Bab 35: 35. Seeking Qing Chen
"Do you know who did it?" Lu Yuan asked.
As these words were spoken,
the living room fell silent all at once. The air in the room seemed to turn into tranquil water, slowing everyone's movements.
In the kitchen, Qing Chen also instinctively held her breath.
Jiang Xue adjusted her sitting position and said slowly, "I don't know who did it, perhaps it was someone acting out of a sense of justice. Why do you ask, why are you investigating this?"
Jiang Xue actually had a clear idea; the other party was here to investigate Qing Chen.
But no matter what, she was unwilling to let others trace it back to Qing Chen because that youth had been avenging her daughter.
The image of the youth carrying a shovel in the night, and their cracked palms, seemed so close at hand, giving her a sense of security from an outsider for the first time.
Lu Yuan explained with a smile, "Don't misunderstand, we are not law enforcement, so we don't intend to do anything to the person who acted out of a sense of justice."
The Kunlun member beside him said, "That's right, it's just that from the description of the criminals, we've found that this person's timing in acting and ambushing is extremely tricky, not something an ordinary person could do, so we want to find him to see if he is a transmigrator."
Lu Yuan continued, "We aren't certain that he is a transmigrator, just that we pay attention to any recent abnormalities."
The two men were in perfect sync, as if they had rehearsed their dialogue.
At that moment, Li Tongyun said obediently, "After the incident yesterday, my mom and I have been at home the whole time and haven't gone out, so we don't know who did it."
Qing Chen was startled in the kitchen.
In this world, most people subconsciously believe that children do not lie.
Li Tongyun suddenly speaking up undoubtedly increased their credibility.
Qing Chen thought for a moment, realizing that this young girl might not be simple.
At first, when the young girl sought refuge at his doorstep, she was timid yet hard to turn away.
And now, after becoming a transmigrator, even her own mother was kept in the dark.
This was not a coincidence.
Having grown up in a family with constant quarrelling and domestic violence, a child raised in such an environment often turns out to be quite different from ordinary people, either being reclusive, precocious, or exhibiting other psychological traits.
He himself had grown up in such a family environment, and Li Tongyun was the same.
For some reason, Qing Chen suddenly felt like he had encountered a kindred spirit,
A kindred spirit who, beneath a calm exterior, had a turbulent, violent heart.
It was his intuition.
Li Tongyun then suddenly asked, "Uncle, that uncle or auntie who acted out of a sense of justice helped us, right? Why are you looking for them? Are you going to catch them? Are you bad guys?"
"Not at all," Lu Yuan's colleague explained somewhat embarrassed, "Please don't misunderstand, child."
Lu Yuan explained, "Maybe it really was just someone acting out of a sense of justice. Once again, we have no ill intentions. Since the Kunlun organization is just starting up, we are looking to find and recruit like-minded talented individuals."
"Understood," Jiang Xue said.
"Also, there are certain organizations in the Inner World, as well as some consortia that have discovered the existence of the Outer World. According to our statistics, 21 transmigrators have died under mysterious circumstances, tortured before their deaths, and more than a dozen transmigrators explicitly stated they had been imprisoned by Inner World organizations, so Ms. Jiang Xue, we advise you to remain vigilant and avoid detection," Lu Yuan cautioned. "Although these are covert operations, they are enough to remind us of the dangers of exposure."
"Okay, I understand," Jiang Xue nodded. Hearing these numbers from Lu Yuan, she felt a surge of fear in her heart.
So revealing one's identity in the Inner World could be this terrifying.
Just then, Lu Yuan's colleague's phone rang. He looked at it and said, "He Xiaoxiao has appeared again."
Jiang Xue looked puzzled. "Is He Xiaoxiao that person who posts guides on TikTok?"
"Yes," Lu Yuan nodded.
Li Tongyun asked sweetly, "Uncle, who is this He Xiaoxiao brother? He seems to know a lot."
