Chapter 111: The Soul of Gossip

“Damn it! You’re kidding me, right?!”

Seeing the feed from the Blackout Camera, Li Qing was so angry she almost smashed the laptop.

“Motherf—… He actually dared to play us?!”

“Military-grade tactical decoy… looks like this opponent is more troublesome than we thought.”
Beside her, Chen Bing frowned deeply.

“In the feed, at least twenty cybernetic units are surrounding Gray Crystal… They may not be armed with firearms, but against a C-rank magical girl, that’s still enough to be a threat… What do you think, Honey? Should Li Qing and I intervene?”

Yano Hotaru thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“No need to intervene… but you can give her a little assistance.”

“Oh, I get it! Give our little junior a cheat buff, right?”

Li Qing grinned, tapping open a hacking program with a pink cat icon.

“Meow-meow—MeowMeow Hack Start! Please wait, Master meow!”

—Ring ring ring… ring ring ring…

A phone suddenly rang out of nowhere.

All three froze for a moment and instinctively looked toward the source.
The sound was coming from the corner of the rooftop, where a waterproof bag holding their personal belongings was placed.

“Whose phone is ringing?” Li Qing paused her typing, baffled.

Chen Bing answered, “It’s Gray Crystal’s.”

“She handed all her personal items to us for safekeeping before heading out.”

“Ugh…” Li Qing clicked her tongue impatiently, walked over, and pulled out the ringing phone.

The screen was lit.
On the caller ID, three Chinese characters bounced insistently.

“Luo Shaotian?” Li Qing tilted her head.

“I thought it was just some annoying telemarketer. Who the hell is this guy? Should I hang up or what?”

“What if it’s something important? I’ll answer.” Chen Bing took the phone and turned on speaker mode.

“Hello?”

A low male voice came from the other side. “Hm? Lulu’s not there?”

“Lulu?” Chen Bing instinctively exchanged a glance with Li Qing.

Both saw the same hint of surprise in each other’s eyes.

Their intuition told them—
This “Lulu” must be the alias Lin Yu used while transformed.

Chen Bing hastily checked the unread messages on the phone.
That same contact—Luo Shaotian—had been sending her messages almost every ten minutes for the past hour.

It seemed… this man really cared about “Lulu.”

She cleared her throat and deliberately softened her tone.
“Lulu is… with us right now. Is something the matter?”

A pause.
“You… are her classmates?”

“Classmates…?”
What kind of identity did Lin Yu make up this time?
Forget it—just roll with it.

“Yes… we’re her senior classmates. Tonight us girls planned to hang out until very late… Is something wrong?”

“Very late? That little brat is really not coming home?”

Not coming home?

What?
Are they living together?!

“…She probably won’t return tonight. We… still have to prepare for a party in a few days.”

Chen Bing answered calmly, while glancing at the laptop screen.

On it, Lin Yu had just completed a messy tactical roll, dodging two crossing chainsaw slashes.
Sparks and shattered debris burst where she had just been standing.

“She’s cosplaying with us right now. Don’t worry too much.”

Li Qing gave Chen Bing a big thumbs-up—
her lies were surprisingly smooth.

“I see… then that’s good.”
Luo Shaotian sounded relieved, but still uneasy.
“Then… can you let her take the call? There’s something I want to tell her.”

As expected—
A request that made both Li Qing and Chen Bing tense up.

“She’s… a bit unavailable right now.”
Chen Bing replied instantly.

“Unavailable?”

“Mm…”
On the screen, Lin Yu was grabbing a cyborg by the jaw and snapping his neck, her whole body soaked in blood.
Chen Bing forced her expression to remain calm.

“She went to the restroom to fix her makeup.”

pff—

Li Qing couldn’t hold it anymore.
She spun around, clapping a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking violently trying not to burst out laughing.

The man on the phone was silent for a few seconds—
apparently accepting this terrible excuse.

“…Then… have her call me back later.”

“Umm…”
Chen Bing felt cornered again, but she stayed composed and crafted another excuse.

“We girls have a lot of private topics to talk about. You know how it is—
Once we start, we just can’t stop… How about she contacts you tomorrow instead?”

Li Qing applauded.

Again, the man on the phone fell silent.

Beep… beep…
He hung up decisively.

“Haaah—”
Chen Bing exhaled as if she’d just finished a boss fight.

Li Qing flashed a thumbs-up.
“Hehehe, not bad, Bing-jie! With acting skills like that, the Oscars owe you a gold statue!”

“Mm…”
Chen Bing rubbed her brows tiredly and put the phone back.

“Less trouble is better. Fortunately, he didn’t insist too much. Probably just an ordinary friend who’s worried about her.”

“Ordinary friend? Oh, come on, Bing-jie, you’re too naïve.” Li Qing leaned in with a mischievous look, elbowing her.

“You heard that sour tone? That is NOT ‘ordinary friend.’ No way.”

