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Si Ling stood on the steps of her door. The moment she opened the door, he looked up at her with calm, dark eyes, as if shrouded in a thin layer of mist.

"...Why are you here?" Lu Zhao was shocked for a moment, then looked down again to check the time on his phone. It was indeed not yet eight o'clock.

What does it mean that this person got up so early to wait at her door?

Si Ling carried a plastic bag containing soy milk and steamed buns. "I guess you probably don't eat much for breakfast."

She paused, seemingly sensing Lu Zhao's surprise, and added, "I'm a temporary team member now, so it shouldn't be a problem to curry favor with my future boss by buying her breakfast, right?"

Lu Zhao paused for a moment, then reached out and closed the door. He turned back to look at her with a complicated expression: "Are you trying to please me?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Si Ling retorted, her matter-of-fact manner leaving Si Ling speechless.

It was so obvious that her heart, which had been racing inexplicably just moments before, suddenly calmed down.

Her lips twitched, and she finally took the plastic bag from the other person, mumbling a "thank you" indistinctly.

A faint smile appeared on Si Ling's face. She was about to follow her out when Lu Zhao suddenly turned around and looked at her solemnly: "Thank you for breakfast, but please go home and rest today."

Her smile faded slightly, and she asked in a low voice, "Why?"

Lu Zhao felt like he was being pricked by needles from her gaze, which was as if she were looking at a heartless man, but he could only bite the bullet and say, "After all, you are not a formal team member yet, so you shouldn't get too involved in such important events."

She felt embarrassed to admit that she was using someone and then discarding them, but she had no choice. The upcoming mission involved too many people, and if she could, she really didn't want to drag this person into it.

Unwilling to look into Si Ling's deep eyes any longer, she turned away, trying her best to hide her strange feelings, and said loudly, "In short, before you officially join the Spirit Management Bureau, you can adjust yourself first. After everything is over, I will process your onboarding!"

I don't know how much time passed, but I didn't hear a response from the person behind me.

Lu Zhao thought she was angry, so he cautiously turned around, only to find that the person was standing there with her eyes downcast, like a big dog that had been abandoned.

She was a little flustered and wanted to comfort the other person, but when the words came to her lips, she didn't know how to say them.

"Okay, I understand." The usually bright voice sounded incredibly low at this moment. Lu Zhao's heart skipped a beat, and before the pain could spread, he hurriedly ran away.

Si Ling raised her head slightly, looked at the fleeing figure, and chuckled softly: "You little ingrate."

Chapter 49: The Prelude to Romance

After a gluttonous meal, Lu Zhao finally finished breakfast and arrived near the ruins of the shopping mall. People were still going in and out of the temporary tent, but Chi Ying was nowhere to be seen.

She grabbed an employee at random and asked them, only to find out that Chi Ying had been summoned back for questioning by higher-ups, undoubtedly because of the explosion.

Thinking about it this way, she suddenly realized that although her rank as captain was a bit low, at least she didn't have to be questioned by the big shots in the General Strategy Office every day.

After waiting outside for a while, Messiah and Song Lingge arrived in a hurry. Lu Zhao didn't waste any time with them and led them inside while recounting the general course of events.

"Our mission now is to find the bomb woman as soon as possible and bring her back without causing as many casualties as possible."

As Lu Zhao spoke, she quickly flipped through the documents that the monitoring department employee had just handed her, and her expression darkened.

"What's wrong? What's wrong!" Messiah curiously took the document and looked at it, his eyes widening immediately. "Based on the traces left on the blood-stained clothes at the scene, no corresponding suspect was found in the registered Elven race database... so the other party is an unregistered Elven race member, which is a bit difficult."

“That’s not all the trouble,” Lu Zhao said with a grim face, turning to the second-to-last page of the document. “Look for yourself, the monitoring department applied to enter the Red Bee Bar more than ten times last night, but was rejected every time. If this continues, all the leads will be lost.”

Song Lingge asked with a strange expression, "Red Bee Bar? The bar under the name of the young master of the Ji family?"

"Yes, you know too?" Lu Zhao was a little surprised. In her impression, Song Lingge was not the kind of person who would go to bars.

She paused for a moment, then suddenly said, "I think I have a way to get them to agree."

"Eh? Sister Song, you really do know the Ji family!" Messiah exclaimed in surprise.

Song Lingge's expression was somewhat unpleasant, but she still nodded and said, "I'll go out and make a call to ask first."

