American Zombie Detective

As night fell over Los Angeles, the police department's official website indeed posted a reward notice.

For this baffling case, the Los Angeles Police Department has issued a Level 3 reward:

提供关键线索：3000-10000美金；协助破案：10000-30000美金；直接侦破：100000美金。

"Money, a lot of money." Aresa's response to the bounty was limited to the number.

"It's not about money," Qin Jin explained briefly as he drove his Dodge out of the car and backed up.

"If I can solve the case, I can get a certificate from the Canyon Precinct, which could potentially save me 26 weeks of police training—to be honest, that's the most troublesome thing."

Alessa hummed in agreement with Qin Jin's suggestion, her fingers unconsciously fiddling with the stitches on Frankenstein's monster statue.

"If we can't keep up, how can we find it?"

"Let's ask around among the supernatural beings in Los Angeles," Qin Jin said, turning the Dodge onto the main road and driving it out of the community.

"They're way better informed than the police, especially with this kind of thing!"

"A vampire?" Alessa thought of the woman in the red dress from last night.

"That works too," Qin Jin said, glancing in the rearview mirror and merging into the continuous stream of traffic on the main road.

"Vampires have very fixed hunting areas. Let's look for them. That one from yesterday... is most likely a low-level prey that hunts in bars. It'll be easy to find it."

Aresa ruffled the doll's head and slowly unzipped the back: "Hmm, yesterday's, very weak."

To her, anyone who could be defeated by Gru's Super Red Hawk was a weakling.

Without a clear destination, the two drove into the neon jungle of Los Angeles.

Relying on his vague intuition and familiarity with the city's dark corners, Qin Jin wandered around the outskirts of several neighborhoods known for their chaos.

The two simultaneously focused on the scents in the air, trying to detect the smell of blood among the various odors.

As the car entered a narrow, garbage-strewn back alley, Alessa caught a whiff of fresh blood. Her finger pointed into the dark, damp, musty depths of the alley.

"Blood, fresh, fear!"

Qin Jin immediately turned off the engine, and the two got out of the car silently.

At the end of the alley was an abandoned factory area surrounded by wire mesh, which was covered with countless tears. They sneaked in like shadows.

The factory area was dilapidated and empty, with moonlight casting pale spots of light through the broken roofs.

They spotted their target next to several massive, overturned concrete pipes.

A figure in a bright red dress was pressing a terrified young man against a cold pipe. The man's face was pale, his eyes were bulging, and his legs were twitching weakly. He was about to die.

Their footsteps startled the predator.

The female vampire whirled around and instantly recognized the two men who had brought her immense humiliation the previous night—

Anger and the instinct to hunt made her let out a sharp screech, abandoning her prey and pouncing on Qin Jin with terrifying speed!

However, Alessa's movement in drawing her gun was equally swift. The dark muzzle of the gun was almost instantly aimed at the oncoming red shadow. As the shadow swayed left and right, the barrel of the gun in her hand also rotated like a leech, without the slightest deviation.

After failing to get close three times in a row, the red-dressed vampire stopped abruptly less than ten meters away from them, her face a mixture of rage, astonishment, and awe of the powerful firearm.

"You can't kill me!" she roared, her voice echoing through the empty factory, trembling with a fierce but ultimately cowardly tone.

"Human bullets are useless against us!"

"Quiet down, ma'am," Qin Jin said lazily. "We're not here to kill you, at least not now."

The vampire in the red dress stared at them suspiciously, her scarlet pupils filled with doubt and distrust.

"We need some intelligence, some information about this city..."

"Intelligence?" The vampire scoffed, his tone dripping with disdain. "Based on the fact that you shot at me yesterday? Am I crazy?"

"Isn't one shot enough?"

Qin Jin's smile sharpened; though the smile remained the same, his eyes held a depth of unspoken emotion.

"Of course you can refuse. But if we can't get what we want, then we'll have to play the role of exorcists for once..."

He slowly stepped forward, frowning as he continued, "However, there's a little trouble involved. We'll have to cut your head off and leave it to dry in the sun tomorrow… Hey! Madam, I advise you not to do it!"

