Underwear was out of the question, but luckily he had left a few sets of spare clothes in the dorm for emergencies. After showering, William Thompson carefully washed his now less-than-pristine under...wear.

William Thompson was a bit of a neat freak, but unfortunately, the underwear was high-end—two hundred yuan a pair—so he couldn’t bear to throw it away. A man should learn to be frugal, but he must have a few pairs of expensive sneakers and some classy underwear.

That’s what his sister said.

William Thompson asked, what about women?

His sister’s answer: Why should women be frugal?

It wasn’t until the soap had scalded his palm red that he was finally satisfied, wrung it dry, and hung it on the dorm balcony. Then he went downstairs and called Jessica Reed, but her phone was off, so he headed straight toward the girls’ dorm.

The girls’ dorm wasn’t far from the boys’—just a five-minute walk. He arrived downstairs, caught a girl, and said, “Excuse me, could you please call Jessica Reed from 502 for me?”

The girl looked him up and down, seeming to take him for one of Jessica Reed’s admirers. With a crisp “Oh,” she said, “Wait here a moment.”

She ran inside with long strides, and a few minutes later, a head poked out from the window at the end of the fifth-floor corridor, right above William Thompson. The girl from before called out, “Hey, Jessica Reed is on leave, she’s not in the dorm.”

William Thompson frowned and replied, “Oh, thanks.”

At this point, he didn’t need to ask Watson to know something fishy was going on.

Should he call the police?

But if he did, what would he say?

Officers, I have a secret to report: Zhang Mingyu’s death is connected to Jessica Reed... How do I know?

Oh, I’m a legendary descendant of ancient demons—I can see ghosts!

If the police believed that, they’d really be seeing ghosts.

Jessica Reed, like him, didn’t live on campus; she rented an apartment nearby. As friends of many years who got along well, William Thompson naturally knew Jessica Reed’s address.

He planned to go check it out. If she wasn’t at her apartment and he still couldn’t reach her, he’d call the police.

To be safe, William Thompson called Grandma Thompson for advice and briefly explained the situation.

On the other end, he heard the clatter of a keyboard and Grandma Thompson’s crisp voice: “Then just go take a look, what are you scared of? If there’s danger, just smash the keyboard and throw out all your skills.”

William Thompson’s face twitched. “Grandma Thompson, let me remind you, I’m not my deadbeat dad—I’m still a level-zero newbie.”

“Good boy, let me remind you too: if your character is level zero, your pet is also level zero. You can’t expect a level-zero pet to help you fight monsters or tank damage. If you really run into trouble, even I can’t help you,” Grandma Thompson said breezily.

“I... maybe I should just mind my own business.”

“A man of the Li family, chickening out so easily?” Grandma Thompson said, exasperated. “How are you ever going to stand on your own? You’re not the same William Thompson you used to be—you’re...”

“Niukuolu·Xianyu?”

Grandma Thompson choked for a second. “Don’t scare yourself. The world isn’t that dangerous. Haven’t you made it to twenty just fine?”

“That’s true,” William Thompson said.

Maybe I’m just being too sensitive.

So he hailed a cab straight to Jessica Thompson’s place, in an old residential area fifteen minutes by car from the university. Whether residential or office buildings, everything nearby showed the marks of time.

This area was still a town a decade or so ago, so it was full of old apartment complexes—the kind without elevators. But the housing prices had crazily shot up to an average of sixty thousand per square meter.

Neighborhoods like this were everywhere inside the inner ring, and there was always a rumor going around: just wait a few more years, the government will come and demolish everything!

People spreading these rumors really overestimated the government’s budget...

The old house William Thompson’s biological father left him was just like this, but his adoptive father later sold it, bought new property, and even made a tidy profit off his adopted son.

His adoptive father sighed, saying he’d originally planned to wait for the government to demolish it—then their family would have gotten several new apartments for free. But after a few years, he realized it was better to count on real estate speculators than the government. At least after selling the old house, they got a new one and made over a million yuan.

Later, William Thompson righteously demanded his adoptive father split the “over a million” with him, but his answer was a resounding smack on the head. His adoptive father said, back then, just to get you registered, I almost went bankrupt. Want money? Go ask the government.

The government owes me over a million!

William Thompson made a note of it in his little notebook.

Back then, the family planning policy was like a pack of wolves—have one extra kid and the whole village had to get sterilized.

Now they’re encouraging a second child—don’t us common folk have any dignity?

He arrived downstairs and pressed the intercom by the security door. After a long while, a soft, charming voice came through the speaker: “Who is it?”

Jessica Reed’s voice!

William Thompson breathed a sigh of relief and said, “It’s me, William Thompson.”

“...Do you need something?”

“Of course!” William Thompson snapped. “Open the door, I’ll come up and talk.”

“Click!”

The building’s security door opened. William Thompson entered smoothly. Jessica Reed’s place was on the top floor, the sixth. By the time William Thompson climbed up, he was already out of breath. In the past, this much exercise was nothing... but let’s not talk about it. The more you say, the sadder it gets.