Late at night, Branch No. 1, Room 303.
Lan Yu, leaning against the headboard, turned up the bedside lamp and read a famous suspense novel with great interest, a pen clenched between his teeth.
When he reached an exciting part, he set down the book and began working through deductions on paper. Just as he calculated his way to a crucial point, a phone call interrupted his train of thought.
Lan Yu irritably put down his pen, but a trace of surprise appeared between his brows when he saw the number. After composing himself, he answered the call.
"News just came in. Huangfu Jiajia is dead."
The voice on the other end sounded somewhat aged, with a heavy nasal tone, as though its owner was no longer young.
The moment Lan Yu heard those words, all drowsiness vanished. He sprang out of bed and asked,
"Is the information reliable?"
"Branch No. 8 is already in complete chaos. Not only Huangfu Jiajia—Chen Jie and Li Mochou were buried with her as well."
Clearly, the person on the other end had an extremely precise grasp of this sort of intelligence.
Lan Yu suddenly became flustered. Without even having time to put on his shoes, he ran barefoot out of the bedroom, rushed into the Study Room, and took a notebook from a drawer.
He rapidly flipped through the notes, which were densely packed with annotations, short passages, and hand-drawn diagrams.
Holding a pen in his only remaining right hand, he began calculating on a sheet of scratch paper, muttering under his breath,
"Branch No. 11 was the first to collapse. Branch No. 10 replacing its manager clearly showed that it had been abandoned. Now it is Branch No. 8's turn.
"Just as expected..."
Lan Yu was visibly agitated, his palm even trembling.