We arrived at a bustling street in the new district, right across from our target location.

  It looked like a lavishly decorated bar, but the sign outside revealed it was actually a members-only wine club. Every now and then, a few people would come and go through the opulent entrance, all dressed to the nines. Even the greeters were impeccably attired, clearly well-trained.

  This was obviously an exclusive spot where outsiders weren't welcome. In fact, ordinary folks wouldn't even think about stepping inside, let alone qualify for entry, just from the sheer grandeur of the place.

  Though the shadow swapper targeted local elites for his kills, it seemed he himself held a position of wealth or power in society. Otherwise, he couldn't casually frequent a members-only upscale venue like this.

  Or maybe his role wasn't as a customer, but as a server, or even the owner?

  We didn't approach recklessly. Instead, we hung back at a distance, observing carefully while keeping an eye on the people entering and exiting the wine club.

  "Is this the place?" I asked.

  Alice nodded confidently. "Yes, it is."

  "Do you know what's going on inside?" Zhu Shi asked.

  "No idea. The fragments I extracted were too shattered. If I had a few more days, I could piece them together. But with just one night, all I could figure out was that 'the freak shows up here from time to time,'" Alice replied.

  "From time to time... So, he might not even be in there right now?" Zhu Shi pressed.

  "He doesn't come every day, and when he does, it's usually at night." Alice paused to think. "But I'd bet he's in there right now, nine times out of ten."

  "What's your reasoning?" Zhu Shi asked curiously.

  "Because I'm here," Alice said matter-of-factly. "I've come straight for the anomaly, so it's bound to show up nearby. Sure, that freak still barely counts as human—or at least he thinks he does—but he qualifies as an anomaly. It wouldn't surprise me if he attacked us right now."

  Before meeting Alice, my investigations into weird events always came up empty-handed. But Alice? She's a magnet for them—she's guaranteed to encounter the supernatural every time.

  She doesn't even need to hunt them down; the weird stuff comes looking for her instead.

  That's exactly what's happening now. If we treat tracking this freak as probing a supernatural incident, then the spot she's led us to is guaranteed to have something spooky. "Guaranteed" might be a stretch, but assuming we'll hit the bullseye isn't a bad bet.

  What an enviable trait. Luckily, I get to benefit from it now too.

  Unlike me, Zhu Shi's knowledge of Alice's jinx-like aura was mostly hearsay. She just muttered, "That's insane," then pulled out her phone to contact Lu Youxun. She told him the name of the wine club and asked him to dig up some info.

  True to his expertise in gathering intel, Lu Youxun sent over detailed files not long after Zhu Shi hung up.

  In the meantime, I released my "fireflies" to sneak into the wine club across the street.

  The "fireflies" had been upgraded: they could now store more preset commands and even record their surroundings, letting me review "footage" later.

  Sadly, those new features weren't useful here. I just manually controlled a few to infiltrate the club. Even if someone spotted these "sparks," it probably wouldn't raise alarms, but to be safe, I had them slip in through vents and window cracks instead of the front door.

  After a quick sweep inside, I soon got a basic sense of what the wine club was really about.

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  It wasn't nearly as glamorous as it appeared from the outside.

  In short, it was all show on the surface, rotten to the core underneath.

  Around the same time, Zhu Shi seemed to grasp the club's true nature from the files Lu Youxun had sent to her phone.

  "This place is actually a 'nightclub'..." Zhu Shi said with disgust.

  "A nightclub?" Alice asked, puzzled.

  "Put simply, the outer areas are just what they claim—a spot for tasting and appreciating fine wines. But deeper in, there are women offering 'special services,' along with full massage, bathing, and lodging facilities." I observed the interior.

  Whether for privacy or kink, the customers inside wore various headgear, and some of the women sported flashy masks, hiding their real faces like a masquerade ball.

  The headgear even seemed to include voice changers, making everyone's speech sound bizarre.

  Facing Alice's youthful face, I couldn't bring myself to be more explicit, so I glossed over it with "special services."

  In this post-apocalyptic era, there might even be women trading those services for survival resources, perhaps more blatantly than in peacetime. I kept it brief, and Alice nodded understandingly, without any shock.

  "You can see inside?" She was more curious about that.

