Chapter 167
by Need_More_SleepChapter 167: Beat Him Up Too
Using tidying up as an excuse, Yiwen didn’t bring him to her own room.
Only three males had ever entered her private space: her father, her brother, and Mi Xiaoliu. Not even relatives’ kids were allowed in—because she rarely cleaned, leaving her belongings scattered everywhere.
Mi Xiaoliu’s room, on the other hand, was nearly empty and spotless. Anyone unaware might genuinely mistake it for a girl’s bedroom. So Yiwen decided to receive her guest here.
Had Enoch not shown up, Yiwen would’ve taken Mi Xiaoliu out to have some fun. But since he was here, she couldn’t just kick him out or openly show impatience. After all, he was a friend—even if she had no desire to reconnect with anyone from her past.
“This is my junior high classmate, Enoch. And this is my… good friend, also my current deskmate, Mi Xiaoliu.” Yiwen gave a simple introduction.
Why did she pause when introducing him?
Enoch felt his breathing grow uneven.
Was this Jingyin’s type? Someone who looked weaker than her?
He shot a glance at the unwelcome creature named Mi Xiaoliu, noting that although the three of them were seated in a triangular arrangement, the distance between Jingyin and Mi Xiaoliu was a full ten centimeters closer than between her and himself!
No—she didn’t introduce him as a boyfriend. And this Mi Xiaoliu guy doesn’t seem like dating material—at least not the kind girls would go for. Which means I still have a chance.
Enoch took the initiative to break the ice: “We were all supposed to come together today, but those jerks bailed on me last minute. I’ll call them out later.”
This was a classic tactic—when facing an awkward atmosphere with an estranged friend, bringing up mutual acquaintances could forcibly bridge the gap.
Then came phase two:
“Curly was the one who organized it in the first place. She sweet-talked me into coming, then flaked herself.”
By discussing topics the third person had no connection to, he could render them unable to contribute, creating a sense of isolation—like they didn’t belong in the circle.
This was inevitable when two out of three people were strangers to each other.
“Curly?” Mi Xiaoliu, stroking the fake Circle, looked puzzledly at Yiwen.
“An old classmate of ours. She had slight natural curls, so we called her that. It wasn’t even that curly—just a few strands sticking up, like Zhang Huba’s braids… Actually, Zhang Huba isn’t the best example. Remember Barrett?” Yiwen patiently explained.
This isn’t going as planned. Why are these two suddenly talking about things I’m not part of?
“Jingyin, are you moving back for good?” Enoch abandoned subtlety and cut straight to the point.
“No. We’re leaving in a couple of days.” Yiwen shook her head.
Her family had already decided to settle in Fanzui City for the next few years. Despite its poor public security, at least it wouldn’t feel as stifling as Sunshine City.
Enoch pulled out his phone and scrolled through the class group chat. “Back then, everyone was actually on your side. They all knew you had no sense of direction—”
Thanks to her father’s connections, Yiwen had attended an ordinary junior high.
Regular schools occasionally admitted one or two harmless Ability Users—usually self-healers. But Yiwen, a pure nepotism case, had her registered ability listed as “Flight.”
That said, Ability Users in normal schools were often ostracized, which was why even self-healers avoided such environments.
At first, Yiwen hadn’t told anyone about her abilities. In seventh grade, she’d had two extremely close girlfriends. But after her status as an Ability User leaked, they grew distant—and she once overheard them badmouthing her in the restroom.
“Oh, right! Didn’t you say you wanted to be a supernatural cop in the future?” Enoch grasped for another topic.
This time, he outright hinted at his feelings for Jingyin: “After you left, I awakened my ability! I even signed up as a volunteer officer, hoping to work alongside you someday. Got accepted pretty smoothly! Not sure if you’ve heard of the alias ‘Black Spider’—it’s kinda famous…”
Eager to impress both his crush and this stranger Mi Xiaoliu, he was met only with Yiwen’s frown.
“You shouldn’t go around revealing your alias.”
She’d seen what happened to supernatural cops who got doxxed.
“Uh… So where are you staying now? How about we gather the old classmates for a reunion in a few days? Everyone’s great—they didn’t even distance themselves after I awakened my ability…”
None of his proposed topics seemed to interest Yiwen.
The meeting ended on an awkward note, with Enoch ultimately failing to find out where Jingyin was currently living.