The female vampire did instinctively want to turn around and escape from these two monsters, but just as Qin Jin spoke a warning, Alessa's fingers had already clenched halfway down:

"Move again, or fire."

Having just been shot yesterday, the vampire had no doubt about the little girl's determination and accuracy in firing.

"...What do you want to know?!" she almost screamed, her voice filled with humiliation and despair.

"Paper dolls, paper dolls that kill."

Qin Jin uttered a few words, his gaze fixed intently on the other person.

"You should know something, right? After all, you're... in the same line of work? You both operate at night."

When the word "paper doll" was uttered, the fear on the female vampire's face was instantly replaced by a deeper, more primal horror, as if she had heard a forbidden name.

Her pupils suddenly contracted, and she even subconsciously glanced around at the darkness.

"You...you're looking for that 'paper bride'?!" Her voice trembled with disbelief.

"A paper bride?" Qin Jin raised an eyebrow, grasping the key information. "Tell me more."

The female vampire swallowed non-existent saliva, seemingly organizing her thoughts, or perhaps recalling some terrifying legend:

"Paper, paper bride... We... our people once said, never go onto the old road to the Westsen Coal Mine on the Canyon Highway... Sometimes, you'll encounter specific groups!"

Her voice was even lower, filled with mystery and fear:

"An oriental wedding procession, carrying lanterns and a sedan chair, playing music and fanfare, yet making no sound... What they were carrying was a paper bride dressed in a red wedding gown and covered with a veil..."

"A wedding procession? A paper bride?"

As Qin Jin pondered the word, he felt a chilling aura, unique to Eastern folklore, wash over him.

"This seems like some kind of night-sending ceremony or ghost marriage... but why would it appear in Los Angeles? Why on American soil?"

"I...I don't know!" The female vampire shook her head vigorously.

"For us, that place is taboo. You... if you want to know, go and see for yourself... on the canyon road, when you see the old wooden sign for the Westsen Coal Mine, drive in... and you'll have a chance to find it..."

"and then?"

"And then... nobody knows," the vampire said uncertainly.

"My tribesman only saw the procession once from afar. He said that this thing is terrifying, that the entire... the entire Xisen mining area is its territory! If humans approach, it will choose which one to target. If we go there, we will all die..."

Abandoned mines, deserted canyon roads, a wandering wedding procession at night...

Qin Jin quickly connected this information in his mind. From a danger perspective, he didn't know whether he would be considered human or zombie. After all, he now possessed both attributes, so it didn't matter what he was called.

He still planned to go and see for himself whether this thing was strong or weak; he couldn't rely on what the vampires said.

"Very good." Qin Jin nodded, noting down the two key locations: "Xisen Coal Mine" and "Old Wooden Sign."

"We'll go check that road. If the information is true..." He glanced at the vampire, "Consider it a favor, I owe you one. If it's false..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but the threat was obvious.

"It's absolutely true! I swear!"

The female vampire hurriedly assured her that all she wanted now was to get away from these two menacing figures as quickly as possible.

Qin Jin waved his hand, indicating that she could leave.

The female vampire felt as if she had been granted a pardon. In an instant, she transformed into a red shadow and disappeared into the dark depths of the factory at an even faster speed than when she arrived, not even bothering to look after the unfortunate man on the ground who had been drained of most of his blood.

Qin Jin went over and checked the man's carotid artery. He was still alive, but had lost consciousness due to excessive blood loss.

He carried the man with one hand and returned to the street with Alessa, then, still at the alley entrance, anonymously dialed 911 again.

"Alessa, what do you think? Should we go find that bride?" Sitting in the Dodge, Qin Jin didn't start the engine immediately, but instead looked at Alessa beside him:

"That sounds a bit dangerous!"

"Go ahead," Aresa's attitude was unusually firm; perhaps she had her own definition of the word "danger."

"You often say, 'Since we're idle, we're just idling around,' right?"

"Alright then," Qin Jin shrugged and started the Dodge.

"Then let's go take a look. Hopefully, she'll be a little kinder, after all—"

As the Dodge slowly started moving, Qin Jin also leisurely exhaled the latter half of his drink:

"We need to keep a low profile!"