Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo
Chapter 100 - 97 Shadow Swapping Monster 1

Chapter 100: 97 Shadow Swapping Monster 1

With so many people occupying the space on the streets, it wouldn’t be good to talk there, so we decided to head to the large restaurant opposite the nightclub, planning to choose a private room and sit down to talk.

Changan was watched by Zhu Shi and me as if he were a criminal, while Mazao observed him with a wary gaze.

At first, I didn’t understand what Mazao was wary of, but after a little while, I realized that unlike Zhu Shi and me, Mazao had not met Changan before and therefore did not have any preconceived emotions toward him. She probably suspected that Changan was the Shadow Swapping Monster.

After realizing the direction of her suspicion, I also gave it some thought. It wasn’t that I truly suspected Changan—or rather, it was precisely because I didn’t genuinely suspect Changan that I could consider the question of "Could my good friend possibly be the monster?" with a relatively relaxed mindset, almost as if I were doing a "mental exercise."

The conclusion was "no," Changan couldn’t possibly be the Shadow Swapping Monster.

The Shadow Swapping Monster had been committing crimes for quite some time, and even if we discounted the victim from the fifteenth floor, the monster had been active for at least three months. Unlike Agent Kong, who could transfer the "seed of the heart" to a stand-in puppet, it would be impossible to hide his monster identity under Zhu Shi’s watchful eyes.

Moreover, a careful observation of Changan’s palms made it clear that they were younger and slenderer compared to the severed hands of the Shadow Swapping Monster. Perhaps Mazao also noticed this, her gaze relaxing slightly.

While the others were talking to the front desk, Mazao tugged at my sleeve and whispered, "Zhuang Cheng."

"What’s up?" I whispered back.

"There’s a clue about the monster," she said seriously.

On hearing this, I immediately focused my attention, observing Changan and the others in front, and asked, "Where?"

"I don’t know," she said.

I was puzzled. If she didn’t know anything, why did she say there was a clue about the monster here?

She said confidently, "Based on my experience, when I’m dealing with strange events, if an accident occurs along the way, even if it seems unrelated to the event itself, it often contains 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 designed coincidences...

I really wanted to say this, but considering Mazao’s special constitution, which seemed to attract incidents like the protagonist of an adventure story, she might indeed frequently encounter such coincidences, and now was such an instance.

With this in mind, I took the unexpected meeting with Changan and Jinyu even more seriously.

We entered a private room in the restaurant and casually ordered a few dishes. Of course, Changan was to pay. The cold dishes and drinks were served quickly, and after the waiter left the room, we began to interrogate Changan.

Zhu Shi asked fiercely, "So, what exactly happened?"

"Well, you see, I’m a man, and men sometimes make mistakes..." Changan’s eyes darted around, clearly not planning to tell the truth, "I used to revel night after night in that nightclub, and suddenly being confined to staying at home was too much; I couldn’t help going there to let off some steam..."

Sitting next to him, Jinyu scoffed, "Who are you trying to fool? You’ve been specifically asking for me every time you came over the past two months. After asking for me, you’d do nothing serious, just dragging me to play video games and watch movies in the room. Is that your idea of night after night of revelry?"

"Don’t expose me like that!" Changan panicked.

"Excuse me, did I hear wrong? You just said that my friend frequently visited places of pleasure, yet never engaged in such pleasures, and he didn’t ask for anyone else but you... It sounds like he was solely targeting you for his visits to these places, and he didn’t even stop during this special period?" I said.

"Special period?" Jinyu frowned and then admitted, "That’s right, he was indeed targeting me. As to whether he fancied me and wanted to start a romance, I have no idea."

"What was it you bragged to me last time?" I turned to Changan, deliberately repeating his past words, "Going to the nightclub to find women establishes a pure relationship solely based on body and money; seeking a female classmate involves all kinds of messy emotions—but here you are without any physical relationship, right?"

Zhu Shi also looked at Changan, "So you mean... you actually haven’t played around with women there, at least not physically?"

"Ah haha..." Changan awkwardly averted his gaze, looking towards Mazao as if trying to change the subject, "Speaking of which, who is this young lady?"

Mazao did not respond to him but sat beside me, silently sipping her cola through a straw.

Seeing his brother behave so indecently, Zhu Shi could only turn to Jinyu and spoke with a polite yet distant tone, "May I ask, could you please explain the circumstances to us?"

