The Suspects

"Everyone with abilities in the west district has registered their abilities. I'll check tomorrow..."

Cheng Jing spoke with his fingers interlaced beneath his chin, his expression much more relaxed.

The unknown was the most frightening thing. Now that he had a lead, the inexplicable pressure in his chest had eased. The main thing was that he was taking Jiang Nian with him, and not knowing the full situation worried him.

"I don't think you'll find anything."

Jiang Nian shook his head languidly, picked up the snacks left over from earlier, and spoke as he ate:

"People can hide their abilities instead of reporting them, like I did. Of course, the other person might have reported only one attribute to throw people off... But I'm more inclined to think he's posing as an ordinary person right now, and doing a very good job of it."

Cheng Jing rubbed the space between his brows.

"Whatever the case, I need to go to the command room tomorrow and tell Zhou Li and the others. We'll investigate discreetly without alerting anyone."

"Fine, but once you find a lead, I'm going with you."

Jiang Nian stared intently at his boyfriend, his face serious. If the rascal dared refuse him again, he'd use his hands and rub those abs raw!

"...Mm."

There was a limit of three. Even if Cheng Jing didn't want to agree, he didn't dare refuse.

Jiang Nian knew he was conflicted and deliberately pretended not to understand. Once they fought side by side more often, Brother Jing would get used to it.

Half an hour later, they finished discussing business. Next came time to relax and cuddle.

Cheng Jing could only vent the frustration caused by his worries in bed.

Jiang Nian could clearly feel that he'd been bringing some kind of emotion to bed these past few days, fierce and rough, but he couldn't find a suitable reason to blame him.

Mostly because he enjoyed it too. Settling scores afterward would have been a bit much.

Oh well. Aside from a sore waist, it was nothing serious.

Early the next morning, Cheng Jing went to the command room. He told only Zhou Li and a few people in the office about the theory he and Jiang Nian had discussed, and told them not to spread it around.

Zhou Li naturally understood what was at stake. After analyzing it in depth with him, he also felt the truth was probably close to their theory.

He simply proposed entrusting the matter to their squad, with the others providing support, and promised that their squad would have first pick of any resources in the west district from then on.

Cheng Jing agreed, but after going through the entire register of ability users in the west district, he found nothing useful, just as Jiang Nian had said.

They spent a whole day on it and made little progress.

Fortunately, both nights had passed peacefully.

They'd only just found a lead, and now they were stuck again. For the past two days, Cheng Jing had been distracted even while eating, always feeling they had overlooked some obvious clue.

Then Huang Qian called to say that, aside from the mother and daughter in unit 1805 of building 13, they had finished checking all the previously missed residents of Jiahe Court and found nothing unusual.

"Why couldn't you check 1805? It's been two days already."

Cheng Jing recalled the mother and daughter and their encounter that day, and a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

"Why else? That woman drags her daughter downstairs first thing every morning to stand there waiting for her husband, of course. When we went in the morning, she'd gone downstairs. When we went in the evening, she hadn't come home. We checked-the door was locked from the outside... I'm speechless!"

Huang Qian couldn't help complaining, then sighed.

"I'm just letting you know. I'll wait for her outside the command room this afternoon and go home with her."

"They're just a mother and daughter. Forget it..."

The phone was on speaker, so Jiang Nian overheard and instinctively chimed in from the side. But halfway through, he frowned thoughtfully. A moment later, he took the phone and said to Huang Qian:

"Sister Qian, get some rest. You don't need to bother with it. Brother Jing and I will handle it later. You must be tired after making so many trips."

"Wow~ Nian Nian really is my sweet little cotton-padded jacket. Mwah~ I'll hang up now. Bye!"

"..."

Only when the busy tone sounded did Jiang Nian recover from the beauty's coquettish act. He sighed helplessly.

"Sure enough, the prettier a woman is, the better she is at sweet-talking people..."

Jiang Nian sighed helplessly and put the phone aside, then explained to Cheng Jing, whose expression was hard to describe:

"I just suddenly felt like we should go take a look at Xiao Ya's home..."

He couldn't explain it. It was a sudden hunch.

The mother and daughter knew perfectly well that the rescue team was checking the entire residential complex, yet they had repeatedly happened to be out when the workers came knocking. They were clearly doing it on purpose.

Even if they were emotionally unstable, they shouldn't have acted that way.

Cheng Jing thought for a moment, then spoke frankly.

"I think there's something wrong with Xiao Ya and her mother."

Although the mother and daughter were indeed pitiful and vulnerable, that didn't stop him from suspecting them when he applied logic to the situation.

"..."

Jiang Nian didn't argue, because he suspected the same thing. But when he recalled seeing Xiao Ya and her mother last time, he couldn't find anything amiss.

If not for Huang Qian's call, he wouldn't have connected it to them.

Seeing his confusion, Cheng Jing considered his words before sharing his thoughts.

"Maybe you felt sorry for Xiao Ya and didn't notice. The mother and daughter's reactions looked normal that day, but I'm a little concerned about how Xiao Ya later asked you for help and told you not to come back."

"...What Xiao Ya said to me?"

Jiang Nian pondered. Xiao Ya had said only two things to him:

Big brother, can you cure my dad?

Then don't come back, big brother...

The first was the little girl asking him for help. The second was Xiao Ya's rather impolite answer when he said he couldn't help.

Cheng Jing continued:

"Xiao Ya's registered age is twelve. Although she looks a little frail, that would put her in fifth or sixth grade, so she has the logical reasoning and communication skills needed for ordinary conversation."

"She asked if you could cure her dad. The wording of that question was a little strange. She knows her dad went missing while he was out, so normally she should have asked you to 'save' or 'find' him. After all, you gave her a piece of candy. She was just a little reserved then, not so nervous or scared that she couldn't speak coherently."

"...I guess you're right. Xiao Ya looks like a smart kid. It's just that her eyes were empty, which was a little pitiful."

Jiang Nian's expression changed as he finished speaking. Thinking about it that way, it really was a little strange.

A child should have expressed what she wanted more directly. Xiao Ya's wording was a little... unusually roundabout.

Cheng Jing analyzed it further.

"After you refused, she told you not to come back. At the time, it just seemed like a child speaking without thinking because she was upset. But now that I think about it, perhaps she was hinting at something. For example, her dad didn't just go out and fail to return. She knows what happened to him, which is why she asked if you could cure him."

"That's right!"

Enlightenment dawned on Jiang Nian, and he picked up the thread.

"Because I couldn't cure her dad, she told me not to come back... Maybe her dad was infected by a zombie on one of his trips out, and she and her mom have been killing people to feed him. To keep anyone from finding out, they're always away when the inspectors come knocking..."

That would explain it!

Even the mother and daughter standing there waiting for the husband was a disguise meant to throw people off.

"Or perhaps going out was just for show. Because one of them has the ability to teleport, like you said, within a certain range they can teleport anywhere familiar or known to them. They don't need to use the door, so they can lock it from the outside at any time to avoid suspicion."

When Cheng Jing finished, he met Jiang Nian's gaze. Each saw disbelief in the other's eyes.

The main thing was that, although the mother and daughter had been right in front of them, they were all too easy to overlook.

If Huang Qian or anyone else had been a little lazier, taken pity on them, and simply given up after they failed to answer the door a few times without reporting it, who would have suspected them?