“Ah—” Xiong Ji cried out miserably and fell into the river.

In that instant, both Feng Bujue and Wang Tanzhi gasped. They were afraid that Xiong Ji would be washed away or drowned… that would make it impossible to complete the main quest.

“Hoo… haa… haa…” Fortunately, Xiong Ji’s head quickly popped out of the water, and he began to breathe heavily.

Because the river wasn't very deep and the current wasn't very rapid, Xiong Ji floated back to the surface after a couple of floundering movements.

“That scared me…” Xiao Tan said, wiping away sweat.

“Hoo…” Jue-ge also sighed in relief and muttered, “Good thing he got up in time… I almost kicked you in just now…”

“Hey… what would that be for?” Xiao Tan asked blankly.

“To send you down to save him, of course,” Feng Bujue replied.

“Let’s not even talk about whether the system would let you kick me…” Xiao Tan looked at Jue-ge with squinted eyes, “If you want to save someone… usually you jump in yourself!”

“Don’t you know cats are afraid of water?” Feng Bujue replied matter-of-factly.

“As if a falcon can swim…” Xiao Tan’s mouth twitched, “Wait… come to think of it, bears are the animals that can swim! What are we even worried about!”

“Eh? That’s right…” Feng Bujue touched his chin and said, “Because his perverted attributes are too eye-catching, have we overlooked the basic characteristic of ‘animal anthropomorphism’…”

As the two were talking, Myaomi also came running over, and at this time, Xiong Ji had already climbed out of the river.

“Ah… that was close, I thought I was going to die…” Xiong Ji knelt on the grass, water dripping from his body, making him look disheveled.

In the next second, he suddenly thought of something again: “Ah! My backpack…” He turned his head to look at the river again, “Uh… it’s already been washed away by the river…”

At this time, Xiong Ji looked aggrieved, with tears in the corners of his eyes, looking very pitiful.

“Never mind, Xiong Ji-jun.” Xiao Tan was still innocent and kind, and he felt a little unbearable looking at this scene, so he stepped forward to comfort him, “Anyway, it’s just a sticky backpack… it’s good that you’re okay.”

“Tumi-chan, you’re going too far,” even Myaomi said to Tumi, “Even if my house was robbed, the thief wouldn’t necessarily be Xiong Ji-jun.”

“It’s okay… Myaomi-chan.” Xiong Ji supported himself with both hands on the ground, maintaining the standard orz posture, and said in a bitter tone, “It’s all because of my misdeeds in the past, so I’m suffering the consequences…” (orz is a Japanese emoticon representing a person kneeling and showing remorse).

In this atmosphere, Tumi was also a little embarrassed, and the look in her eyes toward Xiong Ji was no longer sharp; on the contrary, it had a hint of guilt.

“Um…” Tumi hesitated for a moment, and said, “I went too far. I’m sorry, Xiong Ji-jun.” As she said that, she took out a handkerchief from her pocket and handed it over, “Your fur is all wet, wipe it with this handkerchief.”

“Eh?” However, at this moment, Xiong Ji’s expression recovered to his usual perverted look without warning, and his tone became slightly arrogant, “Ah, that… there’s no need…” Before he finished speaking, he had already stood up and took out two socks from the pockets on both sides of his pants, “For wiping water… I have better things~ heh heh heh heh~”

Silence descended…

Under the sharp, surprised, painful, dead fish-like gazes of four people… Xiong Ji nonchalantly used a pair of pink socks embroidered with tulip patterns that were obviously worn by someone else… to wipe his face.

[Main Quest Progress Changed]

[Three Days Later, School.]

Jue-ge and Xiao Tan had not yet recovered from that speechless state, and the mission prompt and scene transition followed one after another.

In the blink of an eye, the two of them came from the suburbs to the classroom.

They opened the quest bar and saw that the number of times Xiong Ji had been arrested had already jumped to “2”.

