RALP Chapter 82

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You Haoyu has gone missing.

It was certain by the next day.

He’s not home. His phone is turned off. Nothing is getting through.

When they went to retrieve CCTV footage, they realised that the one pointed at the back entrance has been broken for about a week. Nobody is sure where You Haoyu went once he left the building.

Though the photos from the fans actually served to help, as they managed to even take photographs of their idol getting onto the car. Despite the shakiness, the license number is visible.

It is registered under Xinwen Entertainment.

But all the drivers reported that they were not driving that night.

Currently even the police are stumped.

This situation is urgent. Agent Wu is in a bit of a panic, though he does not want to appear incompetent or negligent, so he was waiting for the person to be found or, at least, for there to be clues before reporting it himself, when he suddenly receives a call from the CEO.

You Haoyu was supposed to be transmigrated last night, but he never came.

Agent Wu says what he could to calm both his boss and himself down, but resumes to panic when he hangs up.

What a thing to suddenly happen when the company was finally starting to look up.

You Haoyu might be a difficult and aggressive person to deal with, but he is never irresponsible enough to pull something like disappearing without informing anyone. There is definitely someone behind all this.

Who was it?

Du You himself, meanwhile, decides to call the agent he once employed to keep an eye on Xiao Tiantian after hearing that agent Wu is just as flustered.

He tells his contact the license number, and they immediately get to work.

This city has an entire network of CCTV, and since the time and location he was last seen are both known, and the vehicle is also known, it will just take a bit of time to track him through the cameras.

The team of professionals thought it would be easy work, but, they are very quickly stupefied when they hacked into the city’s traffic information database.

It must have been intentional. How else could the car have manoeuvred to avoid so many cameras after leaving Xinwen Entertainment? The building itself is way out of the city, but checking on-ramps of all outgoing highways from that location turned up nothing. Then this must have meant that the car weaved through the outer city streets that does not have as dense a CCTV network, while being aware of where they would be on the way.

With that in mind, and knowing that a normal business van couldn’t drive efficiently on unpaved roads, they checked the minority of roads with inadequate CCTV coverage surrounding the city with their own agents in the field, and finally finds the abandoned vehicle by a narrow alleyway.

Then they collected what samples they could, but the driver’s seat is good as new – no fingerprints, or footprints, or even a lock of hair. It is the same for a one hundred metre radius beyond the car. They cannot even conclude if this was even where they actually got off the car.

Thus, even if it meant admitting their own incompetence, they had to call up their employer a few hours after he employed them, to tell him there is nothing they could do.

They could only tell him that the driver, or the perpetrator guiding him, is extremely familiar with all roads of and just beyond the city and the distribution of surveillance cameras on them, which is only possible if they have hacked into or have access to the central database of the government department. Since they could not find a single trace of illegal access, they must either have even greater skill in hacking than their entire team combined or is a high-ranking official.

Du You hangs up, and falls into deep thought mulling over the contact’s information.

That is when there is a knock on the office door.

Du You tells them to come in.

It’s assistant Xiao, who has come to report on the work done during the afternoon.

She should excuse herself after doing so, but instead, this time she is still standing there, hesitant.

“Anything else?”

She asks, sounding uncertain, “Mr. Du, do you really plan to leave the company…”

In the hands of the Shen Conglomerate?

The prerequisite work has been completed over most of May, but the assistant still felt as if it was all a dream. It’s hard to believe.

He nods, replying, “don’t worry, you will still be working the same job.”

It is just that the controlling stockholder will be the Shen Conglomerate, who will probably dispatch a new CEO or promote the existing Vice Executive to handle the company affairs.

Assistant Xiao was asking about something else, however.

She just didn’t expect him to leave all this behind, cutting everything off so completely before leaving the country.

She has worked enough years and seen enough dismissals to be content with changing jobs or even getting fired. But, it is the first time she has grown so attached, has felt such a personal connection to her work.

But what’s done is done. She is just a simple assistant. It isn’t her place to speak.

“… Alright. I will work hard to see that your decision is executed properly.”

Though then Du You calls her.

“Wait.”

The woman pauses, and looks back with a raised brow.

“Tell Qin…” Du You then corrects himself, “tell the intern to come in.”

It’s already evening, and the setting sun is angled just right to be visible from this angle now.

Du You is watching the sun from his seat at the desk.

He told Qin Ge about ‘leaving’ at around this time of day that day, too.

‘Knock knock.’

Du You turns his chair back around, saying, “come in.”

Qin Ge comes in, and shuts the door behind him.

“Did you call for me?”

Du You stands up from his chair, and says, “I have something to ask.”

Qin Ge smiles, “what is it?”

Du You asks frankly, “were you home last night?”

