Chang'an was missing?

  My nerves snapped taut in an instant.

  The call Zhu Shi was on had to be from the Zhu family.

  To protect him from another attack by the shadow swapper, Chang'an should have been safely holed up at the Zhu family estate right now. Yet the moment we pinpointed the freak's location, news came that Chang'an had vanished. How the hell was I supposed to make sense of that?

  Seeing our expressions darken, Alice asked quietly, “Zhu Shi’s brother is…?”

  “The guy who showed up at my place the first day you woke up there. His name’s Zhu Chang'an.”

  I gave Alice a quick rundown of how Chang'an was tied to all this, while dark thoughts swirled in my head nonstop.

  Chang'an disappearing at this exact moment—could he have been snatched by another one of the shadow swapper’s clones? But the Zhu estate had top-tier security and defenses, supposedly even some kind of barrier. Zhu Shi had sworn that not even a swarm of the freak’s clones—let alone the real body—could break in and take him.

  Speculating now was pointless. Since he was already gone, the priority was finding him. Best to wait until Zhu Shi finished the call, get the full story, then figure out next steps.

  During the conversation, Zhu Shi just listened with a grim face, occasionally responding with a flat “Mm” or “Got it.” Soon the call ended. She put her phone away, expression like still water.

  “What the hell happened?” I demanded immediately. “Did the shadow swapper attack the estate?”

  She answered with complicated reluctance: “No. No enemy attacked or infiltrated the house.”

  “But you said Chang'an disappeared?” I pressed.

  “Yes. Brother just… vanished from home.” She sighed. “And he took his keys, phone, power bank, Bluetooth earbuds, sling bag, thermos, and obviously his shoes.”

  Hearing that all those everyday carry items had gone with him, I immediately latched onto the obvious possibility: “You’re saying he wasn’t abducted—he walked out on his own?”

  Those were exactly the things someone would grab before heading out. No way the shadow swapper would be considerate enough to pack them along if he’d kidnapped Chang'an.

  “Our security and barriers are all designed to stop external threats. There’s basically nothing to prevent someone inside from leaving if they want to,” Zhu Shi explained.

  “Don’t you have internal cameras?” I asked.

  “We do, but it’s our home, not a prison or fortress. We’re not going to have people glued to monitors 24/7 watching every family member’s movement,” she said.

  “Makes sense…” Alice agreed. “Even in apocalyptic strongholds, most surveillance is aimed outward at invaders. Keeping tabs on people inside is always incomplete—partly because of human nature. Nobody wants to live under total constant watch. Some might tolerate it, but I sure couldn’t.”

  Zhu Shi nodded vigorously. “Exactly, privacy and all that… Wait, Z, why do you look so weird right now?”

  “…Because I’m really worried about Chang'an,” I said with utmost seriousness. “Even if he wasn’t taken, he’s still in danger. If he’s wandering around outside and runs into another clone of the shadow swapper…”

  That redirected Zhu Shi’s focus. “Right—we have to find him first…”

  “Didn’t you say he took his phone?” Alice offered, drawing on her recently absorbed modern-life knowledge. “Just call him and ask where he is.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “They already tried calling him multiple times from home. No answer.” Zhu Shi thought for a second. “But as long as the phone’s still on, we can probably get the carrier to triangulate his location. I’ll ask Lu Chan—he might have a way in…”

  Before she finished, one of the “fireflies” roaming inside the nightclub sent back footage that made me doubt my own eyes.

  I cut her off. “No need for that anymore.”

  Zhu Shi blinked in surprise. “Why not?”

  I barely suppressed the sheer disbelief as I pointed across the street. “Look over there…”

  Zhu Shi and Alice followed my finger. The nightclub’s grand doors swung open again, and out walked a sharply dressed young man in designer brands, looking every bit the charming playboy with a smug grin plastered on his face.

  At his side was a woman in a black dress—college-age, beautiful, fair-skinned, curves in all the right places. He had his arm slung around her shoulders while she clearly resisted, elbowing his stomach. He just laughed it off like a shameless cad harassing an innocent girl.

  It took Zhu Shi several long seconds to register the young man’s face. Then she let out a stunned, strangled sound: “He—he—he…”

  The guy strolling out of the nightclub was none other than my friend, Chang'an.

