Chapter 98 The Shadow Changer 1

It wasn't appropriate for so many people to be taking up space on the street to talk, so we went to a large restaurant across from the nightclub and planned to choose a private room to sit down and talk.

Chang'an was watched by me and Zhu Shi like a prisoner, while Ma Zao observed him with a wary gaze.

At first, I didn't understand what Ma Zao was wary of. After a while, I realized that unlike me and Zhu Shi, Ma Zao had never met Chang'an before and didn't have any preconceived feelings towards him. I guess she suspected that Chang'an was the Shadow Changer.

After realizing the direction she might be suspecting, I also thought about it a little. It wasn't that I really suspected Chang'an—or rather, it was precisely because I didn't genuinely suspect Chang'an that I was able to ponder the question of "whether my good friend might be a weirdo" with a relatively relaxed, almost "mental exercise" mindset.

The conclusion is "no," Chang'an could not possibly be the Shadow Changer.

The Shadow Changer has been committing crimes for a long time. Even excluding the victim in the fifteenth-floor room, the Shadow Changer has been operating as a monster for at least three months. It's impossible for Detective Kong, who can transfer the Heart Seed to a Stand puppet, to hide his monster identity under Zhu Shi's nose.

Moreover, a close look at Chang'an's hands reveals that, compared to the Shadow Man's severed hand, Chang'an's hands are noticeably younger and more slender. Perhaps noticing this, Mazao's gaze relaxed slightly.

While the others were talking to the receptionist, Ma Zao tugged at my sleeve and whispered, "Zhuang Cheng."

"What's wrong?" I asked in a low voice.

“There are clues about a strange person,” she said seriously.

Upon hearing this, I immediately focused my attention, observing Chang'an and the others ahead, and asked, "Where are they?"

"I don't know," she actually said.

I didn't understand her meaning. If she didn't know anything, why would she say there were clues about strange people here?

She stated with considerable certainty, "Based on my experience, when I encounter strange events, if an unexpected event occurs along the way, even if the unexpected event seems unrelated to the event itself, it is very likely to contain clues that can bring us closer to the core of the event."

How could that be? Reality isn't a fictional story; how could there be such perfectly timed coincidences...?

That's what I originally wanted to say, but considering Asaha's special ability to attract events like an adventure story protagonist, she might actually encounter similar coincidences frequently, and this is exactly what happened.

Thinking of this, I took the unexpected encounter with Chang'an and the goldfish even more seriously.

We went into a private room at the restaurant and ordered a few dishes casually. Of course, Chang'an was to treat us. The cold dishes and drinks were served quickly, and after the waiter left the room, we began interrogating Chang'an.

Zhu Shi asked with a fierce look in his eyes, "So, what exactly happened?"

"Well...you see, I'm a man too, and I make mistakes sometimes..." Chang'an's eyes darted around, clearly not intending to tell the truth. "I used to party every night at that nightclub, and suddenly I had to stay home. I was really feeling stifled, so I couldn't help but go there to vent..."

Upon hearing this, the goldfish sitting next to him sneered, "What are you pretending for? For the past two months, every time you came, you specifically asked for me. After that, you didn't do anything productive. All you did was drag me into the room to play games and watch movies. Is this how you indulge in your nightly revelry?"

"Don't expose me!" Chang'an cried out anxiously.

“Excuse me, did I hear you wrong? You just said that my friend frequents brothels but never does anything, and he doesn’t name anyone but you… It sounds like he’s only going to brothels because he’s targeting you, and he hasn’t stopped even during this special time?” I said.

"Special period?" Goldfish frowned at first, then admitted, "That's right, he is indeed targeting me. As for whether he's interested in me and wants to have a relationship with me, I don't know."

"How did you brag to me last time?" I turned to look at Chang'an, deliberately repeating his past words, "Going to nightclubs to find women, you establish a pure relationship based solely on sex and money, but when you go to female classmates, you have to talk about all sorts of messy feelings—doesn't that mean you're not establishing any physical relationship at all?"

Zhu Shiye looked at Chang'an: "So... you didn't actually sleep with any women there, at least not physically?"

"Haha..." Chang'an awkwardly looked away and turned to Ma Zao, seemingly trying to change the subject, "Speaking of which, who is this little sister?"

Ma Zao didn't respond to him, but just sat silently next to me, focusing on drinking her cola through a straw.

