Chapter 54
Lou Mi had just left the house when she received Chi Lin’s reply.
Studying? Until this late?
Despite her initial anxiety, she felt a sense of relief.
She replied:
“Where are you? You didn’t drive. It’s hard to get a taxi at this hour…”
As she spoke, rain started to fall, quickly turning into a downpour.
She sent the unfinished voice message and added:
“It’s pouring here. Is it raining where you are? It’s taxi hell out here. You’ll be waiting for hours. Luckily for you, your kind and generous sister is coming to pick you up. Start thinking about how to thank me.”
Three minutes passed, but there was no reply. Lou Mi stared at her phone, her anxiety growing.
Five minutes. Still no reply. She called Chi Lin.
“That little brat… making me worry…”
The phone rang and rang, but Chi Lin didn’t answer.
Lou Mi, already exhausted, felt her blood pressure rising.
She didn’t need a device to tell her her PT index was probably over 5.
“That little shit… when I get my hands on her…”
The rain had cleared the roads, allowing for faster driving.
She reached South Lake Third High in thirty minutes, still no word from Chi Lin.
She had initially hesitated, wondering if rushing to pick up Chi Lin after a late study session would seem… overbearing, especially after their agreement to forget about the kiss.
But now, her concern outweighed her hesitation.
She didn’t care about seeming overbearing. She just wanted to… yell at Chi Lin.
She parked at the school gate, the rain obscuring her view. She could barely see the streetlights.
She grabbed an umbrella and walked towards the school, the gate already locked.
“Excuse me!” she shouted, knocking on the security guard’s window.
The light inside turned on, and the guard opened a small window, squinting against the wind and rain.
“Are there any students still here?!” Lou Mi yelled over the noise of the storm.
“They all left!” the guard shouted back. “Is your child still here?!”
“Yes!”
“What’s their name? I’ll check the records!”
The security guard had access to the students’ entry and exit logs.
“Chi Lin! Class 6, Grade 10!”
The guard didn’t need to check. Chi Lin was a… celebrity at South Lake Third High.
“She left over thirty minutes ago! I saw her!”
“Thirty minutes ago?” Lou Mi said, calling Chi Lin again.
Still no answer. And she didn’t hear a ringing phone nearby.
She called again, scanning the area, her anxiety growing.
Chi Lin, alone in the cold, dark night, seemed to have vanished without a trace.
Three unanswered calls.
Lou Mi, forcing herself to calm down, asked the guard, “Are there any… shelters nearby?”
The guard, putting on a raincoat and grabbing a flashlight, stepped out of his booth.
“There’s a bus stop south of here. And a shopping street further down. She might be sheltering there. She’s not answering her phone?”
“No,” Lou Mi said.
Chi Lin had probably sought shelter from the rain, unable to get a taxi.
“How far is the shopping street?”
“About two kilometers.”
“Was it raining when Chi Lin left?”
“It was about to rain. And very windy. I saw her checking her phone, probably trying to get a taxi, then she walked off.”
“She probably went to the bus stop,” Lou Mi said.
They ran towards the bus stop, the light inside a beacon in the stormy night.
Lou Mi, her eyesight good, scanned the shelter from a distance.
It seemed empty.
She ran towards it, hoping Chi Lin was simply hidden in a corner.
The shelter was empty.
Lou Mi’s clothes were soaked, her hair dripping with rain. Even her large umbrella couldn’t shield her from the downpour.
The guard, seeing her distress, said, “Let’s exchange numbers and split up. I’ll call my colleagues too.”
“Okay,” Lou Mi said. “I’m calling the police.”
“It’s only been thirty minutes. They probably won’t do anything.”
“I’m calling anyway.”
They split up. Lou Mi called the police, explaining the situation. They agreed to send a patrol car.
A recent series of murders targeting female high school students had put pressure on the police department.
Since the upgrade of the Skynet surveillance system in 2030, facial recognition technology had significantly reduced crime rates.
Serial killings were rare, and the perpetrator of these recent murders was clearly brazen, unafraid of being caught.
Another murder would mean the police chief’s dismissal.
Lou Mi, clutching her phone, continued her search, venturing into dark alleys and side streets.
Though these places were unsettling, she knew Chi Lin might be seeking shelter there.
She knew Chi Lin was capable of defending herself, but against a strong, armed man… the outcome was uncertain.
She emerged from a residential area, having asked several people if they had seen a high school girl, but no one had.
A stray dog was barking at a pile of black garbage bags. Lou Mi stopped, a sudden surge of fear gripping her.
Garbage sorting was mandatory now. Why were there black garbage bags here?
Her composure shattered. She dropped her umbrella and started ripping open the bags, ignoring the filth, her mind filled with a terrifying possibility.
