Chapter 53: It’s Your Turn

“Sorry, I got it wrong… Ou Yu?” Lu Jin wore an expression as if he had seen a ghost.

Ou Yu wore a women’s dress and shook his head, his face full of that resigned indulgence of someone with no will to live.

The live stream chat had long been exploding with shocked laughter, filled with all sorts of stunned emoji reactions.

【Boss Lu, I’ll come over later. I didn’t expect these two’s live stream audience to be eating this well.】

【Ouyou has reached a new height of beauty. Wear women’s clothes more from now on.】

【The one behind the door, come out and do some business.】

“Come over for makeup.” Xiao Fen’s voice rang out from behind the door.

“I’ll pass on this one.” Ou Yu hurriedly pressed down his hand and straightened the wig on his head. “You don’t even know how to put it on properly. One gust of wind outside and it’ll fly off. Tengcha Town will have another ghost story by tomorrow.”

“What are you two up to?” Lu Jin pushed open the door and walked into the room. With the sound of the door, Xiao Fen slipped out from behind it.

He held a bottle of foundation in one hand and a compact in the other. On his head sat a long, straight black wig that draped smoothly down his entire back and arms, with straight bangs across his forehead. That face looked petite and refined. With black hair and red lips, he appeared aloof and mysterious when not smiling. But when his fox-like eyes curved, they sparkled with sly mischief, sweet in a way that didn’t seem real.

“Boss Lu? Boss Lu?” Ou Yu called out several times before he snapped back to reality.

It wasn’t just him. The moment Xiao Fen appeared, the live stream chat’s scrolling barrage came to a complete halt for several seconds, the text impossible to make out.

Lu Jin touched his nose and turned his head to the side. He asked, “Why didn’t he change his clothes too?”

A wig alone wasn’t enough.

Ou Yu blocked in front of Xiao Fen, completely shielding him from view, and smiled faintly. “What’s there to change? He doesn’t like it anyway. The wig was only because I begged him relentlessly as a trade-off. Look how awkward he is… Little Fen, don’t waste my compact.”

Xiao Fen guiltily set the compact down on the table behind him and couldn’t help but sneeze.

How did this guy have eyes in the back of his head?

“If there’s nothing else, we’ll leave it at that.” Ou Yu politely ushered him out.

Lu Jin hesitated in his steps and glanced at Xiao Fen several more times. The more he looked, the more the man resembled the doll in his niece’s hands—only with eyes far more brilliant and lively than any lifeless toy.

But before he could leave, Xiao Fen took off the wig.

“Since we’re skipping the makeup, let’s just go like this. Hurry up and head out.” Xiao Fen urged. “Time waits for no one.”

Ou Yu straightened the hem of his dress. It was his first time wearing one, and he always felt empty down there—truly awkward. He couldn’t even walk comfortably.

Xiao Fen burst out laughing. He earned a painless glare from Movie Emperor Ou.

This heartless guy didn’t even consider who it was all for.

“If my reputation gets ruined in today’s live stream, you’re taking responsibility tomorrow.”

“Alright, alright, just relax. I can afford to keep a Film Emperor.” Xiao Fen opened the room door, saw that no one was around, and pulled Ou Yu outside.

The live stream chat was all saying Xiao Fen had boasted too big. No matter Ou Yu’s net worth, what was Xiao Fen’s?

Lu Jin looked at the messy room. It felt like there had never been a place for him from start to finish.

At that moment, his phone vibrated. Someone had replied to his message.

“If it were you leading us, Boss Lu, you’d definitely do way better than him.”

Lu Jin hooked up the corner of his lips in satisfaction.

————

Ou Yu rode an electric scooter to Tang Qin Xin’s house while there were still sporadic figures on the streets.

He had come to investigate her home, but there wasn’t much to see. He wasn’t a professional vice squad officer. To him, everything in the house looked normal. There was nothing unusual about Guo Dongying’s personal belongings either.

After listening to Tang Qin Xin ramble on once more about Guo Dongying’s past glorious contributions to the town, he still didn’t notice anything off. So he asked for a photo and stuffed it into his pocket.

