Song Wuli began investigating the mysterious magical girl who had electrocuted him and left a note.
First, he ruled out one wrong answer: it wasn’t the Contract Goddess. That one was in prison and couldn’t get out.
Then he ruled out a second wrong answer: it wasn’t Greenfield. If it were Greenfield, Yin Lin wouldn’t have escaped so easily—she’d have been forced to play some kind of game at the very least.
Next, he eliminated Jin Wan and Huan Hong. They couldn’t possibly know this place. If they did, that would mean Song Wuli’s identity was already exposed, and the past few days wouldn’t have been this peaceful.
Other magical girls he could think of, like Black Phoenix and Lan Xiuzhen, had no connection to Yin Lin. Why would they come here?
Could it be Wan Zi? That one was eager to build a relationship with Yin Lin and had motive, but she might not have the ability to pull something like this off.
It didn’t seem like her either.
After thinking it over, the most likely candidate was a magical girl who had never shown her face.
The suspect pool circled back to that woman who worked for the Contract Goddess—the one in the skintight suit who had been trusted with something as important as retrieving the Heavy Gravity Pearl.
She also knew Yin Lin’s true form.
Someone like that would have no trouble finding Song Wuli’s residence and would have motive to attack Yin Lin.
What puzzled Song Wuli the most was that he remembered casting his magic shield at the time, but it was broken through in an instant.
Only then was he electrocuted and knocked unconscious.
What kind of technique could break a shield instantly without damaging the building?
That was entirely possible. The Contract Goddess could easily have taught that mysterious woman some shield-breaking magic.
Song Wuli wrote these deductions on paper, crossed out the wrong options, and circled the right ones.
Finally, he nodded thoughtfully, giving off the air of a strategist like Zhuge Liang.
Who knows what he was nodding about.
Before going to sleep, he burned the note.
You ask why he was so cautious?
He’d just learned it from a detective movie he watched.
The next day, Song Wuli didn’t go to distribute food. The people from the Bao Huo Charity organization told him not to come, afraid things would blow up too big.
The citizens’ trust had already been won, and the food distribution process was going smoothly. They no longer needed to rely on a magical girl’s reputation.
Since the person in charge wanted her to rest and stay out of sight, Old Song used his free time to investigate instead.
No overtime today—he left work on time and headed straight for his neighborhood to start investigating.
Following the detective movie’s teachings and Huang Yi’s advice, Song Wuli went door to door asking questions. All he got was useless chatter with zero value, though he did manage to collect over a dozen surveillance recordings.
He wanted to keep visiting and investigating, but his body wouldn’t allow it. He was still weak—he’d walked too much and his whole body was starting to ache.
He had no choice but to go home and watch the recordings.
Watching recordings from specific times, slowing the playback and staring closely, he actually found something.
In multiple recordings, he spotted frames of a magical girl flying across the sky—only a few frames each time.
But he still couldn’t make out the figure’s physical characteristics.
He connected the locations where the magical girl appeared into a line. Plugging it into Huang Yi’s forensic formula, a clear path emerged on the map.
Since magical girls had a quirk when flying—they only flew in straight lines and didn’t need to dodge obstacles—that straight line made it easy to guess where the magical girl came from and where she was headed.
Thinking about this, Song Wuli broke out in a cold sweat.
He also liked flying in straight lines when heading home. So that was how dangerous it was?!
Old Song stared at the map. He knew the general direction now, but the range was still huge. Where exactly was she?
Where did she come from? Where did she go after pulling off the job?
If he had to keep visiting people, it would be a very long process.
After much deliberation, Song Wuli decided this matter was worth continuing to investigate. That became his daily routine—after work, he’d spend a few hours visiting people and grab any recordings he could get his hands on.
As if he truly intended to get to the bottom of this.
The Eastern Alliance’s Countermeasure Center was also undergoing a reshuffle.
The newly appointed person-in-charge was surnamed Qian, named Qian Anning. She was around 60 years old but full of energy, busy with internal reorganization every day and actively investigating the acting person-in-charge and Huang Yi.
She was clearly from the Human Supremacist faction, and her actions had a bias to them.
Internal reforms began. Employees in the department were categorized, with the human faction and witch faction separated and treated differently.
The previous work environment that allowed skipping levels of hierarchy was abolished. Under her reforms, anyone wanting to speak now had to talk to their direct superior. Experts could no longer go directly to Qian Anning.
The Countermeasure Center began moving toward order, becoming so serious it turned rigid.
A few more days passed, and the investigation into the acting person-in-charge and Huang Yi was nearing its end. Over a thousand pages of reports had been compiled, and a hearing date had been set to determine their responsibility.
Huang Yi, on the other hand, had nothing to do. There was nothing he could work on. When investigators came, he truthfully answered all questions about the “abandoned rescue” without lying.
His attention shifted from the “suspension pending investigation” to Professor Meng.
He’d learned that Professor Meng was attacked and nearly killed.
The attacker was likely a magical girl, not a demonic creature.
Was it the magical girl who flew into the hospital that night? Or someone else?
Why wouldn’t Professor Meng say anything?
Huang Yi’s relationship with him wasn’t exactly life-or-death, but they’d helped each other before and knew some important secrets about one another.
What exactly had Professor Meng learned that he wouldn’t even tell Huang Yi?
He desperately wanted to know that secret.
So every day, he went to see Professor Meng, reasoning with him, appealing to his emotions, chatting about everything from astronomy and geography to current events and politics. No hidden agenda—he flat out told him, I’m watching you. If you won’t talk, I’ll watch you for the rest of your life.
Even after Professor Meng was discharged from the hospital, he didn’t give up. He followed him home and kept watching.
The private message Yin Lin sent him also reminded him of forensic investigation. While watching Professor Meng, he also started visiting people and collecting surveillance footage from everywhere.
The neighbors said they heard something like an explosion, but not very loud—different from a regular explosion.
The neighbors hadn’t paid much attention.
These details had already been reported to the Public Security Bureau.
Huang Yi played some pre-prepared recordings for those neighbors—nineteen different explosion sounds.
Based on the identification of several neighbors, he narrowed it down to three similar explosion recordings that they thought matched what they’d heard.
Using surveillance footage found nearby, Huang Yi also obtained a blurry image of the attacker flying across the sky. Unfortunately, it was too far away to make out who it was—even the style and color of the uniform were hard to distinguish.
One day, while Professor Meng was busy with something, Huang Yi took these pieces of evidence, climbed over the wall to the second floor, and entered through the window.
“Let’s talk.”
Huang Yi played the explosion sound the neighbors had identified on his phone.
“What? You’re bold enough to break into my house now?”
Professor Meng closed the lid of his laptop.
“The sound of a magic power cannon. Familiar, isn’t it?”
Huang Yi pressed down on his shoulder, keeping him seated.