Chapter 34: All-Nighter at the Internet Cafe, Let’s Go~

The suspects and victims had all been taken away, leaving only Qian Jingjing behind.

Once she finished drawing the portrait, a team member handed the sketch to Gu Cheng.

“What do they look like?” Chi Shuai poked his head over. “…What kind of drawing is this? Even wanted posters at least have eyes and a nose.”

The figure in the sketch wore a peaked cap and a tracksuit. The tracksuit zipper was pulled right up to the tip of the nose, and the brim of the cap was pulled down over the bridge of the nose.

Covered from above and below, all that remained visible of the entire face was a tiny sliver of the nose.

“Has that taxi driver been brought in?”

“He’s been brought over.”

The driver explained that he thought he had picked up a robber, suspecting the passenger had deliberately made him drive all the way out to such a remote place just to rob him and steal his car upon arrival.

“I even told him my car is connected to the network, so even if he stole it, he wouldn’t get away.”

Lao Ma showed the sketch to the driver, who nodded repeatedly. “Yes, yes, yes, that’s him! That’s exactly what he looked like! The sketch is spot-on!”

Spot-on, my foot. Chi Shuai rolled his eyes. Was a tiny sliver of a nose really drawn that lifelike?

“How about checking who bought this kind of tracksuit?”

“How would we even check? There are probably over a hundred thousand people in the city with tracksuits from this brand. How could we possibly trace that?”

When Gu Cheng heard mention of the brand, he picked up the sketch and looked at it again. There was a sports brand logo on the cap, and that spot showed signs of having been altered.

“What’s wrong, Boss? Notice something?”

Gu Cheng shook his head.

Lao Ma said, “We don’t even know if it’s a man or a woman. Besides, we don’t have the authority to handle this case anymore.”

“Is Qian Jingjing done eating? Once she’s finished, send her home.”

Just as Gu Cheng finished speaking, the team member tasked with questioning the driver came over to report. “Boss, the taxi driver mentioned on his way out that the person was also carrying a cat.”

Chi Shuai’s eyes lit up! Qian Jingjing’s cat!

“She really is hiding something! Question her again! I’ll go ask her!”

Gu Cheng didn’t agree. “Let her go.”

“Why? Just let her go like that?”

“What else? Torture her? Drag her to an interrogation room and grill her like a criminal?” Seeing Chi Shuai fall silent, Gu Cheng felt a bit pleased. At least he still had some sense and wasn’t as reckless as before.

“We no longer have the authority to handle this case.”

Even the driver had only been brought in under a pretext. If pressed for official paperwork, they wouldn’t be able to produce any.

The news had already broken, categorizing the incident as a fire caused by improper electrical usage and faulty wiring during the summer.

“But…” Chi Shuai scratched his head.

“But what? It’s not like the cat could have posted the quest.”

The phone used to post the quest had been stolen, and the content posted was almost identical to what Sister Lian usually sent out.

It was very likely that members of this organization, after capturing Qian Jingjing, used the stolen phone and her home address to lure and trap cultivators.

A single address would only be used to post a pet-finding quest once at most. Every time they captured someone, they had to switch locations.

This made complete sense.

One could only say their luck was terrible. They thought they were trapping a rookie who had just taken on a D-rank quest, completely unaware that their target was a powerhouse hiding her true strength.

“In other words, this is a power-fantasy story where they accidentally messed with a powerhouse, who tracked them down over thousands of Li and wiped the entire crew out?”

Chi Shuai concluded his summary.

“Whether it is or not, it’s out of our hands now.” Gu Cheng looked around at everyone. Not only had they made a wasted trip and worked for nothing on someone else’s behalf, but they had also been forced to swallow their frustration.

“Alright, everyone’s worked hard all day. Let’s clock out, pack up, and go get some beer and crawfish.”

Chi Shuai wanted to know who F was. Without spiritual energy, he was a total weakling in combat, so he desperately wanted to know the details.

