A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

It was dusk. Ke Mingqing stood at the entryway, while Ke Mingwei lingered by the door. The setting sun’s afterglow spilled inside, stretching their slanted shadows across the floor.

”What’s wrong, Dad? Why so serious all of a sudden?” Ke Mingqing asked, caught off guard. ”Did the police department give you a promotion, or are you finally about to retire and collect your pension?”

Ke Mingwei remained silent.

”It’s fine. I know you’re under a lot of pressure. Even if the pension falls through, we can just rely on Second Sister to support us,” Ke Mingqing continued. ”A career woman like her could easily feed this entire family on her own.”

”And what about your older brother?” Ke Mingwei asked casually.

”He gives off the vibe of a philosophy major who graduates and can’t find a job. I’m just making a comparison,” Ke Mingqing said.

To ease the awkwardness, he sighed, tossed his backpack onto the shoe cabinet, and crouched to take off his sneakers. A moment later, he looked up at the grim-faced older man.

Ke Mingwei lowered his head, leaning against the entryway wall in silence. His expression was difficult to read in the shadows, the blood-red twilight illuminating only half his face.

A faint light rippled in the older man’s deep-set eyes.

Ke Mingqing watched him quietly.Ten seconds passed. The entryway remained quiet, save for the sound of Ke Mingwei’s low, thoughtful exhales.

”This isn’t about the time I spent the night at my girlfriend’s house, is it?” Ke Mingqing probed. ”Dad, why is your reaction time so slow? Everyone else has already lectured me about it, and you’re only just bringing it up now?”

Ke Mingwei shook his head. He tightened his grip slightly on the police jacket draped over his shoulders, his brow furrowed as he sank into thought once more.

”A’Qing, come take a walk with me,” he finally said after a long silence. ”Let’s talk somewhere else.”

Ke Mingqing put on a bewildered expression. He nodded in confusion, feigning deep respect:

”Yes, sir, Chief. Awaiting your orders.”

In the past, Ke Mingwei definitely would have retorted, ”Stop using that weird tone and act normal.”

Now, however, he simply moved forward in silence, brushing past Ke Mingqing’s shoulder and heading out the door without a word.

Ke Mingqing turned his head slightly, silently glancing at his father’s scruffy profile.

You older guys are just so awkward, he thought to himself. If there’s an issue, can’t you just say it straight? Do you really have to put on this bitter, deeply wronged face and let it brew for half the day?

Ke Mingqing sighed, retied the shoelaces he had just loosened, and followed Ke Mingwei’s tall back outside.

The father and son slowed their pace, walking leisurely down the long street of the Old Jingmai District as if taking a post-dinner stroll. The atmosphere was exceptionally quiet, both of them maintaining an unspoken silence.

The sun sank into the west, and a deep twilight draped over their faces. Pitch-black and snow-white birds swooped across the sky in turn, leaving behind a flurry of rustling wings.

Ke Mingqing toyed with his phone. His gaze drifted between the faintly glowing screen and the telephone poles dyed blood-red by the setting sun.

Ever since he could remember, Ke Mingqing had never spent time alone with his father like this.

It was funny, really. By the time he was old enough to form memories, his biological father had already burned to death, and his stepfather—his adoptive father—was a lunatic who dressed up as a crow every day and flew around the sky.

In his past life, he had never even met his biological father; by the time he was old enough to understand things, he was already in an orphanage.

So, even though Ke Mingqing possessed the original owner’s memories and knew how to interact with his siblings, the concept of a ”father” had always been extremely vague in his mind.

At best, it was just the back of a man wearing a police uniform.

As they walked, Ke Mingqing suddenly feigned a moment of shock, his footsteps deliberately faltering.

He could tell that Ke Mingwei was leading him toward that abandoned train station.

Without needing to think, Ke Mingqing could guess this brooding father’s intentions. He shrugged and asked casually, ”Dad, what are you heading this way for? Isn’t that a restricted area? If we keep going and a police officer spots us, we’ll be invited down to the station for tea.”

”Your dad is the police.”

Ke Mingwei walked slowly in front of him, his head bowed.

”That’s still a problem, okay?” Ke Mingqing rolled his eyes. ”Damn, Dad, you’re knowingly breaking the law. That’s a harsher penalty!”

Ke Mingwei didn’t play along with the joke. He stayed quiet for a long moment before suddenly speaking up:

”A’Qing, did you know there’s a train station up ahead?”

Ke Mingqing fell silent.

”I heard from your mother that you and Little Li used to play at that abandoned train station all the time,” Ke Mingwei said softly. ”So, I want to go and take a look at it.”

He paused, suddenly lowering his voice. ”I want to see exactly what is inside this train station.”