Lu Yuan perked up, "You know about He Xiaoxiao too, young lady? We are also looking for him, but he is very good at concealing himself. We haven't been able to find out who he is yet. He should have left some clues, but now all traces related to him have been erased... I've said a bit too much. We won't bother you any longer. Goodbye."
Jiang Xue rose to her feet and said, "I'm not so mobile right now, so I won't see you out."
"No need to see us out," Lu Yuan said with a smile, as he walked to the door. He suddenly looked at the door and asked, "Oh, whose sneakers are these at the entrance?"
Jiang Xue replied calmly, "They're my husband's."
Li Tongyun also said, "Right, my dad's."
"Ah, sorry," Lu Yuan said before he opened the door and left.
After the click of the door closing, Jiang Xue and her daughter Li Tongyun finally let out a sigh of relief.
Qing Chen emerged from the kitchen, "Sorry for causing you trouble."
"Don't say that, we're the ones who troubled you," Jiang Xue said. "If it hadn't been for our issues, you wouldn't have been pulled into this mess."
"Hmm, what would you like to eat? I just checked the fridge and found out we're out of vegetables," Qing Chen stated.
Jiang Xue had Li Tongyun take out two hundred yuan from her wallet, "We need to buy more vegetables, maybe get some ribs? You and Xiao Yun are still growing, so you need to eat some meat."
Qing Chen thought for a moment, took the money, and then left the house.
In the old corridor, with its walls covered in small advertisements and peeling paint, he stood in the shadow of the stairwell, his fingers tapping on the iron railing, producing a tat-tat-tat sound.
The noise had a strange rhythm to it, as if his fingers were capable of thought.
The next moment, Qing Chen went back home to change his shoes before heading out to the farmers' market.
However, before he could even leave the residential complex, he saw a black SUV parked on the side of the road, with someone inside quietly observing him, waiting for him to walk past.
Lu Yuan's gaze swept up and down Qing Chen's figure, lingering a bit longer on his shoes.
The two people in the car silently watched until Qing Chen had walked far away, then Lu Yuan suddenly said, "It's not him."
"You knew there was someone else in the house just now, seemingly hiding from us. Why didn't you rush in to check? It's such a hassle," his companion wondered.
Lu Yuan replied helplessly, "Boss Zheng just instructed us that since Kunlun's inception, we are to maintain a good relationship with transmigrators, not use strong-arm tactics."
"I think it's better to absorb all the transmigrators into the organization first."
Lu Yuan shook his head, rolled down the window, and lit a cigarette, the orange-red sparks mixing with the misty vapor inside the car.
He exhaled all the smoke from his lungs, "Kunlun isn't someplace for any Tom, Dick, or Harry. The boss also said what we're going to do in the future – if you're not one of us, it just won't work."
"So, what do we do now?" his partner asked.
"Wait here a bit longer. If we don't find him, then let it be," Lu Yuan said as he snuffed out the cigarette butt. "A new era has begun; some people are destined not to be ordinary. Maybe we don't need to look for them, they will appear on their own."
...
Qing Chen reached Jiandong Road Farmers' Market before he slowly took out his phone and started searching for the name He Xiaoxiao on TikTok.
From the conversation at Jiang Xue's home, Lu Yuan had revealed a lot of information: Even Kunlun didn't know He Xiaoxiao's identity, and she hadn't been recruited by Kunlun.
Furthermore, she had the means to erase her own traces.
Considering today's networked society, how difficult is it to erase one's traces?
Your registered phone information, your identification documents, are almost all interconnected and can be found anywhere.
With Kunlun's ability to restrict movements, how could they not find the identity information of a game streamer through technical means?
Unless, that person possessed technology or abilities beyond this era, something the people of the Outer World still couldn't understand.
...
Hey, the double monthly ticket event has started. I'll update two chapters first, and there will be more tonight!
I'm begging for monthly tickets!! I've already dropped out of the top ten on the monthly ticket rankings, ah!!
Hadiah
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