Chapter 288: Jinnan City

Chapter 288: Chapter 288: Jinnan City

When Sang Yin regained consciousness, it was already the next day. She was lying in a hotel room arranged by the local Inspector’s office, while Feng Ling had long since taken Li Qing to the airport.

Sang Yin was devastated to have missed her chance for a picture.

Frustrated, she asked her colleague, Douzi, if he had gotten a clear look at Feng Ling after her transformation.

Douzi looked awkward. "Even you fainted from the shock. How could I dare to look...?"

Sang Yin sat on the bed, a dark look on her face.

Glancing nervously at her expression, Douzi asked in a small voice, "Ms. Sang, does... does this mean we can’t write our articles for this week...?"

Sang Yin shot him an irritated glare. "We’ve already decided on the topic. Why wouldn’t we be able to write about it? We can, and we will!"

Ignoring the fact that she had just recovered, Sang Yin struggled out of bed, grabbed her laptop, and, overcome with a flood of inspiration, churned out three articles—

Reporter Nearly Dies During Night Visit to Feng Ling’s Home

Feng Ling’s Pet Pollution Body Attacks Reporter, Causing Car Crash

The Real Life of the Strongest Hunter, Feng Ling

......

...

While out of town, Feng Ling and Li Qing successfully pinpointed Xing Guang’s location.

By drawing lines on a map corresponding to the directions from the two Divinations, the point where the two lines intersected was most likely Xing Guang’s position.

Of course, there might be a small margin of error due to slight angular offsets, but it was more than enough to determine the target’s city.

Feng Ling flew there and back in a single day. After landing, she saw the news articles Sang Yin had published.

Her first reaction was that she’d been duped.

’Didn’t she say she had professional ethics and wouldn’t publish fake news?’

Feng Ling clicked on the articles and saw they weren’t exactly fake news.

But Sang Yin was a shameless clickbait artist, and a master of subtle, biased phrasing.

For instance, in the seemingly serious article, The Real Life of the Strongest Hunter, Feng Ling, Sang Yin wrote that she’d had the privilege of a brief, minutes-long encounter with Feng Ling. She claimed to have discovered that Feng Ling’s personality wasn’t flamboyant like her initial livestream appearance, but was instead very reserved and silent.

’I was just too tired to talk after being woken up in the middle of the night.’

Sang Yin also wrote that Feng Ling valued her own comfort, didn’t blindly follow trends, and was unswayed by outside opinions, citing her unbranded, pure cotton T-shirt as proof of her down-to-earth home life.

’She got all that from a single T-shirt? How is that any different from padding an essay for word count?’

Feng Ling moved on to the next article, Feng Ling’s Pet Pollution Body Attacks Reporter, Causing Car Crash, and found the style consistent. Every sentence danced on the line between truth and fiction. The headline seemed to condemn the Pollution Body for attacking a human, but the content exposed that the reporter herself had intentionally taken a risk. It was as if Sang Yin was deliberately trying to provoke the public, practically begging netizens to tear into the reporter.

The most truthful piece was Reporter Nearly Dies During Night Visit to Feng Ling’s Home. It was a video, using dashcam footage paired with the reporter’s screams to create a palpable sense of horror.

Taken together, the three articles reported a few facts, satisfied the public’s voyeuristic curiosity, and deliberately left openings for netizens’ criticism, all to maximize hype and engagement.

Quite comprehensive.

Feng Ling had initially thought Sang Yin was incompetent, but after reading her articles, her opinion shifted slightly. ’This might have some potential,’ she thought.

She saved the articles, planning to show them to Ye Zheng for his amusement when she got back.

After returning to the Central Building, Feng Ling found that Xu Yiming was back from Guangshan City.

Su Yuqing was there as well. The two of them were standing by a construction site, chatting idly.

Feng Ling didn’t have to guess; Su Yuqing was undoubtedly showing Xu Yiming the construction progress on his exclusive, custom-built swimming pool.