Gu Cheng patted his shoulder. “Starting tomorrow, work out with me. If you ever run into a situation like this in the future, you’ll at least have the ability to protect yourself.”

The group sat at a roadside food stall drinking and eating crawfish. Only Chi Shuai wore a gloomy scowl. While everyone else drank beer, a can of iced cola sat in front of him.

According to the joint laws of the Five Great Continents, he hadn’t reached the legal drinking age in the Central Continent.

A few news vans with flashing lights drove past along the street. Lao Ma watched them for a moment. “Hasn’t the news already broken? Are they still digging deeper?”

“I hope they dig up everything!” Chi Shuai took a hard swig, downing half his cola. “I wonder where that F is right now?”

Gu Cheng chuckled. “Who knows? Maybe she’s just like us, eating at a night market.”

Ding Ling was right across the street eating wontons in chili oil. Fresh, savory, and silky-smooth, she finished one bowl and ordered another.

She had actually hitched a ride back to the city on those very news vans. Calling it a ride wasn’t entirely accurate, though. Seeing a vehicle heading back toward the city, she had immediately leaped up onto the roof.

Ding Ling’s form was nimble and light. When she landed on the roof, the people inside heard nothing at all, and even the driver didn’t sense a thing.

The cameraman cursed under his breath. “They took all our tapes, so what are we supposed to broadcast? We have press passes! What right do they have to seize our footage?”

“Enough!” the female reporter said. “Those people earlier weren’t from the same group. There were two factions. One was the military, but where did the other come from? If we follow this lead, it’ll definitely be a massive scoop!”

Those people had all been in plainclothes and acted even more arrogant than the military. The police dispatched from Jiangcheng could only maintain order around the perimeter, unable to touch the core of the matter at all, hardly any better off than the press.

The female reporter tapped the driver’s seat. “Step on it! We need to get ahead of the evening news!”

Standing on the roof of the news van, Ding Ling experienced this world’s lightning-fast speed. Aside from being lower to the ground, it felt remarkably similar to riding her flying sword in the past.

Only when the vehicle was about to enter the city did she reluctantly leap down.

She needed a sword.

As the thought crossed her mind, her stomach let out another loud rumble. Before getting a sword, she needed to eat.

Ding Ling had never been to this district before. She simply followed the aromas and cooking smoke until she found the night market.

A bowl of wontons in chili oil from the stall in the east, an order of grilled chicken wings from the stall in the west, brown sugar sticky rice cakes from the stall in the south, and a serving of deep-fried stinky tofu from the stall in the north.

Her stomach had finally stopped growling. She bought a bowl of ice jelly to eat.

While eating, she found a roadside shop, rented a power bank to charge her phone, and glanced at the television hanging in the center of the shop, which was playing a phone commercial.

“The phone that never loses power! Charged by spiritual energy, never runs out of battery, a cultivator’s best companion…”

Once plugged in, the phone automatically powered on.

She was instantly bombarded with messages, including ones from Sister Hong, the user with the sun avatar, and Yao Beibei.

The rest were from people she didn’t recognize, likely members of the group.

A neat row of: 【Boss, please take me under your wing!】

Swiping past them, she saw the mission rewards.

What had originally been a D-rank mission had been re-evaluated as a B+ difficulty mission.

Two hundred mission points, one hundred bonus points, and ten thousand spirit stones…

How did the mission group know? Ding Ling understood after a moment’s thought. In her world, Xuanji Pavilion, the organization that issued missions, possessed the most numerous and formidable scouts.

If an organization dared to issue missions, it naturally had the capability to verify their completion.

These scouts would verify whether the person who took the mission had truly completed it, but if that person died, they wouldn’t care; the mission would simply return to the board, back into “circulation.”

Ding Ling suspected this board operated the same way.

In this world with such scarce spiritual energy, it was unlikely anyone could cultivate clairvoyance.

She took two more bites of ice jelly, then asked the shopkeeper, “Is there anywhere nearby where I can stay the night?”

The shopkeeper sized her up. “A student sneaking out for the night? Do you have an ID? If not, go get an overnight pass at an internet cafe. It’s cleaner than the cheap motels outside.”

