Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Distress Signal and the Young Girl

He stared at the message on his phone, but when he called back, the line on the other end showed that the phone was already switched off.

Frowning, he dialed Jiang Wan’s number.

“What’s up?” The other side sounded busy.

“Do you have Zhang Lan’s home number? She sent me a message asking for help. Are you coming?”

“Help?” Jiang Wan seemed to have been away for a moment. When the call rang again, she read out a number to Chen Qing.

“Try calling this. As for me…” Jiang Wan hesitated briefly, then asked Chen Qing, “Where are you now?”

“Bishui Villa. The furthest one. It should take you about forty to fifty minutes to get here. Let’s meet at Zhang Lan’s doorstep.” Chen Qing declined the invitation and immediately headed toward the city.

He glanced back at the departing residential area, his brows knitting slightly.

There was no one around. Even though it was midday, the usual time for work and school, the bus was empty.

He turned his head and pressed the phone to his ear, asking Bu Zhaozhao, “Do you need any equipment?”

She emerged from the pendant and nodded. “A large centrifuge, an electron microscope, and some other things…” She pondered for a moment, with a mixture of sorrow and pity in her eyes, then said to Chen Qing, “Just follow your school’s chemistry lab setup.”

“Then custom-make some detachable 70cm by 70cm partitions made of stainless steel, glass, and acrylic. That will do.”

Listening to Bu Zhaozhao’s words, Chen Qing’s mouth twitched involuntarily. “Are you customizing this according to the standards from two hundred years ago, or the current requirements?”

Tilting her head, she looked curious. “The current era. But I’m still unfamiliar with much of the experimental apparatus. This will suffice for now.”

Chen Qing understood and gave a dry “hmm.” It tasted a bit bitter.

Good grief, this whole setup must cost several million.

With that expectation in mind, the rest of the journey grew dull.

He reclined diagonally in the back seat of the bus, hidden from the surveillance cameras, and opened the page he had created.

“Oh?” he murmured in surprise. The previously empty chat room already had six people online.

But judging by their past messages, these six seemed skeptical of this unfamiliar website.

After joining, they just glanced through the site’s history and looked over the rules Chen Qing posted two days ago, then all went offline in stealth mode.

The large chatroom contained only one message from Chen Qing:

“Every Wednesday at 8 PM. Public trading and information exchange.”

He inspected the IP addresses of the six users, drumming his fingers on his arm for a moment before making up his mind.

He would look into these six people’s backgrounds.

Different people deserved different approaches; it only made sense.

A worldly explorer of extraordinary matters was not the same as a seasoned investigator.

If he wanted to gain enough benefit from them, he had to satisfy their needs.

“What are you doing?” Bu Zhaozhao watched Chen Qing’s fingers dance across the screen, her expression curious.

“Checking their backgrounds and identities…” Chen Qing whispered, pulling files from the phones of the six users.

“Looks like these six don’t have strong security awareness,” he muttered softly. Then, the bus’s arrival announcement snapped him back to reality.

The half-hour ride was over, and Jiang Wan’s car was visible through the window.

She had been waiting there for some time.

He got off and hurried over. Jiang Wan didn’t say much upon seeing him and immediately turned off the engine and walked toward him.

---

“Why did you go out to the countryside?” Jiang Wan frowned, clearly displeased.

“House hunting.”

“House hunting?!” She blinked. “Where did you get the money?”

“Why? Can’t I earn it myself?” He frowned and gave her a sidelong glance.

“You can… but that’s exactly the last thing I want to hear… Heaven knows how you made it,” Jiang Wan muttered under her breath. Their bickering didn’t slow their pace.

Soon, they arrived at the familiar standalone apartment and rang the doorbell, but no one answered.

“Her parents must be at work…” Jiang Wan frowned, unconcerned, but Chen Qing’s expression grew serious as he looked inside.

“I don’t think so…”

In the courtyard, the family’s shoes sat neatly on the outdoor rack.

It hadn’t rained these past days, but the shoes were covered in mud.

Looking back, the last rain was about a week ago.

“This family hasn’t left the house for a week,” he said firmly, his gaze shifting to the round skylight above the main door.