Still, there was some progress—he’d gotten her current WeChat, and the boy beside her hadn’t reacted at all, confirming they definitely weren’t in a relationship.
“So? How’d it go, you dog?”
His junior high “friends” who’d tricked him into going alone started prying for details in the group chat.
“You guys are actual trash. You all bailed and left me hanging. You have no idea how awkward that was.” Enoch angrily sent a voice message.
“We were giving you a chance! If you still felt awkward seeing your crush one-on-one, just go die in a ditch.”
“I… she… I don’t even feel like I know her anymore.”
“Why the cold feet? There’s a big celebrity concert here in a month. Doesn’t she love singing? Invite her, then take her out to eat after—easy win.”
Enoch’s eyes lit up. He immediately pulled up the promotional poster for the Sunshine City concert and forwarded it to Jingyin’s WeChat.
The dawn of victory was upon him.
When Yiwen saw the promo, her eyes also lit up—but she instantly rejected Enoch, then flopped onto Mi Xiaoliu’s bed.
“Xiaoliu, there’s a concert in a month…”
“Mmm.”
“Don’t just ‘mmm’ me. You’re going with me.” Yiwen squished Mi Xiaoliu’s cheeks between her hands.
“Mmm.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. If you bail, I’m never speaking to you again.”
The concert itself was secondary—the real win was tricking Mi Xiaoliu into staying another month. No pink-haired old lady, no Lu Mingxue… just the two of them, separated by a single wall.
Day 1: Take Mi Xiaoliu shopping and stuff him with good food.
Day 2: Hit a salon and give him a glow-up.
Day 3: Test his masculinity in a haunted house (While screaming and hiding behind him).
Day 4, Day 5…
Maybe I should find an excuse to stay out? Living with Mom and Toby still feels a bit inconvenient…
She had the entire month meticulously planned.
But first…
Yiwen returned to her father’s study.
Unseen by her, Raven watched her sneaky silhouette and sighed.
Yiwen refused to believe this nonsense—that her dad would build a secret basement just to indulge in otaku trash without telling his family?
If there was no secret here, she’d destroy it all. These inappropriate collectibles were better off gone.
But most of the items here were completely foreign to her—she’d never been part of anime circles.
With shelves full of NSFW merch, she couldn’t exactly call Toby in to help identify things either.
After vandalizing her father’s figurines, Yiwen started tapping along the walls, hoping to find another hidden door.
To her shock, she did discover a hollow section.
Unbelievable. Mom kept praising Sunshine City’s police, but they couldn’t even search properly?
Then again, I wouldn’t want to touch this creepy room either. But Fanzui City cops would’ve combed through every inch, no matter how gross. They were the truly diligent ones.
After testing the area, Yiwen estimated the hidden space was small—too cramped even to crawl into. Probably just storing something.
Focusing her ability into her fist, she lightly struck the wall, carefully cracking it open without damaging the contents inside.
Soon, the prize was revealed:
A necklace, its cord attached to a rectangular case smaller than a palm, about as thick as a laptop—some kind of mechanical device.
Hidden this well… surely not another otaku toy?
Thrilled, Yiwen examined it from every angle but found no obvious mechanisms. The central button did nothing when pressed.
One side had a slot, likely for inserting something.
She snapped a photo and sent it to Officer Chen, asking if he recognized it. Unsurprisingly, he played dumb.
Every time it’s about Dad, whether he knows or not, he just dodges the question.
Prying at the seams yielded nothing—the corners were secured with screws, but not standard flathead or Phillips.
Hexagonal. Who even has that kind of screwdriver?
With zero technical skills, Yiwen could only wear it around her neck for now and investigate later.
————————
If Fanzui City’s specialty was criminals, then Sunshine City’s was internet celebrities.
Self-proclaimed influencers, viral shops, trending products, hyped-up street food—all part of the package.
It didn’t matter whether something was actually popular—so long as you added the words “internet-famous” to it, raising the price seemed to make perfect sense.
For whatever reason, the area around the Yiwen household had somehow also picked up this internet-famous label, and a number of trendy food stalls had started showing up here, intentionally or not.
You often saw gullible folks filming videos while buying snacks—after all, you didn’t even have to worry about being chased away by city inspectors in a place like this.
“Twenty Miras for a bowl of wontons? Back when I was a kid, I wouldn’t even dare imagine it,” Wei Shi said with a blank expression as he rummaged through his wallet for cash, not caring at all that the vendor was right in front of him.