“Thank you.”

Ding Ling first bought two outfits at the night market, then found a large internet cafe on the next street over.

She copied the shopkeeper’s phrasing and asked for an overnight pass^[1], a phrase she had only ever heard used in brothels in the past.

The internet cafe attendant asked lazily, “Deluxe or regular? Deluxe lets you shower and includes late-night snacks and drinks. Regular is over there.”

Everyone sat in what looked like cubicle compartments; the space was cramped, and the crowd was noisy and mixed.

“Deluxe.”

The attendant stuffed a plastic bag of snacks into her hand and passed her a room keycard. “Find your own room. The towels and toothbrushes are disposable, with an extra charge if used.”

Holding the snacks, Ding Ling took the elevator to the third floor. She showered and changed clothes first, then sat cross-legged on the bed to reply to her messages.

She replied to Yao Beibei first. Beibei had been waiting by her phone, nearly frantic with worry. Ding Ling was from Nanzhou and completely unfamiliar with this place. Where could she possibly go after staying out all night?

The moment a new message popped up on her phone, Beibei opened it immediately.

Ding Ling had sent a photo of a computer, a bag of snacks, and a pile of drinks.

Yao Beibei stared wide-eyed at her phone. She knew how to stay overnight at an internet cafe? But wasn’t the only game Ding Ling knew how to play Monster Match-3?

Next, Ding Ling replied to Sister Hong. Sister Hong had also seen the news in the mission group, having previously assumed that Ding Ling and her companion were only skilled at spiritual herb cultivation and alchemy.

She never expected that they also had a formidable fighter on their side!

She sent a message to Ding Ling: 【Little sister, when are you coming by to sell more goods? I’ll treat you to hot pot, and we can have authentic Nanzhou beef.】

Ding Ling was from Nanzhou; after arriving in the Central Continent, she surely hadn’t tasted the flavors of her hometown in a long time.

Sister Hong made her living on Xuanyuan Street. As an ordinary person without a spiritual root who could conduct business smoothly, she naturally had someone higher up backing her, and she wanted to recommend Ding Ling to them.

【Thank you, but I’m busy with other matters for now.】

Now that she had money, points, and spirit stones, she needed to put them to good use.

Ding Ling replied to the messages one by one, ignored the friend requests begging for protection from a big boss, and opened the chat with the sun avatar.

【Thank you for calling the police.】

She hadn’t needed it, but he hadn’t known that, and he had indeed sensed danger from the subtlest clues, proving himself to be a genuinely public-spirited person.

Yi Ang never expected F to message him!

He sprang to his feet. In the kitchen, Yi Ang’s mother was cooking. “Xiao Ang? Are you hungry? Just wait a bit, dinner will be ready soon.”

Gripping his phone, Yi Ang took several deep breaths. Hearing his mother, he answered instinctively, “Mom, really, don’t go to so much trouble. Anything simple is fine.”

“Nonsense. It’s the weekend, so you should have a meal cooked by your mother.”

Yi Ang called back an agreement and dashed into his room, agonizing over every word of how to reply to the boss. Should he say it was only right for him to do so? Or hurry up and apologize, saying he hadn’t known F was so incredible, that he had poked his nose where it didn’t belong and even exposed F to the military?

He had used twenty points to buy the mission details that now cost four hundred points, and he saw that F had taken on ten opponents single-handedly, rescuing seven trapped cultivators and one ordinary person.

Since the two of them were still able to chat, F clearly hadn’t been caught by the military or the police. Not only had she turned the tables and wiped out the enemy, she had escaped without a trace!

Yi Ang’s blood surged with excitement, and he couldn’t help wondering how old F was, and what it took to become as strong as her.

Just as everyone was holding their phones, pondering how to reply to Ding Ling, a pop-up appeared in the black mission group.

【Points requirement met. Enter Group 2?】

Ding Ling tapped lightly. 【Yes】

【Enter the reward pool?】

【Yes】