Although the rain had reduced, the wind suddenly picked up, rattling the awning hanging from the division board of Yi Fen Tang. They had delayed retracting the awning to provide shelter for travelers on this rainy night. However, as the night deepened, there were fewer people needing temporary shelter from the rain. People gradually left the shelter as the rain lightened, but the couple who should have passed by earlier were nowhere to be seen.
An elderly couple who never traveled at night and waited for daylight before going out were still missing on this pitch-black, rainy night—a seemingly ordinary incident that was also unusually atypical.
"Could something have happened?" Summer Acquiring Bird looked outside the door, where the space beneath the awning was now empty.