Exploration

Winnie strode into the police station. Just a short while ago, she had received a report that a Sequence One Blood Hunter had used magic essence in the city. The entire sequence of events was written down on paper for her.

Normally, this matter would have little to do with her, but when she saw the name of this Blood Hunter, she realized she needed to make a trip to understand the situation personally.

Winnie never expected that in just one day, Su Ran would enter Sequence One. She expected even less that someone would choose this narrow window of opportunity to attack Su Ran in Jiangbei City.

Originally, Eve’s order was to protect Su Ran’s safety, but with just a moment of inattention from Winnie, the enemy had come to her door.

If it were to be investigated, this could already be considered a dereliction of her duty.

“I am Winnie, the person in charge of the Jiangbei City Blood Hunter branch. I’m here to take my person back myself.”

Walking through the long corridor of the police station, Winnie found the room where Su Ran was giving her statement.

She didn’t say much, directly flashing her branch head credentials in front of the security officer, informing him of her purpose for being here.

“Miss Winnie, we have already finished taking the statement. But according to procedure, Miss Su has been determined to have acted in self-defense. However, using magic essence within the city requires a fine.”

The security officer taking the statement had a troubled look on his face. The head of the Blood Hunter branch had come to get someone personally; he had no reason not to give her face.

But if Su Ran were to evade this fine, there would be no telling where he could collect it from.

“Put it all on the Blood Hunters’ tab.”

With Winnie’s words, the security officer no longer stood in their way, telling Su Ran she could leave the police station.

Sitting in the interrogation room, Su Ran watched the whole time as Winnie spoke without a hint of abnormality, even managing to cover her entire fine in one go.

Hearing this news, Su Ran breathed a sigh of relief. At least she wouldn’t have to spend extra money for using magic essence in the city.

“The timing is just right. The Blood Hunter branch has a mission that requires your assistance.”

‘Can you tell me yourself what happened?’

Winnie led Su Ran out of the interrogation room, and without minding their location, she began to ask Su Ran about the situation right there in the hallway.

Su Ran hesitated. After all, it involved the matter of her transformation, so she could only choose to be selective in her account.

Winnie glanced at Su Ran’s expression and said, “That fine just now seemed to be in the tens of thousands, didn’t it? If we can’t find the culprit, should we ask the person involved to reimburse it?”

As she spoke, she glanced over Su Ran’s body.

Su Ran told Winnie everything the masked person had said, only hiding the part about him looking for “Su Ran.”

“It seems the other party didn’t just show up randomly. It seems he was acting with a specific purpose.”

This was Su Ran’s own summary of the masked person’s actions.

‘With a purpose… showing up at her door?’

Winnie mulled over these two feelings Su Ran mentioned. She remembered something Her Highness the Princess had mentioned to her when assigning the mission.

The insurance policy from Beizhou Academy had once been opened. To quell the students’ anger, the school had re-collected the information.

It was precisely because of this information leak that Her Highness the Princess had decided to have her stay by Su Ran’s side until she had the ability to protect herself.

‘Could it be that the person who attacked Su Ran is related to this information leak?’

Winnie still had to place a question mark on the connection between these two matters. Currently, there was not enough evidence to prove her guess.

“The place you’re living was just attacked. For safety’s sake, you should stay in the Sakura Cafe’s staff dormitory for the time being.”

Only she and Yuan Shirui were living in the Sakura Cafe’s dormitory; there were still plenty of empty rooms.

And with such close proximity, no matter what enemy came, Winnie would be able to detect them quickly and repel them with ease.

‘Ah?’

Su Ran was suddenly in a difficult position. She knew that Winnie was inviting her with good intentions.

But the Witch Game was installed on her desktop computer. If she wasn’t near her computer, it meant she couldn’t contact Isa, which was something Su Ran was not willing to see happen.

“I’m used to living there,” Su Ran argued in a low voice.

“Then I’ll take you back to pack some of your daily necessities, and then we’ll go to the dormitory.”

“Alright then.”

Faced with Winnie’s concession, Su Ran was not an ungrateful person, so she nodded and accepted her kind offer.

Just as the two were about to leave the police station, a security officer hurried over and said, “Miss Su Ran, we have the test results for the severed hand you left. Would you like to hear them?”

Su Ran stopped in her tracks, preparing to hear what useful information they had found from the severed hand.

Normally, this kind of evidence would not be disclosed to Su Ran. However, since she was the one who provided the evidence and had a Blood Hunter behind her, the higher-ups turned a blind eye to small matters like disclosing the test results, not expressing any opinion of their own.

“First, the severed hand had a complete fingerprint, which gave us the opportunity to match it against the fingerprint database. However, the result was that no one in the criminal database matched.”

“Then, we tried matching this fingerprint against the regular database and also found no match. But we found the owner of this fingerprint in the last database. This database… is to say, the owner of the severed hand Miss Su provided is a missing person.”

Saying this, the security officer presented the other party’s file to Winnie and Su Ran.

Li Ming, male, thirty years old.

This person named Li Ming… Su Ran looked at his height and confirmed that it was somewhat similar to the masked person she had seen.

Since the person was identified through fingerprint matching, it was evident that this severed hand indeed belonged to him.

“But the condition of the severed hand is very strange. It doesn’t have any of the characteristics a human should have. Instead, it’s more like it was cut from a dead person. If we hadn’t witnessed the black figure leaving with our own eyes, we wouldn’t believe this was an arm cut from his body.”

This series of explanations from the security officer was enough to raise Su Ran’s vigilance towards that masked person, or rather, Li Ming, to the highest level.

“If there’s any new information, please let us know. From the moment he dared to attack a Blood Cat, this matter also concerns us.”

“With the cooperation of a Blood Cat, I believe this matter will soon have a result.”

Seeing that the security officer was finished and was preparing to continue with his work, Winnie led Su Ran out of the police station, ready to carry out what she had mentioned: taking Su Ran back to pack her luggage.

As Su Ran was leaving the police station entrance, a pair of eyes was staring at her departing back.

After Su Ran had left, he stopped the security officer who was about to deliver the test report.

“Captain Li, is there something?”

The person staring at Su Ran was none other than Li Shanhai, who had previously gone to the murder scene.

“That girl… it seems she came to the police station yesterday. Why is she here again today?”

Li Shanhai’s impression of Su Ran was very deep. It was truly difficult to forget such a beautiful girl.

The security officer told Li Shanhai what he knew.

‘Masked person? Li Ming? Attack? Murder case?’

Lighting a cigarette, Li Shanhai blew out a ring of smoke. He had a feeling that there was an intricate connection between all these things.