茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

After all, this place was filled with numerous and varied odor, furthermore, Xiang Kun had only met Xia Tianhuo once and thus had limited familiarity with his scent.

However, near the door of the courtyard was a pile of domestic trash with a strong odor belonging to Xia Tianhuo. Thus, Xiang Kun identified his target upon scanning the courtyard for smell traces.

Even though Xiang Kun knew from his sound and scent exploration that Xia Tianhuo was not in the recycling depot, he decided to further investigate.

He didn’t release any Super-connected Objects or Emotion Infused Objects to perform any Super Sensory State’s investigation but removed his shoes, directly climbed over the wall and entered the yard.

It wasn’t because Xiang Kun suddenly decided to act recklessly and storm in, but because he already knew how many people were inside, their locations, their states, and was confident he could go unnoticed.

Xiang Kun didn’t tiptoe or crouch down carefully, but openly crossed the perimeter of piled papers, plastics, and scrap metals. He took a look at the domestic garbage near the yard door, confirmed that a piece of rag entangled in the pile belonged to Xia Tianhuo and then turned around to walk towards the house in the yard — just like a host or a visitor.

Two seconds after Xiang Kun entered the house, a short stout dark-skinned young man, who was zipping his pants, came out of the toilet next to the room. He was yawning and was heading to the room’s entrance.

However, at this time, Xiang Kun had already calmly entered the living room, stood behind two men playing games on an old television using a PS2 for one second, quickly discerned all kinds of scent information in the room one more time, and then walked toward a slightly open door.

Although he knew there was nobody in the room, he didn’t directly push the door open. Instead, he put his hand on the side of the door and exerted force toward the direction of the door hinge, slowly pushing the door open just a little — as he knew the door hadn’t been used for a long time it would moan if pushed directly.

When Xiang Kun silently slipped into the room, closing the door as he entered, the stout young man who had just been to the bathroom entered the living room and lay directly behind the two men playing the game on an old sofa to continue sleeping.

The three residents of the living room were unaware that an “unknown” person had silently, yet clearly, entered the house.

In the room, even without turning on the light, Xiang Kun, using a dim light night vision view, inspected the room carefully — based on the smell, he could almost conclude that Xia Tianhuo had been kept in this room and tied to a chair.

For Xiang Kun now, with absolute dominance in sensory and physical capabilities, acting underneath the eyelids of the three people in the recycling depot was absolutely possible, achieving a ‘blind spot’ type of ‘invisibility’ by escaping their view.

The current situation for Xiang Kun was like playing a real-time 2D game with a “recycling depot” as the map. Other players had small and narrow views with slow actions, while he was overlooking the entire map. Not only could he see the whole field, but he could also see the other players’ fields of view, directly predict their movements, and his controlled character’s movement speed was several times that of the other players. So naturally, it was not difficult to move around safely without being detected on the map.

Of course, the premise is that there are not too many people in the house. If there were ten, twenty people, and they were all awake, it would be difficult for him to directly and conspicuously “infiltrate”.

According to various details in the room, Xiang Kun speculated the previous situation of Xia Tianhuo in the room, and from the degree of scent diffusion, based on his past experience, estimated that it had been more than ten hours since he had been taken away from here.

That is to say, there’s a good chance that Xia Tianhuo was moved out just after the kidnapper had finished their phone call with Old Xia for a ransom.

The layout of the room was very simple and didn’t offer many clues.

Xiang Kun took out a coin from his pocket and flipped it. The coin rolled and fell to the ground but didn’t make any sound as it didn’t made contact with the floor. It hovered sideways and slipped out under the gap in the door, quietly passing through the living room, and went towards the piled-up scrap metal in the yard under silence.

After a while, a noise came from the yard, startling the three men inside. The two men playing the game and the one sleeping on the sofa were all suddenly awakened.

However, Xiang Kun observed their reactions through the crack of the room’s door. They did not immediately go out to check the situation but looked at each other anxiously. After more than ten seconds, they fetched axes and iron bars from the corner of the living room and cautiously went out together.

After the three men went out, Xiang Kun also walked out of the room. He appeared relaxing but was actually very quick and efficient in searching every area of the house including the living room and other rooms, he even quietly opened several drawers and closets for further inspection.

Although, even outside the house, he could, based on the scent, infer the situation and items within the room, and know biology in the house like the back of his hand, there was still some information that scent and sound couldn’t provide, such as information recorded on paper, and certain physical items that had special functions.

But unfortunately, after a simple search, Xiang Kun found no useful information.

It could be possible that the kidnapper had carried away or disposed of all related items while moving out.

In this case, the main clues lie within these three men who remained here. It was yet to be known how much they knew about the kidnapping, the degree of their involvement, and if they knew where Xia Tianhuo has been moved to.

