Chapter 1.4

Ling Xia took picture after picture as fast as he could, but suddenly, his hand froze. His ears twitched as they picked up the faint sound of a name being called. Somebody was out there, and they were looking for somebody. Ling Xia frantically rushed to finish taking pictures of the book while keeping his ears open for any sign that the person was near him.

From behind him, he heard a sudden whoosh of air and dodged away from the sound on instinct. He whirled around and saw that an arm was where his head was just a second ago. He grabbed the person's hand and gave it a sharp twist, causing the person to cry out in pain. Judging by the deep voice and figure of the person, Ling Xia determined it was a man.

He pulled the man's arm up and over his head and stepped around the man to push the man against the desk. "Argh!" the man screamed as Ling Xia grabbed the man's hair and pulled his head up. He violently slammed the man's head onto the desk and the man grunted in surprise when his head made contact with the hard surface. Realizing the man was still conscious, Ling Xia turned the man around and shoved his forearm into the man's throat, choking him until the man's eyes rolled back into his head.

Ling Xia let go and fell back a step. His shoulders heaved as he panted. Why... was his host so out of shape!? In the real world, he could have done all of that with ease. Just then, Ling Xia heard the sound of footsteps coming closer to the room he was in, and he realized that he had woken up the rest of the house. 'Retreat!' he told himself.

He grabbed the book he hadn't finished taking pictures of and his phone and leaped out of the window, lightly landing on the grass. He started running across the street when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the headlights of a few cars approaching the house. 'Don't tell me that guy called backup!'

Ling Xia sighed and hid behind a nearby bush. He wanted to get some information by eavesdropping, but it would be more dangerous for him if he was caught. Nevertheless, he stayed and watched the cars come to a stop at Mu Ninghua's house.

When the cars arrived, twelve people got out. They were arguing loudly, until a person stepped in and ordered, "Stop it! If you keep on arguing over whose fault it was, then I will fire everybody here!" Everybody instantly ceased their shouting and the scene fell quiet.

After he saw this, Ling Xia determined that the man who stopped the fight was the leader and decided to pay close attention to him. Once the awkward silence passed, the leader continued, "Search the surroundings. I want every detail checked, and I want information on who tried to sneak into my sweetheart's house in an hour."

He paused, waiting for them to get on with their text but remembered something and added, "And find Du Wu! He called us here, he better explain!" Ling Xia noted the way he used the word 'sweetheart'. He must be Mu Ninghua's lover. Actually, on second thought, judging from the sickeningly sweet way the man had said the word 'sweetheart', he could also be a crazy suitor of hers, which fit the description of a person that sent somebody to guard Mu Ninghua at night.

The people around the leader scattered to look for clues. Suddenly, a shriek came from above, and everybody's attention was instantly averted from their task. "Why is there a man unconscious next to Xiao Hua?(1)" a high-pitched voice screeched.

Everyone, including Ling Xia, covered their ears to escape the loud screaming. Once it stopped, the group of people called out to the woman that screamed. The woman poked her head out the window, and when she looked down, she screamed once again and almost fainted.

"Miss, miss, please calm down." The leader pulled out a police badge and showed it to her, even though she couldn't see it. "We're with the police, and we heard a report from one of our fellow police members that somebody broke into your house."

A few minutes later, the two groups of people were well acquainted, and because Ling Xia was eavesdropping, he heard the entire introduction period. The leader of the group was Chu Yan, a gang member and the person that killed Li Ming, which meant he wasn't part of the police.

Actually, he wasn't just any gang member, he was the gang leader of a notorious gang in the area, the Azure Wolves, which Ling Xia learned from the world's memories. The woman who was screaming was Mu Ninghua's mother, and the other two people who came out of the house were Mu Ninghua's father and sister.

Mu Ninghua's family told Chu Yan what they saw in Mu Ninghua's room. Chu Yan and his group of 'police officers' went up to Mu Ninghua's room to examine the crime scene. "Du Wu!" one person exclaimed when she saw the body.

Mu Ninghua's sister asked Chu Yan and his friends if they knew Du Wu. Chu Yan answered, saying, "Yes, he's the person that called us about the break-in."

"Then why didn't he tell us about it?"

"The police don't want any innocent people to get involved in dangerous situations unnecessarily, and you probably wouldn't wake up anyway. He most likely decided to handle the matter first and then notify you."

"And then he failed, and the person who broke into my sister's room is still out there?" Mu Ninghua's sister covered her mouth in horror.

"Yes, do you know if the person took anything?" Chu Yan inquired. Just then, a groan came from the bed.

