“All the missing people have B-type blood?” Jiang Xiaosi widened her eyes in surprise after hearing Xiao Tang explain the case.
Xiao Tang nodded, feeling equally perplexed.
“Could it be…” Jiang Xiaosi recalled the man who came to the shop yesterday to order B-type blood.
“Xiaosi, do you have any leads?”
Jiang Xiaosi shook her head. “Let me confirm something first before telling you.” After all, he was a customer, and keeping client information confidential was the first rule of business. She couldn’t just casually suspect people. Besides, the secret blood-selling business that Tuo Gu Xiang ran couldn’t be revealed to the police either.
She glanced at Shen Mo, who sat nearby, completely ignoring her. He had been so kind to her on Christmas Eve, but now, for some reason, he was giving her the cold shoulder, even assigning less homework. This man’s mood swings were too unpredictable—she couldn’t figure out what she had done to upset him this time.
“Xiaosi, come and take a look!” Xiao Tang called her over, pointing outside.
“What’s going on?” Jiang Xiaosi walked to the window and saw Zhang Qi standing on the basketball court with a girl. The girl was tall and looked somewhat familiar—one of Zhang Qi’s classmates she had seen during the hotpot dinner.
The girl seemed furious, while Zhang Qi hung his head. Then, out of nowhere, the girl hurled a basketball straight at Zhang Qi’s face.
Jiang Xiaosi’s mouth dropped open in shock as she watched Zhang Qi crouch down, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, while the girl stormed off. Furious, Jiang Xiaosi bolted out of the office—how dare someone bully her boyfriend!
As soon as she left, Xiao Tang burst into laughter. Shen Mo frowned and looked up. “What happened?”
“Xiaosi’s boyfriend just got beaten up! Looks like a love triangle!”
Shen Mo was speechless.
Jiang Xiaosi escorted Zhang Qi to the school clinic, but Zhang Qi kept shaking his head, saying it was just a misunderstanding.
Since she had a customer coming to pick up an order, Xiaosi headed back to the shop, receiving a call from Miao Yan along the way.
“Xiaosi, lately, someone’s been going around paying high prices to buy up B-type blood. All the underground blood suppliers like Tuo Gu Xiang and even the official blood banks are running dry. If anyone comes to the shop asking to buy a large amount of B-type blood, don’t sell it to them.”
“Why wouldn’t I make the sale if there’s business to be done? Besides, I’ve already taken a deposit from someone yesterday.”
“Dummy, B-type blood is so scarce right now, you could sell it for more than gold. Hold onto it and make a huge profit later!”
“You’re always thinking about money! Forget it, I’m trying to solve a case here too. Gotta go!”
“Hey, wait! Don’t get too involved with Shen Mo…”
Jiang Xiaosi quickly hung up and stuck out her tongue.
Sure enough, the customer arrived promptly at noon to pick up his order. Jiang Xiaosi handed over 200 bags of B-type blood.
“Only this much?”
“B-type blood is in short supply everywhere lately. This is all we’ve got in stock.”
The Grim Reaper-looking man named Mei didn’t say anything further. He paid the rest of the bill and loaded the boxes of blood into his vehicle. After waiting five minutes, Jiang Xiaosi hopped onto her little electric scooter and followed the trail of B-type blood scent all the way to the back entrance of Meizhai Tianfu. However, the place was heavily guarded, and she couldn’t get inside.
Jiang Liu had already told her about what he saw at Meizhai Tianfu.
“So it really is here, huh?”
After confirming the location, Jiang Xiaosi called Xiao Tang, asking him to investigate Meizhai Tianfu. She also called Miao Yan, bracing herself for another round of criticism.
As she prepared to head back on her scooter, she passed by the front entrance and was shocked to see Shen Mo and a group of students entering Meizhai Tianfu.
Jiang Xiaosi quickly followed them inside.
“Miss, how many in your party?”
“I’m with the group that just went in.”
“Upstairs at ‘Xing Xiang Zi.’ Please follow me.”
Jiang Xiaosi followed the server through the serene, elegant environment, passing a small pond filled with red koi fish. Once they reached the second floor, where each room was named after a classical Chinese tune, the server led her to the door of “Xing Xiang Zi” and opened it, inviting her in.
