the clues. How about… we try to create a little more chaos? Like… smashing a pot?"
"You're a devil!" Before Zhang Xiaowai could finish his sentence, he stood up—
"Clang!" Another vendor's charcoal grill was accidentally nudged over by his elbow, sparks flew, the vendor shrieked, and the scene exploded into chaos!
The surrounding onlookers, thinking it was a short video shoot, eagerly pulled out their phones, watching and even shouting, "Do it again! The lighting was too dim just now!"
Liu Piaopiao fished out a copper coin from under the overturned stall. The front bore the familiar tome symbol, and the back was engraved with a few words—"Library · Midnight."
The air was silent for a few seconds. The group exchanged glances.
"Is your halo about to upgrade into a divine artifact?" Liu Piaopiao murmured. "This copper coin looks like a key..."
"...Or a pass," Tang Xiaotang added, the "mischievous professional interest" in her eyes growing even stronger.
Zhang Xiaowai just wanted to split open and disappear right then. He covered his face, feeling the tremors emanating from his Ulong Halo, his heart filled with a premonition—they were about to embark on a sleepless night.
He muttered to himself, "I'm just a wage earner, how did I become the unofficial core of Ulong City's detective squad?"
And he didn't know that around the corner of a dimly lit alley, a shadow was slowly retreating, a pair of cold eyes watching them, a bizarre curve rising at the corners of its lips.