Qin Ge doesn’t seem surprised at the question at all, “no.”

“…” Du You continues, “how much do you know about You Haoyu going missing?”

Qin Ge seems to fall into thought with his hand rubbing his chin, before raising his eyes to meet with Du You’s, and asks in return, “gege, why are you asking me?”

Du You also feels uncomfortable suspecting Qin Ge, but, when it comes to unparalleled hacking and IT expertise, he can’t help but think of him.

He is the one that managed to almost succeed in single-handedly crippling the entire Shen Conglomerate for Xiao Tiantian’s sake before.

Du You asks, “do you not know anything about it?”

Qin Ge sighs lightly, “what do you think I would know about that?”

Du You stares at him for a bit before looking away, “nevermind then,” then, he says, “tonight is the deadline, so come to my house before midnight tonight.”

The system can only transmigrate someone from close range. Ryan will also be at home tonight, and he’s going to transmigrate him away tonight as well.

The only problem is You Haoyu now. If he fails to find him before midnight, then both Shen Chen and You Haoyu would disappear.

He cannot even imagine what kind of being would come out of this.

Therefore, he has to focus. So that the worst does not come to pass, he must find that person as quickly as possible.

Suddenly, Qin Ge says, “I can help you, gege.”

Du You was about to take his phone back out, and he can’t help but stop and look back at Qin Ge.

He is staring fixedly at him, his eyes seemingly sparkling, “can you come back with me if I find that person for you?”

That question again?

Du You thought it was settled the last time already.

“Did you not want to stay with me in the modern world after all?”

Qin Ge chuckles, but the smile is rather chilling in appearance, then he says coldly, “and watch how the two of you end up together?”

Du You stops in shock.

“I see. Then gege should just do what you think you should,” Qin Ge’s face turns back to usual, gentle, and kind, “there are other ways of looking for someone, you know.”

Other ways?

Qin Ge is not interested in providing an answer, however, and says, “tonight, I’ll come when gege tells me to.”

“Because compared to me, you seem to be more concerned about that person.”

Du You stays quiet for a bit, before saying, “alright.”

In the car on his way home, Du You is pondering about the words Qin Ge said.

Other ways.

Modern technology is not working.

He has never bitten You Haoyu, so he cannot locate him via his powers like he did with Ryan.

“…”

Ryan. He suddenly recalls something.

The car stops in front of the mansion. The moment he enters, a white form quickly lunges forth.

Du You has become used to this welcoming ritual everyday now, and adeptly catches him, and puts him back onto the ground. Ryan lands with hind legs first, and Du You notices he is holding a small, black thing with his mouth, and so, he takes it, and asks, “what is this?”

Ryan turns back to his human form, his arms still leaning on Du You’s arm. He declares happily and confidently, “I don’t know!”

The black thing is full of drool from the white wolf. It is barely larger than a human thumb.

Du You examines it for a while, and concludes, “it looks like a black bean, but is much harder and metallic in texture.”

System [Can you not think about food for one second?! This is actually, oh my god! It’s actually a surveillance camera!]

Du You does not recall having bought such a thing.

“There are more of these things around!” Seeing Du You interested, Ryan drags Du You by the hand towards the living room.

There are many more mini spy cameras of the same make scattered on the carpet in the living room floor, and also something the system identifies for him as a miniature recording device.

The system exclaims in horror [Holy, are these all peeping at you? Voyeurism?! These are definitely criminal already!]

Du You asks Ryan, “where did you find them?”

Ryan ‘aroos,’ and says, “on the ceiling (TL: WTF how?!), and on the floor.”

That means that the entire house is under this thing’s watch.

According to Ryan, he caught a weird smell all of a sudden so he went to investigate, and found these things out.

Du You puts the device in his hand down and stares at it for a bit before turning to Ryan, asking, “you can find people, can’t you?”

The system thought its host was going to deal with the surveillance, but Du You suddenly brought up something else.

[Wait, host, are you going to let this go?!]

Du You ignores it, and waits patiently for Ryan to reply.

Ryan nods blankly seeing his lover suddenly looking so serious.

“You Haoyu has gone missing.”

Besides his lover Ryan does not care about anybody else, including their name, so he only reacts dramatically after thinking about the name for a while.

It’s the weakling he went after once!

Du You takes a look at his watch. Despite hurrying home as soon as he could, there’s less than six hours to midnight now.

“We must find him quickly. Do you remember his scent?”

Ryan nods, but then shakes his head.

While Ryan took the time to gather and remember everyone’s scent for Xiao Tiantian’s revenge before, it’s been a while now, and he cannot recall very clearly.

Hearing this, Du You quickly stands up and glances over to the guest room.

