The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

Dong Feng woke up around seven in the morning.

An entire night had passed. He couldn’t even remember when he had fallen asleep, but he had eventually done so while waiting.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Yu lying in deep sleep in his own bed spot, seemingly a bit exhausted. The desk next to him had a few desserts, as well as some pretty large Western pastries that they had likely bought early in the morning on their way back.

“Morning.”

Yu Yin strode out of the bathroom and quietly said, “Sorry about last night…”

“It’s fine.” It had not bothered Dong Feng anyways, so he lifted a hand to stop the other person from feeling guilty. “I saw the text.”

Yu Yin knew that continuing would result in him being scolded, so he cut off his original apology. When Dong Feng got off the bed to walk to the table, Yu Yin passed over a tablet. “Li Lin Yue sent this to me.”

Dong Feng looked at the several video webpages open on the screen, then took the earphones Yu Yin passed over and pressed the play button.

As soon as the contents began to play, he knew why Yu Yin had wanted him to look at it.

The clip was filmed, likely spontaneously using a cellphone to record. It was the scene of the woman fighting with a store personnel. It appeared to have been uploaded by another customer, who had titled it as: “Super 囧”.

For the viewers to easily understand the circumstances, the recorder had gone as far as to carefully explain below that on a certain date and time, a rich customer had come to exchange a complimentary gift that had been a random draw. Upon opening it, the woman had discovered that it was not what she wanted, so she had furiously demanded for the personnel to give her a new one.

In the clip, the staff had begun to repeatedly explain that this was random and could not be changed. Then the woman blew up and yelled about how this was a consumer right or whatever. After prattling on and on, the store manager eventually showed up to give her a new item.

But beyond their expectations, the woman failed to draw her desired item again. Bcause the other customers checking out had begun to circle around and point fingers, the woman snorted and said it was just her terrible luck, then grabbed the item and walked off to take a seat nearby.

Originally, it should have ended there. However, the video had a second part.

Dong Feng watched the continuation, which even had “part two” written on top.

A few minutes later, the woman suddenly grabbed the object and turned back. This time, the unsatisfactory part was a small blemish.

Although the image was a bit blurry, Dong Feng could sense the staff were about to lose their minds.

Then there was another round of empty complaints about consumer rights. Finally, the store manager let her change items once more. Yet it still did not end there; the woman began to stress that the store had wasted her time and should provide her an apology and appropriate compensation for her energy.

More similar disputes continued. Eventually, the woman screamed not to film, and the video ended.

This woman was precisely the one they had bumped into last night.

He scrolled down and saw the comments. There was an anonymous person who claimed to be a part-time worker at that shop who said: Actually, I sometimes dream of this woman going around complaining and even suing the head company; the head company would come to understand the situation and later call the customer to argue with her multiple times. It was purely just dreams without any relation to the actual store; please don’t sue our store.

“I did a quick search, and this clip was shared by quite a few people, so there were many comments.” For some reason, despite Yu Yin’s desire to just fall on the bed and knock out last night, he hadn’t been able to sleep after closing his eyes. Instead, he kept feeling his hairs rise on end, making it impossible to get any rest. As a result, he had gotten up and killed time by searching for related information. “It was really weird. Both the internet and the device were lagging a bit and then froze so that I couldn’t close or change the pages. It just happened to stop at this comment.”

Dong Feng opened the comment Yu Yin was pointing out. It was very short and simply said: “My colleague also encountered this woman. Her ruckus caused him to resign and cut off contact with us.”

Then he clicked the username, which linked to a girl’s social media page. She was in her twenties and had delicate and pretty features. She had one friend group for work on her page, which Yu Yin had already filtered through. The group included a young man her age with a very ordinary appearance, the type one would not particularly take note of while walking down the street. Clicking this person’s name led to the resigned worker’s page.

It was clear to see from his most recent activity that he had resigned from the run-in with a terrible customer and that he was in lower spirits. There were about five posts that had depressing single-liners, such as, “Feeling a bit depressed”, “Losing heart”, etc. Many people had left consoling comments below; it seemed he had pretty good relations with others. There was nothing new after these.

Dong Feng quickly scrolled down and discovered there were quite a few records of the person’s day-to-day life too. He lowered his head in thought for a beat then turned to Yu Yin. “Go and get some sleep, we can discuss after you wake up once I’ve looked at it first.”