As she spoke, she took out her phone and went outside.

Lu Zhao blinked, somewhat puzzled, and poked Messiah with his finger. "Why did you say 'as expected' just now? Do you know something inside?"

"What inside story? The gossip online has been flying around for ages," Messiah said, looking at her with surprise. "Captain, you don't even care about gossip?"

Since she transmigrated, she's either been hospitalized or working a 996 workaholic job every day. How could she have time to study gossip?

She rolled her eyes at him, then Lu Zhao took out his phone and handed it to her, saying, "Search it for me."

"Alright, go ahead!" Messiah immediately took the phone like a lackey, quickly searched for a keyword, and handed it to her smugly, "Captain, you should still check out this kind of news when you have time."

She slapped the man on the back in annoyance. While Messiah cried out in pain, she finally had a chance to pick up her phone. But when she saw the bolded headline on the news, she couldn't help but frown.

"A cooperation agreement has been reached between the Ji and Song families, representing two giants!"

The following text mainly revolves around the two sons and one daughter of the Ji family and the three girls of the Song family. The central idea is which two children from these two families will be arranged to marry.

Marriage.

Upon seeing this word, Lu Zhao felt a chill run down his spine.

What the hell? It's almost the future, and there's still this kind of thing that's been passed down from feudal society. Isn't the production team known for their pure love stories? Don't they think it's cheesy to write this kind of plot?

Only now did she finally understand why Song Lingge's expression had been so bad. According to the news, the Ji family and the Song family were going to be married, so she should be among the marriage partners.

Thinking of this, she couldn't help but utter a couple of swear words. Song Lingge was one of the targets of her pursuit. Even if she didn't end up with the female lead, she would still be single. It was impossible for her to marry a man she had never even met for the sake of her family.

Or perhaps this is the prelude to entering Song Lingge's route?

Lu Zhao thought about it more and more and more likely it was true. After all, each of the romanceable characters had a unique storyline. If a player wanted to romance someone, they had to complete all the prerequisite storylines and raise their affection level to a certain extent.

As far as she knows, Lu Zhao's storyline is probably about the original owner losing control and burning her parents to death, Xia Zhifei's storyline is about her lost dream, and Chi Ying's storyline is most likely related to her family.

As for the others, she doesn't know yet, but she can be fairly certain that Song Lingge's backstory is related to this so-called marriage alliance.

How to do?

The female lead may not necessarily fall in love with Song Lingge. If this pre-plot is not completed, are we just going to force her into a marriage like this?

No... even the gossip news says that the marriage partner hasn't been decided yet. In other words, if the female lead doesn't like Song Lingge, then this plot might not be triggered, and the person to be married off will be someone else.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhao's initially anxious state of mind gradually calmed down.

That's right. Given the production team's track record, they definitely won't marry off the romanceable character to someone else. Don't worry, and it's not her place to worry.

"Captain, I've already spoken to them!" Song Lingge returned just as she finished her call. Her previously unpleasant expression had completely vanished, replaced by joy. "Let's hurry over to Red Bee Bar now!"

She immediately raised her head, her face beaming with delight. "Really? Okay, colleagues from the monitoring department, could you please send a few people over with us?"

"I'll go!" Zhou Yuhan, who had been slacking off on the sidelines, eagerly raised her hand.

Lu Zhao looked over at the sound and recognized the face. He immediately smiled and reached out to adjust her glasses, which were perched on her nose. "Okay, then thank you for your help."

Xiao Zhou blushed and stammered, "This is...this is my job. We should thank Captain Lu for getting us this opportunity!"

"This isn't my doing; you should thank my team members." Lu Zhao counted the number of people preparing to go, then turned to Song Lingge and asked, "If you're leading the team alone, four people going in total, is that alright?"

Song Lingge nodded: "Sure, if we go now before the bar opens during the day, they won't say anything."

Yes, it's daytime now, and I wonder how much of the evidence from last night has been destroyed.

Lu Zhao sighed inwardly, waved his hand, and told them to set off quickly, while he and Messiah stayed behind.

She went to a bar yesterday, so to avoid unnecessary trouble, it's better to just let Song Lingge bring people there.

Chapter Fifty: Clues to Disguise

Waiting idly was not an option. In order to make the most of the time, Lu Zhao asked the remaining people in the monitoring department to help pull up the surveillance footage of various roads that could be escape routes, starting from the Red Bee Bar. She and Messiah each had a screen, and they sat there quickly checking the surveillance footage.

