After Transmigrating Into a Book, I Was Played by the Black Lotus – Chapter 51

As Expected of You

For the past two days, Bai Xiying had been going to work alone, investigating Xie Yunya’s disappearance on one hand, while calmly setting up a trap at the company, breaking the cauldrons and sinking the boats¹.

In the evening, she returned to the apartment and went over² the findings from the past two days with Lin Xingzhu.

It had been two days since Jiang Yeye went missing. Lin Xingzhu had called and informed Father Lin about the matter on the second day. The two of them talked for a long time and finally decided to temporarily keep Jiang Yeye’s matter a secret. If she could be found within a few days, they would not tell the people in S City for the time being.

And Lin Xingzhu had already reported it to the police last night.

During the day, she contacted the people who had attended the event with Jiang Yeye before she disappeared. The responses she received were all that after they had eaten and played for a while, Jiang Yeye and that friend of hers left together.

No one saw them again. As for the surveillance footage, it showed the two of them with their arms around each other’s shoulders, disappearing into a small alley that was a surveillance blind spot. As for what happened afterward, the surveillance camera had a sudden problem and didn’t record anything.

—It was exactly the same as Xie Yunya, who had disappeared near her own residential complex. A segment of the subsequent surveillance video was blank, making it impossible to record what happened there at the time, or who passed by.

Lin Xingzhu rubbed her sore brow and said in a deep voice, “It’s not a kidnapping. They disappeared in the same way. Although there’s no direct evidence, I’m inclined to believe they were taken away by people from the same faction.”

Lin Xingzhu took out a stack of documents she had just received today and placed it in front of Bai Xiying.

When she mobilized the Lin family’s power to investigate this matter, what was originally a clueless situation suddenly showed a glimmer of hope.

While Bai Xiying was engrossed in reading, Lin Xingzhu’s expression was cold, her eyes filled with a deep loathing. “In recent months, people have been disappearing one after another. Not to mention that it’s perfectly normal for people to go missing in the vast A City every day, but I’ve screened the population of missing people in recent months, and the proportion of young men and women is very large.”

“And among the missing young men and women, there are several who disappeared in the same way as Jiang Yeye.”

Bai Xiying flipped through the documents, which recorded everything Lin Xingzhu had said in detail.

To obtain such detailed information in just two days, although it was partly due to the police’s assistance, was enough to show how much importance and urgency Lin Xingzhu attached to this.

Her gaze was slightly dazed, and a bad guess formed in her heart.

Lin Xingzhu’s cold and restrained voice continued, the calm surface of the lake hiding dangerous and deep undercurrents stirring below, “Xiying, you once asked me a question.”

“You asked me if there were any bars in A City that were relatively famous in certain circles.” Lin Xingzhu’s mind was clearer than ever before. “And at that time, if I remember correctly, it was just a few days after you had met Xie Yunya and her cousin.”

“Do you know something?”

Lin Xingzhu stared intently at Bai Xiying, trying to dig something out of her.

Since Jiang Yeye’s disappearance, Lin Xingzhu’s side had not received any calls from kidnappers, so kidnapping could be ruled out. It wasn’t that she hadn’t suspected that Jiang Yeye was taken away by human traffickers, but as Lin Xingzhu sorted through all the spider threads and horse tracks³ of this, in a flash of lightning and spark of flint⁴, she suddenly remembered that on an unremarkable afternoon, Bai Xiying had asked her that question.

She still remembered Bai Xiying’s slightly disappointed look when she got a negative answer from her side at the time.

It was just that at that time, Lin Xingzhu was certain that even if she asked, Bai Xiying wouldn’t tell her the truth. But for some reason, now that things had come to this, when all the seemingly impossible details were connected, in the unseen world⁵, it seemed the most impossible trivial details were the truth hidden under a calm lie, waiting to be revealed.

She had no absolute evidence to confirm her guess, so Lin Xingzhu chose to directly ask the woman in front of her.

Bai Xiying’s eyelashes fluttered. She turned her head to look at the serious-faced Lin Xingzhu and suddenly sighed softly.

“How should I put this?” Bai Xiying murmured to herself, “Should I say, as expected of you?”

Clearly knowing nothing, yet possessing an acuity comparable to omniscience, like a lone wolf with a keen sense of smell, always adept at discovering the truth from the smallest details.

“Actually, even if you didn’t ask, I was about to tell you these things.” Bai Xiying blinked, retracting the sighing joy in her eyes, and explained everything in a low voice, “I’ve said before that I once felt that something bad might happen to Senior Sister. There’s actually one more thing I didn’t say, and that is it might be related to carnal desires.”

“It was because of this baseless and unreasonable premonition that I suddenly asked you that question that afternoon,” Bai Xiying said. “I know you might not believe in this kind of mystical feeling, but I can only say that it is real.”

“And when your cousin disappeared, I also considered whether she, like the Senior Sister in my imagination, had been sent to the same place.”

She frowned in confusion, then slowly returned to a state of calm. “But I’m not sure, because everything is just meaningless speculation. But when I saw the information you collected together with the police, a bad guess formed in my heart.”

“Perhaps the truth is really like this. There really is such a place that tramples on the law, preying on young and handsome men and women.”

She packaged her past life’s experiences and speculations in a way that was mysterious upon mysterious⁶, Bai Xiying was certain that others might not believe it, but the ‘her’ who existed within Lin Xingzhu’s body in some unknown way would definitely realize that what she said was not without reason.

