Chapter 66 – Following

After returning upstairs, Su Lifeng was a little surprised to find that Jiang Yushi and Su Lian still hadn’t gone to sleep.

When he saw the two of them crowd around him with concern written all over their faces, a sudden warmth flowed through his heart.

So there were things besides experiments that could make him feel this relaxed.

“I brought you two some late-night snacks,” Su Lifeng said with a faint smile.

“Food!” Su Lian immediately snatched the takeout bag from him with lightning-fast reflexes. “I’m digging in!”

“There’s some for me too, right?” Jiang Yushi was too embarrassed to fight over it, so she asked in a very ladylike manner.

“Nope… Okay, I’m kidding. Come eat with me. Bro, you come too…”

In that moment, Su Lifeng suddenly couldn’t help but think how wonderful it would be if his precognition was wrong just this once.

How wonderful it would be if the end of the world never came…

After their late-night snack, Su Lifeng sorted through the items Cheng Feiwen had been carrying.

Aside from a few thousand yuan and some things that could be burned directly, he unexpectedly found a card among a stack of other cards.

“Isn’t this Zelong Trading?”

Although it wasn’t the same as that neighbor’s business card, the words Zelong Trading were indeed printed on it.

He hadn’t expected to see the company’s name twice within the span of a single hour. Though, admittedly, the first time had been the result of him trespassing in someone’s home…

The bad feeling he’d had when the call failed to connect immediately grew even stronger.

“Looks like I’ll have to go take a look,” Su Lifeng thought.

…

The next morning, Su Lifeng was woken by a ringing phone. When he checked the caller ID, he froze for a moment.

Gouzi?

“Su-Ge! Come quick, I’ve found something really important!” As soon as the call connected, Gouzi’s excited and anxious voice came through.

Su Lifeng instantly woke up completely. “Where are you? Mm. I’ll be there soon.”

After hanging up, Su Lifeng only then noticed from the screen that it was Saturday.

“I wonder if that ‘Crisis Survivalist’ was lying to me or not.” Before leaving, Su Lifeng turned on his computer and checked the post that was likely made by Ye Long. He discovered that the number of replies had already reached an astonishing two thousand-plus. Though it couldn’t compare to the old “Millennium Crisis” or “2012,” among the various doomsday crisis prediction threads from the past year, it was considered quite popular.

“It still hasn’t been deleted, and replies haven’t been locked?” Su Lifeng was a little surprised. These kinds of “rumor posts” were usually ignored, but once they attracted enough attention, the forum moderators would quickly deal with them.

With doubts in mind, Su Lifeng skimmed through the replies.

When he saw several of the comments, Su Lifeng suddenly felt his brow twitch.

One person had raised several questions in a row. Most were based on the content of the original post, but one of them read: “May I ask how you know all this, OP? From how detailed you’re being, did you experience it yourself? If possible, I hope you can contact me. Perhaps I can offer you some help.”

As for several other replies, most of them revolved around that user’s comment. At first glance, they didn’t seem connected to one another, but if one looked more closely, they were all urging the poster to accept the invitation.

However, aside from making that post, the original poster had never logged on again.

“These aren’t ordinary netizens…” Su Lifeng instantly came to that conclusion.

Ye Long’s IP address was in this city. Finding his approximate location wouldn’t be difficult. As long as one had the proper qualifications and contacted the forum administrator, it would be very easy to look up. Even a computer expert could do it without much trouble.

As for whether they could pinpoint his exact location, that was hard to say. After all, there were plenty of ways to get around that sort of thing. If the poster really was Ye Long, maybe he had some similar skill up his sleeve.

Maybe that was why those people had resorted to asking and baiting him online?

“I just wonder if the people questioning him are the police?” The thought had only just occurred to Su Lifeng when he refreshed the page again, and the post was gone.

“Hm? Deleted now?” Su Lifeng frowned. Without more clues, he had no way to make any deeper guesses.

Seeing that Jiang Yushi and the others were still asleep, Su Lifeng left a note telling them to stay safe and keep in touch, then drove out.

As he passed a street corner outside the residential complex, Su Lifeng noticed a patrol officer seemed to stare at his license plate for a couple of extra seconds before picking up his walkie-talkie and saying something.

“Keeping tabs on me?” Su Lifeng gave a cold snort, his suspicion of the middle-aged man from last night growing even stronger.

He had already fooled the man’s test when the man cut his arm with a knife, yet the other party was still watching him-and had even sent people to his doorstep this quickly.

“Looks like I’m being followed.” Su Lifeng glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a van parked by the roadside start up after him.

If he hadn’t noticed that patrol officer in advance, he probably wouldn’t have caught the van’s movement either.

“Follow me if you want…”

He had to be careful, yes, but he couldn’t just stop doing anything because someone had their eyes on him.

He still didn’t know what the other side’s goal was, but the Crisis of the end of the world was drawing closer with every step…

Both threats were serious, but to Su Lifeng, no matter what, improving his strength as quickly as possible was the most important thing.

“Right.” Su Lifeng suddenly thought of another advantage Gouzi had. He immediately made a call and briefly explained his situation.

“That’s no problem, Su-Ge. Leave it to me,” Gouzi promised over the phone.

A little over ten minutes later, Su Lifeng slowly drove to Holiday Plaza.

It was still morning, but there were already quite a few people here. Many store employees were doing exercises in the plaza and practicing etiquette.

Inside the van, the driver watched as Su Lifeng suddenly turned ahead and drove straight into the underground parking lot. He froze for a second. “Looks like he spotted us. Do we follow?”

Sitting in the back seat was none other than Lv Zifeng. He frowned, then nodded. “He’ll most likely abandon the car and leave. We’ll watch the front and back entrances of the mall.”

But several minutes passed, then half an hour, and they still didn’t see anyone come out…

The police officer disguised as the driver ran inside to search, then returned with a gloomy report. “I checked the surveillance footage. He never went in.”

“What about the car?” Lv Zifeng pressed.

“It’s still parked down there.” The officer sounded deflated, and a little indignant too. “Captain Lv, I really didn’t expect we’d get shaken off by some kid… The way I see it, there’s definitely something wrong with him. But he’s not one of the Xenospecies either…”

“I never said he was one of the Xenospecies,” Lv Zifeng said, then didn’t elaborate further. Leaning back against the seat, he suddenly sighed. “When I see him, I think of my daughter… Xiao Wu, since we’ve lost him, he probably won’t be back anytime soon. Let’s go take a look at Ningnan University.”

Half an hour earlier…

After driving into the parking lot, Su Lifeng opened the door, got out, and walked straight toward another car that had just pulled out of a parking space.

The moment the door opened, he slipped inside. Greeting him was Gouzi’s reverent voice. “Hello, Su-Ge.”

“Hey,” Su Lifeng replied.