The Blind Beast Tamer: I Dominate the Major Crimes Unit with Stray Animals

Deep in the night, a narrow, decaying alley in an urban village hangs thick with oppressive gloom. Faulty streetlights flicker erratically, and rainwater pools across the pavement, casting faint, bleak reflections of the sparse light above. Jiang He, a girl with partial blindness, takes the little-used alley as a shortcut. Three months prior, a sudden optic nerve injury left her with severely diminished vision. She can only vaguely perceive light and patches of color, and relies entirely on a white cane to get around.

Her sense of smell, sharpened dramatically by her visual impairment, picks up a heavy, acrid stench of blood the moment she steps into the alley, and an ominous premonition instantly settles over her. Jiang He suppresses her fear and quickens her pace, but behind her comes the sound of leather shoes stepping through puddles — slow, deliberate, and closing in. Someone is tailing her. In a panic, she veers into an even narrower side alley, only to slam into a metal trash can and fall hard onto the cold, wet ground. Her white cane slips from her grasp and rolls away into the dark.