“Alright, then I’ll go sleep.” Once the sun had risen, the chilling feeling had vanished. Yu Yin was actually on the verge of dying from exhaustion, which he had tried to alleviate through a shower earlier in the bathroom. Now that things had calmed down temporarily, he was happy to take a nap. “You can eat anything on the table; eat as much as you can. There’s also tea in the fridge.”

After Dong Feng saw Yu Yin instantly fall dead asleep after his head hit the pillow on the bed, he snorted and began perusing through the webpages.

At first glance, it felt like a typical person recording their daily life, such as trivial everyday matters and checking in at various locations. The past updates had been very steady, with new ones practically every day. The person had also interacted with his friends and colleagues, so there did not appear to be any issues on the surface. It was a very normal life journal.

But after scrolling through several posts, Dong Feng frowned. Right as he was about to make a call, he realised that he had forgotten about his cellphone after setting it up to record yesterday…he had actually neglected to put it away.

He carefully fished out the dead phone from the pillow and plugged it to a charger. As soon as there was enough battery, he switched it on to send a call.

After powering up the phone, he remembered that the video clip from last night likely occupied quite a bit of memory, so he opened it for a second to delete it. However, he stopped midway.

Although he felt a bit of pity towards Yu Yin, there was no choice but to wake him up now.

***

With dark circles under his eyes, Yu Yin went to borrow his classmate’s laptop at around eight o’clock.

“Xiao Zhong said this has the software you want. He originally brought it to edit his graduation exhibit donghua. Can you use it?” Yu Yin plopped down next to Dong Feng. “If you can’t, then I can do it?”

“Mn.” Dong Feng let Yu Yin handle the downloaded folder and pulled up a seat together with the awake Yu to wait.

Yu Yin opened one of the clips inside the folder and saw it was pitch-dark, very black. As a result, he first adjusted the lighting of the video, though the effect was limited and there was still nothing to be seen. Right as he was about to ask Dong Feng, Yu suddenly reached out to maximize the volume…and the sound of a door knock came from the clip.

Then a faint light shone in, which finally allowed Yu Yin to recognise that this was the room they were currently residing in. The light was coming in from outside the window. It quickly moved to the crack under the door.

Yu Yin’s suspicion directly shifted into horror as he stared at the image in shock—because with the illumination from under the door, he could now faintly see some of the activity inside the room. He spotted Dong Feng next to the door…This was definitely from last night before we got back. If I knew something like this would happen, I would’ve ignored that woman and rushed straight here.

Yu Yin was about to tell Dong Feng to contact them without fail for any incidents from now on, but then abruptly noticed what was off about the film. Aside from the knocking outside persistently continuing for a long time, he could see a very blurry silhouette of feet appear inside the door, standing right by Dong Feng. And the toes faced the inside of the room, as though the person was standing with their back up against the door.

“No wonder I was so cold.” The thief hadn’t caused any issues, but Dong Feng had been more annoyed by the stabbing pain all over his body from the cold.

“…” Yu Yin had no idea if the other was joking or not; he was seriously pondering if Dong Feng sometimes really did just want to alleviate the mood, yet made it so that continuing the conversation was scary. In any case, Yu Yin simply continued staring at the screen.

The silhouette in front of the door appeared only for a few seconds before quickly vanishing into thin air.

The person knocking on the door never opened the door. After running around for a while without obtaining any results, they finally gave up. The flashlight beam swayed outside the window for a bit, before eventually shining in. That was when they clearly saw a black shadow sprawled across the entire window. If the window had not sported metal bars outside it, this would not have been abnormal. But since every window of the guesthouse had a metal grating…

They continued watching. The lights in the house lit back up and the scene became clear, so Yu Yin adjusted the lighting setting back. The subsequent content was nothing special, just Dong Feng opening the door to see nothing outside, then flipping through a book on the bed and falling into deep sleep soon after. The phone had even captured some of Dong Feng’s hair and body.

Yu Yin wasn’t sure if he should be calling Dong Feng brave or what to be able to read and then sleep like this. It made Yu Yin feel defeated somehow.

“It’s still not over.” Dong Feng shot down the distressed expression Yu Yin was wearing and looked at the cut-off scene in the clip. “It turned off by itself.”