”What could possibly be in a train station? It’s nothing more than a bunch of bats in a tunnel, some dead grass, and a few flowers.” Ke Mingqing sighed. ”Whatever. If you want to go, then go.”

He crossed his arms behind his head. ”It’s rare enough that you’re not drowning in work. Taking a random stroll with you isn’t so bad.”

Ke Mingwei said no more, simply walking straight toward the restricted area.

The streets they tread upon gradually grew dirty and dilapidated. The ground was covered in dust and yellow sand, with a stray shard or two of glass jutting out of the dirt. Signs of human life grew increasingly scarce.

At the same time, a strange phenomenon slowly unfolded in the sky.

Ke Mingqing noticed that the number of crows perched on the telephone poles had increased.

At first, there were only one or two, but it gradually became three, four... five. Eventually, he couldn’t even see the emerald banyan trees and the fiery red maples anymore.

The chirping of cicadas echoing in the empty alleys grew fainter and fainter, slowly replaced by the hoarse cawing of crows.

In the deep twilight, father and son walked in silence, their faces devoid of expression.

Both knew in their hearts where they were heading and what was going to happen once they arrived.

Yet they both maintained their silence, like gamblers at a card table clutching their playing cards, carefully studying each other’s faces.

Just then, a ding shattered the quiet. Ke Mingqing looked down at the message he had just received.

[Xia Zili: Where did you go this time? Didn’t you say you were going to tell me about you and Kiyono Sakura after school?]

[Ke Mingqing: I’m taking a walk with Dad. We’ll talk when I get back later.]

[Xia Zili: Huh? Dad actually asked someone to go for a walk?]

[Ke Mingqing: Yeah, yeah. This old relic finally had a breakthrough.]

[Xia Zili: I don’t believe it. More like he asked you to go to the station for tea.]

[Xia Zili: You’re with Kuroki Hitomi, aren’t you? Tomorrow I’m going online to post that Blue Pigeon has taken a Japanese person as his daddy. She’s a player, too. You’re adopting a thief as your father, which makes your crime even worse.]

Ke Mingqing coughed twice, thinking, Sis, you must be possessed by a witch. Do you have to be so ruthless?

”What’s wrong?”

Ke Mingwei paused slightly, glancing at him from the corner of his eye.

”Nothing, Dad. Just scrolled past a funny video.”

”Then let’s keep walking.”

Ke Mingqing nodded. He looked up, making eye contact with a crow on a telephone pole, before quickly looking away.

A short while later, as the father and son approached the wire fence marking the restricted area, the flock of crows in the sky suddenly grew restless. The crows perched on the poles and flat roofs snapped their heads around in unison.

Pair after pair of ruby-like eyes reflected their figures.

”A’Qing, I’m asking you this seriously. Are you hiding anything from me?”

In the twilight, accompanied by the hoarse cawing of the crows, Ke Mingwei spoke up once more.

”Nope. Why ask that all of a sudden?” Ke Mingqing didn’t seem to care, his tone remaining flippant.

”Are you sure?” Ke Mingwei asked quietly. ”I’m very disappointed. I always thought that if you had something weighing on your mind, you would tell me on your own.”

”Right, if something was on my mind, I’d definitely tell you,” Ke Mingqing murmured. ”But don’t you think it’s strange? There seem to be a ton of crows in the city today. Is our Lord Rain Crow on his period, or did a dam break?”

Ke Mingwei remained silent. He merely bent down slightly and squeezed through the gap in the wire fence, stepping into the restricted area first.

Ke Mingqing looked up from his phone and suddenly realized the tear in the fence had grown larger. If it could only fit a teenager before, it was now wide enough for a middle-aged man to slip through.

He turned his head, only to see several crows in the distance holding fragments of wire fencing in their beaks.

”What exactly is in that train station?” Ke Mingwei asked as they walked.

”Graffiti that my sister and I left behind when we were ten.”

”What did you draw back then?”

”We drew what would happen after she became a magical girl.” Ke Mingqing chuckled. ”We drew a lot on the walls back then. When we were little, she said she was going to be a magical girl and protect me. I told her that in that case, I’d be a superhero and protect her. She ended up crying, saying, ’No, only I can protect my brother, and my brother can only be protected by me.’”

Ke Mingwei gave a raspy chuckle, and Ke Mingqing felt the tension ease a little.

However, the exact moment Ke Mingqing stepped into the tunnel, the flock of crows resting on the telephone poles behind them abruptly took flight.

Like a rising tide, they swept across the sky, showering black feathers down over the tunnel entrance.