“Prices aren’t what they used to be. If you still try to do business at the old rates in the city, you won’t even be able to eat. You don’t look that old either, young man,” the stall owner gave Wei Shi a couple of glances, but didn’t take his complaint to heart.
“Forty-eight,” Wei Shi replied simply. He wasn’t lying.
“You’re only two years younger than me? I would’ve guessed twenty-five at most,” the stall owner clearly didn’t believe him.
“Boss, one bowl of wontons, please.” A young couple walked over. The girl held up her phone, filming and murmuring some kind of commentary to herself.
When the camera passed over Wei Shi, her phone suddenly short-circuited and slipped from her hand with a loud crack as it hit the ground, the screen shattered on impact.
Screams and cries of distress.
Ignoring the commotion, Wei Shi glanced at the two people still sitting at the table: “I’m done eating. I’ll head out first.”
“Wait for me—take me with you.” The buzz-cut man quickly slurped down the rest of his wonton soup, burning himself so badly his eyes started tearing up.
“The boss should’ve given you a personal teleportation device,” Wei Shi said blankly, waiting.
“That’s why I came back this time,” Riels replied while scanning to pay. “There’s never been a case of two people teleporting at once before. It caused an overload and fried the battery. Luckily, I had a spare one at home.”
For someone who couldn’t even find his destination on a map, it really was a headache.
The only place he never got lost in was the few streets around his own home.
Riels squinted toward the ‘internet-famous house’ not far away: “Still, I thought no one would come back for a long time.”
He kind of missed his stash of treasured collectibles—he wondered if they’d gotten dusty after being neglected so long.
Wei Shi, still expressionless, stated his condition: “You help me kill the governor and his nephew, and I’ll quietly help you retrieve the battery.”
“You really know how to take advantage of someone, huh? That thing’s at my place anyway—I can take it back whenever I want,” Riels refused. “Didn’t the organization say? Personal vendettas are to be handled by your own team.”
“Mmm.” Wei Shi didn’t react. He hadn’t expected him to agree in the first place.
After all, they barely knew each other. Wei Shi had only checked to see if any colleagues were in this new city, just to avoid conflict. It just so happened that someone very notable showed up on the list.
Both had been police officers, but Wei Shi had entered the academy more than a few years ahead of Riels. They’d studied in different places, worked in different regions.
Their meeting now wasn’t because anyone invited the other to dinner—it was pure coincidence.
“So tell me, why were you lurking outside my house?” Riels pulled the third person at the table upright.
“Locating subordinates, so I can dispatch them at any time,” Wei Shi answered.
“Oh~” Riels looked up toward the second floor of his house.
While everyone else was glued to their phones in the early days of summer break, a bespectacled boy was obediently hunched over a table doing homework.
Why was there a boy he didn’t even recognize in his house…
The Multitool had said this boy was also one of Night Hawk’s people. That was dangerous. He’d have to look into him later.
“You plan to carry that guy around with you the whole time?” Wei Shi glanced at the Red Prince slung over Riels’ back. “Not even going to disguise him?”
A red trench coat draped over him, hair that hadn’t been washed since his resurrection, scraggly stubble that was starting to grow out, and a half-finished beer bottle glued to his hand—he really did look like a drunk.
This wasn’t Fanzui City, after all—carrying a drunk around wasn’t necessarily going to escape suspicion.
Even though he’d saved him, Riels had no intention of waking him up.
“It’s fine. What could go wrong? I don’t have a fixed place to sleep anyway. If I get lost and forget him somewhere, let the boss complain,” Riels shrugged and looked toward his house again.
He noticed the boy inside looking back at them, so he raised a hand in greeting.
But Mi Xiaoliu wasn’t looking at him—he was looking at the Red Prince, whose head was resting on Riels’ shoulder.
Though he’d grown scruffier and greasier, it hadn’t been long since they’d met—and that face still looked familiar.
“Master, that person is the Red Prince,” Sasha reminded him.
“…”
Mi Xiaoliu immediately walked out of the Yiwen house, but by the time he arrived, the people were already gone.
“He really is in this city,” Sasha muttered. “And he’s got a partner too. That guy looks so arrogant—I recommend you beat him up too next time you see them.”
“Mmm.”
[Translator’s Note: See the index page for this Novel if you want to see the Amazon Link for the eBooks.]
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