“Huh? Didn’t it run out of battery?” Seeing that the clip had stopped on its own, Yu Yin had assumed it had either run out of memory or battery.

“No, can’t you see that there’s a second file in the folder?” Dong Feng reached over to close the clip so that Yu Yin could see the second file. “The phone turned off the video function by itself and then recorded something else.”

“Your phone…”

“Does not have that function. Hurry up and play it.”

The second clip began to play. The room was still the same as it had been in the previous video, but quite some time had passed.

For some reason, Yu Yin subconsciously checked the time on the clock inside the room.

3:10.

A pale, dripping wet hand entered the camera range inside the dim room. It slowly extended deformed and severely injured fingers towards Dong Feng, its skin stripped off and its fingernails gone.

Then the clip stopped.

There were no other clips in the folder.

“Is that woman’s hand the same as the one you saw before?” Dong Feng looked at Yu Yin, who was more shocked than himself (the involved party) and flatly stated, “I don’t recognise that hand.”

“…No, the one on the train was male.” If the boy hadn’t been misleading him and Yu Yin was not mistaken, then that shadow should have been male.

“What do you think?”

Yu Yin thought Dong Feng was asking him this question, though he had no idea how to respond. However, Yu suddenly moved next to him, which made Yu Yin realise he was not the one being asked.

Yu neared the screen and squinted to carefully scrutinise those hands. “Injured after death.”

“Take it.” Dong Feng casually pushed the notebook on the table over to Yu and patiently waited for the latter to finish writing.

After writing, Yu gave the notebook to Yu Yin. The general contents were related to the assessment of the hands: despite the severe injury, the wounds could be seen as being caused by blunt force and wild animals’ teeth after entering water. There weren’t any particular injuries that had appeared before death.

“Ahhh…it crawled up…” Yu Yin could tell without even thinking that this had likely followed him out of the ocean. He could not understand why it had decided to attach to them.

If it followed just from being seen, the entire sea of them would have entered the guesthouse. There had to be a particular reason why only this one had come.

But this particular reason could also include dying unjustly again…sigh…

“By the way, do you feel unwell anywhere?” Yu Yin was still very worried about this. He had personally encountered such incidents too many times, so he knew directly touching them was nothing good.

“Not really.” This was true; Dong Feng had even slept until his energy was restored and had no idea such a thing had occurred.

Yu Yin felt like there was something strange that he could not put his finger on. Still feeling uneasy, he said, “I think you should wear an amulet too.”

“No need, I don’t need such a thing.”Dong Feng rejected the goodwill and stubbornly stressed, “Don’t even think of any cheap tricks. Making me mad won’t do you any good.”

He was right, so Yu Yin could only dismiss the thought of secretly hanging it around the other in the middle of the night. “I’ll send these over to Dad first. Since there might be a body, we should report it to them.” Yu Xia would likely blow up again upon knowing, but it wasn’t like Yu Yin was doing it voluntarily. Whose fault was it that there were ghosts everywhere, even crawling out of the water? He couldn’t do anything about it.

“Wait, I also have something I want to give them. Use my account and encryption to send it. Two items.”

“Encryption?” Yu Yin stared blankly.

“It’s better if you don’t ask too much.”

***

“Xia, come here.”

The moment Xia stepped foot into the office, he heard his own brother call for him.

He could sense some strange gazes targeting them. The “drug dealers” and “youths” that they had brought back yesterday had drawn a lot of attention. His boss alone had received multiple phone calls; some type of pressure had suddenly attacked them.

Li Zi Hong’s side was clearly the same. The most recent cases seemed entirely unrelated on the surface, but the locations they had deliberately arranged to tackle were what had drawn interceding pressure, and the weight they had to bear could only be more than Yu Xia’s group. When Yu Xia went looking for people, he would purposely tell his colleagues to avoid contact to prevent trouble from stirring up.

…Hmph.

When he walked over to Yu Tong, the latter was currently copying something from the screen.

“Here.” Yu Tong ripped off a strip and passed it over to him. “Go see Jiu Shen while you’re at it, he seems to be looking for you.”

Yu Xia glanced at the paper, which was a string of numbers that resembled a phone number. He didn’t ask any further and simply turned to leave the office. As he headed towards Jiu Shen’s side, he just happened to pass by Ye Huan En and Wang Ke Zhi.

