"No problem. I'll dig the killer out for sure!"
Fang Tian's tone was resolute. This concerned not only his own innocence but the life of a high-school girl. Now that there was a chance to root out the killer, he was duty-bound to take it.
"You only need to help us find Lin Jiu. Digging out the killer is our job, the police's."
Even as she warned him, Feng Xi pressed a slip of paper into his hand. "This is my number. The moment you find anything, contact me immediately. Under no circumstances act alone."
"Got it."
Fang Tian obligingly accepted the slip Feng Xi handed him.
The Qingkong police moved with brisk efficiency. After leaving the station, he even enjoyed chauffeured door-to-door service. Feng Xi stood at a second-floor window of the station, watching the squad car carrying Fang Tian vanish at the far end of the road. Before long, a set of footsteps stopped behind her.
"Sent him back, then."
The speaker was the middle-aged officer from the monitoring room earlier, dark circles heavy under his eyes, unable to stifle a yawn as he spoke.
"Sent him back."
"How'd the interrogation turn out?"
"Some progress." Feng Xi said without turning her head. "You all should be clear by now that pinning Fang Tian as the killer never held up from the start. He isn't from Qingkong City; three years ago, when the case occurred, he had a solid alibi."
If you cast Fang Tian as the killer, that alibi became an inescapable hole — and it was the reason Feng Xi had chosen to believe him. "At first I thought he knew the killer, but I never expected he'd actually seen Lin Jiu in the flesh. If things go smoothly, we'll know within three days."
"I'll leave it to you, then. I've already had Xiao Liu send the case file over to your division."
The middle-aged man had long since stopped finding Feng Xi's startling remarks strange. He didn't need to know more details, because the Fourth Division held plenty of cases far stranger than anything he could imagine — anyone assigned to that place was, after all, no ordinary person.
Feng Xi, naturally, was no exception.
"It's rare to see you this driven. Looks like it ties into another case you're working."
"Hard to say."
Feng Xi shook her head and let nothing more slip. The two exchanged a few knowing pleasantries and went their separate ways to their respective divisions.
***
This was Fang Tian's third day at Qingkong University, and in the shortest possible time he'd made a piece of school history likely never matched before and quite possibly never matched again.
Day one: in front of a crowd, face-planting into the chest of the student council vice president.
Day two: tangling with another pretty freshman at the cafeteria entrance — the apparent capsizing scene of a two-timer.
Day two, evening: apparently spreading unsavory content on the student forum, getting seven accounts banned by the moderators one after another.
Day three, morning: caught on the spot by the Qingkong City police.
Fang Tian had meant to mull over a plan while doing his daily quests, but his legend had spread far and wide. Everywhere he went he drew instant pointing and whispering, and even those who didn't know him learned of his glorious deeds from "warmhearted" passersby giving them the rundown.
Damn, I'm really not an LSP!
Fang Tian gnashed his teeth, angry and exhausted in equal measure, but the running had to go on. This daily had to be done three days straight; break it for even one day and all his prior effort was wasted. Shouldering the onlookers' chatter, he ground out the full 3,000 meters on the field by sheer force of will.
When he heard the quest-complete prompt and sat down on the field to rest, weight off his shoulders, the onlookers' view of him actually began to shift.
At first they'd only gathered to denounce his scumbag ways — yet they'd ended up witnessing his entire run, 3,000 meters in one go.
For anyone, 3,000 meters was a hellish ordeal. Soon someone pointed out that Fang Tian had run 3,000 meters yesterday too. The onlookers traded glances; most of them privately admitted they couldn't stick out so grueling a training program.
But Fang Tian had.
These days, even a mere LSP works this hard!
It dawned on them that perhaps only those LSPs who held themselves to strict standards had any hope of growing into a true keeper of a whole pond of admirers.
Qingkong's students had never imagined the day would come when they'd be inspired by a scumbag.
The noon sun was at its fiercest, yet facing that blazing light, some of them stepped onto the plastic track for the first time in ages, taking strides they hadn't taken in far too long. The occasional sea breeze seemed to carry the scent of youth itself.
What a bunch of nutcases.
Fang Tian passed his judgment on the onlookers' spontaneous behavior in his heart —— if the system hadn't issued a quest, would he ever have come out for a long run?
The onlookers' thumbs-up of approval, one after another, oddly irritated Fang Tian. Barely ten-odd minutes ago, some of those very thumbs-up givers had been warning the people next to them to watch out for him. His ears were sharp; he'd heard every word.
Fang Tian had no wish to linger in this den of gossip. Once the quest was done, he headed straight back to the dorm.
Chu Lun was still nowhere to be found — though in his current circumstances, a missing roommate was actually a good thing.
He took a shower, changed into clean clothes, and sat down at the computer desk.
"Lin Jiu."
Fang Tian called the name tentatively. This seemingly extra-shy new roommate still ignored him. After a few fruitless attempts, he opened the inventory list and stared a good long while at that fresh-from-the-factory Dragon Lore AWP skin. Since he basically had no inventory, the lone Dragon skin stood out all the more.
He'd had little time for games in high school; after registering the account he'd hardly touched it, only picking it back up after testing into Qingkong. He'd never imagined Lin Jiu would somehow know his account and leave this treasure in his inventory.
It was a gem countless CS:GO players dreamed of — yet at this moment Fang Tian hadn't the slightest urge to log in. His head was full of Lin Jiu's disappearance case.
Lin Jiu had been only a first-year high-schooler when she vanished. From the timing and from what he'd been through yesterday, she'd most likely been killed not long after disappearing.
As the only person to have "seen" Lin Jiu in three years, he felt he had to do something now. With that, he switched input methods and quickly typed a line on the desktop:
"Lin Jiu, if you're there, come out for a bit. There's something I'd like to talk to you about."
Lin Jiu had come to Qingkong through the mysterious link and the game, and had used his computer to make a huge payment; Fang Tian guessed she'd very likely taken up residence in it.
Seeing no response on the desktop, he doggedly typed out another line.
"Lin Jiu, I mean you no harm——"
『Shut up!』
Two blood-red characters appeared abruptly in the center of the screen. They were like a floodgate thrown open: the next moment, more and more red words emerged, a dense swarm of "Shut up" filling the entire screen, stopping only once they'd dyed the desktop red.
The screen flickered madly, and a sharp, piercing static came through his headphones.
A few wisps of black gas seeped out of the screen. The instant they touched the black mist, Fang Tian's scalp prickled all over.
『Sanity: 4/5』
At the same time, a new line of red text appeared in the center of the screen.