Chapter 25: Mark Her

The man had an endearing baby face. Printed in white lettering on the black business card was his name: Chi Shuai.

Aside from his name and profession, a subtle curse lingered on that card, waiting to see if Ding Ling would reach out and take it.

Ding Ling could play dumb, claim she was slow to react, or even use her current age as an excuse to say she did not want to accept a business card from a strange man.

But she refused to show weakness.

Standing firmly in place, she asked, “What do you want?”

He hadn’t turned her in just now, and he wouldn’t turn her in now either. If he wasn’t turning her in, then he wanted something.

Chi Shuai took half a step back and raised both hands, his baby face beaming with smiles. “Whoa now, a young girl like you shouldn’t go around saying things like that.”

Talk about terrifying. If the boss heard that, he’d definitely think Chi Shuai was bullying a little girl and beat him to a pulp.

“I want to know the condition to break the curse.”

The cursed site was the grove beside the sports field, and the spiritual power on the curse slip was dispersed, suggesting it might have been completed by two or more people working together.

If he kept investigating, this would turn out to be a group case.

Wearing that handsome baby face of his, Chi Shuai looked at Ding Ling with a smile and even took the initiative to voice his predicament: “If that guy named Chen comes back looking for answers, it’ll be a hassle. After all, once you take someone’s money, you have to get things done.”

He had an innocent kind of handsome look that went over especially well with older women, but it certainly wasn’t without its charm on younger girls either.

What was more, he acted as if he were completely on Ding Ling’s side, exceedingly easy to talk to. “I won’t report you. For one thing, I can’t stand that family.”

If taking jobs like this didn’t bring in extra funds for the squad, he wouldn’t have bothered coming in the first place.

“And for another, it’s true that the fluctuation readings didn’t meet the threshold.” Handling cases required evidence; without enough proof, he had no way to convict Ding Ling.

“So how about it? Why not tell me?”

Ding Ling spoke. “Repentance.”

“Huh?” Chi Shuai’s eyes went wide. His baby face kept the expression from looking bad, only making him seem more youthful.

Ding Ling thought of Yao Beibei, so she patiently repeated herself, “As long as he genuinely repents, the curse will be lifted.”

Chi Shuai looked Ding Ling up and down. A girl not even sixteen years old had pulled off such a complex curse despite her ruined spiritual root, and she even had a way to keep anyone from detecting it.

Strictly speaking, she ought to have been placed under his surveillance.

That was why Chi Shuai had been smiling and fishing for information, trying to see what kind of person she really was. If she turned out to be dangerous, he would report it immediately.

“Yet he didn’t even have a reason to bully you.” Chi Shuai leaned against the stair railing. It had been purely to vent his anger, finding a soft persimmon to squeeze^[1]. On top of that, Chen Li hadn’t even dared to go after someone with a normal spiritual root; he had targeted a young girl whose spiritual root was ruined.

As a curse investigator, Chi Shuai had seen countless unprovoked curses born purely of human malice. He had also seen grudges repaid and vengeance exacted.

But someone like Ding Ling, whose condition for lifting the curse was the other party’s sincere repentance, was one in ten thousand.

Chi Shuai shook his head. “You’re still young. You’re too soft-hearted.” He continued in an enticing tone, “If it were me, I’d take an arm or a leg at the very least. It’d have to be something big, anyway.”

Ding Ling glanced at Chi Shuai, her look like that of an elder regarding a junior, her tone carrying an air of admonition: “You cannot demand too much.”

In terms of karma, you repay what you owe.

Anything extra you take, you will have to pay back someday.

The smile on Chi Shuai’s face froze. He had originally intended to coax the girl into talking more so he could collect extra data and determine whether she was dangerous.

Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to hear something like that.

Chi Shuai stood stunned for a moment, then let out a soft chuckle.

The danger alert was temporarily cleared. Someone who didn’t demand more even under these circumstances was well within Chi Shuai’s standard of a safe individual, safer than he was, in fact.

As for whether Ding Ling would curse anyone else in the future, they could worry about that when it happened.

Chi Shuai swiped his finger lightly across the card, wiping away the formation meant to test Ding Ling. “Here. If anything happens to you, you can come find me.”

Ding Ling reached out and took it. Printed on the back of the business card was a small line of text: “Special Incidents Investigation Section.”

She casually slipped the card into her school uniform pocket, stepped around Chi Shuai, and headed back to the Class F classroom.

There were still ten minutes left of lunch break; she still had comic strips to read.

Chi Shuai couldn’t help clicking his tongue. People on the outside would beg for a card like this, yet the little girl just casually shoved it into her pocket without taking them seriously at all.

Chi Shuai drove back to base. It was a rare stretch of peaceful days; none of the squad members were out on missions, and everyone was relaxing in the lounge.

Some were hitting sandbags to practice their strikes, while others gathered around a table playing cards.

The ones playing cards saw Chi Shuai walk in and nodded to him. “Shuai-zi^[2]‘s back. How’d it go?” A curse case involving a high schooler shouldn’t be anything major.

Chi Shuai flashed an OK sign with a smile. “Piece of cake~ Offering thirty thousand spirit stones for something so minor, that family is certainly generous.”