“What did you run over here?” He suspiciously stared at Wang Ke Zhi, who was already half-retired at home.

“Ke Zhi-dàgē received news from a past colleague that was helpful for us, so he dropped by.” Ye Huan En passed a folder over. “Take a look when you’re free.”

“Mn.”

Yu Xia left the hallway and flipped through the papers as he walked. It contained a photocopy of testimony reports, mostly covering the results of Wang Ke Zhi’s colleagues looking into the gun organization, which included a few youths that shared characteristics with the ones they had caught this time. However, there was no real evidence. The reports had been terminated afterwards due to pressure, and the youths had been released. However, there was no record of where the pressure had come from.

When he entered Jiu Shen’s lab, he stuffed the papers into a shredder. “Status?”

“We’re still breaking through the memory cards found on those cadres.” Jiu Shen scratched his head and said, “I asked for someone to try helping out with a small section…”

“How many times have I said not to look for kids.” Yu Xia directly saw through what the other person was trying to hide and he passed over the paper in his hands. “He sent the code to my brother.”

“Dong Feng himself said he can…” I’m seriously beside myself with work! Jiu Shen grievously hunched his shoulders. They couldn’t tell others about what they were working on, and he wasn’t skilled in unlocking files like this. He was already braving through it with clenched teeth, unable to delay official work as well. If it weren’t for Ah Liu helping him with doing these tasks on top of making time to finish his usual assignments, he really would have died from overwork!

“Even if he can, you should try not to get them involved.” While he had no idea why the child that desired to cut ties with them would agree to help Jiu Shen, Yu Xia had no plans to think deeply into it. “You know why Xiao Wu was kicked out too.”

“…Sorry, I won’t seek him out anymore.” Jiu Shen reflected on himself for a beat before agreeing with Yu Xia’s words. He left the computer to grab his personal laptop and downloaded the email Dong Feng had sent. The other had placed the hacked item with an encryption inside the cloud while sending the code to Yu Tong.

Despite calling it a code, it looked nothing more like an unrecognisable phone number.

He opened the folder and saw a large amount of material inside that had already been reorganised. The original content found from the cadres had not only been locked, but also contained tons of random data. Moreover, multiple methods had been used to jumble it up, so decoding it required multiple solutions as well. Jiu Shen had already attempted it until his vision swam before asking Dong Feng about a few. The boy had quite easily told him to send it over as well, so Jiu Shen had sought him for help.

Looks like that child really is amazing. He was able to translate quite a bit of information in such a short amount of time.

“So it was written using a secret code. This is quite a challenge without knowing multiple languages…Wow, and there’s music scores too…” Jiu Shen’s head was spinning as he studied the various techniques provided inside. The designer was too formidable to have understood so much…

Yu Xia shoved Jiu Shen’s face aside and carefully inspected the files.

This was information regarding a business transaction. The recorders detailed the process of purchasing several small apartments and renovating them, as well as the exact number of people, locations, etc. that were used. It seemed that this was a report that had been submitted to higher-ups.

Jiu Shen typed in one address and discovered that it was truly an optimal location. It was not only in the vicinity of the business district, but also had school districts around it. The area was bustling and the land was expensive. The transaction records clearly indicated it had been paid in full. “What deep pockets…”

“…”

This could only signify that the organization was powerful in multiple respects.

Yu Xia recorded the information and noticed there was an additional file left. “What’s that?”

“Seems to be a video file.”

Jiu Shen directly clicked it.

A few seconds later, Yu Xia was attacked by a shrill scream that sounded like a slaughtered pig.

The guy shrieking “ahhhhh” backpedalled as far as possible, eventually crashing headfirst into the door with a loud bang.

Yu Xia ignored the continued wails behind him and narrowed his eyes at the hand in the freeze frame. While the quality was poor, he could faintly see a faint black mark on the wrist’s tiny intact patch of flesh.

He turned to kick aside the person curled up on the ground and opened the door to see Ah Liu running over towards the source of the noise. The latter was clearly startled. “Help me look into what the mark on that hand is.” Yu Xia thought the tattoo-like mark looked slightly familiar.

“Huh? Oh, okay.”