Amidst the rustling, falling feathers, the figures of the father and son gradually blurred, swallowed by the shadows deep within the tunnel. At that moment, the setting sun was slowly sinking toward the city’s horizon, drawing away the last of the afterglow scattered across the streets.

Inside the pitch-black tunnel, Ke Mingqing finally deigned to put his phone away.

He shoved his hands into his school uniform jacket pockets and looked up, glancing around. They were already very close to Platform 7, so the childhood graffiti was visible on the walls.

A stick-figure girl glowing with gray light, her arms and legs stretched straight out, flying haphazardly through the sky with furrowed brows.

Ke Mingqing curled his lips into a smirk, snickered, snapped a photo of the graffiti, and immediately sent it to Xia Zili.

[Ke Mingqing: Did you draw a magical girl here, or Astro Boy?]

It took a long time for Xia Zili to reply.

[Xia Zili: You really are at the train station. Are you hanging out there alone with her again?]

[Xia Zili: Mom told me to go find you.]

[Ke Mingqing: No, no, no, I’m really with Dad. We have important business!]

After sending the message, Ke Mingqing looked up at the man’s back in the tunnel and shouted:

”Let’s stop here and not go any further, Dad. If we stumble into some mysterious organization’s headquarters, we’re done for!”

The teenager’s voice echoed through the spacious tunnel, but it was a long time before a gloomy, raspy voice replied:

”Such as?”

”Such as Death Crow?” Ke Mingqing tilted his head.

”Death Crow is in Japan,” Ke Mingwei said quietly. ”The police over there recently uncovered traces of them.”

Haha, how come I didn’t know I was in Japan? We actually finished our trip and came back a long time ago.

Ke Mingqing rolled his eyes internally, wondering why the Hero Company’s intelligence was always a beat too slow.

The two continued walking forward in silence. Their footsteps echoed clearly in the tunnel. Water dripped down through the gaps, hitting the mottled tracks with a soft patter.

Amid the steady drip-drop, Ke Mingwei suddenly spoke:

”We’re almost there.”

”Almost where?” Ke Mingqing was still playing dumb.

”A platform,” Ke Mingwei said slowly. ”Your mother said you and Little Li used to play hide-and-seek on that platform all the time when you were kids. Whenever she wanted to call you two in for dinner, she’d go look for you there.”

”And?”

”There’s something there I want to show you.”

With that, Ke Mingwei led the way up the moss-covered stairs, stepping on the discolored steps as he headed toward Platform 7.

”Alright, but you better not be messing with me, Dad! I’ve got a lot to do on my first day of school. After dinner, I still have to go to the bookstore to buy reference books.”

His hands tucked into his pockets, Ke Mingqing kept his head down, watching the steps as he climbed toward the platform step by step.

”A’Qing, the reason I kept this from you for so long is because I always thought the time wasn’t right yet.”

”The time wasn’t right for what?” Ke Mingqing asked, though he already knew. ”What exactly have you been hiding from me?”

”I’m going to tell you all my secrets.”

Ke Mingqing had just stepped onto the platform. He looked up just as the blood-red afterglow swept over them like a tidal wave.

In that moment, the crimson twilight blanketed the entire sky, reflecting a bloody red in the teenager’s eyes.

And within his eyes, Ke Mingwei’s back slowly came to a halt.

The man in the police uniform stood beside locker number 7. He turned his head, his deep-set eyes quietly gazing at the rust-mottled tracks.

”Ever since I investigated your biological father, I anticipated this day would come,” the older man rasped. ”But I didn’t expect it to arrive so soon, so suddenly.”

He paused. ”I had originally planned to tell you only after everything was over, but I never expected to be wrong—so completely wrong.”

Ke Mingwei spoke in a heavy voice. He suddenly raised his right arm, rested his hand on the handle of locker number 7, and slowly pulled it open.

Father and son turned their heads simultaneously. In that instant, a suit of dark blue metallic armor came into view. Beside it inside the locker sat a peculiarly shaped Bird Beak Helmet.

Ke Mingwei stared at the sight, then slightly averted his gaze, as if he were looking at a blinding sun he couldn’t bear to face.

Ke Mingqing suddenly lowered his head, his pitch-black bangs hiding his eyes.

”A’Qing, I never imagined... that you were Blue Pigeon...”

Ke Mingwei spoke slowly. Flocks of crows fluttered in from all corners of the restricted area with a flurry of wings. They swept through the platform’s eaves, skimmed over the rusted tracks, and finally alighted upon his hunched back.

In this vast, blood-red world, the old man was as quiet as a tree. The crows perched row upon row on his branches, gradually covering his entire body.

When Ke Mingqing raised his head, he could no longer see his father’s expression at all.

He could only hear the flock of crows wailing in agony. The sound was so grating... so mournful, it made him want to cover his ears.