How could he look for a missing person without knowing what they looked like?

“What was your husband doing on the night he went missing?” Ou Yu asked. “Don’t people in town usually stay in after nine at night?”

“That’s because the town is so small. There’s nothing to do for entertainment after dinner, so they don’t like going out. Over time, who knows where the rumor started that you shouldn’t go out after nine at night or you’ll run into something unclean.” Tang Qin Xin said, “But my old Guo and I went out several times after nine and nothing happened. It’s just the villagers who are superstitious about it.”

“I remember it was pouring rain that night. I was taking a bath at the time and only recall someone coming to call him. By the time I came out, old Guo had already put on his raincoat. He said someone spotted the embankment on the east side of town about to be washed out, so he was going to check.”

She sighed, her voice choking. “The embankment was rock-solid, not a problem at all. The next day, they fished up a body from the well. Hooked on the corpse’s hand was his necklace—the jade Guanyin I gave him. I recognized the pattern and style.”

“Just that day when he went missing, old Guo had personally torn down the cover board over the Substitute Life Well and loudly told the townsfolk there was no such thing as a malevolent ghost rumor.”

“And after old Guo went missing…” Tang Qin Xin let out a long sigh, looking weary as she lowered her head.

Ou Yu was speechless for a moment.

————

Inside the pursuit team.

Fang Si Ting received the message that Ou Yu had disguised himself in women’s clothing that evening and secretly gone to Tang Qin Xin’s house.

Tang Shen said, “This afternoon, Xiao Fen and that woman specially went to Lakeside Village for a secret meeting. Then you deliberately went looking for him, startling the snake. Sure enough, it put him on alert, and he sent Ou Yu to meet her that night instead.”

“The network techs investigated her background. She’s not a local. Wife of the former town chief, settled here with her husband five years ago. Her husband went missing under strange circumstances a year ago, and nothing special since.” Peng Xiaoxiao said, then added her own analysis. “Though it looks like she might have killed her husband, this is real-world info. If she’d really done it, she’d have been caught long ago. From her behavior this past year, she seems a bit sensitive and neurotic. Low chance the program crew picked her as a criminal guest.”

She knew what Fang Si Ting was thinking—was Tang Qin Xin a criminal?

Both sides in the chase knew that anyone close to Xiao Fen was likely a member of the criminal team.

In the next day’s trafficking task, Fang Si Ting and Bai Zhu tracked Xiao Fen to Purple Gold Village. To their surprise, the task was real, but they arrived too late—the child had already been abducted.

According to statements from the old man at the village entrance and nearby residents, Xiao Fen and two others had been walking with a woman at the time.

From the description of the woman, facial recognition against the archives identified her as Tang Qin Xin.

Last night, according to the vice squad officer secretly tailing in town, Xiao Fen had Tang Qin Xin go home first to avoid attention, then called in someone else in a cover-up move to deliver the abducted child to her house.

Today, Xiao Fen met her privately.

Tonight, Ou Yu sacrificed his reputation and image by cross-dressing to sneak into her home. It seemed the criminal team had some plan in motion.

All signs pointed to Tang Qin Xin being the criminal behind the trafficking task.

If they burst into Tang Qin Xin’s house, they would surely find the child. With that human evidence, arresting criminal Tang Qin Xin would be straightforward.

The criminal team would lose another point.

Everything seemed above board and reasonable, but he always felt something was off.

That unease came from his understanding of Xiao Fen.

That afternoon at the bridge, he had cornered him precisely to drag him back to the inspection office for a proper grilling, dropping subtle hints that the pursuit team had eyes on him and the other criminals’ tracks. He wanted to observe his reactions.

From Xiao Fen’s demeanor and mood at the time, Fang Si Ting actually leaned toward Peng Xiaoxiao’s view: Tang Qin Xin wasn’t a criminal.

No matter how well someone disguised themselves, their true nature showed in the details.

They had just fought a couple days ago and parted on bad terms, but today the little expressions on this guy’s face couldn’t hide his smugness and showing off.

