There is no way this has happened.

For a few seconds, Lan Zhan's senses are mute to everything except the overwhelming grief crashing through him. He's helpless with it.

He's failed.

Someone has taken Wei Ying.

And not willingly, either.

Wei Ying must have been surprised, in order to drop the trash bag just like that. Lan Zhan forces himself to go closer, and check. Dirty cups and leftover bread, a half eaten muffin and the pungent aroma of strong coffee greets him as he bends down.

He tells himself to think now, and not focus on how he feels, because this is not the time to drown in useless emotions. Not when he could be thinking about fixing this mess.

As they found out from his own crime scene, the clues are there if you look hard enough.

He pulls out a white handkerchief and gingerly picks up Wei Ying's phone. The glass cover has been shattered beyond saving, and it doesn't switch on when Lan Zhan presses the button.

So, no help there, and as he wraps the spotless fabric carefully around the phone and puts it in his pocket, he gets another idea.

But all of his attention is stolen by what's on the ground, right next to the phone.

There are drops of blood.

For a second, he's paralysed with fear.

What exactly happened here?

If anyone had harmed a single hair on Wei Ying's body, Lan Zhan was going to make sure they would never see the light of day again.

There's a noise.

It's deep and reverberating, rumbling and echoing inside him, getting louder and louder.

With a gasp, Lan Zhan realises that it's him. He's making that sound. It's like the deepest growl, like a rabid dog readying itself to attack.

He knows he's dangerous.

It is simply the truth, and his new brain is disturbingly alright with this. It's even supporting him, by thinking how much satisfaction he would gain by destroying whoever took his Wei Ying. His canines have come out in full force, and Lan Zhan has never felt like this.

All powerful and ready to annihilate.

It's an exhilaration, a celebration of the killing machine he can be, in no time at all.

This is his predatory side.

He's not scared any more.

No.

He's angry.

This rage easily overpowers his grief.

With a start, he sees that the blood is actually a trail that leads meanderingly to the dumpster, where a clumsy attempt has been made to hide it. Dirt and rubbish has been spilled on top of it, trying to mask what it really is. The smell is quite strong and Lan Zhan lets his brain process the information he's understanding.

The first thing he notes with no small amount of relief, is that it is not Wei Ying's blood.

That's immediately calming.

Lan Zhan discovers that his mind has become analytical as a way to protect itself from the devastating pain threatening to engulf him, were he to give in to it. His brain is allowing him to think, to detect which of his thoughts are helpful in this moment, and then analyse which ones should be used, and which of them can be examined later.

There's a reason why vampires are at the top of the food chain.

No one can beat logical thinking.

In his head, there's a tidal wave coming straight for him, a giant twenty foot wall of water, and it's filled with everything he's feeling about the loss of Wei Ying. But this search for clues is a plexiglass in between him and certain destruction, if he allows it to break. He doesn't think he will survive the deluge of that particular catastrophe.

He deliberately calms himself, taking long, slow and deep breaths.

His nose is helping him, his olfactory sense hyper aware of the contents in that blood. It has been contaminated, changed beyond its normal function. It is not 'clean' blood.

Since he only has Wei Ying's blood as a comparative example, he takes notes of the differences between them.

Wei Ying's blood is fresh-tasting and clean, full of healthy nutrients. Its actual taste is a mix of five separate flavours, combined into one and ever so subtly there. None of these tastes overpower each other, which in itself is rather miraculous.

There's a sweet, spiciness serving as the main flavour, but there's also a hint of salty sourness, and just a tinge of bitter. Separately, they may seem ordinary and bland, but together? They are the perfect combination, a taste so uniquely Wei Ying that Lan Zhan can tell the difference straight away.

This blood would be the complete opposite of that.

It smells heavy, sedated with drugs like a deliberately ruined painting. Someone has gone to great lengths to try to change this substance into something else entirely, and failed. This blood has been spilled recently, and it's saturated with...hormones? Something else? Whatever it is, it's supposed to conquer what was already there.

Lan Zhan's nose feels contaminated too, and he would clean out the inside of it, if he could.

He looks up and sees two CCTV cameras on the coffee shop building. They are both focused on the alleyway, and Lan Zhan is a hundred percent sure that they will have recorded whatever transpired here.

One last look around to make sure that he hasn't missed anything, and then he's striding towards the door, fully intent on grilling MianMian.

MianMian is just finishing with a customer, and then she turns around,

She looks for Wei Ying next to him, and when that doesn't happen, her alarmed eyes shoot back to Lan Zhan.

"Where is he?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Lan Zhan bites out, too aware of the many eyes watching them here, in this very public setting.

"Follow me." Her no nonsense attitude is very welcome right now.

There's another door on the side, hidden away behind an alcove. It opens to a short corridor leading straight to an office.

Lan Zhan's explanation of what he saw in her alley makes her go pale. He tells her about the cameras.

He can smell faint traces of her anxiety.

MianMian wastes no time getting to her chair and using the mouse, typing furiously on the keyboard. She's great at multitasking, because she manages to hold a conversation at the same time.

"All footage goes to the cloud and gets deleted after thirty days. First step is to access visuals." She types some more.