The next instant, the old man, looking as though he were being devoured alive by the crows, spoke:

”I was wrong, A’Qing...”

Ke Mingqing froze as the hoarse voice filtered through the crow feathers and reached his ears:

”I shouldn’t have hidden this from you. I arrogantly assumed you hadn’t awakened any abilities yet... I didn’t even realize my own son was Blue Pigeon, and I used him. I used my own son... What kind of hero am I?”

Toward the end, Ke Mingwei’s voice grew increasingly bleak and raspy. Up in the sky, the flock of crows was now tearing each other apart.

They shrieked, piercing one another’s skin with their sharp beaks.

The twilight was red, and the crows’ bodies were dyed red as well. At first, it was only the color of the afterglow, but it soon morphed into the deep crimson of real blood.

Bloodstained feathers drifted down, piece by piece.

Ke Mingqing watched this scene, stunned for a long, long time before the shock on his face gradually eased. He thought to himself, Dad, why are your emotions so unstable? Look at me, did I overreact?

After a long while, he said softly, ”I actually guessed it was you.”

Ke Mingwei slowly raised his head, meeting his son’s gaze.

At that moment, the sun sank completely below the horizon, taking away the blood-red hue that blanketed heaven and earth. The entire world grew dim.

Darkness swept in overwhelmingly, shrouding the entire train station.

The teenager kept his head down. His face was veiled in shadow, obscuring his expression.

In the darkness, he spoke softly:

”Dad, I actually followed you a few days ago, but I lost you in an alley. I only saw a few crows resting on a billboard.”

At this, Ke Mingqing looked up slightly, curling the corners of his mouth. ”That was when I guessed my dad might be Rain Crow. I just wasn’t entirely sure yet... but now, I am.”

”Are you disappointed in me? The hero you admire most is such a failure of a father.”

”No...” Ke Mingqing shook his head, wiping his nose with his hand. ”Actually, I’m pretty proud. My dad is the hero I admire most.”

He shrugged and added,

”Man, once you retire, Dad, I’m going to go settle the score with all those little punks at the police station who talk bad about you behind your back. I’ll tell them, ’He didn’t just mysteriously vanish whenever it was time to work a case; he changed his appearance to go contribute to the people.’ They’ll be scared absolutely shitless.”

Ke Mingwei remained silent for a long time, standing in place like a statue.

Only the tide of crows covering his body was receding, producing a rustling sound that echoed like ocean waves crashing against coastal rocks.

Half of Ke Mingwei’s face was still shrouded by crow feathers, but the other half gradually revealed itself, a faint light rippling in his deep-set eyes.

”Are we heading back yet?” Ke Mingqing took a deep breath. ”I thought you were going to tell me something huge. Turns out it was just this.”

He stretched his arms. ”Couldn’t you have just said this at home? Dragging me all the way out here made me think you’d been brainwashed by Clock Maker and were going to kill me.”

As his voice fell, the flock of crows stopped their hoarse cawing. A profound silence enveloped Platform 7 in the dark, with only the chirping of cicadas drifting over from afar.

The father and son stood far apart on the empty platform.

”Let’s go,” Ke Mingqing said evenly. ”Mom’s rushing us. If we don’t leave now, my sister’s going to come looking for us.”

After a long while, Ke Mingwei nodded.

But in that very instant, a deafening roar suddenly erupted from the distant sky, shattering the brief tranquility.

Ke Mingqing froze. It was the sound of magic tearing through the air.

He jerked his head up, immediately spotting a girl in a pitch-black gothic dress streaking toward them from afar.

Ember held a black umbrella high above her head as she hovered in midair.

She looked down from above, staring at the scene before her in confusion.

Locker number 7 was wide open, leaving the Blue Pigeon Battle Suit exposed to the chilly air. Ke Mingqing was staring blankly up at her, trying to signal something with his eyes.

Ember slowly shifted her gaze from his face to the spot across from him.

There, a man half-covered in crows stood quietly on the platform like a statue. His hunched posture radiated complete despondency.

The final sliver of afterglow falling from the sky illuminated half of his face, allowing Ember to see his features clearly.

A deathly quiet fell over them.

For a split second, it was as if every sound in the world had vanished. A deathly silence enveloped the twilight-soaked platform.

Ember stared intently at that half of a face, her pupils shrinking to the size of pinpricks.

A long moment later, the girl in the gothic dress parted her lips slightly, mouthing soundlessly:

”Dad...?”

Only then did Ke Mingwei show a hint of reaction. He slowly raised his head, his hollow eyes looking up at the girl in the gothic dress hovering in the night sky.

One above, one below—father and daughter locked eyes.

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