Chapter 188
Chapter 188 Monica
If there was any uncertainty before, there was definitely a problem now.
And no matter how fast that beggar ran, he was still just an ordinary human compared to the now superhuman Xia Xinyan and Ling Mo, making it feel like an adult picking on a child.
Just as the two of them were about to catch up with the beggar, several loud shouts suddenly echoed nearby: “Catch him!”
Following the sound, they saw several police cars had appeared by the roadside, with a bunch of police officers rushing this way—
“Catch that beggar! He’s a fugitive criminal! Bystanders clear out, be careful he might hurt someone!”
Xia Xinyan noticed that these officers were all equipped with guns.
She pulled Ling Mo to a stop.
The beggar didn’t manage to escape far before being surrounded and arrested by a dozen officers from all sides, then turned around and shoved into a police car, taken away.
The other pedestrians on the street continued doing their things as if nothing had happened, as if they were totally used to this kind of scene.
Watching the police cars disappear around the corner, Ling Mo frowned, “Are we really this lucky?”
Even a fool could sense something was off in this situation.
But they couldn’t just go and investigate.
These officers looked like trouble; if they approached and got tied up with that beggar, who knows, they could find themselves implicated too. Though they weren’t too worried that the police would pose a real threat to them… it would just complicate things, and this wasn’t the time to abandon their dungeon identity.
As for following the police cars to check things out… Ling Mo considered it, but Xia Xinyan didn’t seem to have that plan.
She was staring off in a certain direction, her expression a bit strange.
Following her line of sight, they spotted a short-haired girl leaning against a streetlamp.
The girl was wearing a red hoodie, a red flat-brimmed cap, and black-framed glasses on her nose. This getup itself wasn’t too odd, but it stood out quite a bit among the dark-clad passersby.
“What’s up?” Ling Mo couldn’t figure out what was wrong with that girl.
Xia Xinyan squinted her eyes and led him toward the girl.
One of her abilities was an enhancement in perception, which had helped her spot details and abnormalities that others couldn’t see during previous dungeons.
And this girl was a major discovery for her.
The girl seemed like she had been here all along, watching the recent arrest with a kind of amused expression. While it wasn’t out of the ordinary, Xia Xinyan felt that she was different from the average person.
She was… a very special presence.
The girl soon noticed the approaching duo and tilted her head to examine them, her expression pausing slightly: “Hmm? I’ve already taken on the task here, what are you two doing?”
Xia Xinyan raised an eyebrow: “You know us?”
“You two…” The girl was about to say something but suddenly realized something was off, “Wait, aren’t you from the Spacetime Singularity Investigation Bureau? But why do you both have terminals?… No, wait, your terminals both have the same serial number? Is this a counterfeit? His terminal seems to be frozen? What are you two…?”
But before she could finish her sentence, Xia Xinyan felt a familiar wave of emotion rise within her—
It was the kind of message that Tianji would send when communicating with her.
But this time, she didn’t hear what Tianji was saying.
The girl’s expression shifted after feeling that wave, and she instantly put on a smile: “Oh dear, I just remembered I left the gas on at home, I need to go.”
And then she turned to run.
Xia Xinyan’s heart dropped, and she hurriedly chased after her: “Wait!”
Ling Mo, who was suddenly left behind, looked utterly baffled.
In just two seconds after he regained his senses, the two had already vanished.
The girl was incredibly fast.
She even forced Xia Xinyan out of her transformation state, and in her cat-girl form, she barely managed to keep up at her maximum speed, but catching up to her was still quite challenging.
Moreover, the girl continuously changed positions in the streets and alleys, making it even more difficult for her to track her down, like a game of cat and mouse—this was the most challenging opponent Xia Xinyan had faced since her rebirth.
During this chase, she also found time to shout out towards Tianji: “What did you just tell her?!”
[The system has been in silent mode.]
“Silence my foot! Did you get spotted by her?! She called you a terminal? And there’s the one in Mo Mo’s possession that’s frozen too! She noticed both of you?!”
[… That isn’t frozen, it’s just the normal initial loading.]
“You’re loading for so long?! And is that really the point here?!”
[Host, turn back; this might just be the game system guiding you in the wrong direction.]
“Tch,” Xia Xinyan felt a laugh bubbling up from her frustration, “Who said before that they wouldn’t give me any clear guidance?!”
Tianji went silent.
Xia Xinyan’s heart sank slightly, biting her teeth she sped up again.
She absolutely didn’t believe that the girl ahead was a construct of the game system meant to confuse her; it simply made no sense and was completely unreasonable.
Besides, that girl knew that both she and Ling Mo had the same system, even noticing that Ling Mo’s one was in a frozen state… She referred to the system as a terminal, and then the mention of the “Spacetime Singularity Investigation Bureau”—these were all situations she had never encountered in her previous life.
She had a nagging feeling that this dungeon… perhaps the entire game’s trajectory had begun to exceed her control… no, she had never been in control; it was more accurate to say it was starting to go beyond her comprehension.
And all of this could only be clarified after catching up with the girl ahead.
Then… the girl suddenly stopped.
In an empty narrow alley, she abruptly halted and turned to look at the out-of-breath Xia Xinyan, her expression one of resignation: “If you keep chasing like this, you’ll exhaust yourself, seriously? Is the gas leaking at your home too?”
At this moment, the girl’s face didn’t even show a drop of sweat, as if she hadn’t just been through a chase at all, contrasting sharply with Xia Xinyan’s disheveled state.
It was clear that her strength was far beyond Xia Xinyan’s.
Xia Xinyan bent over, panting heavily, her cat tail twitching slightly, always ready to enter battle mode. She stared at the girl and asked in a deep voice: “You’re not part of this game, are you?”
“Game? You guys think of this as a game?” The girl paused, nodding to herself, “That’s pretty good; this kind of setting sounds interesting.”
“Who are you?” Xia Xinyan pressed on.
“Ah… are we getting to this so quickly?” The girl added a teasing tone to her response, slightly adjusting her glasses and clearing her throat, “Well, let me introduce myself… um, Monica, 17 years old, unmarried, no boyfriend, good temperament with no bad habits, currently seeking a girlfriend. Want to consider it?”
“… I have a boyfriend already.”
“Oh, what a pity.”
