"Miss Bai, please help me," the little boy's mother pleaded, her legs feeling weak. Her husband, who had rushed to catch up, arrived and repeatedly apologized to Bai Cha.
"We apologize, Miss Bai. My wife lost her composure. I'll take her away first," the man said, pulling the mother as they hurried back, adding with a hint of reproach, "What's the use of begging Miss Bai? Let's get the surveillance footage and call the police to help find the child."
The mother turned her head, her eyes teary. Bai Cha, sensing a woman's intuition, felt the mother was convinced she could help find the child.
Bai Cha's gaze deepened. She stepped forward and placed her hands on the mother's shoulders. "Sit down and tell me what happened."
"Uh, sorry, Miss Bai, we're really anxious to check the surveillance," the man said, looking troubled.
"Checking the surveillance won't help," Bai Cha said calmly, tapping the tablet in her hand. "Surveillance systems today aren't as primitive as they were hundreds of years ago. The staff are professionals. If a child is separated from their guardian or if the guardian changes, they will directly check the guardian's information and notify them by phone."
The staff monitor twenty-four hours a day. In other words, if the surveillance staff didn't call the parents, it meant the surveillance system hadn't detected anything amiss.
Or, it meant there was a problem with the surveillance system itself.
Bai Cha lightly pressed her earphone and made the parents sit on a bench. "This is my responsibility. Tell me the details."
Hearing Bai Cha's confident tone, the couple exchanged glances. It was the mother who spoke first.
"It's like this: after you got our child's balloon back, you left. My husband remembered seeing you on the news recently and got too excited. He looked down to find his phone to take a picture of you." The mother spoke in as calm a tone as possible. "There was someone performing a tightrope walk on the cable above us. The young girl's moves were extremely difficult. I was startled and looked down, and then I realized the child was gone."
"There weren't many people at the time, and it wasn't night yet. And the child was standing right between us. We didn't feel anything, and then the child just vanished," the father added.
"You took pictures of me?" Bai Cha raised an eyebrow. "Show me the photos."
The father quickly took out his phone and transferred the pictures to Bai Cha.
The photos were taken well. They captured the moment Lucifer handed the sugar figurine to Bai Cha. Lucifer was slightly bowed, his expression gentle, his eyes like the afterglow of sunset, softly scattering on the waves like falling starlight.
He handed the sugar figurine to the girl in front of him. Even from a photo, his gentleness and carefulness were evident.
And Bai Cha in the photo had a smile of contentment, a warmth she'd never shown before.
The photos were good, but someone spoiled the scene.
"Quite audacious," Bai Cha said, tapping lightly on the photo. There, the old man making sugar figurines was packing up his stall. His gaze, however, was fixed on the clown not far away. Their eyes met, quite intentionally.
The old man's eyelids drooped, forming a slit that obscured his eyes, which was why Bai Cha hadn't noticed.
And this clown was peculiar. Nighttime wasn't a clown's stage, and he should have left. Yet, he looked conflicted, or rather, timid.
The father had taken the photo casually, blurring these two "background characters" slightly. However, Bai Cha had already formed a preliminary judgment.
"Miss Bai, I've just checked the surveillance. It seems to have dropped frames during the incident."
It was Gu Mingze's voice.
"Although everyone in that area was looking up at the tightrope walker, the blinking and breathing frequency doesn't connect with the previous frame."
Bai Cha was a little surprised. She hadn't expected Gu Mingze, who was a weak fighter, to be so skilled with computers, and to have such good eyesight and wit.
"Alright," Bai Cha nodded and looked at the couple. "I'll give you my contact information. Don't wander off. I'll investigate this."
With that, she quickly headed towards the surveillance room in the area.
Lucifer followed silently. It was clear Bai Cha was getting angry. This action was indeed too audacious. Knowing that the little boy had just interacted with Bai Cha, it was hard not to suspect malicious provocation.
"Master, do you have any leads?" Lucifer asked.
"A little," Bai Cha replied as if it were natural. She was giving instructions to Gu Mingze. "Gu Mingze, get me the surveillance footage of the tightrope walker."
"I'll look." Gu Mingze replied.
"Meng Qinghuan, seal off Sky Island, and have Gong Yuechen apply for an emergency investigation order from the higher authorities."
The surveillance footage was quickly retrieved. Bai Cha immediately noticed something was wrong. The tightrope walker was wearing a doll-like dress and a white wig, looking very beautiful.
But how could this be a young girl, as the woman had said? This was clearly a young man.
"Master, do you suspect they're working together?" Lucifer also leaned over to watch the surveillance. "Perhaps this person was responsible for distracting everyone?"
"Mm, look here. The woman's legs, the male legs – the thighs and calves are different lengths. Although this person's slender figure is very similar to a girl's, it's clearly a man." Bai Cha pointed at the person. "Even with breast padding, the head-to-shoulder ratio is slightly different from a woman's. A man's upper body is longer than his lower body, while a woman's upper and lower body are roughly equal in length."
"Moreover, judging by this person's muscles and subconscious reactions during these difficult moves, it's more like a special forces soldier who has undergone special training," Bai Cha said with a frown. "Judging by this person's physical muscle reactions and gaze, at least this person has taken many lives."
Even though the person had tried their best to conceal it, Bai Cha was not to be trifled with and saw through it at a glance.