“What’s going on?” Xiao Tan was surprised again, “Tumi hasn’t even called the police yet… Xiong Ji’s already been arrested?”

On the other side… Feng Bujue’s reaction was different from Xiao Tan’s, or rather… his reaction was different from most people’s.

When encountering this kind of sudden, unexpected change, the first thing he usually did was not “ask others”, but “ask himself”…

Then, he would try to rely on his own knowledge, reasoning, and imagination… to do his best to answer this question. Even if he couldn't come to a definite conclusion, he could at least make a few reasonable, possible guesses.

And the time it took for the above process to be completed in Feng Bujue’s mind usually didn't exceed three seconds…

Therefore, when Xiao Tan asked the question, Jue-ge was often already able to give an answer.

“This case… is also a very good example.” Feng Bujue turned his head to the left and said to Xiao Tan, who was sitting next to him, “It explains to us… ‘Xiong Ji’s second form of arrest’ in this script.” As he spoke, he had already looked up and scanned his surroundings, quickly finding Xiong Ji and Tumi at the other end of the classroom, “Um… we really can't be careless…”

“Second form of arrest?” Xiao Tan repeated the key part of Jue-ge’s words, and then asked suspiciously, “Is it like just now… the moment Xiong Ji takes out the evidence of his crime, he’s directly considered arrested, and then the scene immediately changes?”

“That’s right, that’s how it is,” Feng Bujue said.

“How is this form triggered?” Xiao Tan said, “Could it be related to the side quest?” He looked worried, “If they all do this next… we’re going to be in trouble…”

“It has nothing to do with the side quest,” Feng Bujue said, “The key factor… is still on you and me…” He thought for two seconds and explained, “To use a metaphor… the main quest events we encountered before were actually just ‘training levels.’ That was arranged by the system to let us familiarize ourselves with the basic gameplay of this script… In those events, until the police escorted Xiong Ji into the police car and took him away from the scene… we could try to reverse the situation.” He paused for half a second, “But from that event just now, the situation is probably different… At this stage, as long as Xiong Ji successfully makes that kind of ‘self-confessed’ behavior, the system will announce ‘arrest,’ and the case will end.”

“In other words…” Xiao Tan said thoughtfully, “From now on, it’s no longer possible to change Tumi’s mind when she’s about to call the police… We must strike first and control Xiong before his intentions to court death turn into action, nipping it in the bud. Once he does it, we won’t have time to cover it up.”

“Yes,” Feng Bujue replied.

“This is too difficult!” Xiao Tan said, “This guy is like a ticking time bomb, he could expose himself at any time (yes, he used the exposure 曝), and we’re not worms in his stomach, how can we…”

“There are hints,” Feng Bujue interrupted Xiao Tan’s complaints and gave a constructive response, “For example, in the case just now… from the end of the scene transition to the period when Xiong Ji revealed the evidence of his crime, we received more than one hint.” He held up a cat finger and said, “First of all, he came out wearing a bra and saying terrible lines… that was already ringing alarm bells for us. Secondly, thinking back now… the reason he was late was probably because he went out to steal things the night before, which led to him oversleeping. Also, when Myaomi said that her socks were stolen, we should have thought… the thing must be on Xiong Ji’s body, even if it’s not in his pants pocket, it’s somewhere else, like stuffed in his mouth as face padding, or clipped in his [Bleep—] gate.” He sighed, “Ah… so I said, we were careless… After those previous events, we shouldn’t have had even a sliver of hope for Xiong Ji… On this point, we’re not even as good as Tumi…”

“Um… now that you mention it…” Xiao Tan said, “We did have a chance to stop him before he took out his socks…”

“In short, the following cases will all be in this rhythm,” Feng Bujue said, “We have to…”

“Mya—” At this time, Myaomi-chan’s standard scream rang out again, interrupting their conversation.

Feng and Wang looked at each other, sighed together, and then ran in the direction of the scream…