Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"What's wrong, Yin? You can't hold it any longer?" The middle-aged man lifted his head, "You young ones can't handle hardship. Back in the day, I..."

"It's not that... Team Leader, I just seemed to see something..." Yin Xiang tilted his head, staring at the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of the office, "fly past outside the window."

"What did you say?!" The Team Leader stood up abruptly, and a gust of wind blew several pages of documents off the table in front of him.

"I said... I just seemed to see something fly past outside the window..." Yin Xiang nervously repeated his words, "The thing was fast, I didn't see what it looked like."

"Are you sure it wasn't an illusion?" another colleague asked, "After working overtime for so long, it's normal to be mentally foggy."

"It wasn't an illusion! I really saw it, a white thing emitting a faint glow..." Yin Xiang realized the key after saying this, "It... it seems to be the thing we've been looking for!"

"Notify the Information Department immediately! The Security Department! Gather the surveillance footage!" The Team Leader decisively ordered, "Also, have the nearby Hunters come over right away!"

After saying this, the Team Leader turned to Yin Xiang: "Yin, I'm going to ask you one last time, did you really see that white shadow?"

Yin Xiang was initially stunned, then nodded vigorously.

"I hope you can take responsibility for your words." The Team Leader turned and headed towards the door, but after a few steps, he turned back, opened a drawer, took out a pistol, and tucked it into the holster under his side.

"Everyone, carry your weapons." The Team Leader said to the investigators in the office, "It's no longer safe here now."

...

...

Fifteen minutes later, Celestial City Anomaly Investigation Bureau building, main control room.

The not-so-large main control room was already crowded, dozens of eyes all fixated on the screens hung on the wall — as the surveillance video progress bar was dragged bit by bit, Yin Xiang finally understood the feeling of being "sweating all over."

"I remember I just finished speaking, and there were thirty minutes left until midnight, so if Yin saw a shadow flying outside the window, this shadow should appear in the surveillance footage during this time." The Team Leader said.

However, the Investigation Bureau's surveillance cameras captured nothing.

The date, time, and location were all correct, and Yin Xiang recognized the brightly-lit window as his own office on the sixth floor of Building A of the Investigation Bureau. After enlarging the screen, he even saw the female colleague sitting by the window, flipping through documents.

"There's no anomaly with the video file." The technician responsible for retrieving the surveillance footage said, "The fact is, the camera didn't capture any 'white shadow flying past the window.'

Yin Xiang could feel that more than half of the eyes in the main control room had shifted from the screens to him.

He couldn't help but think of the story "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" that his mother told him when he was a child.

He never thought he would one day become the protagonist of this story.

The boy who cried wolf did it to be clever, while he was purely unlucky.

"I said it before, Yin Xiang must be too tired, experiencing hallucinations." The colleague who had doubted Yin Xiang earlier laughed, "But it's not his fault, Team Leader. If it were up to me, I'd say give everyone a day off. A well-rested team is more efficient, after all, sharpening the axe won't delay the work of chopping firewood."

"Yin Xiang, can you describe again, in detail, what you saw?" a senior leader from the Investigation Bureau walked over, pressing his hand on Yin Xiang's shoulder, and asked seriously.

"Let me think..." Yin Xiang closed his eyes tightly, trying to recall, "Just like the Team Leader said, it was just past eleven-thirty at that time, the Team Leader had just finished speaking... then I felt my eyes were a bit strained, the words on the documents seemed blurry, so I planned to look into the distance to let my eyes rest. At the moment I lifted my head, the edge of my vision caught a glimpse of a pale white shadow, 'swoosh,' flying past the window outside, startling me into a frozen state."

"So, you didn't actually see the shadow directly, right?" another investigator asked, "Could it be that you caught a moth flying by nearby out of the corner of your eye? You said you saw double images of the words on the documents, so mistaking an indoor moth for an outdoor white shadow is understandable."

"It couldn't be a moth." The Team Leader shook his head, tugging at the cotton coat he was wearing, he said seriously, "Though it's June, let's not forget the average nighttime temperature in Shuzhou under the influence of the eternal night... The moths have long been frozen to death."

"Yes, by this time in previous years, mosquitoes would have been rampant... I have a body type that particularly attracts mosquitoes, so I know this well." Another female investigator nodded repeatedly in agreement, "But this year, since the eternal night descended, I haven't been bitten by a mosquito even once."

"Then what do you think Yin Xiang saw, exactly?" The leader looked at the others and asked.

Everyone looked at each other, momentarily falling silent.

"In my opinion, we should still organize manpower to check the Investigation Bureau inside and out." The Team Leader suggested, "The last time the white shadow appeared was on the rooftop of Shengshu Securities. At the investigation scene, we found large areas of crushed marks on the glass curtain wall, and even calculated the weight of the anomaly based on those marks... If 'it' really appeared inside the Investigation Bureau this time, it will definitely leave some traces — as long as we can find those traces, it will prove that what Yin Xiang saw was not an illusion."

"Makes sense... okay, we'll do as you said, the task of assigning manpower will be..."

Before the leader could finish, a security personnel burst through the main control room door, out of breath, babbling, "It's appeared! It's appeared again! That shadow!"

"What? Are you saying that white shadow appeared again? Where? Who saw it?" The Team Leader hurriedly asked.

"On the rooftop of Building C, a white glowing shadow, flashed by, less than half a second." The security personnel caught his breath and continued, "My colleagues and I were checking the rooftop of Building A, turned around, and saw the shadow on the rooftop of Building C... Not just me, Du Cheng and Lou Haoyong saw it too!"

The Du Cheng and Lou Haoyong he mentioned were the other two security personnel checking the rooftop of Building A with him.

"Where are they?"

"Still guarding the original spot." This security personnel handed the walkie-talkie in his hand to the Team Leader.

"So, what Yin Xiang saw wasn't an illusion... But why didn't the surveillance footage show anything?" an investigator asked in confusion.

"Nothing unusual." A Hunter sitting in the corner, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up, "Some paranormal entities can't be seen with the naked eye but can be captured on camera... while others are the exact opposite."