I Got Together With the Fake Heiress - Chapter 83

Watching as the dormitory curfew time quickly approached, and seeing that Zhang Pan still hadn’t replied to Liang Shiyou’s message, Wen Yimeng worriedly called her.

As expected, the phone rang until it automatically hung up without anyone answering.

“Um, do you think something might have happened to Zhang Pan?” Liang Shiyou asked uncertainly. “Or is she very busy right now and can’t answer the phone?”

“She’s probably out working her part-time job,” Wen Yunqing glanced at the class schedule posted in Zhang Pan’s space. “Today she had two classes in the morning and one in the afternoon. She has free time in the late afternoon and evening.”

“But, even if she’s working a part-time job, she shouldn’t be coming back this late,” Liang Shiyou mumbled worriedly, looking at her phone. Why wasn’t she replying to her message?

Wen Yimeng looked at her girlfriend, asking with her eyes if Wen Yunqing knew that Zhang Pan was safe.

Wen Yunqing nodded subtly. According to her prediction, Zhang Pan was currently very safe. She was likely working until the very last minute to earn more money before returning.

Just five minutes before curfew, Liang Shiyou received Zhang Pan’s reply, and at 11:30 PM, Zhang Pan appeared at the dormitory entrance right before the deadline.

“Zhang Pan, what’s going on with you? Why are you back so late? I was worried sick!” After seeing the real person, Liang Shiyou finally breathed a sigh of relief. “I was already imagining that something awful had happened to you.”

Zhang Pan apologized sincerely. “I found a part-time job working evenings. I’ll probably be coming back this late for a while. I had my phone on silent while working and only remembered it when I got to the door. I’m sorry.”

“An evening job? Is it reliable?” Liang Shiyou asked.

Zhang Pan hesitated, then nodded. “I found a job at a bar. I work as a server, paid by the hour.”

“Hey, a bar might not be very safe, right?” Liang Shiyou, being a good girl, had never been to a bar before. “If someone gets drunk in there, won’t they cause trouble or something?”

Zhang Pan scratched her cheek. “It’s actually alright. There’s a police station less than 200 meters away. I think it’s quite safe.”

“In that case, it is acceptable.” Learning that there was a police station nearby greatly increased the feeling of security.

Wen Yunqing’s eyebrows subtly lowered. “How did you get back? By subway?”

Zhang Pan shook her head. “It was the subway a few days ago. Today, the manager happened to be coming nearby, so he dropped me off at the entrance.”

“The bar manager, huh.” Wen Yunqing nodded, her eyebrows relaxing. “Alright, it’s late now. Go and get ready for bed.”

Zhang Pan nodded, grabbed her pajamas, and went into the bathroom.

“Was there something wrong with the person who brought Zhang Pan back?” Wen Yimeng asked softly.

Wen Yunqing shook her head. “The manager should be fine, but they must have passed through a place that wasn’t quite right. Zhang Pan has picked up some unpleasant aura.”

“Ah, does that mean we need to investigate it?” Wen Yimeng only asked casually, not expecting there to be an actual problem.

“No need. Zhang Pan will be fine after taking a shower. As for the location where this happened, this is Jing City; there are many capable people here. Under normal circumstances, we should just avoid intervening.”

Wen Yunqing said, then urged Wen Yimeng to quickly get into bed. They had the earliest class the next day and needed to ensure they got enough sleep.

Perhaps because she made Wen Yunqing work overtime during the National Day holiday, Lu Zhiming did not ask Wen Yunqing for help for twelve consecutive days, instead handling all the work in her jurisdiction herself.

The topic of work only came up again because the layout Wen Yunqing had previously set up was triggered, and some relatively important information was fed back to her.

“About two hours ago, the person’s approximate location was here,” Wen Yunqing sent an address directly to Lu Zhiming. “Based on the feedback, their strength is average. They should be roughly similar to yours. If you bring a few more people, you should be able to handle her.”

“…” Lu Zhiming clicked on the location to look at it. “Are you still saying my strength is average? You should know that I became a captain based on my skills. If the opponent’s strength is similar to mine, they should be classified as a severely dangerous person.”

“Is there any other information you can give me?” Lu Zhiming asked.

Wen Yunqing shook her head. “The rest is fragmented information. The person is a male, probably around fifty years old.”

“That is not fragmented information; that can help us reduce a lot of work,” Lu Zhiming immediately forwarded the intelligence he received to Mu Kuan.

“The follow-up shouldn’t require my help, right? That person’s location is far from Jing City,” Wen Yunqing asked.

Lu Zhiming nodded. “Oh, right. Zhang Pan is your roommate, correct?”

Wen Yunqing: “Yes, she is. What about her?”

“I saw her recently while I was working,” Lu Zhiming put his phone on the table. “For her… safety, you should tell her to stop working for the next month.”

“What’s wrong? Did something happen at the bar?” Wen Yunqing asked.

Lu Zhiming shook his head. “It’s not that the bar had an incident. It’s just that area isn’t very safe lately. There’s been someone appearing who likes to… deceive and infringe upon female college students. The suspect can change their appearance and identity; they should be a shapeshifting demon (yao-guai) skilled in disguise.”

“Huh? A yao-guai?” Wen Yunqing frowned. “Does the Special Affairs Department have any plan?”

“Well…” Lu Zhiming hesitated again. “Because the suspect did not harm the lives of those students, only… that, it has been classified as a minor hazard incident. Due to insufficient manpower in the Special Affairs Department, we need to prioritize more serious matters, so not many people have been assigned to look for the demon.”

Lu Zhiming kept watching Wen Yunqing while speaking, seemingly anticipating something to happen.

Wen Yunqing felt a bit choked up. What “insufficient manpower”? Lu Zhiming is clearly setting his sights on me.

“Oh, right, the person in charge of this matter is a rookie. She just joined the Special Affairs Department, and she’s a mortal, by the way,” Lu Zhiming said, secretly pushing the rookie’s WeChat contact card to Wen Yunqing.

“She’s currently performing a ‘fishing’ operation, and I believe with her efforts, she should be able to find the suspect in about a month,” Lu Zhiming continued to speak to himself. “It’s just that the demon usually deceives one person per week. I wonder if there will be another victim first, or if the demon will be caught by the rookie first.”

Wen Yunqing rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on. “Alright, I understand. I’ll take a trip around the bar area this weekend. If I run into the demon, I’ll deal with it conveniently. If not, then forget it.”

“Are you sure there’s only a deceiving demon nearby? Are there no other dangerous cultivators or ghosts?” Wen Yunqing asked.

Lu Zhiming shook his head. “According to the feedback, there’s only one, and he’s quite skilled at disguising himself.”

Wen Yunqing nodded. If it was a demon skilled at disguise, it should be restraining its aura, right? Then why did Zhang Pan have that kind of aura on her before? Was it a coincidence?

Wen Yunqing pondered this, then shared the situation with Wen Yimeng.

“Deceiving female college students! This kind of person—no, this kind of demon—must face the misery of prison!” Wen Yimeng was furious when she heard this. “Tomorrow is Saturday! We’ll go look for the demon tomorrow!”