He knew this guy well enough. He was definitely digging another pit for him to fall into.

He had already profiled Xiao Fen countless times in his mind, from their first meeting right up to now.

Appearance, expressions, movements, demeanor, tone, psychology… Every night before bed, he reviewed it all in his head, checking for any oversights.

The person who understood you best was always your greatest enemy.

But at dinner, Xiao Fen had asked about profiling and said a bunch of mind games.

He knew him inside out, not just from the show—he’d also checked his online info and reported cases privately.

But that was the extent of it.

Was he deliberately sending false signals through his expressions to mislead him, making him mistake the real criminal Tang Qin Xin for a fake?

Tang Shen flashed his phone screen and said, “Boss, Tang Qin Xin is a criminal. She’s in their real group.”

Peng Xiaoxiao looked at him in disbelief. “Did I mess up my character analysis?”

Tang Shen chuckled. “This came straight from our spy in the criminals’ group.”

Ever since the escape program started, they had successfully planted a spy in the criminal team.

Now, they had full access to the real criminals’ group chat messages.

“Boss, what do you think?” Tang Shen asked.

“I still lean toward her not being the kind of criminal guest the program crew would pick.” Peng Xiaoxiao disagreed. “We can’t arrest the wrong person. What if she’s just a civilian and Xiao Fen’s smoke screen? Then all the criminals pass and we go straight to the chase phase.”

Scattering over twenty people on the run would be no small challenge for the pursuit team.

And that was exactly Xiao Fen’s plan.

Since the pursuit team was focused on their trio, they could feed false signals to get them to grab fake criminals and break the rules.

That way, they wouldn’t have to keep racking their brains against the pursuit team for tasks. They could skip straight to the second phase and end the show early.

Tang Shen said, “When have we ever guessed the program crew’s intentions right? Remember the first episode?”

Their thought processes were always bizarre.

But since it was live, they couldn’t say much more.

“Take it slow, wait for them to slip up.” Fang Si Ting couldn’t tell truth from fake for the moment. “Grab the other criminals first. We can nab this one on the last day.”

Real bait or fake, he needed to meet this Tang Qin Xin himself sometime.

————

Midnight.

The program crew sent a message.

Criminals No. 5 and No. 6 succeeded in their crimes.

Criminal No. 3 was on the run.

Then they released the fourth day’s criminal task.

Everything was going smoothly.

Too smoothly, as if the vice squad officers were napping, with no clues in sight.

Xiao Fen had a faint illusion, like the calm before a storm.

After the Tang Qin Xin issue came up, he directly disbanded the fake group.

Sending all those messages and guessing blindly wasn’t fun and just made things dizzying.

Today, he checked around the so-called Substitute Life Well at Tang Qin Xin’s place. He found nothing unusual. It was just an abandoned well, octagonal in shape, surrounded by a low wall of pebbles rising to calf height. A wooden pulley made of solid timber sat atop it. When he touched it, it was covered in dust, with fine spiderwebs and tiny bugs crawling on the coiled hemp rope.

Even without regular use, the well water didn’t look too dirty, though the walls had some dried moss.

The area around the well was an open clearing, surrounded on all sides by long-vacant houses built of gray bricks with black tiled roofs. They looked intact from the outside—no idea why no one lived there. The locks on the front doors had rusted over.

Everything seemed normal.

There was nothing wrong with the well.

Tang Qin Xin’s husband might have just gone missing. Not necessarily tied to the well.

From her demeanor, it seemed the town’s superstitious folk had her worked up into paranoia.

————

Escape day five, everything smooth.

The criminals from the previous days were highly capable. No matter the difficulty, they mostly succeeded without leaving much evidence.

Day six.

As usual, Xiao Fen waited a while for the task. When his phone stayed silent, he grabbed some clothes and went to shower.

Twenty minutes later, when he came back out, his phone was vibrating.

He casually dried his hands, tapped the green button, and propped up the phone while wiping his hair nearby.

“Little Fen, I got the task.”

It was Ou Yu’s turn.