Everyone looked up, expecting a server bringing food, but instead saw a small girl walk in, leaving them all puzzled—did she enter the wrong room? Shen Mo, who had briefly shown a rare moment of warmth, immediately darkened again.
“Hi there, Professor! Hello, senior brothers and sisters!” Jiang Xiaosi shamelessly ran over to sit next to Shen Mo, causing the person sitting there to awkwardly stand up and give her the seat.
“Thank you, thank you…”
Jiang Xiaosi plopped down without hesitation.
“Professor, who’s this?” one of the students asked.
Shen Mo, his face now cold, replied, “Jiang Xiaosi, a new student of mine.”
Everyone immediately understood. They had heard about the genius middle schooler who skipped grades and joined their department, becoming one of Shen Mo’s students. Now, seeing her in person, they assumed Shen Mo had invited her, so they all warmly welcomed her.
“What are you doing here?” Shen Mo’s sharp gaze no longer fazed Jiang Xiaosi at all—she had learned to ignore it.
“I’m here for a free meal! Are these the students who just returned from that archaeological dig in Yunnan?”
Shen Mo nodded. These seven students had all been poisoned by a Gu curse. The fact that they managed to return safely was a stroke of luck, so he had brought them to Meizhai Tianfu for a celebratory meal.
Before long, the table was filled with dishes. Although Jiang Xiaosi used to love the food here, knowing what lay in the back and underground where non-humans were feasting on who-knew-what made her lose her appetite. Yet her senior brothers and sisters kept piling food onto her plate.
Shen Mo also found it strange that she seemed to have changed today. Apart from nibbling on a few vegetables, she mostly just ate plain white rice.
The student sitting next to her, a chubby guy with his mouth full of food, mumbled, “Man, these past few days have been torture on my stomach. Living conditions were tough, and the professor told us not to add any salt to our meals. My mouth feels like a desert. It’s so nice to finally eat like this.”
Shen Mo looked confused, but Jiang Xiaosi felt a jolt of panic. Oh no!
Just as she put down her chopsticks and stood up, the guy collapsed backward, his body convulsing.
“What’s going on?” The others rushed over to help, only to see that his exposed skin was starting to break out in scales—symptoms of the Gu curse. Their faces turned pale with fear. Before they could react, the rest of the group began collapsing one by one.
“Call an ambulance!” Shen Mo roared at the servers who had just entered, causing them to tremble in fear.
Jiang Xiaosi was filled with guilt. The Black Hui Gu curse hadn’t been fully lifted—it had only been temporarily suppressed. She had been careless and failed to remind them.
After rushing everyone to the hospital, the doctors were at a loss for what to do. Shen Mo could handle exorcisms, but undoing a Gu curse was much more complicated. While he managed to stabilize them for the time being, it wasn’t a permanent solution.
The next evening, Jiang Xiaosi walked into Shen Mo’s office, carrying her laptop.
“Professor, I have something to show you.”
Jiang Xiaosi opened her laptop, revealing a tracking system with a small red dot on the map.
“What’s this?”
“This is the location of the tomb where the archaeological dig took place—the same place where the blood I sold at Tuo Gu Xiang ended up.”
“B-type blood?”
“Yes, someone’s been buying up B-type blood from the non-human market in large quantities. I think the missing people with B-type blood are connected to this. Yesterday, when I followed the truck transporting the blood, I ended up at Meizhai Tianfu. That’s when I saw you guys. Also, Koudan said her investigation into the Purple Seal Emblem led her to Meizhai Tianfu as well.”
“You put a tracker in the blood bags?” Shen Mo frowned. The fact that all three cases led back to Meizhai Tianfu suggested that they were dealing with a powerful and cautious organization. If there really was a tracker, they would have noticed it.
“Uh…” Jiang Xiaosi hesitated, unsure how to explain. She couldn’t exactly say that she was also B-type blood, so one of the bags she gave them was her own. And since she was a zombie, with a bit of tweaking, tracking where her blood went wasn’t too difficult.
Only heaven knew how much it pained her to part with her blood. When Jiang Liu heard about her plan, he had wanted to donate his blood instead, but since he was a full-fledged zombie, his blood wasn’t usable. Plus, he wasn’t B-type.
“I used a special device. They won’t detect it.”
Shen Mo pondered for a moment. It seemed like they would have to head to Yunnan immediately.
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