As Bai Cha spoke, she kicked open a surveillance room door.
The staff inside were startled. Before they could react, they heard a crackling sound of electricity from the monitors inside, rendering them completely useless.
The staff member jumped back in fright. As her hand was about to "accidentally" press the work surface, Lucifer grabbed her wrist.
"Please do not move, miss," Lucifer said, crushing the pinhole recorder on the staff member's collar, smiling politely. "If you wish to destroy evidence immediately, you might be underestimating us."
"Zzzt—"
The screens in the surveillance room flickered and became blurry, as if experiencing a malfunction. The next moment, Gu Mingze's voice came again.
"Copied."
Initially, Gu Mingze had only connected to Sky Island's surveillance.
Directly hacking into the internal system to tamper with it?
Not to mention whether he had the courage, he also lacked the skill. Forcibly copying all surveillance would create too much noise for anyone to suspect anything.
However, now that Bai Cha had directly controlled the staff, it was easier. Gu Mingze had immediately hacked into this surveillance room and obtained the complete version that hadn't been erased yet.
"Alright, my dear lady, now let's talk about our business." Bai Cha waved the dagger in her hand, smiling somewhat cruelly. "How about a game?"
Saying this, Bai Cha stepped aside and gestured for her to sit, trying to appear as polite as possible, but her words sent chills down one's spine.
"Because we need to see how long you can hold on, please choose the most comfortable position: lying down, on your stomach, or on your side? Anything is fine." Bai Cha chuckled. "We're very humane. You can also choose a color for the torture device. How about pink?"
Humane? What kind of humaneness was this?
"Wait, wait a minute, I am..." The staff member tried to say something, but her expression changed, and she quickly corrected herself: "You can't use private torture!"
"Ah!!"
Before she could finish, the woman was pinned to the ground, her little finger already broken. Bai Cha was even more professional, taking out a finger cot with wound medicine and putting it directly on the woman's broken little finger, then casually burning this small section of her little finger to ash.
The pitiful staff member was in so much pain she almost fainted. When she looked up, she saw that Bai Cha had already cleaned up the scene. Her heart turned cold.
She suddenly realized that even if she died, no one would ever know.
A cold little hand touched her neck, sliding like a cold snake to her cheek, lifting her chin, making her skin crawl. A devil's whisper reached her ears.
"First question." Bai Cha adjusted her breathing, her fingertips rhythmically sliding across the staff member's face and neck. "Who are you?"
"Nan, Nan Youli." Nan Youli trembled, her breathing unconsciously synchronizing with Bai Cha's. Fear made her heart beat faster and faster, making her feel dizzy.
Bai Cha glanced at Nan Youli's name tag. The name tag read two large characters: Gu Hong.
Obviously, this was a forged identity.
"How many people, how many dragons?" Bai Cha continued to ask, her fingers still moving rhythmically, stimulating Nan Youli's nerves.
"Four, no dragons." Nan Youli panted heavily. "No dragons, we are modifications."
Modifications?
Bai Cha's heart jolted. She was unaware of this experiment. This already fell under the category of human experimentation. How could there be no news?
"Who ordered it?" Bai Cha continued to ask.
"Guang..." Before Nan Youli could finish, she suddenly screamed and curled up on the ground, clutching her head in pain. Bai Cha's gaze sharpened, and she quickly struck Nan Youli with a palm, knocking her unconscious.
Guang? There were quite a few people in the three factions whose names contained this character, but not too many either. It did narrow down the scope.
"Meng Qinghuan, how are things on your end?" Bai Cha pressed her earphone.
"Oh, I just caught that clown. He's quite tight-lipped."
Meng Qinghuan looked at the young man who had fainted before her with a headache, muttering softly, "Why are all the people I encounter so difficult to deal with."
As she spoke, the clown suddenly opened his eyes and glared fiercely at Meng Qinghuan, as if wanting to flay her alive. He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva.
"Wow~ Okay, still quite spirited." Meng Qinghuan tapped her earphone, as if hearing something, and nodded in surprise. "Your mouth is so tough, Clown Mister, but your mouth isn't quite as good as Miss Nan's, huh? You four's business, why don't you add some details?"
As soon as she finished speaking, the clown's eyes widened, his face filled with disbelief.
"Hey, what's your name anyway? Xiao Bei? Xiao Dong? Xiao Xi?" Meng Qinghuan tilted her head, seeing the reaction in the clown's eyes, and finally smiled with satisfaction. "Alright, Little Whitey, this clown's surname is Dong."
Bai Cha: "..."
This guy, is he completely unhinged?
Bai Cha was speechless. She took out the tablet to input data again, but her brow furrowed the moment she saw the screen.
One, two, three, four...
Why were there only four communicators?
"Meng Qinghuan?" Bai Cha immediately became nervous.
"Little Whitey?" Meng Qinghuan was puzzled.
"Gu Mingze?" Bai Cha asked again.
"I'm here." Gu Mingze had no idea what was happening.
"Cang Liu?" Bai Cha's ominous premonition grew stronger, her brow furrowing tighter.
"Here." Cang Liu's reply was concise. As Cang Liu answered, the last red dot on the tablet flashed twice.
Yun He, there was no communicator for Yun He!
"Yun He?" Bai Cha leaped up from the ground, her face drastically changing. "Yun He? Respond!"
There was silence. No movement at all.