Sure enough, as she said more and more, the gloom between Lin Xingzhu’s brows grew heavier.

Just then, Lin Xingzhu received a phone call. After hanging up, she turned to look at Bai Xiying, who had been staring at her intently.

“What you said makes sense,” she said.

The call just now was from the police. Obviously, as professional investigators, they were more experienced, and they had also shared their speculations from the investigation with her.

The atmosphere was a bit stagnant.

Lin Xingzhu tugged at the corners of her lips, her gaze softening as she looked at Bai Xiying, breaking the silence, “Thank you, Xiying.”

The specks of apprehension that had gathered in her eyes for some unknown reason were instantly swept away. Bai Xiying curved her lips, her gaze toward Lin Xingzhu looking as if it would drown her within it.

Lin Xingzhu never suspected that Bai Xiying was deliberately hiding this clue, because judging others by her own standards⁷, any person with a firm will would think the other party was talking nonsense eight ways⁸ upon hearing such a vague speculation and feeling.

Not to mention, there was in fact no conclusion that Jiang Yeye and Xie Yunya were taken away by the same group of people.

But a strange feeling still lingered in Lin Xingzhu’s heart, which was that Bai Xiying still hadn’t told the real truth.

But this was meaningless to the current Lin Xingzhu, because she believed that regarding this matter, Bai Xiying had said everything she could.

She made a call to have someone investigate along this line. After hanging up, Lin Xingzhu propped up her head, her brain working at high speed, thinking about how to find Jiang Yeye.

Because they had almost determined that the same thing had happened to Xie Yunya and Jiang Yeye, Bai Xiying also shared the information she had been investigating on Xie Yunya all along, and the two of them discussed countermeasures.

Suddenly, Lin Xingzhu’s eyes moved slightly.

Bai Xiying seemed to sense something and looked up to ask, “What did you think of?”

“Shang Cengrou, she might know something.”

Lin Xingzhu said calmly, “Although we haven’t been in contact recently, I know that Shang Cengrou is someone who indulges in pleasure, and the friends she associates with are a mix of fish and dragons⁹. She might have some clues.”

Since the original owner could get the newly developed super spring medicine¹⁰ from Shang Cengrou back then, it was enough to prove that she had her own social channels to get through certain connections.

Perhaps, Shang Cengrou really knew something about this kind of matter.

In her memory, Shang Cengrou had magnified the original owner’s desires and needs, taking the original owner to some sufficiently chaotic and intoxicating places to please her, but she had never mentioned any darker, more bizarre places.

Moreover, Lin Xingzhu was also not sure if Shang Cengrou would notice anything if she rashly asked.

Bai Xiying’s expression was a bit subtle, but seeing that Lin Xingzhu intended to contact Shang Cengrou, she didn’t say anything to stop her.

“Xingzhu?” The woman on the other end seemed a little surprised. “Why did you suddenly contact me so late at night?”

Ever since Bai Xiying came along, Lin Xingzhu had made it clear that she didn’t really like Shang Cengrou. Now, suddenly receiving a call from her, Shang Cengrou couldn’t help but be a little astonished.

Lin Xingzhu lowered her eyes, her expression cool and aloof, and the words she uttered were mixed with an unignorable dissoluteness, “Naturally, because I’m utterly bored.”

Slowly releasing the woman in her arms, Shang Cengrou sat up. A pair of eyes under the mask slowly shifted, and she giggled charmingly, “Don’t you have a beauty in your arms? How could you be bored?”

“…”

The beauty was currently leaning slowly against her side, seemingly not thinking that listening to someone else’s phone call was a bad thing.

Lin Xingzhu used the same attitude the original owner used to have towards Shang Cengrou, speaking carelessly and with some impatience, “Why do you think I’m bored? When did you become so full of nonsense?”

Shang Cengrou choked, the expression under her mask not looking good.

Of course, she knew why Lin Xingzhu would be bored. Naturally, she had grown tired of her!

But the way Lin Xingzhu had treasured Bai Xiying before was still vivid in her mind. She had thought that Lin Xingzhu had really turned over a new leaf and the prodigal son had returned¹¹. It seemed it was nothing more than this.

Thinking of Lin Xingzhu’s awe-inspiring and affectionate appearance in the past, Shang Cengrou couldn’t help but make a remark that carried a stick with thorns¹², but she didn’t expect Lin Xingzhu’s words to still be so unpleasant.

She took a deep breath, realizing that this was an opportunity to get back into Lin Xingzhu’s good graces. Shang Cengrou giggled charmingly, “Aiya, I was just asking casually. Since you’re so bored that you came to me, how could I let you continue to be bored?”

Shang Cengrou got up and prepared to walk out. “In that case, shall I go pick you up to have some real fun?”

Lin Xingzhu glanced at Bai Xiying, who was resting on her shoulder, close at hand. Maintaining this posture, she slowly said to Shang Cengrou on the other end, “No, the things we used to play with were too boring.”

As if she knew where Shang Cengrou would take her, her tone was filled with unconcealed annoyance and rejection. “I’m tired of all those things. I can’t get any excitement just by looking at them. When can we have something new.”

“What are you up to? I heard you’ve been running to a bar a lot lately. What? Is there some attractive flower inside?”

Lin Xingzhu’s voice brought it up inadvertently, asking casually, but she suddenly realized that Shang Cengrou’s breathing on the other end of the line had stopped for a few moments.

“There really is?” Lin Xingzhu narrowed her eyes and asked with a sense of eager curiosity.

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