Xu Lan laid on the bed with his cell phone in hand, unsure whether or not he should call Bai Wu and ask how things were on his end. The phone then began ringing abruptly, causing him to lose his grip. It promptly fell on his forehead.

“Hey?”

“Sergeant Xu, are you crying?” Wang Hao asked in a probing and suspicious manner.

“F*ck! If you have something to say, say it! If you need to fart, do it quickly!” Xu Lan massaged his nose, which gave him a thick nasal quality in his scolding voice.

“Er, uh, Sergeant Xu. There’s some new progress in the results of the investigation. The director general requested that you come and take a look at them. After all, you’ve been following the case from the beginning.” Xu Lan was imagining Wang Hao’s reaction at that time: the man was probably rubbing his hands, wanting to look directly at Xu Lan but afraid to actually do so.

“Have all of you been eating sh*t when I was away those few months? What else am I supposed to follow up? I’ve been fired, you hear me.” Xu Lan pinched his nose and clicked his tongue as he retorted.

“Hehe, Sergeant Xu always nags and speaks the truth. Are you immersed in the tender, addictive charms of love right now? Sigh, when will the time come for me to say goodbye to the five ladies of my hand?” Wang Hao lowered his voice, and all of a sudden, his desire to gossip was ignited.

“Didn’t I gift you something for your last birthday?” Xu Lan teased while using his hand to feel the empty space beside him.

“Don’t bring it up again! Some d*ckhead was jealous of my beautiful ‘wife’, and it shocked me to find a toothpick inside of her! Motherf*cker!” Wang Hao became extremely angry whenever he thought about that. He harbored grave suspicions that Xiao Zhang, after a good cleaning of the teeth, disposed of the toothpick by stabbing it into his ‘wife’ and destroying ‘her’. However, his ‘wife’ was never in the living room to begin with! Grr!

“… Serves you right for not taking care of it. Alright then, I’ll continue sleeping, gonna hang up now.” Having waited for Bai Wu the whole night, sleepiness sank in and Xu Lan could no longer keep his eyes open. At that point, the phone began ringing again, this time it was Hu Cheng ¹ ‘s voice.

“Xu Lan, there’s something you should come and see.” It was Liang Yu. His voice was accompanied by Qin Lao’s coughing in the background. The coughing was like a reproaching of Liang Yu’s meddlesomeness.

Xu Lan did a kip-up and was now sitting upright on the bed. He frowned and asked, “What is it?”

“… It’s hard to explain through the phone, but it might have something to do with Bai Wu.” In clear and simple terms, Liang Yu struck directly at Xu Lan’s weak spot. The latter hung up, wore some clothes, and rushed over to the police station.

“I told you, as long as you mention Bai Wu, he’ll come by himself. You don’t even need to invite him.” Liang Yu handed the phone over to Wang Hao and remarked leisurely while looking around the room.

“Cough cough, talk less!” Qin Lao covered his mouth with a fist and coughed. As soon as Liang Yu realized his slip, he lowered his head and sat back down, minimizing his presence as much as possible.

When Xu Lan returned to the world where he originally came from, he stayed there for about one or two months. At the third parallel dimension, it was only about three or four months. However, in the first parallel dimension, Xu Lan disappeared for five years. Qin Lao used every resource available to find Bai Wu, and the search lasted five years as well. After searching for days and days on end, Liang Yu’s patience was quickly eroded into nonexistence. Now, whenever he saw Xu Lan, he felt a fire burning inside of him; it was an anger that had no outlet to vent on. In addition to being fooled once before, his rage was all the more extreme.

The door opened with a thud and Xu Lan’s voice was heard. “What did you find?” He placed his hands on his knees and panted heavily.

“Xiao Xu, you came here a bit too quickly, don’t you think?” Wang Meng questioned in surprise. Xu Lan faced Liang Yu and waved up both hands in agreement to Wang Meng. As fast as it was, surely it was too fast?

“The room I rented is very near. I drove here.” Xu Lan regained his composure and went to sit beside Qin Lao. He gulped down two cups of water and asked, “What did you discover?”

“… Dimensional fluctuations.”