Everybody looked towards Mu Ninghua as she stirred awake. Groaning and opening her eyes, she sleepily asked, "Why are there so many people in my room?" By this time, the sleeping gas had already diffused into the air outside, so nobody thought anything was fishy.

"Ninghua! You're awake!" Chu Yan blurted out. Mu Ninghua's parents looked at Chu Yan weirdly, silently asking why Chu Yan was calling their daughter by her first name. Chu Yan noticed this and immediately explained himself. "I know Ninghua from school, I only realized when we came up here that she was the same person as your daughter," he lied.

Mu Ninghua's parents accepted the explanation, albeit reluctantly. They quickly informed their daughter of what had happened and asked for the information Chu Yan had previously requested of them, "Xiao Hua, do you know if that person took anything from you?"

Mu Ninghua was confused. "What would anybody take from my room? There's nothing of value here."

"Sister(2), are you sure, don't you still want to look?" Mu Ninghua's sister asked.

"I guess you're right, Ningmian." Mu Ninghua heaved herself off of her bed but paused before she started looking around. "Wait, Chu Yan, why are you here?"

"You know how I joined the police force?" Mu Ninghua nodded. "Well, my boss assigned this as my first mission." After Mu Ninghua acknowledged his words, he told her and her family that he was going to search for any clues that might've been left by the criminal outside. Some of his group grabbed Du Wu and hauled him out of the house.

Before Chu Yan got out of the room, his phone rang, and he asked where he could get some privacy to take the phone call. Mu Ningmian said that he could use any room downstairs, and Chu Yan thanked her.

"What is it? I'm busy." Chu Yan immediately cut to the chase when asking his question.

"Boss, have you seen Du Si? He should have finished his shift and come back home by now," a female voice asked from over the phone.

Chu Yan was just as confused as she was. He had no idea where Du Si was. Then, a lightbulb went off in his head. "Wait a second, Kang Rui, I might have an idea." He checked his phone call records for the time when Du Wu called him about the criminal. The phone showed that the call came just after Du Wu and Du Si were supposed to change shifts, and he felt he might have understood.

At the same time, Ling Xia watched as one of Chu Yan's gang members found the first man he had knocked out. "Boss, I found Du Si here! He's been knocked out!" the gang member called out to Chu Yan. Chu Yan only heard the gang member because the front door was left open.

From nearby, Ling Xia overheard and his mouth twitched. First Du Wu and then Du Si, did Chu Yan think he was an ancient Chinese emperor from a story or something? Wait, no, not continuing that train of thought, serious stuff was happening.

Now, Chu Yan was not a dumb person, even if he was blind to how Mu Ninghua was manipulating him. With both the information from his phone call records and this new information, Chu Yan felt a sneaking suspicion grow inside of him; This was probably a targeted break-in. Why else would somebody try to break into a house that had a guard next to it, when he could just break into the next house over?

"Chu Yan, Chu Yan!" Mu Ninghua raced down the stairs. "That person stole my journal!" This fully confirmed Chu Yan's suspicion. And since it was a targeted attack, with the motive of stealing Mu Ninghua's diary, the criminal was definitely somebody that Mu Ninghua had contact with. This narrowed down the suspects by a lot.

Mu Ninghua grabbed Chu Yan by the shoulders and roughly shook him. "Are you listening? That person stole my journal! I need my journal, it has to be with me. What if somebody sees what's in it?"

Chu Yan found it odd that Mu Ninghua was desperate to have nobody read her journal, but he guessed it was normal. He comforted her anyway. "It's okay, we'll find them soon." He patted her head soothingly.

'Welp, guess it's time to go,' Ling Xia. The only piece of useful information he got from that was that it really was Mu Ninghua's diary that he stole. He peeked out from behind his bush to make sure there were no flashlights on the way to his destination and then made a sprint for it. When he made it about halfway, he felt a stabbing pain behind his eyes spontaneously. He reflexively shut his eyes. While he was waiting for his eyes to stop hurting, he heard a shout. "Hey, who is that guy?"

Ling Xia felt dread rise up in him, and he realized that he'd been spotted. And then the chase began.

Notes:

1: Xiao Hua is an intimate way of calling somebody in Chinese, usually between family. Adding 'Er' at the end (Hua Er) or 'Ah' at the beginning (Ah Hua) are the same case. So is calling somebody by just their given name (Ninghua).

2: Like a lot of other languages, calling your older sister or brother just by their name is rude in Chinese.

3: In stories about ancient China, emperors sometimes had shadow guards. To make naming them simpler, sometimes they used a common surname, and their given name was a number. 'Si' means four, and 'Wu' means five. I have no idea if actual Chinese Emperors did this too. So, yeah, although this joke kind of got lost in translation, I couldn't resist.