As the woman spoke, she handed over the paper she held—a missing person’s flyer.
Bai Ci’s gaze fell on the photo on the flyer. It showed a little girl with pigtails, smiling brightly.
Bai Ci’s eyes then moved to the woman’s face. Though the woman before her was haggard, her eyes bloodshot, her lips chapped, and her entire frame gaunt, Bai Ci recognized her instantly: this was Du Min, the client who had commissioned them to find her daughter.
“Du Min, you’re here handing out these things again!” The manager stepped forward, his tone stern. “How many times do I have to tell you? Your daughter was most likely abducted by human traffickers! Don’t stand here bothering other people! You hand these out in the neighborhood every day, stirring up panic. Other residents have complained multiple times!”
Du Min’s body stiffened slightly, a flicker of pain and despair in her eyes, but she stubbornly insisted, “My daughter wasn’t abducted; she’s right here in this neighborhood, I can feel it… Please, help me find her, won’t you?”
“Alright, alright, stop spouting nonsense here!” The manager waved his hand impatiently. “Get going, or I’ll have someone escort you out!”
From the manager’s perspective, Du Min was just a woman driven mad by the loss of her child, constantly distributing missing person flyers around the neighborhood, asking everyone if they had seen her daughter. Many residents had grown annoyed by her.
Du Min wanted to say more, but seeing the manager’s impatient expression and glancing at the group, she finally lowered her head, silently turned, and slowly walked away, her steps heavy. As she left, she kept glancing around, as if searching for something.
Only after Du Min’s figure vanished from sight did the manager purse his lips and complain to the group, “That woman’s crazy. She lost her mind after her daughter went missing, constantly saying her daughter’s in the neighborhood, handing out flyers everywhere. She won’t listen to anyone. Don’t pay her any mind, or you’ll just cause yourselves trouble.”
The group exchanged glances, none of them speaking, each with their own thoughts. Bai Ci folded the missing person’s flyer and put it into her backpack. This was undoubtedly an important clue. Du Min’s condition was even worse than described in the commission document; it seemed she had endured immense pain and pressure these past few days.
“Let’s go sign the contract first,” Wang Qiang said, breaking the silence and addressing the manager.
The manager nodded, leading the way back to the Property Duty Room with the group.
Watching Du Min’s lonely retreating figure, Su Xiao felt a pang of sadness. “She’s so pitiful…”
“Don’t overthink it. Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Wang Qiang said softly, patting Su Xiao’s shoulder.
He knew Du Min’s plight was sympathetic, but their primary mission now was to conceal their identities and complete the commission. Too much emotion would only cloud their judgment.
The group followed the manager back to the duty room. The contract was a simple handwritten one, outlining the rental period, rent amount, and some basic terms.
Each of them paid their rent and deposit. The manager handed them the keys, then offered a few more reminders like “be careful with water and electricity” and “sort your trash and throw it in the downstairs bins” before returning to his desk and turning on the radio.
“Alright, the formalities are done. Let’s head back to our rooms, get settled, and familiarize ourselves with the surroundings, but don’t act rashly,” Wang Qiang said, taking the keys and distributing them. “We’ll meet again tonight to consolidate clues and discuss our investigation plan.”
Wang Qiang was a competent leader. Though not formally appointed, he was indeed guiding the others and genuinely looking out for the newcomers and semi-newcomers among them.
“Sister Bai, we’re staying in this room, right?” Su Xiao clutched her key, looking cautiously at Bai Ci.
She had been tense the entire time, and after leaving Wang Qiang’s side, she instinctively leaned closer to Bai Ci, her timid demeanor impossible to hide.
Bai Ci nodded and walked into the room. “Yes, I’ll take the window side, and you can have the inner part. Let’s put our things down, tidy up a bit, and then familiarize ourselves with the environment.”
She first carefully checked every corner of the room. After confirming there were no anomalies, she opened her backpack and organized its contents: a notebook, a pen, business cards printed with her detective identity, and the missing person’s flyer she had just tucked away.
When she reached the missing person’s flyer, Bai Ci paused, unfolding the slightly rough paper to examine it closely again. The Lele in the photo smiled with crescent eyes, her pigtails neatly tied, and a red string with a jade button tied around her neck.
Bai Ci subconsciously reverted to her mindset from murder mystery games. This jade button felt like a Chekhov’s gun, perhaps hinting at a later plot point where it would be used to identify the child’s body.
Realizing this thought, she fell silent for a moment. In the previous instance, her arrogant mindset had led to that situation. Was she going to repeat the same mistake this time?
This was a bad habit.
The outcome of an “Anomalous Infection” instance depended on what the players could achieve, not a fixed set of endings like in a murder mystery game. Therefore, approaching it with a murder mystery game mindset was a terrible habit.
Folding the missing person’s flyer, Bai Ci placed it with the commission document and walked to the window.
Pushing open the window, the salty sea breeze rushed in, instantly dispelling the lingering dustiness in the room. She leaned on the windowsill and looked out. The lead-gray sky had completely darkened, the sea surface shimmered with sporadic glints, and the sound of waves crashing against the embankment was incessant.
Su Xiao had left at some point, probably while Bai Ci was reflecting. With only the natural white noise of the sea, Bai Ci composed herself.
She stood quietly for a few minutes, gradually noticing something amiss.
The sound of the waves seemed regular, yet it subtly carried an odd, superimposed quality. Normal tidal rhythms should be smooth and continuous, but what she heard sounded like two different rhythms of waves layered together, sometimes aligning, sometimes out of sync.
She frowned, trying to discern the source of the sound, but the strange superimposed feeling was intermittent and fleeting. She leaned out again, looking left and right. Most of the apartment windows on either side were dark, with only a few showing faint lights, revealing no anomalies.
“It shouldn’t be my imagination…” Bai Ci murmured to herself. After listening for a few more minutes, she concluded that whether it was an illusion or not, this anomaly was worth noting, as it might be related to Lele’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Lin Wenyu returned to his room, closing the door behind him with a flick of his wrist and not forgetting to lock it.
He let out a long sigh, as if shedding a thousand-pound burden. Spreading his legs, he sat on the bed, his formerly indifferent expression instantly vanishing, replaced by a look of both relief and annoyance.
“Finally, I can relax,” he mumbled, speaking rapidly, an unconscious Northeastern accent slipping into his words. “This leather jacket and high heels outfit is killing my feet.”
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