A live broadcast on TV was reporting the follow-up investigation into the mysterious destruction of Qinglong Academy, but Lu Kong grabbed the remote and turned it off.

　　"Don't watch it. It's annoying." Lu Kong seemed to still be reeling from the unexplained shock. Having just washed his hair, he was pressing a towel on his head as he looked at the four people on the sofa, his eyes filled with indescribable complexity.

　　After that incident, Jing Lingxiao also clearly noticed that Lu Kong was a bit off in some ways. He had tried to press Lu Kong for information about Qinglong Academy, but every time, Lu Kong acted like a riddle master, blocking off any information so tightly that it made Jing Lingxiao a bit unhappy. He and Lu Kong had been in a cold war for several days.

　　"Brother Lu Kong, we're adults too. It's not really cool to keep leading us around in circles like this," Su Xuan smiled and glanced at Lu Kong.

　　Lu Kong didn't really care. He rummaged through his room and pulled out a sign that he had apparently been designing for a while. He went to hang it in front of the door.

　　"Lu Kong's Everything-Fixing Shop"

　　"So you've been holed up all these days just to come up with this thing and want us to play detective games with you?" Li Lei joked and then took a big gulp of beer. Actually, he didn't really mind since he was an old acquaintance of Lu Kong's, and helping out from time to time was no big deal.

　　"You haven't cleared up that previous matter yet, and now you're giving us something else to do?" Cheng Hao impatiently snapped the cap back on his pen and looked at Lu Kong by the door.

　　Jing Lingxiao didn't say a word because he knew Lu Kong would remain tight-lipped as usual.

　　At some point, he felt that Lu Kong had drifted so far away from him.

　　But there were hidden reasons for all of this, reasons that only Lu Kong himself knew.

　　"Alright, I won't let you all just sit around and get bored," Lu Kong hung up the towel and in a blink, had changed into formal attire. "There have been a lot of supernatural-powered attack incidents around here recently. This time, I'm going to get to the bottom of it."

　　"And some relatives of the victims have already come knocking on my door and given me a substantial amount of money as payment."

　　With that, Lu Kong pulled out a thick wad of cash from his pocket and waved it around. In his heart, he was wondering if this case had anything to do with the person in his mind.

　　"So, do you have any clues?" Jing Lingxiao gently stirred his freshly brewed coffee with a spoon and, looking at Lu Kong's sly smile that he couldn't quite hide, asked what was essentially a rhetorical question.

　　"Of course." Lu Kong quickly pulled out a business card from his pocket again.

　　"Mani Hagen Hotel"

　　"That's a really weird name. Not a place a lady would want to go to," Su Xuan held the business card between her index and middle fingers and examined it up and down before quickly losing interest.

　　"That's a hotel on Jingning Road. It's said that its single-numbered rooms are never open to the public," Cheng Hao pushed up his glasses. The laptop that had been closed just a moment ago was now filled with information, drawing the other three men over to take a look.

　　"I just checked up on the situations of these victims. This perpetrator is truly a ruthless and evil person," Su Xuan bit her lip, scrolling through her phone with one hand while pinching her chin with the other, looking utterly incredulous.

　　"There's blood in almost every case, and it's said that these victims have no connection to each other," Lu Kong added.

　　"Then why is it called a supernatural-powered attack incident? I can't see it," Li Lei crossed his arms, looking utterly confused.

　　"Because even when the victims were attacked in broad daylight, there was no sign of the perpetrator. So, the authorities directly classified it as a case involving supernatural powers," Lu Kong scrolled through his phone and then rotated his wrist, bringing up a seemingly unrelated news story on his screen.

　　"Spy Prisoner Escapes Jail and Remains at Large; Frequented Mani Hagen Hotel Multiple Times"

　　"You think these two things are related?" Li Lei's eyes widened.

　　"Finally giving us a reason, huh?" Jing Lingxiao finished his coffee in one gulp and then stood up. "Let's go. Not everyone needs to come along for this, right?"

　　"Those who want to come can just follow. The cab I ordered is already outside," Lu Kong said with a smile.

　　In the taxi, Lu Kong, Jing Lingxiao, and Li Lei were planning their investigation.

　　"But where do you even start? The police went there early to collect evidence and came up empty-handed, didn't they?"

　　"Don't worry. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Lu Kong reassured Li Lei. They were almost at their destination.

　　There was no denying that the Mani Hagen Hotel was impressive in terms of grandeur. Its neat glass facade reflected a pure blue sky.

　　As soon as Lu Kong and the others got out of the cab, they found that the Mani Hagen Hotel was already swarmed with reporters.

　　"This is going to be tough," the three of them stood there, at a loss as they looked at the sea of people in front of them.

　　"Hey, are you guys here to investigate too?" A man who was all bundled up smiled as he approached and, without any hesitation, started introducing himself. "I'm Feng Gangping, a private detective. If you need it, I'm willing to share the information I've gathered with you. But in exchange, you have to share your intel with me in the future."

　　With such a practiced routine, Lu Kong and his group even wondered if he was some kind of con artist.

　　"Alright then, go ahead," Lu Kong took out a small notebook and a click pen, ready for Feng the detective to share his information.

　　"From what I've found out, the single-numbered rooms in this hotel are used as a hideout for the 'wild reconnaissance group,' a group of intelligence-gathering ability users. The prisoner who escaped jail a few days ago was a member of this team. He was arrested after being reported by his comrades, and now that he's escaped, in my opinion, he's a major suspect," Feng Gangping spoke confidently and handed Lu Kong a business card, saying "Stay in touch" before turning and walking away.

　　"Can we trust him?" Li Lei made a small sarcastic remark as they watched Feng the detective walk away.

　　Taking the attitude of trying anything when there seemed to be no other options, the three of them probed around and got the names of the escapee, Li Zhongwei, and his traitorous comrade, Ding Changji. Li Zhongwei had the ability to sense heat from all living things, and his whereabouts were still unknown. Ding Changji, on the other hand, had the ability to share the perspective of a person at a designated coordinate. The two used to be close companions, but Ding Changji was a greedy scoundrel at heart. When he was young, he had bullied a peer for money, and now he had betrayed his own comrade for profit.

　　"I have a feeling he's going to be the next one in trouble," Lu Kong came to a conclusion but felt a hint of something amiss.

　　"What about the previous victims? I just looked up their backgrounds, and it seems they have no connection whatsoever to this 'wild reconnaissance group'," Jing Lingxiao swiped through his phone screen and raised the question.

　　"I was thinking, if it really was that Li guy who did it, he could use his ability to sense the location of his targets and then strike. That seems to make sense," Li Lei looked at the other two and said.

　　Lu Kong lowered his head and pondered the whole situation. At the same time, he was trying to recall if there were any similar cases in historical literature that could serve as auxiliary material for his reasoning. After a while, Lu Kong suddenly stopped in his tracks as if he had been electrocuted, looking at Li Lei and Jing Lingxiao.

　　"Have you guys ever heard of Agatha Christie's 'The ABC Murders'?" