茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter 126 – Not Shown

At 2:00 PM, Xiang Kun had scheduled a virtual meet-up with “Kasumi of August”.

The woman in the blue dress had been inside the “Long Time No See” café for 13 minutes.

Xiang Kun seemed fully concentrated on a claw game machine, but in reality, he was collecting auditory and olfactory information from his surroundings.

Although the scent information leaking from the café was limited due to distance and the glass doors, virtually all customers had already been “observed” by him before they entered the café, and he had set up basic profiles for them in his mind.

However, up until now, he had failed to find any target suspicious enough to warrant further examination.

Of course, Xiang Kun wouldn’t step into the “Long Time No See” café.

As soon as the meeting location was chosen, he would never go to that café again. Right from the start, he had no intention of showing his face to meet the other party.

From the reflection in a metal plate, Xiang Kun saw the woman in the blue dress casually flipping through her phone while sipping on one of two beverages. She seemed like a perfectly ordinary city girl.

Yet that was sufficient confirmation for Xiang Kun that this woman wasn’t a vampire. Probably, she didn’t have deep ties with the vampire behind “Kasumi of August.” Otherwise, if she was impersonating Kasumi, she would’ve been told about the precautions – not to casually eat or drink.

Xiang Kun did not linger in the claw game shop for long. After all, very few people stay for an extended period, especially when he hadn’t even won any plushies on purpose.

At 2:30, he left the claw game shop and wandered over to a milk tea shop diagonally across. He then carefully observed the “Long Time No See” café through the rear view mirror of an electric bike parked on the edge of the road.

People came and went out of the café, meanwhile passersby glanced at the woman in blue through the large glass windows, but it seemed like nothing more than a subconscious attraction to the beautiful woman. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Buzz—–

Xiang Kun’s phone suddenly vibrated. His immediate reaction was another spam call?

Now that he was unemployed, very few people called him directly. Most communicated through WeChat first unless it was an emergency that he didn’t respond on WeChat.

Looking down, he found that the caller was his Mom.

If it were someone else, he might dismiss the call and call back later. But fearing that it could be an urgency, he picked it up immediately.

“Kun, are you at work?”

“Yeah, I’m working.” while responding, Xiang Kun kept his gaze on the rear-view mirror of the electric bike, observing what happened inside the café and the nearby pedestrians. Judging by the tone, it didn’t sound like an emergency.

“Are you busy? If you are, I can call you later.”

“No, I’m not busy now,” Xiang Kun replied, Imowing fully well that his mother had something to discuss. She was the kind who would feel pressurized to hold something significant back, and it would upset her if he didn’t let her speak immediately.

“You mentioned about visiting home once you had some free time. It was July then, and now it’s October. Doesn’t your company even get the National Day holiday? Don’t tell me you’re planning to work straight through till the Spring Festival?” his mother complained over the phone.

“Not long now, work is almost over on this end. I should be able to visit home by the end of this month.” Xiang Kun hadn’t disclosed to his parents about his company’s bankruptcy and his temporary unemployment.

“Hmm, how long can you stay this time?”

“Probably several days. Why? Is there something at home?” Xiang Kun asked. He was ready to move back to his hometown in a remote rural area and open a small farm. But until he found the perfect location, he didn’t plan to tell his parents about his plans.

“When you plan to come, let me know in advance. I will prepare some of your favorite dishes.” His mother suggested.

Xiang Kun promptly asked, “Mom, is there anything that you want to talk about…?” He understood his mother’s intentions very well, knowing that she had yet not revealed her real purpose.

“Oh, actually…l went to see Aunt Qiu and her niece, who’s two years younger than you, was home for the holidays. She’s tall and pretty, and single too. She stated that she might quit her job and return home after the National Day holidays. So, Aunt Qiu and I thought it would be nice if you could meet her…”

Xiang Kun quickly interrupted, “Wait, Mom, we live in different cities. Even if I return home, I will come back again. How would it help us to know each other?” He was not ready to reveal his unemployment status nor plans to sell his house and leave the city.

His mother insisted immediately, “Well, I’ve spoken to that girl. She graduated from a famous university and is just not satisfied with her current job. She plans to take some rest before finding a new job. So, she might even end up in your city! After all, young people have capabilities. It’s not difficult for them to find jobs anyvvhere, right? The most important thing is whether you two can get along with each other…”

“Let’s talk about it later, Mom, there’s no rush. It’s really not urgent.”

“You might not be in a hurry, but I am! You better decide when you’re coming back soon, or else I will give you three calls a day!”

“Alright, alright, I’ll let you know when I finalize my plans. Ah… My boss is calling me, I gotta go. Bye-

After hanging up, Xiang Kun gave a sigh of relief and continued observing the surrounding passersby.

Then he occasionally lifted his milk tea, sipped through the straw to pretend drinking, in order to not appear suspicious.

At 3:09 PM, the woman in the blue dress finished a game on her phone, glanced around, and then left the café.

Xiang Kun didn’t follow immediately. He waited roughly 30 seconds, observing whether anyone else left the café following her or anyone from elsewhere began trailing her. He then left the milk teashop and took a different, parallel route, walking quickly toward the direction he anticipated the woman in blue would take.

Xiang Kun managed to get ahead of her from another direction, decelerated his pace, sipping the cup of milk tea pretending to be strolling. Only a small part of his attention was on the woman, with the majority shifted to the surrounding people, judging if anyone else was following or observing, like him.

He was pondering over how to casually drop a ballpen bead- which had been associated with his previous Blood-drinking Periods- into the woman’s bag.

He had felt the bead to be an excellent tracking tool, equivalent to a mini GPS. Therefore, he had prepared a couple more of these.

He then overheard a conversation from the woman in blue seven or eight meters away, talking to a friend on her phone: “….0ut for shopping… Just finished a job, some nut made me wait at the café, asking me to wear a blue dress and order two drinks, like some spy rendezvous… Waited there an hour, nobody showed up!”