Lan Zhan is already walking around the desk. She angles the screen so they can both watch.

"I'm going back an hour, do you think that sounds right?" She doesn't bother looking at him.

Lan Zhan realises she's already guessed that Wei Ying has gone missing, otherwise he wouldn't be here. There is fleeting admiration of her intelligence, as he watches her fast forward the footage to the first bit of activity on the screen. She presses a record button and then leans back, all of her attention on the computer and what they're watching.

A sharply dressed man in a grey suit, with a pale yellow shirt saunters into the mouth of the alley. He's wearing a thick chain around his neck, and when he flicks out his wrist to straighten his sleeve, it covers a matching thick gold bracelet. He looks around carefully, making a face at whatever he sees and his consequent thoughts. Then he walks over to wait by the dumpster.

Lan Zhan narrows his gaze to check: there's no blood there.

Nothing much happens after that, and MianMian double clicks on the mouse so it speeds up to run faster. When Wei Ying comes on the screen, she goes back to normal speed.

Wei Ying walks out, looking at his phone.

Lan Zhan realises with dread that it must be his own text message which caught Wei Ying's attention. Otherwise, there was no way Wei Ying would not have been aware of the danger right in front of him.

The man in the grey suit nonchalantly walks forward, his face even clearer now.

MianMian lets out a sharp gasp.

"Do you know who that is?" She pauses the video and turns around to face Lan Zhan.

Lan Zhan shakes his head.

"Should I?"

"Maybe you might not run into him in your circles, but I went to school with that rat bastard. He's a bully and a coward. Jin Zixun is his name. And why the hell is he here? His cousin married Wei Ying's adopted sister."

"Wei Ying doesn't really talk about his Foster family." Lan Zhan tells her, keeping his eyes pointedly on the screen.

"His parents were actually shitty. First sign of a less than perfect horizon, and they ditched him. He had to leave them all behind, because Madam Yu threatened to have A-Yuan taken away from him. One phone call away, she told him, if he didn't do what she wanted him to."

Lan Zhan is truly shocked.

Who would use a child that way? Wei Ying must have been so hurt! That's why he doesn't talk about it.

"Oh, sorry," she says, glancing at his expression. She sounds insincere and totally unrepentant. "But if he doesn't chat about his past, how else are you going to find out?"

"Wei Ying would tell me what he wants me to know." Lan Zhan cannot help his clipped tone.

He wants her to hurry up and press play, but he's also really into this, a candid and unemotional, almost clinical assessment of Wei Ying's past. He wants to know everything.

"Oh, please! Do you even know him? I've spent the better half of three years trying to make him open up, and it only happened after I managed to get him drunk. Even A-Qing had the same trouble."

At the mention of her girlfriend, Wen Qing, Lan Zhan growls.

The noise surprises both of them.

"Oh." She looks contrite.

They stare at one another, and as the seconds pass, Lan Zhan is contemplating violence. The only thing stopping him from grabbing her throat is her relationship with Wei Ying. Only her previous kindness towards Wei Ying stays his hand, and Lan Zhan draws on the last dregs of patience within himself.

But he's close to the edge.

MianMian takes a deep breath. "It's not my place to speak for anyone, A-Qing most of all. But I will ask you, when the time comes, I hope you will give her the benefit of the doubt."

Lan Zhan is going to make no such promises. He reached over her hand and pressed play, indicating that he was done listening to her.

MianMian couldn't be trusted with an unbiased opinion of Wen Qing. They shared a bed, and probably confidences, which made Lan Zhan think about her loyalty to Wei Ying.

It didn't bear thinking about right now.

Once Wei Ying was safely back in his arms, then only will Lan Zhan allow himself the luxury of thinking about who is on who's side. There's no time left.

Unfortunately, there's no sound on the film.

Jin Zixun says something and Wei Ying steps back, and he must have said something back, because Jin Zixun attacks. At this point, there's only a metre or two separating them, but before he's anywhere closer to Wei Ying, a silver sword plunges into his chest.

The attacked man looks up in surprise and there's another man standing in front of Wei Ying now, all dressed in white and wielding the weapon.

Jin Zixun staggers back and uses the dumpster to lean against it. But when the sworded man lunges once more, Jin Zixun, in a move that defies gravity, whirls away.

Lan Zhan is surprised to see the man in white not pursuing Jin Zixun, instead he strides back towards Wei Ying. He bends and grabs a napkin from amongst the open trash on the ground, and wipes his sword. He goes to the dumpster and throws away the napkin inside, and makes a face at the mess on the ground. Then he kicks some debris already on the ground over the blood, trying to disguise it.

Meanwhile, Wei Ying has dropped his phone in the scuffle, and he's staring at the broken screen. Lan Zhan can see his lips moving, and so they're definitely talking. His body language is tense and his fists are clenched.

The man with the sword advances towards him, and they exchange more words. And then they both run out of the alleyway.

Lan Zhan wasn't expecting that.

"Can you see where they went?" He asked MianMian urgently.

"No. Unfortunately, those cameras aren't drones."

No.

No, they weren't, but if there was anyone who could access CCTV footage from random cameras in this area, Lan Zhan would bet any amount of money that Nie Huaisang could.