She paused, then leaned even closer and whispered dramatically— then clapped her hands, making a “shocking revelation” face.

“I bet my next month’s bonus— This Luo Shaotian definitely has some very intimate relationship with our senior!”

“I didn’t expect it—our senior looks so quiet normally, but behind the scenes she’s actually… hehehehehe…”

“No wonder she acted strange today—changing hairstyle, changing clothes…

Turns out she was dressing up for a man!

Then what are we?

The poor sisters who fight and eat barbecue with her every day? In that guy’s eyes, are we the evil women preventing her from going home?”

“And Bing-jie refusing to let him talk to her—
Doesn’t that count as… NTR?!”

“Can you think something NORMAL for once?”
Chen Bing finally lost patience and knocked her lightly on the head.

“The operations manual clearly states: no unnecessary outside contact during missions.
I was just following protocol!”

“Aiyaaa, Bing-jie, why are you so stiff? I’m concerned about our senior’s emotional health! What if she gets tricked by some bad guy?”

Rubbing her head, Li Qing muttered,
“She’s so naïve—what if some pretty-boy scams her and she hands over her bank card?!”

This actually made Chen Bing pause.

She imagined Lin Yu’s very gullible face…

Li Qing… might not be entirely wrong.

Yano Hotaru suddenly spoke:
“According to her profile, Gray Crystal is supposed to be renting alone in C-Zone.
But from that man’s tone, it sounds like they live together.”

“And Lin Yu’s personality—introverted, zero social needs.
But judging from the phone call, she’s been interacting with that man frequently under her ‘Lulu’ persona.”

She frowned.
“Also, normally, she should revert to her base form during rest.
Maintaining magical form continuously causes subtle mental shifts.
Given her personality, she would hate that side effect.
So why is she staying transformed for so long?”

This question made even Li Qing sober up.

“Yeah…
Why?”

“There’s definitely a HUGE secret behind this!”

Li Qing’s gossip soul roared back to life.

“I’ve decided! After this mission, I’m going to dig out the truth!

This concerns the harmony of our C-Zone Squad One!”

“You just want to satisfy your curiosity.”
Chen Bing deadpanned.
“Digging into a colleague’s private life… is not appropriate.”

“Aiyaaa, Bing-jie, don’t ruin the fun! I’m doing this for her!”

“Enough.”
Yano Hotaru cut off the pointless debate.
“Private matters can wait until she wants to tell us.
Right now, focus on the test.”

“Chitchat over. Have you found Wrench’s real location?”

“Of course.”
Li Qing instantly switched to professional mode.
She pointed at the computer.

“While we were chatting, I already hacked the system.
That old bastard’s real body is hidden in Cold Storage L16.
The coordinates and 3D layout have already been sent to Gray Crystal’s wristband.”

“Based on the timing, our senior should’ve found that filthy man by now.”

“No way… How did you find this place?!”

A shrill scream echoed from the control chair at the far end of the freezer room.

Chaos everywhere—
Broken bodies, sparking cybernetic limbs scattered across the ground.

Lin Yu stood in a pool of blood and scrap metal, steam still rising from the barrel of her gun.

In the control chair, a dwarf-sized man wearing a massive VR helmet trembled violently in fear.
He frantically tried to unplug his cables, but it was too late.

A hand shot forward like lightning and grabbed him by the collar.

“E-eeek—!!”
The VR helmet fell off, revealing a twisted, terrified face.

Lin Yu raised her wristband.
The photo on the screen matched the man perfectly.

“This time… it should be the real one, right?”
She muttered.

“You really made me search. Wasted so much time…”

“D-don’t… don’t kill me! I—I know a huge secret about the Red—”

He tried to say something—

But Lin Yu didn’t give him the chance.

She pulled the trigger.

BANG!!

His head disappeared.

Lin Yu let the headless corpse drop to the ground.
Expressionless, she raised her gun again and put two rounds into the heart—
just to make sure.

Only after triple-confirming he was dead did she exhale softly.

WEE—OOH—WEE—OOH—WEE—OOH—

Ear-piercing alarms roared through the underground facility.
Red warning lights flashed madly.

“Oh? So this guy’s heart was still linked to the alarm system…”

She lifted her wristband, snapped a picture of the corpse, and uploaded it as mission proof.

Moments later, Yano Hotaru’s “APPROVED” appeared.

After receiving the confirmation, Lin Yu brightened visibly, then swiftly followed the evacuation route.

For some reason, ever since being contaminated by Curiosity, she felt her combat planning skills had improved a lot.
Even her handling of firearms and magical-girl abilities had clearly leveled up.

That was how she managed to clear out the cyborgs so fast and reach Wrench’s real body.

But…

Was this really a good thing or a bad thing?

“Forget it. Not thinking about it.”

She glanced at the time on her wristband.

If she hurried back now, she should still make it in time to catch the livestream, right?

She wondered—
Could 62-year-old Brother Zeng【1】 win the championship again this year…