You Haoyu has lived in this room, though it’s more than a month ago. Would there be any scent left? The auntie has cleaned the room multiple times since then, after all.

Besides this place, there are two locations You Haoyu frequently visited.

Shanren Apartment, and Xinwen Entertainment HQ.

The driver is probably still close by. Du You takes his phone out, and calls for him to come back.

He and Ryan are quickly driven to Shanren Apartment. Ryan has been here once before, so he quickly turns back into his beast form and enters via the window, breaking the glass again.

The house seems to have been left alone for a while. The scent is very faint.

The white wolf paces about the living room once, sniffing along the way, before walking into the bedroom and pushes open the closet with his head.

There’s a few clothes remaining, but since they’ve been worn close to the skin previously, it is still enough for Ryan.

After remembering the scent, he leaps back out from the window, and turns back to human form in front of Du You, telling him, “I have remembered it!”

Du You nods, “then let’s go.”

The longer they delay the more uncertainty would arise. They need to move quickly.

Yet when he’s about to turn and rush to the car waiting outside the apartment complex, Ryan tugs at his clothes.

Ryan asks, “is that person really important to lover?”

It doesn’t seem to be the right time to discuss this.

Du You avoids the question, “you must all be sent away.”

Ryan tilts his head, and then he slaps his tail, and tells him, “it is quicker to ride on me.”

He snuggles his head closer to Du You, his ears visibly twitching, “I run faster than these cars in my beast form. And I can track the smell down more easily running outside. You should ride on me.”

Then, he turns back into his white wolf form. He taps on the dirt on all fours while snuggling his head on Du You’s waist, trying to get him to ride on him.

Du You kneels and caresses the white wolf on the head, and whispers into his ear, “I am able to follow you, let’s go.”

Does his lover not want to ride on him?

The white wolf is a bit bummed. He tries to pull on his clothes with his jaws slightly, but since he still isn’t moving, he takes a few steps forward.

He looks back at his lover once more, and then, he suddenly leaps onto the roof of the building in front of him like a flash of white lightning.

Du You thought that the white wolf might slow down if he had to carry him on his back. He quickly follows suit.

The air is slapping at them like gale force winds, and their clothes flutter audibly in the wind.

In his beast form, Ryan’s ears are extremely sensitive, so he can clearly hear the person behind him following closely.

Before, when he was carrying Xiao Tiantian, since he was a simple human, he slowed himself down for his sake.

Xiao Tiantian himself actually also wanted him to be slow enough for people to take photos and videos that time too, so that his imagined ‘culprit’ would look for him.

This time, though, he can go at his full speed.

He is cruising through the urban jungle at the maximum speed he is able to without a care in the wind. It is too quick for human eyes to capture; though they would feel as if a strong breeze has just brushed them by.

He and Du You leap from building to building. Every so often, Ryan would stop to confirm the direction of the scent.

They gradually leave the city limits behind, and arrive at a remote coast.

The wind is strong here. Night brings the shorebound wind back onto land, and waves along with it, splashing against the coastline.

This is apparently an abandoned fishery with a factory and several abandoned factories scattered around it. It is completely deserted, not a single soul in sight.

The smell of fish and the water is starting to obstruct the scent, and Ryan slows down more and more, until he comes to a stop right next to the coast.

He turns his head and looks behind him. His dark green eyes are glowing in the dark.

Du You also comes to a stop. He looks around him. There is no You Haoyu in sight.

“Is he here?”

Ryan nods. The smell of rotting fish and rusting metal is too strong here and so he can’t pinpoint his target’s scent. It should be around here, however.

Du You takes another look at his watch.

Tick. Tock. Three hours to midnight.

Just in case, Du You looks back at the white wolf, telling him, “I’ll transmigrate you back first.”

The white wolf glows white, and turns back human.

“No,” Ryan sniffs again, and says, “there is a bad scent here. If something happens, I can protect you!”

Though Du You doesn’t need it.

Yet, if his time spent alongside company has taught him anything, it’s to think before speaking his mind.

He replies, “thank you.”

If Ryan doesn’t want to leave yet, then the next order on the list is quickly locating You Haoyu.

Du You says, “I will move at my maximum speed. So if you can’t follow behind, wait here. I will come back for you after I find him.”

Ryan felt like his lover is underestimating him and he is about to break out into a smile before Du You suddenly disappears right in front of his eyes.

Ryan “…”

Te-, teleportation?!

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TL’s notes: … The people of the apocalypse really are lucky, in a certain sense, that Du You ‘the Zombie King’ (?) is more interested in living alongside them than being, you know, the Zombie King. Hey, I guess that research facility was worth something in the end, after all, for preventing the extinction of the entire human race, right? Hehe.