Hearing Jiang Tai’an’s words, Li Sang silently walked forward a few steps and began inspecting the fried rice stalls one by one.
Although their manpower consisted of only four people, the state had not mistreated them in terms of the resources they were entitled to. For example, they had managed to obtain all relevant information regarding Ji Lin within just half an hour. It was truly a case of “the novel becoming reality”—demanding a person’s entire life history in thirty minutes, and actually getting it.
At that moment, all the information concerning Ji Lin was in Qi Yan’s hands. This included, but was not limited to, Ji Lin’s photographs, information about his family, and his life experiences from childhood to the present.
Jiang Tai’an possessed extraordinary eyesight; with just a single glance at the area, he knew whether or not Ji Lin was there. Li Sang, however, questioned his vision and insisted on checking every single stall.
Then, she humbled herself. There really was no one there.
Having searched the entire snack street from beginning to end, they hadn’t seen a single sign of Ji Lin’s fried rice stall. Li Sang had even been worried that her own memory was failing her, so she kept checking her phone to cross-reference faces. She peered at every stall owner she passed.
She looked so intently that one owner grew a bit bashful. “Little girl, what would you like to eat?”
This was the last fried rice stall Li Sang reached. Seeing as they hadn’t found the person they were looking for, they still needed to eat. So, with a heavy heart, Li Sang spoke to the owner, “I’ll have a bowl of fried rice.”
After speaking, she turned to look at Jiang Tai’an and the others standing not far away. “Are you all having a bowl?”
“…”
Jiang Tai’an looked at Li Sang expressionlessly. His lips moved as if he wanted to refuse, but in the end, he compromised and walked toward her. He was still wearing the same clothes from earlier that day; the four characters “Serve the Country with Absolute Loyalty” on his back were particularly conspicuous, making him look like a common street thug.
Qi Yan, walking beside him, looked like his little henchman, while the two girls, Li Sang and Ling Lan, looked like innocent maidens being harassed by a hoodlum. This combination was so bizarre that the stall owner couldn’t help but keep glancing over.
Even when Li Sang got up to fetch the fried rice, she heard the owner whisper to her in a low voice, “Little girl, don’t hang out with people like that.”
Suddenly hearing such a sentence, Li Sang was confused. Don’t be with what kind of people? She quickly realized what he meant. He meant people like Jiang Tai’an.
Coming to her senses, Li Sang curled her lips. When she sat down, she repeated the words to Jiang Tai’an exactly as they were told to her.
“Captain Jiang, I know you all need to disguise yourselves, but this shirt of yours looks way too much like a thug’s to outsiders. Have you considered changing it? The owner just now was advising me to stay away from you.”
She spoke with an innocent blink of her eyes. However, her voice was kept very low so that the owner couldn’t hear her.
Unfortunately, her words had zero impact on Jiang Tai’an.
“Isn’t this better? No one will suspect me,” Jiang Tai’an replied indifferently as he lifted a plastic spoon to his mouth. He preferred it if no one could recognize him.
Qi Yan silently shoveled rice into his mouth without saying a word.
Li Sang: “…”
Fine, fine, her concern was clearly redundant.
In a snack street like this, the stall owners all knew each other, which was exactly why Li Sang had chosen to eat here. Halfway through the meal, seeing that the owner was free, Li Sang turned toward him with a box of fried rice in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
“Boss, you must have been here for a long time, right?”
They had Ji Lin’s address, but they had already checked there before coming to the street. The place had been empty. While it was certainly possible to use “special means” to track him down, that would be making too much of a scene and could easily attract unwanted attention. Because of that, Li Sang and the others had come here, assuming Ji Lin had set up his stall.
As it turned out, he hadn’t. Since he wasn’t at his stall and wasn’t at home, where could he be? At times like this, one had to utilize local street connections.
“That’s right, I’ve been running this stall for three years,” the owner replied with a smile. Since he had nothing else to do and found her pretty and polite, he was willing to chat.
“Then do you know a fried rice stall owner named Ji Lin? He owes me money and hasn’t paid me back; I can’t find him anywhere,” Li Sang lied effortlessly.
Qi Yan, Jiang Tai’an, and Ling Lan, who were sitting at the same table, all paused their movements simultaneously before continuing to eat as if nothing had happened. However, when no one was looking, they lowered their heads even further.
Li Sang didn’t forget to take a couple more bites of rice while she questioned him.
Hearing Li Sang’s words, the owner’s eyes widened slightly. “What? That kid Ji Lin owes you money? He usually seems so honest… I can’t believe he’d do something like dodging a debt.”
Li Sang only wanted to find him and didn’t actually want to ruin his reputation, so upon hearing the owner’s remark, she quickly added, “No, it’s that I have money I haven’t returned to him, and he doesn’t want to take it.”
As she spoke, Li Sang put on an embarrassed expression.
The owner seemed to believe her. After a moment of thought, he told her the truth. “Ji Lin hasn’t come out to set up his stall for the past two days. I heard he’s sick.”
Jiang Tai’an and the others appeared completely indifferent, but they were all ears, eavesdropping on the conversation. At these words, Jiang Tai’an’s fingertips twitched, and his eating speed increased slightly.
If he was sick, the most likely place he would be was a hospital. It was just a question of whether he went to a large hospital, a regular clinic, or a private one.
Li Sang, however, could guess.
Was the timeline moving this fast? Had Ji Lin already awakened his abilities? She clearly remembered that in the novel, Ji Lin only went to the hospital because he felt there was something wrong with him. And in the original story, by that point, Xu Jiao had already been reborn for nearly a week.
Now, Xu Jiao had only been reborn for three days, yet Ji Lin had already registered at a hospital?
Li Sang lowered her eyes in thought, but she didn’t forget to thank the owner. “Thank you, Boss!”
Now that they had a lead on his whereabouts, the next step was to find him.
The group tacitly quickened their pace. When it came time to pay the bill, Li Sang very naturally stepped back two paces, yielding the opportunity to pay to Jiang Tai’an.
To put it miserably, because she was a standard “cannon fodder” character, she not only lacked parents and grew up in an orphanage, but she was also dirt poor. she lived in a rented room, worked a regular job, and only had one day off a week. Thus, when Li Sang reached into her pockets, even the dust mites were laughing at her poverty.
Under these circumstances, she wasn’t going to pretend to be generous. She honestly let someone else pick up the tab.
As the captain, Jiang Tai’an conscientiously paid the forty-yuan bill for dinner. After they left, he immediately made a phone call. Because he spoke softly and quickly, Li Sang didn’t catch more than a few words before he hung up.
However, after ending the call, Jiang Tai’an brought good news.
“He’s at Renhe Hospital.”