Chapter 164: Trainee Officer Wen Xi

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[Current heroine: Wen Xi]

[Time anchor: April 6, 2017, 1:17 AM]

[Location: Deep in Old Street Alley, Qingyang Town, under Binzhou City, Jiangnan Province]

[Year of birth: 1996 · Current age: 21 · Height: 176 cm · Weight: 62 kg]

[Identity: Trainee officer at the Qingyang Town Security Agency (three months on the job)]

...

Xu Yunzhou swept his gaze across the attribute panel without lingering.

After all, he considered himself fairly familiar with Comrade Wen Xi, the future "Queen of Criminal Investigation."

This point in time—early spring 2017—was shortly after he'd just ended his "companionship" with Xu Nuo. That girl had already ascended to her own throne.

The one in the frame now, meanwhile, was just a greenhorn fresh out of school.

Wen Xi was only twenty-one.

She'd just passed the selection exam, successfully "made it ashore," and been assigned to the Qingyang Town Security Agency, over a hundred kilometers from Binzhou.

The most grassroots, utterly unremarkable starting point imaginable—a place where she couldn't even win an argument while mediating a quarrel between neighbors.

The screen cut in.

The location was a narrow alley deep within an old district.

It was the dead of night. Everything was silent, with only the occasional distant bark of stray dogs adding to the desolation.

Wen Xi was walking out alone from deep within the alley.

She wore a navy-blue trainee police uniform, with a black windbreaker casually thrown over it, zipper open.

Her expression was terrible.

A bloodless pallor. Her lips were nearly colorless, and she looked utterly exhausted.

Just then.

As if sensing something, she abruptly raised her head and spotted a figure.

"Little Zhou-zhou?"

She froze for a moment, then lit up with surprise:

"Why are you suddenly here?"

"And you didn't even tell Sis in advance! You scared me!"

"Come on, come on—Sis'll take you for a late-night snack! There's a barbecue stall at the east end of town. Should still be open this hour. Decent enough. Consider it a welcome meal for your surprise attack..."

She instinctively reached out to pat Xu Yunzhou's shoulder.

Naturally, she only patted thin air.

The smile on Wen Xi's face froze for an instant.

"...Huh?"

Refusing to believe it, she reached out again, waving and clawing at the air.

Her fingers passed straight through Xu Yunzhou's translucent "body" without the slightest obstruction, over and over.

As if sweeping through a patch of cold fog.

...

Xu Yunzhou watched the whole scene—especially the way Wen Xi's expression cycled from "surprise" to "confusion" to "slightly dumbfounded"—and couldn't help but grin.

He was about to speak, rolling out that "immortal cultivator" spiel he'd gotten quite smooth at, to explain his current "floating ghost" state...

It kept up his mystique while quickly establishing communication.

After all, he'd run this routine before.

But then!

Something changed abruptly!

The blankness on Wen Xi's face rapidly melted away, replaced by utmost shock.

Then.

Her eyes rolled up violently, revealing large swaths of white.

"Thud!"

A dull thump.

She pitched over stiff as a board, with absolutely no cushioning, and hit the cold, damp bluestone road face-first.

Out cold.

Xu Yunzhou:

"?????"

Wait a minute...

What the hell?

This was Wen Xi—the future "Queen of Criminal Investigation" who would charge alone through Feibei's war-torn zones and face bloody, mutilated scenes without even a twitch of her brow!

Think about it—when Lin Ruoxuan first met me, she screamed in terror, but she didn't faint. She even tried to smash me with a vase.

Song Jiaru turned to clinging and crying.

Xu Nuo was even more hardcore—she just treated me like air and went about her business.

But when it comes to you...

You faint on the spot?

You're the only one ever scared unconscious by my "floating ghost" state?

Isn't this gap moe a bit too absurd? Your character is falling apart, Sister Xi! What about your future reputation? What about that badass energy of tearing criminals apart with your bare hands?

Xu Yunzhou couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he racked his brain.

He looked at Wen Xi "lying flat" on the bluestone, a big lump swelling on her forehead, looking utterly pitiful, and let out a sigh.

What else could he do?

He couldn't exactly leave her lying in this cold, damp, stray-dog-infested alley all night, could he?

He clicked 【Reward】 and 【Punish】 in turn.

Light currents intended to soothe; electric currents meant to stimulate.