Seeing his brother in such a state, Zhu Shi could only turn to the goldfish and speak in a polite yet distant tone: "Excuse me, could you please explain the whole story to us?"

“Okay. Since you are his family and friends, I will explain it to you properly. After that, you can take him away and tell him never to go to that kind of place again.” Goldfish nodded.

Upon hearing this, Zhu Shi's gaze softened slightly, and she said, "Of course."

"Wait, wait..." Upon seeing the goldfish, Chang'an was about to tell him the whole story, but he stopped him.

He looked at us, his expression changing several times, and finally let out a long sigh. He said to the goldfish, "I can't let you say such things yourself, that would be too... Sigh, I understand, I'll say it myself."

"This matter is probably related to the time you were kidnapped and beaten by those strange creatures a while ago, right? Don't try to fool us or lie to us." I gestured to Zhu Shi.

Zhu Shi nodded to indicate that he understood, his eyes changing slightly as he entered a state of using "Mount Buzhou" to discern lies.

The goldfish seemed puzzled, as if it couldn't understand what I was saying.

“I know, I will tell you the truth…” Chang’an said after organizing his thoughts, “Do you remember the rumors in college, the ones about me going to brothels with my cronies? Actually, part of that was a rumor.”

"You mean the part about 'frequently visiting brothels'?" I asked back.

"It refers to the part about 'bringing along my bad friends'," he initially denied, then added, "To be precise, I was the one being brought along..."

He began to tell us the whole story.

I, however, remembered Asahi's earlier instructions and listened attentively to his narration, trying to find clues related to the Shadow Man.

First of all, although I only had one friend, Chang'an, in college, Chang'an wasn't like that. Despite his bad reputation, he still had other friends.

Those were all his cronies from his days as a spoiled and arrogant young man. Like him in the past, they were all idle and privileged young masters. Although Chang'an had drifted further and further away from them, he had not completely severed ties with them.

From an outsider's perspective, one might think he lacked the resolve to change himself. But relationships between people are inherently complex and difficult to define. Even among friends who never engage in serious business, there's still a youthful sense of loyalty and tangled bonds of affection. When he got into fights before, those friends often stepped in to help, and there was undoubtedly some genuine friendship involved.

Therefore, Chang'an couldn't refuse all their enthusiastic invitations from time to time, and would occasionally show his face at them. It was after one of their dinner parties that someone suggested going to a well-known brothel among the local upper class.

If they said they were going to harass men and women, Chang'an would leave on the spot. But if they said they were going to a brothel, he wouldn't resist.

His understanding of brothels was roughly that they were "consensual transactions." Although mainstream society considered them immoral, he subjectively thought they were harmless, and besides, he had never been a person with high moral standards. Driven by curiosity about brothels and encouraged by his friends, he went along with the crowd. The location was that wine tasting club.

Afterwards, he and his friends took the women they had chosen into different private rooms, and the woman he had chosen was Jinyu.

That was when the two first met.

Like Chang'an, who was visiting this kind of nightclub for the first time, Jin Yu was also interacting with customers as a sex worker for the first time. Her nervousness and resistance were so obvious that even a novice like Chang'an could see through her immediately.

Although he was described as a novice, Chang'an wasn't exactly a naive virgin; he wasn't so intimidated as to be unable to make a move on the women in the nightclub. It's just that he's since reformed himself, and seeing the unconscious resistance the other woman was showing, he lost interest.

Even so, he feared that leaving "without accomplishing anything" would make him look down on by his cronies. So he decided to stay in the private room at least one night. During this time, he started chatting with the goldfish.

Perhaps due to a breakdown in emotions, Goldfish couldn't help but confide in someone she barely knew, incoherently revealing her motives for working in the entertainment industry.

Chang'an was mentally prepared at first. In his mind, it was not surprising that women who entered the sex industry had some unavoidable motives, such as being in debt and having to sell themselves to pay off their debts; or they might be purely driven by materialism and vanity, and despise their own bodies, with the idea of ​​making money with their youthful bodies.

In his worst-case scenario, the goldfish might claim that she was forced into prostitution because bad guys had something on her. However, he had only seen such things in some low-budget "action movies," and it was difficult for him to feel the reality of encountering something similar in real life.

However, the goldfish's motives far exceeded his expectations, and he was utterly shocked after hearing them.

The reason Jin Yu joined this brothel was neither for money nor to be used against her, but because her biological father was a regular customer of this brothel.

She wanted to use her body to frame her own father.

(End of this chapter)