CH 120

Translated by Dust Bunny

Edited by Crooked 

Si Yu looked at Gu Xizhou. Light steamed through the window obliquely, spilling over his body and gilding him in a white halo. His eyes were so deep that they seemed to suck people in.

Gu Xizhou moved his gaze from Si Yu’s when he heard the other’s reply. What was he so happy about?

En…

Just a little happy. 

Just a little.

Off to the side, Fang Zhi felt that something was off about the atmosphere of the two people before him. Although he appeared calm and collected, his heart was a whirlwind of shock: Gu Ge, Si Ge, what’s wrong with you! I’m starting to feel a little frightened!

“What do you want to eat?” Si Yu asked softly, picking up a menu and handing it to Gu Xizhou.

With his slender white fingers, even the action of picking up the menu was pleasing to the eye, and Gu Xizhou sighed secretly. It really was weird that the female lust ghost didn’t go after Si Yu, instead choosing to focus on yours truly!

“I’ll order myself!” Gu Xizhou took the menu, ignoring the man exuding charm like a male peacock. He picked up the paper and pen from the table and wrote down the dishes he wanted to eat and casually asked Fang Zhi, “Fang Zhi, what do you want to eat?”

“A-anything’s fine,” Fang Zhi, who was in the middle of questioning his life, replied, sneaking a glance at Si Yu.

“Ding ding ding—”

Gu Xizhou was woken up by his phone alarm. The most pressing thing at the moment however, was that the comforter had already been ripped off by a ghost. He was out of bed in an instant. Even though his eyes were still closed, he fumbled around trying to shut off his alarm before going to the bathroom to wash up and get ready for work. 

Today was the last day of the weekend, but because criminal police didn’t get weekends, working shifts instead, today happened to be a workday for him. Before going out, Gu Xizhou turned back to look at his dog son who was still asleep and sighed.

Dressed in civilian clothing, Gu Xizhou took a taxi straight to the office. He’d just arrived when he noticed a young man in his twenties looking cautiously around the entrance of the police station. He walked over to him and asked him, “What are you doing here?”

The young man scratched his head and rubbed his hands anxiously, saying, “N-nothing!”

Gu Xizhou glanced at him and went into the station. Once in his office he poured a cup of the Jujube goji tea Xiang Yuan had given him as a gift and drank two sips of it. 

The man himself twisted the handle and smiled at Gu Xizhou, saying, “Can you guess why I’m looking for you?”

Gu Xizhou saw Xiang Yuan standing at the door in his big white lab coat, and his heart skipped a beat. “Is there a new case?” he said, tripping over his words.

“No.” Xiang Yuan pointed at the round clock hanging in the office and said, “It’s already noon, lets have lunch together.”

“Hu, you scared me. Let’s go, ba.” 

When Gu Xizhou and Xiang Yuan went out to have lunch, they ran into Lao Guo from the police department, and Gu Xizhou genially invited him to eat with them.

After eating, the three of them went back and ran into the young man from earlier that day a few meters from the police station. The young man was standing by the curb making a phone call.

“I told you, I don’t have money. Don’t take it too far!”

“Pa’r cb erf yijmxwjlilcu wf ilxf atlr, P’w bcis j raevfca. P mjwf eq klat atf 2000 yfobgf. Po sbe obgmf wf ilxf atlr, P mjc bcis ub ab atf qbilmf!” 

“Tbe’nf ubcf abb ojg!”

Xe Wlhtbe jcv Wljcu Tejc vlvc’a ilrafc obg nfgs ibcu yfobgf atf raevfca tecu eq jcv rdejaafv bc atf megy mgslcu ygbxfc-tfjgafvis.

Gu Xizhou put his hands in his pocket and said mildly, “I saw you outside the police department this morning. I didn’t expect you would still be here. Why don’t you come into the station, ba, and tell me what’s going on?”

The student crouched on the curb crying saw Gu Xizhou and stood up, wiping his tears. He entered the station looking very claustrophobic and clutching his hands together nervously. 

“I-I want to file a report! Someone is blackmailing me!” the student cried.

Gu Xizhou wasn’t just asking casually, he was inviting a case into the police station.

Inside the interrogation room, the college student talked about his recent experience.

“My name is Jiang Jun, I’m a first year university student. This year I met a woman online. As soon as she added me, she asked me to open a video chat with her naked… In the beginning I didn’t want to, but when she opened it I saw her… en… wearing nothing… Just like that…” 

Gu Xizhou raised his eyebrows, feeling somewhat incredulous, “So you chatted with her naked?”