Considering that the other party was very likely to have escaped with the help of their Eldar companions, their focus was not on the surveillance footage of the bomb woman escaping into the bar, but on the suspicious persons who had entered the bar since it opened on the day of the explosion.

"Captain, you yourself said that the prisoner's Elven companion most likely possesses stealth abilities similar to Xin Xia from Team Two. If he used that ability to enter the bar as well, wouldn't the surveillance cameras be able to detect it?"

Messiah stared at the screen until he was dizzy, but he couldn't find anything suspicious. He couldn't help but ask doubtfully.

In truth, Lu Zhao wasn't entirely confident either, but since they couldn't find out the other party's escape route, they had no choice but to start from that angle.

If she can't find anything by talking about this, she'll have to check the surveillance footage from before the explosion in the mall to see where the bomb-wielding woman sneaked in from and how she planted the bombs in various parts of the mall.

She had never studied criminal investigation and didn't know how to solve cases. In that world, she could only watch various crime movies, but she couldn't have the sudden flash of inspiration that detectives in movies had. The only thing she could do was to rely on the hard way and check the surveillance footage bit by bit.

Fortunately, the Skynet system in this world was much more comprehensive than she had imagined. It had all the surveillance footage she wanted to retrieve, and the monitoring department had the authority to access the surveillance footage at any time, saving her the trouble of going around asking for the footage.

"Let's take another look." She rubbed her sore eyes, rewound the video a little, and started watching again.

She didn't know how much time had passed, and she had almost watched all the surveillance footage at each intersection. The more she watched, the more uncertain she became. Just as she was about to finish watching the last video, a figure finally appeared in her field of vision.

"it's him!"

She jumped to her feet in excitement and hurriedly grabbed a monitoring department employee next to her, "Quick, find out the route this man took!"

Messiah also curiously came over and found that Lu Zhao was pointing at a man who looked ordinary. If there was any special feature, it was the tuft of white hair on the top of his head.

“Captain,” she couldn’t help but ask, “how can you be so sure this person is that prisoner’s accomplice? There’s nothing unusual about him on the surveillance footage.”

Indeed, from the perspective of the natives of this world, this man was nothing special. He looked to be only about 1.7 meters tall, not very tall, and his build was not particularly muscular; in fact, he was rather thin. His appearance was so unremarkable that he would be completely lost in a crowd.

However, Lu Zhao knew very well that this person must be a member of the villainous organization.

Before she transmigrated, her junior schoolmate introduced her to the villain route in the game and said something like this: "The biggest obstacle for the female protagonist in the villain route is a guy with dyed white hair. Don't be fooled by his unremarkable appearance; he's actually disgusting and has tried to take advantage of the female protagonist multiple times. Luckily, she has a love interest to protect her."

It has white fur and doesn't look particularly special.

Normally, based on just these two points, Lu Zhao would never associate him with a villainous organization. However, according to the surveillance footage, this person entered the bar half an hour before the explosion, and was carrying something in his arms.

Thanks to the high-definition video recording from the monitoring department, she could see very clearly that there was a bag of women's clothes inside.

"After he entered the bar, was there any record of him leaving?" she asked confidently.

The monitoring department staff behind him quickly flipped through the records for the front and back doors, and shook their heads blankly for a moment: "It seems there really isn't anything..."

This is irrefutable evidence!

At this point in the investigation, she no longer needed to meticulously review the surveillance footage. Tracing the man's route was precisely what the monitoring department excelled at.

In less than ten minutes, a complete line appeared.

"Is the starting point a fireworks factory on the outskirts of the city...?" She looked at the route provided by the monitoring department, feeling somewhat apprehensive.

It's not difficult for a fireworks factory to make bombs from its raw materials; anyone with a basic understanding of chemistry could do it. However, the people in the fireworks factory must be aware of the importance of their factory and would strictly control the raw materials.

"Please ask the police again if that fireworks factory has any recent reported losses!"

If the bombs really did come from that side, then at least the number of bombs made can be deduced from the amount of lost raw materials.

From God's perspective, Lu Zhao knew that the villainous organization would not give up so easily, but she couldn't tell the Bureau of Spiritual Affairs about this crucial point. She could only hint at it indirectly to let others prepare.

However, the result of the inquiry left Lu Zhao completely bewildered once again.