***

Exactly what kind of perceptions should one hold for this ridiculous and unreasonable world.

Honestly, I no longer know.

Waking up to those disgusting sounds every day…though I actually didn’t sleep at all.

It’s so hard to sleep.

My colleagues and friends all said I was oversensitive.

But it’s really so hard to sleep.

I hear those sounds the moment I lie down.

I’m truly tired.

“Awake?”

It was afternoon when Dong Feng turned towards the noises behind him to see the two brothers sat up one after another following their several hours nap. Their complexions were still terrible, but they had at least gotten some rest.

“Are you still looking at that website?” Yu Yin yawned. In reality, he very much wanted to fall back and down and continue sleeping. His entire body was aching and his nape was painfully stretched taut.

“Mn, I thought his journal was strange. His public posts all look normal, just eating, drinking, and having fun; even though his colleagues said he had been forced to resign, he only had one or two depressing lines posted. With this kind of heavy heart, the journaler shouldn’t be posting just these; so after logging into this account, I found quite a few hidden statements as expected.” Upon entering the account, Dong Feng had discovered a number of negative statements, though most were only viewable to a limited audience rather than to the general public.

“…I’m more curious about why you have a way of logging into his account.” Despite his headache and blunt head, Yu Yin thought that what he had just heard was more terrifying.

That’s hacking, isn’t it! Hacking an account in broad daylight! Completely illegal!

“Deduced from all of his entries, though it took quite a bit of time to figure it out.” Dong Feng continued scrolling through the pages with his chin propped on his hand.

“Doesn’t it get locked if you enter wrongly? How did you try it?” Yu Yin was entirely awake now.

“Did I say I tested it on his personal account?” Dong Feng took the hot tea Yu poured him and said, “I tried others. This person had records of an email address and a few common purchases and game pages. Once I deduced a few possible passwords, I tried to log into those accounts first. When I found two or three passwords that he often used and then got into his email, I was able to enter his personal account.”

In that moment, Yu Yin decided that he would have to use different passwords in the future to be safe.

“Please, go ahead and report it to the police.” Dong Feng tossed his phone at Yu Yin and continued sorting through the posts and comments he had downloaded earlier.

“Don’t joke around; these types of things shouldn’t be repeated in the future.” Yu Yin placed aside the phone that had flown at him, feeling somewhat speechless. However, he could not really report it to the police.

“It’s not the first time anyways.” Dong Feng was concentrating on the contents so he unconsciously slipped out in reply, “For the sake of finding evidence back then, I did even…”

“Finding evidence?” Yu Yin knit his brows together.

Dong Feng came back to himself with a start and immediately stood while changing the topic. “I’ve already listed out everything for you guys to see. There’s also a copy on the tablet. You two should look it over first.”

“Wait a…”

“I’m going out for a walk.” Dong Feng quickly shoved aside Yu Yin and whisked his jacket before striding out.

His actions truly made it look like he was escaping in a hurry. Yu Yin really wanted to call out to him, but Yu suddenly grabbed him with a shake of the head.

“…Yeah, I’ll wait until he wants to say it himself.”

If Dong Feng subconsciously mentioned his past in this kind of situation, he might soon be willing to voluntarily chat about it more, right?

“Then let’s start looking at these.”

Yu Yin refocused on the organised journal entries. Dong Feng had helped them arrange them according to the dates. After removing the unrelated clock-ins and records of having fun, there were only the writer’s hidden thoughts.

April 6

After moving to the new rental place, I always feel like there’s some kind of noise.

The landlord came to check and said there wasn’t.

Whatever.

Switching to this place means I should be able to break things off with the past.

April 8

Started looking for a job.

But I still feel like the house is very noisy.

April 17

As expected, no matter what type of job it is, it’s just a load of trouble.

There are so many bizarre people.

And the most ridiculous part is why the store manager needs to apologise?

April 18

It’s the second day. Alright, I give up after today.

They paid for alcohol, they’re the customers, everything we do is what ought to be done.

If I gave you 300, would you be able to lick the floor clean?

In the end, the store manager got mad at me. The store manager said I should shut my mouth tighter and quickly clean.

April 20

The house is still noisy as hell.

But my friends said they couldn’t hear anything.

The landlord said he wouldn’t lower the price because of this.