The dog ran away. She tore open all the bags, the dim streetlight revealing their contents: just trash.
Of course…
No criminal would dispose of a body so carelessly.
She felt foolish, her earlier panic replaced by a weary resignation.
As she retrieved her umbrella, her phone rang.
She answered instantly, without even checking the caller ID.
“Hello?!”
“…Is this Ms. Lou Mi?” a cold, unfamiliar female voice asked.
“Yes!”
“Chi Lin is with me.”
Lou Mi took a deep breath, trying to control her emotions.
“How much do you want?”
The voice, after a moment of silence, said, “I’m a police officer.”
Lou Mi: “…”
.
Lou Mi found Chi Lin surrounded by police officers and onlookers, two blocks away.
“Sister,” Chi Lin said, holding a borrowed umbrella, seeing Lou Mi’s soaked clothes and hair, and running towards her. “I… lost my phone.”
Lou Mi, her eyes scanning Chi Lin for any injuries, asked, “Are you hurt?”
Chi Lin shook her head.
Lou Mi, her heart aching with relief, hugged her tightly, forgetting her earlier anger and planned punishments.
Only a tight embrace could ease her anxiety.
Chi Lin, seeing Lou Mi’s disheveled appearance, knew she had been searching for a while.
She had never seen Lou Mi like this.
Her eyes, filled with worry and relief, now held a hint of… sadness.
Lou Mi held her as if she were a precious treasure.
“I’m here,” Chi Lin said softly, rubbing Lou Mi’s back. “I’m okay.”
Lou Mi buried her face in Chi Lin’s shoulder, her emotions overflowing.
A female police officer, wearing a raincoat, had been waiting to speak to Lou Mi, but seeing their embrace, she hesitated, giving them a moment of privacy.
When they finally separated, she said, “Ms. Lou, we meet again. You two seem close.”
Lou Mi recognized her voice from the phone call earlier and, looking at her more closely, remembered her.
She was the officer who had handled the internet cafe incident.
“…What a coincidence,” Lou Mi said.
“Indeed,” the officer replied, tilting her helmet to drain the rainwater.
She turned to Chi Lin. “You said you practiced martial arts? You’re quite skilled.”
“Just a few… basic techniques,” Chi Lin said modestly.
The officer’s voice rose sharply. “No matter how skilled you are, you shouldn’t risk your life!”
“What happened?” Lou Mi asked, confused.
The officer pointed at Chi Lin. “Do you know what this brave young lady did? She… followed a serial killer. Alone. Without even calling the police.”
“What?! She followed a serial killer?!”
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“I am! I’m just…”
Lou Mi had actually suspected something.
Seeing Chi Lin safe and unharmed had triggered a sense of… foreboding.
Chi Lin must have done something reckless again.
So the news of her following a serial killer wasn’t entirely surprising. It was… typical Chi Lin behavior.
The officer and Chi Lin recounted the events of the evening.
Chi Lin, unable to get a taxi, had been waiting at the bus stop.
The man in the mask had made her uneasy.
But the bus stop had security cameras. Even with the mask, he would be recorded.
Chi Lin, unafraid, had stared at him when he sat down beside her.
He had left after a while.
Chi Lin, finding his behavior suspicious, his mask and sunglasses reminiscent of a criminal from a movie, had noticed a girl in a school uniform walking in the same direction he had taken.
Concerned, she had followed her.
Chi Lin’s tracking skills were exceptional. Even in broad daylight, she could follow someone without being detected.
A rainy night was even easier.
She hadn’t intended to interfere, just to ensure the girl’s safety.
The girl, however, had taken a detour into a dark alley, her attention focused on her phone, oblivious to her surroundings.
As she passed by a row of garbage bins, a man with a metal pipe had raised it above his head, ready to strike.
“Hey!”
Just as he was about to swing, a voice behind him startled him, and a powerful force sent him flying, crashing into the garbage bins, the pipe clattering to the ground.
The man, wearing a raincoat, turned and saw Chi Lin.
He hadn’t expected such strength from a small girl.
Chi Lin approached him, noticing a scar on his face.
He wasn’t the man from the bus stop.
Which meant…
“Look out!” the girl she had just saved shouted.
Another man emerged from the shadows, lunging at Chi Lin with a knife.
Chi Lin dodged effortlessly, grabbing his wrist and twisting it, the man’s arm now immobilized.
He hadn’t expected such strength from a girl.
Chi Lin, her fingers pressing a pressure point on his wrist, sent him crashing to the ground, the knife slipping from his grasp.
Unlike the gentle pressure point technique she had used on Liu Huixin, this time, she used her full strength.
The man, his arm numb and useless, cried out in pain.
The scarred man, seizing the opportunity, picked up the pipe and swung it at Chi Lin’s head.
Chi Lin, using her foot, kicked the knife into the air.