"Okay. Since you’re his family and friends, then I will explain properly. Afterward, you can take him away and ensure he never goes to those kinds of places again," Jinyu nodded.

Hearing this, Zhu Shi’s expression softened a little, and she said, "Of course, that’s expected."

"Wait, wait..." Seeing that Jinyu was about to tell the whole story, Changan immediately stopped her.

Looking at us, his expression changed several times, and finally, he let out a long sigh and said to Jinyu, "I can’t let you speak of such things; it’s too... sigh, I understand, let me do it."

"This matter must be related to you being kidnapped and beaten by some strange entity recently. Don’t think of hoodwinking us or lying to us," I signaled to Zhu Shi.

Zhu Shi nodded in understanding, her expression changing subtly as she entered the state of using "Buzhou Mountain" to discern lies.

Jinyu, however, seemed puzzled, seemingly not comprehending what I was saying.

"I know, I will tell the truth..." After gathering his thoughts, Changan said, "Do you remember the rumors in university, the ones saying I often hung out with bad company and frequented establishments of ill repute? Some of that was actually rumor."

"Are you referring to the part about ’frequently visiting establishments of ill repute’?" I asked back.

"It’s the part about ’me bringing the bad company,’" he first negated, then said, "To be precise, I was the one being brought along..."

He began to recount the events to us.

And I, remembering Mazao’s previous hint, listened to his narrative intently, trying to pick out any clues related to the Shadow Swapping Monster.

First, although in college I had only Changan as a friend, the same wasn’t true for him. Despite his bad reputation, he had other friends.

They were all bad influences he had associated with when he used to be a rebellious troublemaker. Just like the former him, those friends were idle heirs to power and wealth. Although Changan had been distancing himself from them as of late, he hadn’t completely cut ties.

From an outsider’s perspective, it might seem his resolve to change wasn’t firm enough, but relationships between people are never so clear-cut. Even friends who contribute nothing useful have their moments of youthful loyalty and tangled sentiments that can’t be neatly resolved. When he used to get into fights, those friends never hesitated to throw punches on his behalf, and in those moments, genuine friendship wasn’t absent.

Therefore, faced with their occasional enthusiastic invitations, Changan couldn’t simply snub them outright and would make an appearance now and then. And it was after one such dinner that someone in the group suggested visiting a locale noted among the local high society for indulgence.

If they had suggested to harass or bully others, Changan would have walked away on the spot. But if it was a visit to a place for pleasure, he felt no resistance.

His understanding of such places essentially amounted to "consensual transactions," and although the mainstream social view deemed them corrosive to morals, he subjectively saw no harm in them; he had never been one to concern himself with moral scruples. Driven by curiosity and the enthusiasm of his questionable friends, he went with the flow and entered the wine tasting club.

Afterward, he and his friends, each accompanied by a chosen woman, went into separate private rooms. His choice at the time happened to be Jinyu.

It was the first time the two of them met.

Like Changan, who had never visited such a nightclub before, it was also Jinyu’s first time being in contact with clients in that special capacity. Her nervousness and reluctance were so obvious that even a newbie like Changan could spot it immediately.

Saying he was a newbie didn’t mean Changan was reticent or shy; he wasn’t so timid that he couldn’t make a move on the women there. But, having turned over a new leaf, he lost interest when he spotted her unintentional resistance.

Still, to leave without accomplishing anything would likely earn the ridicule of his so-called friends. So, he resolved to at least spend the night in the room. During that time, he started to talk with Jinyu.

Perhaps it was the emotional breakdown, but Jinyu inadvertently shared too much, revealing her motives for working at the pleasure establishment in her disjointed speech.

Changan braced himself at first, thinking that it wasn’t surprising for women to work there out of difficult circumstances, such as a family in debt or selling oneself to pay it off; or it might just be for the sake of gold-digging and vanity, cheapening oneself under the pretense of profiting from youth.

In his worst-case scenarios, he imagined that Jinyu might confess to being blackmailed by bad people into such a lifestyle. But he had only seen such storylines in low-budget "action movies" and struggled to feel they could overlap with his own reality.

However, Jinyu’s actual motive far exceeded his imagination, and upon hearing it, Changan felt as if his mind exploded.

The reason Jinyu had joined the establishment wasn’t for money or because she was being blackmailed; it was because her own biological father was a regular client there.

She intended to use her own body to set a trap for her biological father.