Chapter 53: Baffled
During the mission, Septimus told her that he could not use any of Luther’s ability. Lin Sanjiu moved so fast that she was just like a fleeting shadow, but her footsteps were silent. Chen Jinfeng’s office was just ahead, his office door was shut, and light filtered through the gaps around the door frame. She halted and walked slowly to the door. As thoughts ran through her mind, Lin Sanjiu held her breath as she tried to hear for any movements behind the door.
[Luther had two abilities. Persona Separation and Shapeshifting. If Septimus could not shapeshift, logically, he would not be able to use Persona Separation. If so, as a product of Luther’s Persona Separation, Marcie should also disappear...]
She did not hear a single sound from behind the door, so she concluded that there was no one in the room.
[...However, before we left, Marcie was still her usual self and only disappeared after we returned. That meant that Septimus has been maintaining Luther’s ability. Not only did Marcie know this, but she just took it as a given, so she simply didn’t bring this up to me. That’s right! Septimus lie must be that!]
Lin Sanjiu turned the doorknob carefully and found it unlocked. She celebrated her luck and scanned around her before she slipped into the office and closed the door behind her. After she entered the room, she crept to the table and reached out to check—her Diary Card was still there. She took it and saw the last line on the card: “3.05 am. The defiled and humiliated Diary Card was retrieved.”
“I don’t have time to hear your complaints.” Lin Sanjiu rolled her eyes and quickly wiped away the gel bait without reading the rest of the content on the card. Since the door was not locked, Chen Jinfeng might not be far and could return at any time. The card disappeared into her palm, and she left the office without delay.
Their dorm in basement one was already filled with sounds of few conversations which belonged to the people who had finished work are were resting. As there were only a handful of people, their voices echoed hollowly through the basement, making the place sound rather empty. Lin Sanjiu beelined to her own cubicle and called out her Diary Card.
In the past two hours, her Diary Card had recorded a total of ten pages of content due to Chen Jinfeng’s penchant for saying bullsh*t. The card named the people whom Lin Sanjiu knew and gave labels like ABC to the people she did not. Even after reading the card for a while, she found nothing suspicious except for the first 15 mins when Chen Jinfeng left the room. After that, the conversations were just trivialities like Man A discussing some random administration matters or Woman A asking him about the breakfast menu...
But Lin Sanjiu’s eyelid twitched when she reached the sixth page. She was speechless because it recorded the conversation between Chen Jinfeng and Woman C. Even though it was a conversation, there was barely any content. Lin Sanjiu braced herself and scrolled through the countless lines of “Uhh... Uhh… Ahhh… Ahhh…” before she was finally stunned.
Chen Jinfeng: “You’re still better… Today, I searched for a foreigner because I just wanted to try her out. But she got away. F*ck! She doesn’t know her place! And I don’t know where she went!”
Woman C: “Hey… you baddie. How could you look at other women when you already have me…”
[That son of a b*tch actually laid his hands on Marcie!] Lin Sanjiu’s face darkened. If the Diary Card were just a normal piece of paper, she would have torn it up. Suppressing her anger, she quickly read through the page, but Chen Jinfeng did not talk about Marcie after that. She was on the last page, but she still found nothing of interest. Even though Lin Sanjiu didn’t know what she was expecting to find, she could not help feeling a little disappointed. “Huh?” she suddenly muttered, as her gaze hovered over the following words: 2.48 am. Tian Minbo (Voley) arrived at the door of office 306 and knocked.
Voley was in Oasis! The figure she saw at their dorm was really him! She contained her shock and continued reading.
Chen Jin Feng: “I was trying to f*cking find you! What’s wrong with your info?”
Tian Minbo: “There is nothing wrong with my info. There must be some misunderstanding.”
Chen Jin Feng: “Misunderstanding? Then, how do you explain Lin Sanjiu’s display of power?”
Tian Minbo: “I think she found a good item. Executive Chen, this is good news! If they die, you will get both the Pocket Dimension Escape Portal[1] and that item to create sandstorms…”
Chen Jinfeng: “Grunt. Voley, I am already at my limits. Because you were afraid that they would find you, I even sent Hu Changzai out on a mission. Just because he is acquainted with them and have seen you before. You should start being useful!”
Tian Minbo: “Just tell me what you need.”
Chen Jinfeng: “I am going out now. We’ll discuss this on the way.”
2.50 am. Both people left the room and left the recording range.
“Why did Chen Jinfeng choose that time to leave!” Lin Sanjiu cursed with gritted teeth and kept the Diary Card. Her brows furrowed as she thought hard about what she had just read, yet she could not get any logical conclusion.
“Damn it! I am not going to think about it! I will just wallop Voley and Septimus, then we’ll see if they talk!” she got down from her bed moodily. If she couldn't make sense of it, she’d just follow her intuition!
Just as she lifted the curtain to go out, she nearly collided with another person. She was stunned when she looked up. The person in front of her had a head of fluffy red hair and faint freckles on fair skin—isn’t that Marcie?
“Xiao Jiu, you’re hurt?” Marcie was just like before, she had the same tone and mannerism, “Cough. Septimus ran too far from me, so I disappeared as I was not within the effective range of his ability. I only regained my corporeal form after you both came back. You must have been worried…”
Lin Sanjiu’s Keen Sense gave her a sudden jolt, and Lin Sanjiu stared back at Marcie suspiciously. She was about to speak when she suddenly spotted someone approaching them, it was Septimus. From what it seems, they came to look for her together. Now Lin Sanjiu was totally baffled. [If Septimus transformed into Marcie to deceive me, who is acting as Septimus? Could it be that Marcie really came back?] She looked at Marcie as she tried to test her, hesitatingly, “When we were away, did anything happen?”
She only read about this matter from her Diary Card a few minutes ago, so no one else should know except for Marcie, herself...
Marcie’s expression changed instantly, and she gave an angry harrumph. “Something did happen… but I am okay. That bast*rd, Chen Jinfeng, will definitely have to pay for what he did sooner or later!”
A sense of relief washed over Lin Sanjiu as Macie’s answer matched her expectations. She gave a long sigh before giving Marcie a hug, “I thought you’d never come back!” Marcie laughed and hugged her back. Lin Sanjiu eyed Septimus, who was just nearby, then she whispered, “Umm. Can Septimus use Luther’s ability?” Now that Marcie was here, she wanted to confirm her conjecture.
“Of course not.” Lin Sanjiu heard a gentle female voice at the side of her ear.
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Translator’s note: [1] The Chinese translation specified that it was a mirror, but it might be a little hard to understand in the context. This is probably the item that was taken from Hei Zeji.