Chapter 23: Three Sentences to Make a Man Spill His Secrets

“Let me think…”

“When the gun fires, someone dies; when someone dies, someone cries; when someone cries, they speak their heart. You have at least three things to say to me.”

Ren Huazhi popped the last fruit gummy into her mouth, looked up, and smiled.

“It’s a line I recently learned from a movie. Don’t you think it’s cool? I copied it into my material notebook on the spot.”

The two had already moved from the narrow courtyard to the equally narrow alley outside. The objective part of the confidential information about The Flower Arranger was over. Even if someone overheard the rest of the conversation, it wouldn’t matter, as they wouldn’t understand it anyway.

The owner of the Shibuya Art Center (a 10-yuan barbershop) was playing cards with the husband and wife owners of the Niu Niu Convenience Store. They were playing “Fight the Landlord,” and Ren Huazhi watched as the convenience store owner and his wife, both peasants, passed a couple of cards to each other under the makeshift table.

‘Cheating at a neighborly game of cards?’

It was truly bizarre, but considering it was these two, it was quite reasonable.

Their past deeds included, but were not limited to, secretly stuffing candy into children’s shopping bags, swapping customers’ Pepsi for Coca-Cola, and forcibly taste-testing other stores’ products under the guise of “procurement inspection.” There was no real malicious intent, but everyone in the urban village had reached a consensus: don’t compete with them, they will definitely cheat.

The convenience store owner, looking around guiltily, saw Ren Huazhi leading Officer Si out and chuckled sheepishly. “Miss, there was a young man living in your corner. Do you know him? I haven’t seen him recently. I hope nothing bad has happened to him.”

“I’m his younger sister.” She had been telling this lie a bit too frequently recently and was getting used to it, almost blurting it out.

“Yo! I never heard him say he had a blonde foreign girl in the family.”

The owner’s wife coughed loudly.

The owner’s neck shrank, and he almost dropped the cards in his left hand. He bowed his head repeatedly. “Sorry, miss, my apologies, my apologies.”

Ren Huazhi smiled sweetly. “It’s alright, uncle. He moved away recently, and I just moved in to take his spot. I’ll have to come to your store to buy things if I need anything.”

“You got it! I’ll give you a 10% discount.”

After bidding farewell to the three, Ren Huazhi continued to lead Officer Si outwards, up a long flight of stairs, and finally to an empty balcony that overlooked most of the single-story houses in the urban village.

“You’ve only been here a few days, but you’re already on good terms with the people here,” Officer Si said, shaking the railing to confirm it was firmly attached to the walls on both sides before leaning his tired old back against it.

“Who doesn’t like a blonde beauty?” Ren Huazhi winked, giving a beautiful girl’s wink.

‘I really don’t care myself,’ she thought.

She would rather dedicate her life to creation than fall in love, so being male or female didn’t make much difference.

But completely becoming The Flower Arranger had a huge impact, directly destroying her peaceful, secluded life. Many of the recent lies were patches for this unexpected event.

The lies piled up, one after another, and contradicted each other.

Mangzhong, Xu Panpan, Meng Qiuxu—if they ever had a mind to exchange information and simply compare notes, Ren Huazhi would be out of the game in an instant.

What she was doing was making them “not have the thought of comparing information”—a “tacit understanding.”

And what she was about to say to Officer Si wasn’t even a lie, just the simplest misdirection.

Not a lie, but not the truth either.

“Such an important secure safe house, each person must have only one access card. But now, there’s a record of a deceased person visiting. That’s why you can’t figure it out.”

“Sigh… Although The Flower Arranger and I didn’t get along very well, I absolutely believe in her character as a hero. There’s no need to fake her death if she wanted to retire. Besides, why would she come to the safe house after retiring?”

‘Her character as a hero?’

Unfortunately, she didn’t really have one. All of The Flower Arranger’s outward expressions as a respected magical girl senior were an act, a performance, a lawful-good role-play.

But Officer Si couldn’t imagine that the magical girl who had fought alongside him (though they had clashed more often) was just a bright, artificial flower. He frowned and sighed at the logical contradiction.

“An evil society…” Ren Huazhi said.

“What?”

“Is it possible that there’s an evil society? I’ve seen them in urban fantasy novels online, a conspiracy group that uses Nightmares to gain power and profit, and even sacrifices children and so on.”

“Are you saying The Flower Arranger was a member?!”

“No, I’m saying they might have stolen her access card on the day she sacrificed herself.”

“…!” Officer Si’s eyes suddenly lit up.

“After all, her body was never found, only her weapons and traces of a fierce battle. It was only because the Nightmare she fought was still alive that it was inferred she had died in battle. Maybe her access card was in her pocket and was auto-looted by a passing member of an evil society.”

“That makes sense, but does an evil society really exist? It’s 2025, and Nancheng’s surveillance coverage is so dense…”

“Didn’t I just say? They use Nightmares.”

Ren Huazhi saw Officer Si fall into the “evil society” trap she had just made up, his focus shifting from who had entered the safe house to whether an evil society actually existed. She smiled smugly and continued her story:

“The frequency of Nightmare attacks in Nancheng is about once every three days. A localized electromagnetic signal blackout once every three days. Your police force will also be focused on dealing with the Nightmare, which is enough time for those rats who can’t see the light of day to have a tea party nearby. It’s very simple to cover their tracks.”

“I can’t argue with that… but… if a large number of people are entering and exiting a building for unknown purposes, even normally, it would attract the attention of the regular patrol department…”

“Unless it’s in a certain kind of place.”

“What kind of place?”

Ren Huazhi faced Officer Si, who was leaning against the railing. The evening lights illuminated the left side of her face, creating a stark contrast with the dimness on the right.

She spread her hands towards the myriad of lights below the balcony.

“An urban village of this scale, a place left behind in the millennium or even earlier, how many are there left in Nancheng? Officer Si, you can count them, can’t you?”

“!!!”

Shock, a sudden realization, and then more shock!

“Thank you very much, I’ll arrange for people to start investigating right away!”

Officer Si stood up straight, gave Ren Huazhi a salute, and jogged down the stairs.

“There’s no need for such a grand gesture…” Ren Huazhi muttered.

‘I just made it up on the spot, after all.’

‘Could you really find some villainous organization? I’ve been fighting tooth and nail for a whole year and haven’t encountered one, and you’re just going to run into one? This isn’t a novel where a century-old cannon fodder family suddenly appears when the protagonist needs an enemy, starting with the son and then the father.’

Let’s just consider it helping Nancheng conduct a census of unregistered residents. It’s good for public security, a good deed.

The reason she had brought Officer Si to this empty balcony was to create a more dramatic and impactful effect, like a foreshadowing clue, when she finally “revealed the mystery” to be the urban village.

Ren Huazhi smiled wryly.

She put her hands in her pockets and went downstairs as well.