  I quickly explained my "firefly" ability, then said, "Even if the shadow swapper is in there now, he'd be in human form. I couldn't pick him out. Alice, did you get a look at his human appearance from that finger?"

  "No," Alice shook her head.

  Even with the headgear and masks, I could merge my senses with the ambient heat to see the real faces underneath. But without knowing what he looked like, it was pointless.

  That left tracking other features.

  Like "scars."

  "You chopped off the shadow swapper's real hand last night. With a freak's regeneration, could he heal it seamlessly overnight?" I asked.

  "If it were a demon from the apocalyptic era, sure. But for a freak in this time..." Alice seemed unsure.

  Zhu Shi gave a definitive answer: "According to Lu Youxun's info, for something like a missing hand, a freak wouldn't even need half a night to fully regenerate it."

  So much for tracking via wounds... I pondered, then asked Zhu Shi: "When the freak's in human form, can your 'Buzhou Mountain' see through to his true identity?"

  "It can, but without knowing who to target, we'd have to check everyone one by one," Zhu Shi mused.

  "Demons... freaks can sense soul auras. They struggle to differentiate ordinary people's souls, but they're sharp on those with strong mana, pinpointing them accurately." Alice shook her head. "We've fought this one before, so he's probably memorized our auras. If we go checking suspects individually, we'd tip him off before we even reach him—he'd bolt."

  "Can't we mask those auras? You mentioned using meditation to hide yours before," I said.

  Zhu Shi offered a gentle counter: "I can hide my aura, but for a freak who senses souls, having people with no detectable soul aura suddenly show up and start screening suspects would still set off alarms."

  We seemed to be at an impasse.

  I could observe everyone without being noticed, but I lacked the insight to spot the freak. Zhu Shi had the insight, but no way to observe undetected.

  If only we could link our senses... No, even if possible, it might not work. Lu Youxun once tried beaming info straight into my mind, but my own power repelled it, nearly injuring him. Connecting minds could be risky.

  "Maybe I can stake out the place and wait for him to leave through the door," Zhu Shi suggested.

  "That probably won't work," Alice shook her head. "I haven't dug deep enough yet, but from two months ago, he stopped using normal ways to come and go... It doesn't look like shadow teleportation—no sudden blackout in the traces I followed. He's likely using his swap ability to move between here and elsewhere."

  "Using swaps to create an alibi, avoiding ties to a sleazy spot and protecting his human social standing—that makes sense... But why not shadow teleport? Is it more draining? Or even for a freak, diving into the shadow realm is risky?" Zhu Shi pondered.

  "If he's using swaps, my 'fireflies' monitoring everyone inside won't catch anything. His shadow clone can mimic human form, and the switch happens seamlessly, with no change in posture," I said. "But if that's the case, maybe I can narrow suspects to 'people who've been in the club for extended periods without leaving.'"

  "I could keep probing that finger—give me a few days, and I'd nail his identity. But..." Alice seemed to spot another issue.

  "After clashing with us last night, he knows the Luo Shan Impermanents are onto him. Would he really stick around Saltwater City long-term?" Zhu Shi mused.

  "But if he's that paranoid, why hit up a nightclub now of all times?" Alice wondered.

  From a guy's perspective, I offered: "Maybe the survival stress is what drives him to seek some comfort in a den of pleasure."

  Alice nodded as if enlightened. "I see..."

  Zhu Shi gave me a look like she wanted to say something but held back. Junior Sister Zhu, if you've got thoughts, just spit them out—holding back like that stings a bit.

  I refocused on the problem at hand.

  If the shadow swapper really fled Saltwater City, we'd never track him down. An enemy with shadow teleportation on the run? It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Clues to the freak makers, the Humane Division, and the apocalypse would vanish too.

  Naturally, I'm dying of curiosity about those leads, but beyond that, this is personal—the freak tried to kill Chang'an.

  I can't let the would-be murderer of Chang'an just slip away.

  Just then, Zhu Shi's phone rang.

  She glanced at the caller ID, froze for a second, then answered. I didn't use my "fireflies" to eavesdrop, but whatever was said, her face turned to shock.

  "What?" she exclaimed in alarm. "Brother's missing?"