Feeling the three men outside checking the condition of the situation walking back, Xiang Kun leisurely strolled back into the previous room and softly closed the door.

The three men at the recycling depot found that the source of the strange noise was actually a pile of recycling scrap metals that had originally been piled nicely and stably.

They slightly checked around and found nothing unusual; of course, they didn’t bother to re-stack the scrap metal. As they were about to return to the house, another strange sound came from the scrap metal, so they checked again. They spent quite a lot of time and naturally found nothing, but their original nervousness had also subsided a lot, because it was obvious that it couldn’t be man-made, it must have been rats or wild cats. There had been many caught in the recycling depot before, so they didn’t mind and directly turned around to go back.

On the way back, the short, stout, and black-skinned man who had been sleeping on the sofa earlier couldn’t help but ask his companions, “I heard from my cousin that the situation on the street today is a little off. If Brother Kui’s business deal falls short, would anyone come to check us out? If Boss Wu Lun’s people come to inspect, we would die terribly…”

His Mandarin also had a heavy accent, but it was not a Gui Hai accent, but obviously a unique accent from Burma.

The man with the Buddha jade pendant around his neck who had been playing the game frowned and said, “We’re all still here, what are you afraid of! But I’m warning you, don’t fucking say anything outside, including to your fucking relatives, or else you will die even worse.”

This man’s accent was a clear Gui Hai dialect, but obviously, it wasn’t the voice of the kidnapper that Old Xia had recorded.

When they went back to the room, the two gamers wouldn’t let the short and stocky man sleep on the sofa anymore. They gave him a kick and told him to sleep in his room.

Of course, the room they were referring to was not the one where Xiang Kun was hiding now, as there was no bed in this room.

Xiang Kun also understood why the Burmese man, despite his stocky height, was reluctant to sleep in the room, but instead lingered in the living room to avail the couch – he had just looked into the other rooms. One of them had several beds, but either the beds were broken without any mattress or their mattresses were worn out like a rotten piece of tofu. Anyone sleeping on it could risk hurting themselves by a protruding spring, besides, the mattresses stank. Heading into the room itself would mean stepping into an untidy one, and without any air conditioner or fan, it was hot as hell. Even thinking about it was uncomfortable.

So the short guy tried to throw around some pleading looks but got cursed by the man wearing the jade pendant. Eventually, he pulled an old recliner into the courtyard to sleep.

Once the Burmese man lay down in the courtyard though, Xiang Kun heard him mumbling something in his native tongue constantly. He didn’t understand what it meant but could guess it was probably some kind of “greeting”.

The two inside the house had picked up their game controllers again, but their attention was no longer on the game. They started to converse in low voices, which was the exact reason why the guy with the jade pendant had sent the Burmese guy out.

“Actually, I’m kind of worried about what Tun Qin said… Brother Kui thought he was going to do some big business with Boss Wu Lun this time, however, the plan failed; we didn’t get the ‘goods’, and the guy was killed on spot. I’m sure Boss Wu is very unhappy. Now that the big boss overseas lost his son in a fit of rage, the Burmese authorities are sure to investigate. It’s only a matter of time before they find out about this place…” said the man with the jade pendant with some concern to his companion.

His companion, a man with parted long hair, spoke with the same accent of the Gui Hai region, clearly they were fellow countrymen: “It can’t be… Brother Kui planned the route back carefully last night. The police can’t track us easily, we’ve even dismantled the car, it’s impossible for them to trace it back here. Besides… since Boss Wu made Brother Kui kidnap Teng Li, he must have had some issues with his father. Although the kidnapping didn’t happen, he ended up dead… that’s basically like a torn up ticket right? That should’ve helped him get some heat off him, Boss Wu wouldn’t break bridges after crossing them right?”

“Crap! Are you stupid?! Boss Wu asked Brother Kui to kidnap Teng Li, not because of personal grudges, but because he wanted to force the big boss to partner on the big casino project! Now the big boss’s son is dead, what do you think will happen? I suppose Boss Wu hasn’t snitched on Brother Kui yet because they are both implicated in this, and they will both be a target of the big boss’s anger, so he’s still hesitating … but when things intensify, it’s hard to say,” replied the man with the Jade Pendant, evidently worried. “Why do you think Brother Kui suddenly changed his plan and kidnapped the big stupid guy to extort money from the Xia family? It’s clear as day he’s raising money to run!”

The long-haired man was speechless for a while because what his companion had said was making sense. He then asked stupefied, “So what’re we supposed to do? Is Brother Kui planning to take us back home?”

