Chapter 98: The Strange Bubble Woman

When that word surfaced in Chen Yu’s mind, every muscle in his body tightened.

Cold sweat slid from his temple down his cheek and dripped onto the floor.

Earlier, in the sealed room, when he had used his rewind ability to touch the iron door, he had already heard that name.

But after that, when the other disembowelment case resurfaced, all his attention had shifted to Liu Gang and the pipe.

And to that mysterious man in black who had hacked the television station and forcibly seized the live broadcast feed.

Now that he thought about it...

Damn it!

I’m such a stupid bastard!

The biggest clue had been sitting right in front of him from the very beginning, and he had been blind to it!

Chen Yu’s eyes were locked on the plain-looking hardcover notebook in his hands.

So...

Was this notebook the love token that the man called Wind had given Luo Xiangdong?

But before Luo Xiangdong died, hadn’t he been staring fixedly at Liu Hong’s photo on the wall, as though he were remembering Liu Gang through Liu Hong’s face?

Had he fallen for someone else?

Had he fallen in love with Liu Gang all over again?

Fuck!

Chen Yu felt like his CPU was about to burn itself out.

This case was like a set of Russian nesting dolls: peel away one layer, and inside was another one even more absurd.

What the hell kind of mess was this?

One unsolved case had somehow dragged in five dead bodies, three killers, one unseen mastermind, and a still-unidentified Wind.

Annoyed, Chen Yu scratched at his hair, feeling like his scalp was about to split open.

Right now, he urgently needed to know exactly who Wind was.

Only by finding him could the truth truly come to light.

But how?

In this vast sea of people, all he had was a back view and a single word, a Wind he could not reveal to outsiders.

That was harder than finding a needle in the ocean.

Ding!

Just then, his phone suddenly chimed in his pocket. The crisp notification sounded especially abrupt in the dead silence of the study, and it broke the chain of his nearly exploding thoughts.

He pulled out his phone a little impatiently.

Looking down, he saw that on the chat screen of the messaging app, a name with a colorful twin-tail avatar was flashing at the very top.

Bubble Girl.

Chen Yu raised an eyebrow. What was this girl doing, looking for him in the middle of the night?

He opened the message.

"Why aren’t you in your room?"

What the hell?

The corner of Chen Yu’s mouth twitched.

This girl had actually found her way to his hotel room in the middle of the night?

What for?

A surprise attack?

A honey trap?

He was complaining furiously in his head, but suddenly it was as if a current had shot through his mind, and an idea exploded there.

Right!

How had he forgotten her?

A hacker!

Wasn’t Bubble Girl’s godlike hacking skill exactly what he needed right now?

Find one person.

Yes, find Wind.

Chen Yu instantly became excited. He no longer had the time to wonder why Bubble Girl had gone to his room. His fingers, as if powered by a motor, began hammering furiously at the phone screen at top speed.

"Bubble Girl, do me another favor. Help me look up one person!"

"This person is called Wind. That should be a nickname, or one character from his name. Male."

"He and Luo Xiangdong were classmates at Jiangcheng University. They were extremely close, possibly even same-sex lovers."

"His height and build were almost identical to Luo Xiangdong’s when he was young, like twins."

"Get into Jiangcheng University’s student records right now and find every student who matches these traits and whose name contains the sound 'feng'!"

"Move fast! This is very important!"

He sent all the information in one breath, then let out a long sigh, feeling as though he had grabbed a lifeline.

With Bubble Girl’s help, finding Wind would definitely not be a problem.

However—

One second later, her reply made him freeze in place.

"Why are you saying 'again'?"

"Have I helped you before?"

Hm?

The expression on Chen Yu’s face froze instantly.

He blinked, suspecting he was too tired and had read it wrong.

What did she mean, "again"?

What did she mean, "have I helped you before"?

This girl... had she lost her memory?

Chen Yu’s brain stalled for a full three seconds.

He lowered his head and, still unable to believe it, typed back.

"Yesterday, didn’t I ask you to help me look up Pipe and his wife’s information? Don’t you remember?"

After the message was sent, there was silence on the other end again.

A few seconds later, a new message popped up.

"Why would I help you look up Pipe and his wife’s information?"

"And how would I even check it?"

Huh?

Chen Yu’s CPU was roasted by these questions one after another.

What the—

His mind once again turned into a pot of boiling mush, with all sorts of absurd thoughts churning wildly inside it.

What the hell was going on?

First there was Li Qing, the woman who had shared his bed and whose favorability had nearly been maxed out, only to vanish without a trace; then Yan Zheng had told him that she wasn’t an undercover agent at all.

And now what?

The only hacker prodigy he could count on, Bubble Girl, didn’t even remember helping him with anything?

Then what did she remember?

Did she only remember the night we spent together a few days ago?

Chen Yu felt as though his entire worldview was being brutally overturned again and again.

Then he suddenly stiffened, as if something had just occurred to him, and his expression turned strangely, almost unnervingly, odd.

He tested the waters with another message.

"Did you come to my room late at night because you needed something?"

This time, Bubble Girl replied almost instantly.

"I just wanted to stay with you for a while!"

At the end, she even added a shy, blushing emoji.

Looking at that message, a bold, almost ridiculous idea suddenly rose from the depths of Chen Yu’s heart.

He remembered the first time he had seen Bubble Girl.

During the day, that woman dressed with astonishing flamboyance: colorful twin tails, ultra-short hot pants, fishnet stockings, heavy makeup on her face. She looked like the Harley Quinn who had stepped out of a movie, and she radiated the kind of manic aura that said, I am not to be trifled with.

But at night, when they happened to run into each other in the hotel corridor, she was a completely different person.

Her makeup was light. She wore simple sleepwear. Quiet and gentle, she looked like the girl next door, pure and serene.

At the time, he had thought he must have been seeing things.

Now that he thought about it...

What was going on here?

Dissociative identity?

And she even worked in shifts by the hour?

One personality by day, another by night?

And the two personalities didn’t interfere with each other at all?

So...

The one who had helped him hack into a website backend during the day and dug up all of Pipe’s information was the Harley Quinn personality?

And the one who had run to him in the middle of the night, saying she wanted to stay with him for a while, was the neighbor-girl personality?

And he...

Had to wait until daytime tomorrow to ask the Harley Quinn one for help?

Because the nighttime version of her... wasn’t familiar with him?

No.

Chen Yu gave a wicked smile.

The nighttime neighbor-girl version seemed even more familiar with him, didn’t she?

Thinking of that, Chen Yu decided to probe a little further.

"Your hacking skills are so good. Who did you learn from?"

After he sent that message, the other side fell into a long silence.

A full minute passed before Bubble Girl finally replied.

"I’m going to sleep first!"

Then, before Chen Yu could react, another message popped up.

"I don’t know anything about hacking!"