“We made so much on this job, let’s treat ourselves to a good meal. Barbecue, beer, and crayfish tonight, let’s go~” As Chi Shuai spoke, he walked over to the fridge, opened the door, grabbed an iced cola, and headed toward the captain’s office while drinking.

The office door was open, but he didn’t walk right in. Standing at the entrance, he called out, “Reporting, Chi Shuai has returned to base.”

With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, Gu Cheng sat before his computer playing Minesweeper. Hearing Chi Shuai’s voice, he didn’t even raise his head. “Come in. What? You need to report?” Wasn’t it just a curse case involving a high schooler? What was there to report?

Chi Shuai hopped onto the desk. “Insufficient evidence.”

“Insufficient evidence?” Gu Cheng finished a round and looked up at Chi Shuai. In their line of work dealing with curses, they had always operated on a presumption of guilt.

“Tell me about it.”

Chi Shuai recounted everything about going to No. 1 High School and conducting the investigation. “That girl is the victim from the Immortal Cave collapse incident.”

“That Class A secret realm?” Gu Cheng recalled the report. “Isn’t her spiritual root already ruined?”

The higher-ups had originally been very interested in Ye Yibai; one had her spiritual root ruined while the other emerged completely unscathed.

They had planned to find a chance to meet Ye Yibai, but once they discovered it was the Ye family’s artifact protecting their young master, no one brought it up again.

Chi Shuai nodded. “Machine testing only looks at the numbers. If it’s below three or two, the spiritual root is considered crippled.” That was indeed the case. If the reading was too low, one couldn’t channel spiritual energy, so even if the spiritual root wasn’t completely dead, it was useless.

“The latest standard is below one,” Gu Cheng added. The equipment was constantly being upgraded; anything below one couldn’t be detected and was classified as a crippled spiritual root.

So this girl had managed to curse Chen Li with a reading of zero-point-something?

“Did she state the condition to lift it?” Since Chi Shuai hadn’t brought her straight back to the squad, the matter was likely settled. Whether the parents called the police afterward or how the school chose to handle it was none of their concern.

Chi Shuai let out a cola burp. “Captain, guess! Come on, take a guess! Guess what the condition is! You’ll never guess!”

Gu Cheng thought for a moment. “An adolescent girl who suffered such severe injuries…” The mindset of teenagers couldn’t be judged by common sense. They had encountered casters like that before, and those cases had proved tricky.

Unable to wait, Chi Shuai blurted it out himself: “Her condition is that he repents.”

Gu Cheng paused in surprise. “Repentance?”

“Shocking, right? Isn’t it! I asked her why she didn’t hit him harder.” Chi Shuai had indeed been testing Ding Ling, but he had meant every word.

When subjected to unprovoked bullying, one ought to make the perpetrator pay.

“She said you can’t ask for too much.” Chi Shuai recalled the girl’s tone. “Captain, it was just… it felt like I was looking at an otherworldly master, you know? Not the fake kind in TV dramas.”

That effortless composure had completely stunned him at the time.

Gu Cheng lit a cigarette. “Interesting.”

“Just ‘interesting’? There’s something even more interesting!” On his way back, Chi Shuai had looked into Ding Ling.

Beyond the basic information already in the report, such as her birthplace and family background, he had also discovered that Ding Ling hadn’t accepted any compensation from the Ye family.

“Such a massive sum of money, and she just walked away without batting an eye.” That last part was Chi Shuai’s own imagination. Imagining Ding Ling’s expression and tone gave him a bit of a thrill just thinking about it.

Gu Cheng frowned instead. “She didn’t take the compensation?”

“Nope.” In the car, Chi Shuai had even wondered what he would have done in her position. He probably would have taken the money and gotten his revenge anyway.

Gu Cheng lowered his eyes and tapped the desk. “Ding Ling cannot be classified as a safe individual.”

“Why? She’s safer than I am, alright?”

“Which is why you are under my full surveillance.”

Claiming one shouldn’t ask for too much while refusing all compensation, did that mean she wanted something of equal value instead? Like crippling Ye Yibai’s spiritual root? But if so, she shouldn’t have exposed her ability to use curses so early.

Gu Cheng lit another cigarette. “Flag her for now.”

In the Special Investigation Team’s archive room, there were countless flagged persons of interest. Being flagged meant that if an incident occurred near them, they would be among the primary suspects investigated.

“What threat level should we assign?”

Still considering it, Gu Cheng told Chi Shuai first, “You need to wrap up the Chen family’s situation. Tell them the condition to lift it.”

“Alright~” Chi Shuai dragged out the word. The more he thought about it, the more brilliant he found the condition. Repenting? Even if they told him, could a guy like that actually pull it off?

Saving someone like Chen Li was a pure waste of the taxpayers’ spirit stones.

Chi Shuai picked up his cola and left the office.

Gu Cheng closed Minesweeper, opened the archive system, entered his password, and clicked to create a new file.

【Name: Ding Ling】

【Gender: Female】

【Mastered Skills: Curse】

【Threat Level: The cursor blinked on the screen.

Gu Cheng took a drag of his cigarette and continued typing.

【Threat Level: Blue, Standard Threat】