She walked over to greet them.

Xu Yiming smiled the moment he saw her. "It’s a shame you didn’t go to the press conference. A lot of people were asking me about you. The HR person from Hunting Star International alone approached me twice."

"What were they asking about?" Feng Ling asked.

"They want to poach you," Xu Yiming said with a laugh. "I told them you’d never agree to sign, but they were persistent. They said the cut could be negotiated to seventy-thirty."

Feng Ling was baffled. "Seventy-thirty what?"

Xu Yiming explained, "Hunting Star International has started ranking its Hunters recently. For a regular contracted Hunter, the pay is a fifty-fifty split. A ’starred’ Hunter can get a sixty-forty split. For an absolute star like you, a seventy-thirty split is pretty standard. You get seventy percent."

Feng Ling ignored his point and said with a touch of schadenfreude, "You’d better watch out. The company is creating these ranks to make you all compete like crazy."

Xu Yiming shrugged, a wry smile on his face. "It doesn’t matter to me. I’m planning to terminate my contract anyway."

Feng Ling paused, surprised. "You’re not going to be a contracted Hunter anymore?"

"Yeah, I was just discussing it with Old Su..." he said, hesitating a little. "After that trip to the Maze, I feel I’m lacking in a lot of areas. I want to get formal training and improve myself, but the courses Hunting Star International offers are all very basic. You can’t access the advanced courses until you reach star-level, and to get there, you have to wait for the company to assign you missions to build your record. It’s too slow... So I was asking Old Su about the application process to become an Inspector."

Su Yuqing chimed in from the side, "Xu Yiming applied before but wasn’t accepted. I think his chances are much better now, though. For one, he holds two Cards now. For another, he’s been inside the Maze with you all. Even if he didn’t directly participate in the boss fight, he has Maze experience. These are all major pluses."

"Do Inspectors earn more than contracted Hunters?" Feng Ling asked curiously.

Xu Yiming waved his hands in embarrassment. "You can’t really compare them. Hunting Star International is definitely generous with pay, but if the company doesn’t give you assignments, even the best contracted Hunter is just warming the bench. As for being an Inspector... I think it’s more for people who want to do actual, meaningful work."

He said the last part quietly, looking a bit embarrassed.

Feng Ling grinned. "Well then, I wish you success! Hope you become Captain Su’s colleague soon!"

"Thanks, thanks," Xu Yiming said with a smile.

"How about you? Any results?" Su Yuqing asked Feng Ling.

Feng Ling nodded, though she didn’t look very happy. "We found out Xing Guang is likely in Jinnan City."

"Jinnan City?" Su Yuqing instinctively looked at Xu Yiming. "Didn’t you use to live in Jingnan?"

Xu Yiming froze for a second. "...Yes, I lived there for a while. It’s a third-tier city, and public safety has always been poor."

"Poor public safety?" Feng Ling asked immediately. "Are there a lot of Alien Species?"

"Not because of Alien Species, but because of the dismemberment murders..." Xu Yiming looked from Su Yuqing to Feng Ling. "What, neither of you has heard of it? The serial dismemberment case. There’s tons of news about it online."

Su Yuqing slowly shook his head. "When the dismemberment cases were becoming frequent in Jinnan City, it happened to be when public safety in Qingjiang City was at its worst. I was too busy with work to pay attention to news from elsewhere."

"Was the killer ever caught?" Feng Ling asked Xu Yiming with concern.

"I never heard anything about them being caught. I think the case just went cold," Xu Yiming replied.

"A serial murder and dismemberment case can just go cold like that?" Feng Ling asked in surprise.

"The killer hasn’t struck in nearly a month. In situations like this, it usually means the killer is either dead or has fled to another city. The police have very few leads, and it’s actually quite common for cases like this to stall out."

After finishing his explanation, Xu Yiming couldn’t help but ask Feng Ling, "Don’t tell me this case is related to Alien Species? You seem very concerned about it..."