The great detective Lin Xue

"Teleportation? You mean like this?"

Only after Lin Hai had finished rambling did his eldest sister's voice finally come through the phone.

"Huh?" Lin Hai was confused.

The young cameraman beside him, however, cried out at once, "Holy shit! Young Master Lin, look!"

Lin Hai instinctively followed his gaze and was instantly left gaping in astonishment.

A graceful figure with long hair draped over her shoulders emerged from the shadows several dozen meters away.

Wearing a fitted white blouse, an elegant black skirt, and a pair of red high heels, she walked slowly toward them. It was none other than his eldest sister, Lin Xue.

What shocked them both, however, was that as she approached, her figure seemed to teleport, constantly shifting from one position to another. It looked like a slideshow. Rather than walking over, she was flashing toward them from a distance, frame by frame.

"That's impossible!"

Lin Hai cried out instinctively. It was one thing for that mysterious master to teleport, but his sister was an entirely ordinary person. How could she possibly teleport too?

"Nothing in this world is beyond explanation. The phenomena you think are inexplicable are merely illusions caused by gaps in your knowledge."

Lin Xue's calm voice continued to come through the phone, her tone utterly unruffled, as though she were discussing something trivial.

As she spoke, Lin Hai and the young cameraman hurried over. Lin Hai couldn't wait to ask, "Sis, how on earth did you do that?"

Instead of explaining directly, Lin Xue glanced upward. "Take a careful look at the surroundings, and you'll understand."

The two instinctively looked up. When they saw the shape of the wall overhead, they froze for a moment, then quickly understood.

This spot lay right on the boundary between the amusement park and the lumberyard. The section of wall overhead had a staggered, sawtooth shape, causing the light spilling over from the amusement park to create alternating patches of light and shadow along the path. When someone walked quickly through them, they disappeared into darkness, then reappeared in the light. From a distance, it looked as though they were constantly teleporting...

Once they understood how it worked, the two exchanged wry smiles. The teleportation they had considered nothing short of miraculous had turned out to be a simple misunderstanding caused by light and shadow along a wall...

"But wait, Sis. How do you explain his incredible aim?" Lin Hai asked again. "That guy hit our camera lens dead-on from dozens of meters away! Surely that proves he's some hidden master?"

Lin Xue pushed up her glasses and looked at the arrow hole in the camera the cameraman was holding. She shook her head. "That only proves he's good with a bow. Plenty of professional shooting athletes can hit a bull's-eye from dozens of meters away. What does that have to do with being some hidden master?"

"Then... what about his lightness skill? We both saw him scale that wall with our own eyes!" Lin Hai continued to argue.

"Where?" Lin Xue asked.

"Right over here..."

Like a child eager to prove himself, Lin Hai hurriedly led Lin Xue back to the dormitory building. Pointing at the log propped against the wall, he launched into a vivid, animated account of what had happened.

But Lin Xue merely glanced at the log before saying expressionlessly, "The surface of this log is uneven, with natural footholds everywhere. Any parkour expert in good enough physical shape could easily use it to climb to the second floor. Besides, if he really had lightness skills, why would he need something to push off? Why not just 'fly' straight up to the second floor?"

"But... but..."

For a moment, Lin Hai had no answer. She was right. If the man really had lightness skills, why would he need to step on a log to get upstairs? In the movies, they flew straight from rooftop to rooftop.

The more Lin Hai thought about it, the more sense his sister's words made. Earlier, the sudden sight of those unbelievable feats had simply overwhelmed him. Now that he had calmed down and thought back carefully, he realized that all those astonishing moves he had considered superhuman actually had glaring flaws...

"But the master caught the ghost upstairs afterward. How do you explain that?" Lin Hai still wanted to argue.

He kept feeling that today's events weren't so simple. This hooded man was fundamentally different from the other so-called masters he had met before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on the difference.

"Did you see the ghost he caught with your own eyes?" Lin Xue's question left him speechless again.

"No..."

Lin Hai shook his head dejectedly. He remembered now: when the master had approached them at the end, his hands had been empty. He had said he had caught the "ghost," but hadn't shown them anything resembling one. His word alone clearly proved nothing...

"I've already sorted things out with the police for you. Now take your people home immediately, and stay away from places like this in the future," Lin Xue told Lin Hai sternly.

"Yes..."

Lin Hai didn't dare argue with his eldest sister.

Besides, after such a roller coaster of an experience, he really wasn't in the mood to keep livestreaming today.

Watching the three of them walk away, Lin Xue made no move to leave. Instead, she turned to look at the abandoned building behind her, her delicate brows drawing together slightly.

Despite how casually she had spoken to Lin Hai, she was far less calm inside than she appeared.

"If everything Xiao Hai just said was true, then there are still plenty of unanswered questions..."

Lin Xue frowned as she looked toward the building's third floor.

What was the "flash of white light" Xiao Hai had mentioned?

And why had the cameraman who went upstairs suddenly been frightened into unconsciousness?

Then there was that hooded man, the strangest part of all. He used a bow and arrows as his weapon, but according to Xiao Hai, he hadn't been holding anything either of the two times they had met him up close... Surely he hadn't thrown away his bow and arrows once he was done?

With all those questions in mind, Lin Xue entered the building.

It was two in the morning, and pitch-black. An ordinary woman entering an abandoned building that had just been "haunted" would probably have been too frightened to take another step.

Lin Xue, however, was an exception. A staunch materialist, she had never believed in ghosts or anything of the sort.

She followed the stairs up to the third floor. This had to be where the hooded man and the "ghost" had fought.

Using her phone as a flashlight, Lin Xue thoroughly searched the entire third floor and, sure enough, found some strange traces.

There was a deep arrow hole in the wall and the surface of the books at the corner by the third-floor stairwell, but she found no arrow fragments nearby. Instead, there were a few drops of pale red liquid on the floor beneath the hole.

Lin Xue bent down, dabbed a finger in the liquid, and held it beneath her nose to sniff.

"Just an ordinary injectable anesthetic... and it spilled out, which means the shot missed..."

Lin Xue frowned.

Judging by the shape of the arrow hole, the shot must have come from the railing on the fourth floor above.

But at such close range, with that hooded man's archery skills, he had still missed?

What exactly had he been hunting?