Fuck you, who wanted you to lower the price.

Those are two entirely different matters. Who said to lower anything?

…

May 6

One week at the new job and there are still tons of annoying people.

My coworkers are all great. They said I shouldn’t act out so strongly, that this type of job is just like this, that the customers are always right.

Who the hell came up with bullshit like “customers are always right”?

Why are customers always right?

Do customers not need to be reasonable?

So weird.

Is it ok just because it isn’t your problem?

When it becomes your problem, I dare you to say again that customers are always right.

May 8

Are you retarded?

Latte art isn’t some kind of service item. We already helped you do it yet you keep fucking complaining about how the three drinks should look different and make us redo it.

You’ll be disappointed without getting latte art because you ran over here from far away after seeing reviews?

If you get disappointed this easily, can you even get through life?

Ah, yes yes yes, the one spending money is always right.

Fuck, which idiot got carried away on a whim doing latte art for a customer and caused that review to be written?

Do you know how many customers there are? Stop randomly adding more work!

May 9

I’m going to murder the person that added extra latte art.

That bastard from yesterday came again during peak hours.

And today they complained that the pattern was the same, so it lacked sincerity.

Fuck your sincerity.

Fuck your customer complaint to the boss.

Fuck your logic that our service should be based on your whims because you’re the customer paying money.

…

“Although they’re all complaints, I feel like they’re justified too.”

After scrolling through for a while, Yu Yin began to think that this person was truly beyond unlucky. Hidden among the journal entries were mostly angry complaints about work, ranting once nearly every day. It was quite frequent.

Moreover, it was evident from these short entries that this person’s temper was probably a bit short. He seemed to easily talk back against customers. Some of the later parts below also included his colleagues kindly advising him to stop and such, so it looked like he knew about this problem.

Compared to the unhidden content, he interacted with his colleagues quite frequently despite his slightly lacking temper. It seemed that he had pretty good relations with his coworkers. On a few of the days where conflict had occurred, there would be people actively asking things like “are you alright” in the comments, clearly out of concern.

Character-wise, he counted as someone easy to get along with. The pure complaints were all hidden so as not to affect those around him.

Yet after looking through this, Yu Yin could not equate this person with that ghost…or rather, it was hard to see him dying. An accident? Or is it not him at all?

Yu Yin pressed his slightly aching temples, his vision starting to blur from reading the large amount of text in one go. He was not sure if he was searching in the right place, as this website had only been found because of a mysterious freeze.

“I’ll get some food first and continue reading it later.”

***

“Dong Feng.”

He turned away from the sound of the waves to see Xiang Zhen Rong walking towards him.

“Ah Guan and the others want to walk around a few scenic spots. They should be heading towards Shoufeng. Do you want to go?” Xiang Zhen Rong zipped up his thick coat as he stepped along the parts the sea could not reach. He raised his voice and asked, “There’s still room.”

Dong Feng shook his head. He released a paper boat and walked up a bit. “Is it alright for you to go out?”

“Oh, it’s fine. Wei Jun and the guys don’t seem to plan on going very far. Ah Guan’s group plans on picking up girls, so they’ll drive out and go further. Wei Jun’s group seem like they’re going to bike around nearby. I passed on both.” Xiang Zhen Rong shrugged, clearly lacking interest in the two activities. “I wanted to buy something for my girlfriend too; I’ll go get something by myself later. Wei Jun’s bunch is too whiny, I don’t want them to come along.”

“If you have a girlfriend, why didn’t you bring her here?” Despite this being a fellowship hangout, Dong Feng had actually seen a few couples among the crowd, the pairs often sticking together and going off into their own world when the group split up for activities.

“It’s only been three months. I thought it was better if she didn’t come along.” Xiang Zhen Rong chuckled in embarrassment and raised a pointer finger. “Don’t tell Ah Guan and the others.”

“…” As it actually had nothing to do with him, Dong Feng decided to pretend he hadn’t heard anything.

They spotted some anglers nearby. There seemed to always be the same few people these past few days, though there was no knowing what they were targeting.

“When the time comes, I’ll treat you to a wedding feast.” Xiang Zhen Rong threw an arm over Dong Feng’s shoulders and directly turned him around to start walking towards the guesthouse. “Actually, I quite like banquets. No matter what I eat, I think banquets still end up being the most delicious.”