The skylights were all blocked by white curtains.

Every room on the second floor had windows like this.

But the windows weren’t tightly shut; each left a slight gap, which was unusual.

He glanced around the garden. The trash bin in the corner appeared dry—an odd state indicating it hadn’t been cleaned for a long time, with decayed liquid having fermented and leaked out.

The filthy stains on the trash bin were distinct and clear.

“What’s going on…” Jiang Wan’s brow furrowed, her face instantly turning pale. She pulled out her phone, seemingly about to call the police station again.

But Chen Qing turned and stopped her by pressing down her hand, shaking his head gently. “It’s not them.”

She was silent for a moment, biting her lip but ultimately gave up arguing and put the phone away.

“You…” She stared at Chen Qing, but he met her gaze without any trace of guilt. “It definitely isn’t them.”

“Did you deal with it?”

Chen Qing smiled oddly. “Sort of. But not exactly. Anyway, your work isn’t going to finish quickly. Keep going.”

Jiang Wan was about to retort when a shout interrupted them.

“Hey! What are you two doing?”

They turned toward the voice. A security guard had arrived.

Seeing Chen Qing and Jiang Wan lingering in front of the house, the guard was suspicious.

He flashed his baton at them, and Jiang Wan raised an eyebrow.

As the guard approached closely, his baton snapped open.

Jiang Wan’s brow lifted, and a surge of imposing energy burst forth. She stared him down, flicking her uniform as if to say, “Look at this outfit—what do you think I do?”

He paused, then glanced at Chen Qing. “What? Can’t I be young?”

The guard staggered back two steps, looking thoroughly embarrassed.

He chuckled awkwardly and took a couple of steps back. “Please… please go ahead.”

Jiang Wan exhaled, though it was clear she was annoyed.

---

Chen Qing glanced at her and laughed.

He seemed to understand why Jiang Wan was upset.

It wasn’t because the guard didn’t recognize the uniform, but because she needed that uniform to prove she meant no harm. And the guard only took her at face value because of it.

That was troubling.

What if the uniform was fake?

She shook her head and asked the guard, “Do you know where this family has gone?”

He was momentarily stunned, stroking his chin thoughtfully. His baton left a few centimeters of a red mark against his waist as he slapped his hand and replied, “No idea! The last time I saw them was almost half a month ago. I thought they were on vacation. You know, rich families often go on trips…”

Once he started talking, he wouldn’t stop babbling.

Chen Qing’s mouth twitched, and he ignored the rambling, jumping into the yard.

The courtyard wall wasn’t very high, only up to his waist.

Essentially, it was just a boundary marker, but it worked to Chen Qing’s advantage now.

He bent down and stirred the soil with his finger. “The soil’s dry; there’s no other liquid seeped through.”

He stood and approached the main door. Behind him, the guard shouted loudly, “Officer! Wait! We have a spare key for the owner! Wait!”

The guard ran toward the property management center.

But Chen Qing was a prodigy who had studied mechanisms and machinery since his teens.

There was no way he’d wait obediently.

He pulled out a specially made wire from his pocket, inserted it into the keyhole, and after just four or five twists, the door clicked open in less than two seconds.

“So fast?” Jiang Wan heard the sound and followed him inside.

“No…” Chen Qing shook his head, his expression unsettled by the narrow gap visible through the door crack. “The door wasn’t locked.”

He pushed open the door to find a monstrous creature occupying the entire living room.

“An entity?! How did this thing appear in the real world?”

Behind Chen Qing, Bu Zhaozhao’s voice was filled with shock.

Her face went pale, disbelief evident.

“An entity? You’ve seen one? What’s the rule?”

“Don’t turn your back on it. When you feel your shoulders grow heavy, don’t leave your back unprotected,” Bu Zhaozhao’s voice whispered in Chen Qing’s ear.

He glanced back at Jiang Wan, who looked deathly pale but showed no sign of retreat. He smiled at the young woman, easing her tension somewhat.

The two entered through the door and locked it behind them.

“How could this be…” Jiang Wan’s face drained of color.

Only then did the full scene inside the house truly register in their eyes.