With the dual-pronged approach of "love's" comfort and "pain's" mild sting—

"Zzzzt..."

Amid the faint crackle of electric current, Wen Xi's body twitched.

"Mmm..."

A soft moan escaped her throat.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Her gaze was unfocused at first, then drifted back to Xu Yunzhou, floating in midair above her, looking down.

Bewilderment.

Confusion.

Sensing she was about to faint again, Xu Yunzhou quickly asked:

"Sister Xi, are you okay? Do we need to go to the hospital?"

Wen Xi didn't answer. Instead, she suddenly sat up, her eyes blazing with the ferocity of a mother wolf guarding her cubs:

"Little Zhou-zhou..."

"Which bastard did this to you?"

"Tell Sis! I might only be a lousy trainee right now, but I'll stake my life on avenging you!"

"Say it! Who was it?"

"A car accident? Murder? An accident? Or..."

Xu Yunzhou:

"..."

He finally understood.

Wen Xi thought he was dead! She thought his ghost had come to cry out his grievance and seek revenge!

Xu Yunzhou was caught between laughter and tears, yet also strangely moved.

This girl... had been like this since they were kids.

When he was small and the neighbor kids picked on him, Wen Xi would grab a brick and chase them three streets down... never mind that the one who bullied him the most was her.

Xu Yunzhou, half amused and half exasperated, quickly explained:

"Stop, stop, stop! Sister Xi, calm down! I'm not dead! I'm perfectly alive!"

"If you don't believe me, send a video call to the contact labeled 'brat who owes a beating' in your WeChat right now! He's probably still awake at this hour—either gaming or cramming homework!"

Wen Xi, half-doubting, fumbled her phone out of her pocket and placed a video call to the present-day Xu Yunzhou.

Ring... ring...

After a few rings.

The call connected.

On the screen appeared a slightly drowsy, disheveled-haired young man. The background was a college dorm, with the faint shouts of roommates gaming in the distance.

"Sister Xi?"

The Xu Yunzhou in the video rubbed his eyes, looking puzzled:

"It's the middle of the night—past one a.m. What's up? Bad dream?"

He leaned closer to the screen and looked carefully:

"Why do you look so pale? And there's a lump on your forehead... Did you get into another fight?"

Wen Xi stared hard at the phone screen, verifying whether he was real.

A few seconds later.

She let out a long, almost limp sigh of relief.

The taut muscles in her face relaxed, and that reckless, life-or-death ferocity instantly drained away.

"It's nothing."

She faced the screen, her voice returning to its usual loud, carefree tone, even with a hint of a smile:

"Just missed you. Wanted to check you're still alive."

"Alright, confirmation complete. Vitals normal."

"Good night. Go back to sleep. Mwah!"

She blew a kiss at the camera, then hung up cleanly.

She tucked the phone back into her pocket.

She looked up again at this spectral, luminous figure of Xu Yunzhou.

"So you..."

Her tone turned calm:

"What exactly is going on here?"

"Or..."

She narrowed her eyes, revealing a sliver of the sharpness befitting a future detective:

"Are you some kind of... lone wild ghost wearing Little Zhou-zhou's face?"

Xu Yunzhou couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"When you were little, about seven or eight, one summer,"

He directly threw out an absolute piece of black history known only to the two of them:

"You insisted on imitating the Guanyin Bodhisattva from Journey to the West and putting a red dot between your eyebrows."

(TL: Guanyin, the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, is often depicted with a red dot on her forehead.)

"There was no cinnabar at home, so your wildly creative brain hatched an idea—you went to the kitchen, grabbed a red chili pepper, mashed it up, squeezed out the juice, dipped a cotton swab in it, and dabbed it on your forehead."

"Then your hand slipped, and the chili juice dripped straight into your right eye."

"You writhed on the ground in agony, crying loud enough to shake heaven and earth. It was me who grabbed a pitcher of cold water and flushed your eye for ten whole minutes before you were saved."

Wen Xi:

"..."

No one other than Xu Yunzhou could possibly know that story in such detail.

Her expression changed instantly.

"Uh..."

She scratched her head, bumped the lump on her forehead, and winced:

"It really is Little Zhou-zhou."

She acknowledged it, but grew even more puzzled:

"Then you... what's with all this?"

Xu Yunzhou looked around at the cold, dim surroundings:

"It's late, and it's cold and damp here. Head back to your dorm first. We'll talk as we walk."