“I don’t like them. Also, please do not touch me.” Dong Feng brushed away the other person’s arm and frowned. Right as he was about to say something to chase the other person away, he caught sight of Meng Pin Si walking out of the guesthouse door with her cellphone. When she saw them, she also paused in her tracks.

“I called home to ask them what they liked to eat…ah!” As Meng Pin Si approached them with a smile, she suddenly let out an alarmed cry as she stumbled and nearly fell down.

Xiang Zhen Rong and Dong Feng quickly strode over to support the girl, and they simultaneously noticed the shattered wine bottle on the ground that had caused Meng Pin Si to nearly trip.

There were about two or three broken dark-coloured wine bottles lying on the rock path in front of the door, giving off a dangerous glint.

“Weird, these weren’t here when I came out just earlier.” Xiang Zhen Rong eyed the bottles that were still releasing an odour and then apprehensively looked at Dong Feng. The latter shook his head, indicating that these indeed had not been present when he had left.

Upon inspection, they discovered that Meng Pin Si’s ankles were slightly cut, so Xiang Zhen Rong simply piggybacked her to the guesthouse while shouting out who had used such a dangerous object for a prank.

The people that came out after hearing this shook their heads. The eventual conclusion was that it had likely been an angler or an outsider that had accidentally tossed them.

Dong Feng did not enter the guesthouse. Instead, he scrutinised the shattered appearance of the bottles; there were no traces of impact damage in their surroundings, and the shards were not spread out. Rather than saying these had been accidentally tossed, it was more like someone had tossed them and then laid them out here.

…Among these students?

Dong Feng swiftly recalled the semblance of the shards and mentally pieced them together into their original state. Then he stood and moved aside to let others clean it up while walking over to the side to make a call.

“Jiu Shen-gē? It’s me, did you receive what I sent…Hm? No?”

When he heard the somewhat baffled question from the other end, he had a pretty good guess about what had happened. If I had known earlier, I wouldn’t have used express shipping and wasted the money.

“No, it’s nothing. I sent some local products, they probably haven’t arrived yet.” Hopefully the person opening it won’t get a fright. Dong Feng glanced at the lab’s phone number as he ended the call, then marked the number.

“Oh, Ah Yin’s friend, do you want to go in first? They just brought back food.” Wei Jun was helping some girls clean up the shards when he saw the boy standing around in a daze. He kindly said, “We’ll clean this place…Fuck!” He waved his cut hand, his single-sided conversation changing into cursing at himself.

Dong Feng passed by the others and stepped through the guesthouse door. There, he discovered that there was also a little commotion in the courtyard that caused Yu Yin and Yu to run out as well.

“What the hell.” Li Lin Yue helped Meng Pin Si over and she widened her eyes as she exclaimed with anger in her tone, “What is that!”

They followed her line of sight to see bugs all over the ground, dropping like a stream from under the table.

Yu bent over to pick up the plastic bag stuck underneath the table. The inside contained half a bag of mealworms that were striving to bite through and worm their way out. A few of the girls screamed at the sight and backed away.

“Who did this? It’s way crossing the line.” Bending down, they could see bags stuck below the other tables too. Xiang Zhen Rong, Yu Yin, and a few others ripped off the bunch of bug bags.

“Really annoying…”

“Seriously trash.”

The girls lost their mood to play around and each returned to their own rooms.

“Whatever, we have to continue heading to the next destination tomorrow anyways. That evil bastard had better not try pulling this kind of thing again or else I’ll fish him out and beat him up.” Li Lin Yue snorted and went back to the rooms to take care of Meng Pin Si.

Xiang Zhen Rong sighed and directed the surrounding guys to clear up the bugs, then had some others go do a headcount of who would stay tonight to barbecue, eat, and sleep, as well as who would take the car out to have fun as per the plan.

Yu Yin looked in Dong Feng’s direction to ask about the latter’s thoughts. However, he saw Dong Feng sign a few hand gestures at him before expressionlessly returning to the room.

“What does that mean?” Yu Yin somewhat wordlessly turned to plead Yu for assistance. After waiting a few seconds, he accepted the passed over phone, only to deadpan upon seeing the typed words:

“Absolutely never going out with you jinxed people again.”