  I was at a complete loss for words, and so was Zhu Shi. What the actual hell was this? While we were tearing ourselves apart worrying about his safety and whereabouts, he was sauntering out of a den of vice with a beautiful woman on his arm, looking perfectly pleased with himself!

  For the first time, I kinda understood parents who spend hours frantically searching for a kid who didn’t come home, only to find them holed up in a shady internet café all night gaming.

  Zhu Shi and I exchanged a dark look, then silently crossed the street and closed in behind him.

  Chang'an clearly hadn’t noticed us yet. He was still grinning at the woman beside him, unable to hide his satisfaction. “See? I told you I could get you out. Next, let’s grab something to eat across the street and talk about what comes next.”

  “I already told you—don’t meddle. I’m not going anywhere with you.” The woman’s tone was firm and reluctant. “Go back inside. Stop now while you still can. And don’t come looking for dirty women like me again. Getting involved with me won’t do you any good.”

  Chang'an gave a cheeky laugh. “Come on, don’t be so cold. After all the nights we’ve spent together, you could at least—”

  Before he could finish, the veins on Zhu Shi’s forehead were already bulging. She stepped forward with an icy smile and cut in: “So you’re a regular at that nightclub, huh?”

  “Of course, I’ve been going there for at least two months—” Chang'an answered on reflex, then froze mid-sentence as if struck by lightning, body rigid. “—there…”

  “Go on. What exactly do you do there? We’re all ears.” I spoke up too. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty of proud conquests to brag about. Share some with us.”

  Hearing my voice too, Chang'an turned to stone. The woman beside him took the chance to slip out from under his arm, turned around, and looked at us with wary surprise.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m Chang'an’s friend. This is his little sister, Zhu Shi,” I said, studying her carefully.

  She’d just come out of a nightclub harboring the shadow swapper—and she was with Chang'an, who was under threat from that very freak. Could she be him?

  Probably not. I recalled the severed hand from last night: rough, unmistakably male. This woman’s hands were slender and pale—nothing like that.

  Unfortunately, comparing hands only narrowed things down so far. Plenty of men inside had similar rough male hands. Some were even soaking in the baths, skin reddened from the heat. I still couldn’t pick the shadow swapper out.

  Zhu Shi seemed to have the same suspicion about the woman. She’d probably already checked with “Buzhou Mountain,” then gave me a subtle shake of the head.

  “May I ask who you are?” I asked the woman.

  “You can call me ‘Goldfish.’ I’m… an employee at that wine club, more or less.” Her answer was deliberately vague.

  The implication was clear enough: she provided “special services” there.

  Meanwhile, Chang'an slowly turned his head toward us like a man forcing himself to face an unbearable truth. Finally he brought us into view.

  “Hey… hi, guys…” He forced an awkward grin. “Nice weather today, huh? What are you all doing here…”

  “Cut the crap,” Zhu Shi said mercilessly. “Start explaining. Why did you sneak out of the house? Do you have any idea how worried we were? Fine, you left—but running straight to a place like that? Have you forgotten your life is still in danger?”

  Alice had joined us by then. Hearing Zhu Shi’s accusation, she tilted her head thoughtfully and quoted my earlier line almost verbatim: “Perhaps it’s precisely because he felt overwhelming survival pressure that he developed a craving for the comfort of a gentle embrace…”

  Zhu Shi’s eyes widened in realization. The look she turned on Chang'an became even more contemptuous.

  “No—no, it’s not like that!” Chang'an protested desperately, looking utterly mortified.

  Watching him flounder under our combined interrogation, for some reason I flashed back to my own predicament last night. A strange mix of sympathy and schadenfreude welled up inside me.

  Other people’s misery really is the sweetest thing. Chang'an, my dear friend—you’re truly one of a kind.

  “You weren’t there chasing women?” I asked bluntly.

  “No, I wasn’t chasing—wait, yes, I was there chasing women!” His words tripped over themselves.

  The contradictory response was baffling. I simply turned to the woman who called herself Goldfish.

  She looked away from us, then spoke to Chang'an: “Just tell them the truth already. If you won’t, I will.”

  This chapter comes to an end here~

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