Jiang Jun evidently felt that it was hard to talk about these things and was silent for a moment. He nodded hard and continued, “At first, I didn’t find anything wrong with chatting naked. She just didn’t talk, and I didn’t care. Then she asked me to do some shameful things. Officer, you understand, right?”

Gu Xizhou: “…” Understand my ass!

Gu Xizhou thought about it and pretended to have a stomach ache. He turned to Lao Guo next to him and said, “Lao Guo, you continue. My stomach suddenly hurts a little. I’m going to go out, you make the transcript.” 

Lao Guo didn’t doubt him, and quickly told Gu Xizhou, “Team leader Gu, go, ba!”

As soon as Gu Xizhou walked out, he saw Xiang Yuan holding a cup of water. He cheerfully looked over at him and teased, “Team leader Gu is so pure, ah!”

Gu Xizhou said, “Who’s pure, ah, I just feel embarrassed! That kid really doesn’t have any brains. You should be more sensible at 19. Who would want to talk to you naked for no reason, ah? There definitely has to be a reason. I’m certain that this kid was recorded naked by the person in the chat so that they could blackmail him with this. I’m embarrassed for him.”

At the same time, dialogue along these lines was heard from the interrogation room. 

You didn’t think anything was off?”

“I did, she didn’t speak. I asked her why, and she said that her mic was broken. At the time, my brain was hot, ba, so I listened to her and continued to chat with her. Later, she suddenly shut off the video, and a man’s voice came from the otherside. He said he’d recorded us chatting naked just now. He threatened me for money and said if I didn’t give it to him, he would send the video out online, and to our school…”

“Wait, you’re a college student. Where were you chatting naked? A college dormitory?”

“Right, it was in the bedroom. There was nobody else there at the time.” 

“Eh…continue.”

“At first the man on the internet demanded that I give him 2000, so he wouldn’t send the things out. I took out a month of living expenses and borrowed money from my classmates and gave it to him. As a result, several days later, he asked me for 3000…”

“How many times have you given him money? How much each time?”

The student in the interrogation room thought about it and said, “There were three times. The first was 2000, the second was 3000, and the third time he wanted the same. I said that at most I would give him another 2000 if he promised to stop threatening me. I gave it to him… but before long he was back again!” 

Officer Lao Guo looked at this young student and shook his head helplessly. Why were children so stupid these days? They’ll believe anything!

“Okay, he asked you for money, how did you transfer him the money?”

The student explained, “WeChat, I used WeChat to directly transfer him the money, but I don’t know whether or not the WeChat is his…”

Xiang Yuan looked at Gu Xizhou and said, “If you don’t go in now, the interrogation will be over.” 

Gu Xizhou glanced at him and shook his head, “The interrogation is already over. Even if I go in, there’s nothing I can do about an online fraud case”

Just as Gu Xizhou finished talking to Xiang Yuan, he saw Ma Qi coming over. Ma Qi lowered his voice and said to Gu Xizhou, “Team leader Gu, come to my office. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Oh, okay,” Gu Xizhou nodded and went into Ma Qi’s office with him. Gu Xizhou keenly noticed a paper bag on Ma Qi’s desk.

Ma Qi pushed the manilla envelope towards Gu Xizhou and said, “You’ll definitely be surprised when you see what’s inside!” 

“What is it?” Gu Xizhou asked in surprise as he took the manilla envelope from Ma Qi. He opened the manilla envelope and pulled out several thin sheets of paper from it. He glanced over the cover, “It’s about Ye Shu?”

Ma Qi nodded, “I found someone to investigate according to the address you gave me. Open it and take a look.”

“Oh.”

After Gu Xizhou read the second page of the report on Ye Shu, his eyebrows formed a single line. He was silent as he read the information on the page, his eyes pausing the longest on the line with her age. The number that was filled in was—126. 

“She’s? 126 years old?” Gu Xizhou looked at the information on the ID card and for a moment he couldn’t say a single world

“It really is 126 years old. The strangest thing is that no one around her questioned her age or appearance. Even the person who helped me investigate and gave me this information didn’t find anything wrong!” Then Ma Qi continued to say, “How many people in the world do you think are like her?”

Gu Xizhou shook his head, “If you don’t know, I don’t know either.”

“Can I take this with me?” Gu Xizhou thought and asked. 

Ma Qi whispered, “Feel free.”

Gu Xizhou thanked Ma Qi and took the basic information about Ye Shu with him as he left. He went back to his office and layed out the three sheets of paper and took pictures of them to send to Si Yu.