It spun, landing perfectly in her hand, the point aimed at the scarred man’s eye.
He stopped just in time, the knife inches from his face.
He froze, his body drenched in sweat.
The girl, watching the scene unfold, felt like she was in a martial arts movie.
Chi Lin, taking advantage of his hesitation, kicked his legs out from under him, sending him crashing to the ground, then delivered a few swift blows to his spine and lower back.
The man screamed in pain, his lower body numb and useless.
Having neutralized both attackers in seconds, Chi Lin turned to the girl.
“Are you okay?”
The girl, staring at her, suddenly recognized her.
“You’re… the White Dew Fairy!”
Chi Lin reached into her pocket, realizing her phone was gone. She searched the area, but it was dark and raining.
“Can you call the police?” she asked the girl.
The police arrived and identified the men as the suspects in the recent murders.
The dangerous criminals, now incapacitated, one kneeling, the other lying on the ground, unable to move, were taken into custody.
The girl, her voice trembling with excitement, gave her account of the incident to the police, her story filled with dramatic embellishments.
The officer, trying to maintain her composure, said, “Can you… be more objective?”
“I am being objective! That’s exactly how the White Dew Fairy defeated them!”
“White Dew Fairy?”
“Yes! Her!” the girl said, pointing at Chi Lin. “She’s the White Dew Fairy!”
The female officer turned to Chi Lin. “You took on two grown men, alone? Is this a regular occurrence for you?”
“It’s my first time,” Chi Lin replied.
“And you want a second time?”
Chi Lin: “…”
“Last time, you kicked down a door. Now you’re taking down criminals. What’s next? Opening a martial arts school?”
Chi Lin felt like she had done something wrong.
The officer lectured her about the dangers of vigilantism, explaining the suspects’ modus operandi: targeting female high school students, one distracting and intimidating the victim, the other attacking from behind.
They were dangerous and ruthless, and no one had expected them to be caught so easily.
Lou Mi, despite knowing Chi Lin’s abilities, was terrified.
“We need you to come to the station to give a statement,” the officer said. “But you’re both soaked. Go home and rest. I’ll visit you tomorrow morning.”
Lou Mi thanked her profusely. The officer, turning to Chi Lin, said, “Your life is precious. Don’t be reckless.”
Back home, after changing into dry clothes and soaking in a hot bath, they finally felt human again.
Chi Lin, however, was upset about losing her phone, which contained months of research and valuable data.
Though she had memorized most of it, some details were still… fuzzy.
She would have to start over…
She almost fell asleep in the bathtub, then, with a jolt, remembered her earlier encounter with the abyss. She got out of the tub and heard a knock on the door.
“Are you asleep?”
It was Lou Mi.
Chi Lin opened the door. Lou Mi’s hair was damp, her skin fragrant from bath salts. She was looking at Chi Lin intently.
“I… worried you,” Chi Lin said before Lou Mi could speak.
“Worried? I was terrified.”
Lou Mi noticed Chi Lin’s hair was down, wet and unstyled.
“Why didn’t you dry your hair?”
“How?”
“Wait here.”
Lou Mi returned with several absorbent towels, handing one to Chi Lin and tossing the rest onto the sofa.
“Sit,” she said, patting the sofa.
Chi Lin sat down, and Lou Mi gently dried her hair, wrapping it in a towel.
“I’ll get the hairdryer later,” she said.
“Thank you…” Chi Lin murmured, the image of Lou Mi’s panicked face at the bus stop replaying in her mind.
Lou Mi’s fear and relief had reminded her of the Empress.
The Empress had always been so protective of her.
Chi Lin looked at Lou Mi, wondering about the connection between past and present lives.
From this angle, Lou Mi’s face was upside down, her mouth seemingly on her forehead, yet still moving.
“What?” Lou Mi asked.
Chi Lin, her mind blank, giggled.
Lou Mi: “…Am I that funny?”
“Yes,” Chi Lin replied.
Lou Mi poked the back of her neck. “Let me stab you.”
Chi Lin: “?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Lou Mi said. “Birthmarks are scars from past lives. You have a birthmark on your neck. Someone must have stabbed you in your past life.”
Chi Lin, clutching her neck, froze.
Lou Mi, surprised by her reaction, said, “I’m kidding. It’s just a superstition.”
Chi Lin’s heart pounded.
She hadn’t paid much attention to the original owner’s physical characteristics.
And now, she realized they shared the same birthmark, in the same location.
She hadn’t died in her past life, so the birthmark wasn’t a scar.
But the shared location… could it be the connection between past and present lives?
Was the original owner… her own reincarnation?
She had no answers, but the birthmark was clearly a significant clue.
The Empress’s birthmark was on her chest. Where was Lou Mi’s?
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