The man with the jade pendant sighed: “You’re really naive… What’s the situation at home now? Do you know the methods of the country’s police force? Are you trying to get kicked out? I don’t know where he plans to go either, but it certainly won’t be home. I suspect even Brother Kui hasn’t decided where to go yet, that’s why he’s just asked Xia family’s people to prepare the money, without specifying anything regarding the ransom. Now we need to be concerned about us… about ourselves.”

“You mean…Brother Kui is going to abandon us and run away himself?” asked the long-haired man nervously.

“I wouldn’t say he’d abandon us willingly, I’m worried in the face of a crisis, they might not be able to take care of us, after all… they’re all at sea now, you never know what might happen,” the man with the jade pendant shook his head.

However, their discussion didn’t yield any results, and by about one in the morning they each occupied a sofa and fell asleep.

After Xiang Kun made sure through perception that they were both asleep, he silently walked out of his room and went right next to the man with the jade pendant, placing a black circle graffiti established by Old Xia at the bottom of the sofa where he was sleeping, then returned to his room.

If it were daytime now, because of the urgency and need for completing the task as soon as possible so as to rescue Xia Tianhuo before the Blood-drinking Period, Xiang Kun might have directly decided to physically interrogate the men by pulling a mask over his face.

But since it was night time now and the people had to sleep, Xiang Kun naturally opted for the more efficient, more direct, and more covert “soul interrogation” – exploring with Old Xia’s “Dream in a Dream”.

Through the previous conversation among the three men, Xiang Kun had deduced that the man with the jade pendant among them had the most in-depth understanding and the most self-starting thoughts about the kidnapping case. Moreover, his decisions carried the most significant influence on the other two.

So, when he could only affect one person with a “Dream in A Dream” in a short period, Xiang Kun naturally chose him.

Xiang Kun had beforehand, in that same room, used a phone to communicate with Old Xia, who was now with Citong, his third uncle and aunt, and the police. He told her to find a chance to rest early in the evening and quickly introduced her to what he had learned about the situation. He then discussed their “Dream in A Dream” strategy with Old Xia.

Every time they executed this kind of “Dream in A Dream,” Xiang Kun and Old Xia would treat it as if they were shooting a “documentary” about the subject, coming up with a plan ahead of time. They had to study how to guide the “interviewee” to exhibit their true self, suppressed memories, and subconscious realities. At the same time, they also had to consider devising ways to affect the “interviewee,” so they would perform the behavior they needed upon awakening.

In this process, Old Xia was like the director and screenwriter, while Xiang Kun took over the rest of the tasks, including lighting, cinematography, and post-production special effects.

Once Xiang Kun confirmed through unanswered messages that Old Xia had fallen asleep, he started sensing “Emotion Infused Objects” around Old Xia and entered Dreamland.

Then it was Old Xia’s turn to wake up in the dream. According to the prearranged plan, she entered the “Dream in A Dream” through the black circle graffiti under the jade pendant man’s sofa and began the “arrangement”.

Under the skillful operation of Old Xia—a psychiatrist, a psychological counselor, a dream operator, and hypnotist—Xiang Kun learned some of the reasons and results behind the kidnapping incident through the jade pendant man’s recollections and “honesty.” He learned at least what had been known from the jade pendant man’s perspective.

In Myitkyina, a Burmese boss named Wu Lun wanted to partner with a prominent Burmese boss and surging entrepreneur to establish a large casino with official Burmese gambling license.

But that big boss didn’t want to cooperate with Boss Wu Lun. So, Boss Wu Lun turned to Brother Kui’s gang, who had committed crimes in the country and fled to Myitkyina to carry out illegal businesses. Boss Wu Lun asked them to kidnap the big boss’s son, Teng Li, to blackmail the big boss. He wanted to show the big boss some “colors” and make the big boss understand that cooperation would be a “win-win” situation.

Unexpectedly, an accident happened when Brother Kui was working, and Teng Li died on the spot.

Brother Kui probably realized the troubles were coming, so he kidnapped Tianhuo, who was rendered unconscious by an airbag in the passenger seat at that time, upon hearing that he was the son of a wealthy family from his homeland.

After kidnapping the person, Brother Kui personally went out to investigate Tianhuo’s background, which led to the later demand for a five million US dollar ransom from Tianhuo’s family.

According to the man with the jade pendant, Brother Kui kidnapped Tianhuo as part of his escape plan, intending to raise the money for the escape.

Early this morning, after making the phone call, Brother Kui took Tianhuo away by sea. This was actually the original plan, but the original target was no longer available.

In the initial plan, the man with the jade pendant and the man with long hair stayed here as the contact and informant for Brother Kui on land.

After knowing the specific situation, Old Xia followed the plan according to the information she got. She guided the man with the jade pendant in the “Dream in A Dream” and strengthened his idea that Brother Kui was about to flee.