Gu Xizhou: [picture] [picture] [picture] look at this

Si Yu was swimming in his pool bored to death as he listened to his assistant reading a report when he heard his cell phone go off. He immediately got out of the pool and went to grab his phone. 

When he saw the pictures Gu Xizhou sent, his brow furrowed and he gestured for his assistant to be quiet, pressing a finger gently to his lips and wiping the water from his hands before replying: En, she’s a little old.

Gu Xizhou was on his way to the interrogation room as he waited for a reply. After receiving this reply Gu Xizhou said: This is a little old? This is very old, okay!

Si Yu: Her existence confirms our theory. So long as you can escape the mission worlds, the mission world can help people live forever.

Gu Xizhou furrowed his brow and replied: Actually, in the last mission world that female ghost said something to me. 

Si Yu: ?

Gu Xizhou: Death is not the end anymore, so there is no need to fear death.

Gu Xizhou: I’ve been thinking about what this sentence means.

Gu Xizhou: Please help me figure it out. I’m at the door of the interrogation room now, so I won’t talk anymore. 

Si Yu: Okay.

Gu Xizhou put away his mobile phone. Actually he’d also asked Gu Ji Ji about that sentence, but he didn’t have any special reaction. Additionally when he mentioned Fu Yiran, Gu Ji Ji shook his head to indicate he didn’t know Fu Yiran.

Just like before, everytime Gu Ji Ji tried to explain the reason behind his resurrection, Gu Xizhou found that time was moved forward by an invisible hand. He would always inexplicably lose time.

After reading through the interrogation records and leaving the contact information of the student, Gu Xizhou had just started walking towards his office when he met Wang Ao coming out of his office. 

Wang Ao yawned and massaged his eyes. These days his eyes were always twitching. Seeing Gu Xizhou he smiled and said, “Xizhou, come to my house tomorrow for dinner. The day after tomorrow is my birthday and my daughter, her husband, and my grandon are all coming back to have dinner with me!”

“Okay, Uncle Wang, I’ll definitely be there!” Gu Xizhou didn’t hesitate to agree directly. Gu Ji Ji had a good relationship with Wang Ao’s family, so he should go anyway. If he wasn’t mistaken, the day after tomorrow should be Wang Ao’s 49th birthday, so if the unit wasn’t invited out to dinner, they would definitely reserve several tables outside.

Hearing Gu Xizhou call him ‘Uncle Wang,’ Wang Ao smiled slightly and nodded to Gu Xizhou before leaving the police station and returning home.

He didn’t know why his eyes would twitch when he drove a car. Additionally he also had heart palpitations and felt like something bad was about to happen. 

Wang Ao furrowed his brows. After safely driving the car home, he immediately sat on the sofa.

Wang Ao’s wife gave him a strange look and wondered: why isn’t Lao Wang playing on his phone today and checking Weibo today?

Ever since he opened a Weibo for the Jinluo police department, he never tired of sending out a little fraud prevention information every day and happily interacting with netizens. A serious middle-aged uncle was transformed into a smartphone addict who checked his Weibo everyday.

The most miraculous thing was—every time Wang Ao posted something, several traffic stars would like his post or forward his messages and comments. As a result, Wang Ao’s Weibo account for the Jinluo police station was still on the hot search. Without much effort Wang Ao experienced what it was like to be a star. 

“Why aren’t you a smartphone addict today?”

Wang Ao heard his wife’s question and shook his head wearily, “I don’t know why, but today I feel anxious.”

“Are you feeling unwell?”

“En… No, maybe I’ve just been too busy recently. I’m just tired, ba. I’ll be okay after I lie down.” Wang Ao saw the worry in his wife’s eyes and consoled her. 

The next day—

The blackmail case was solved with surprising speed because the WeChat account used to extort money from Jiang Jun was his own. It was a dirty trick, he relied on the victims being too humiliated to speak out and didn’t even bother to hide his own identity.

It took the technology department only one day to track him down. The awful thing was, in the other’s WeChat account they discovered that it wasn’t just Jiang Jun that was blackmailed, there were no less than 120 victims!

Many of these victims were too ashamed to admit they were blackmailed. Only a few people were willing to communicate with the police and provide testimony. 

After a busy day, Gu Xizhou got off work and met Wang Ao in the same place. They had barely exchanged two words when Wang Ao received a phone call. After just a few words his complexion was off.

Gu Xizhou naturally noticed this change and asked him urgently, “Wang Ao, what’s wrong?”

Wang Ao furrowed his brow and looked at the time, “Your Ayi said that no one’s answering Xiao Shu’s phone. Help me with that bag and I’ll try it.”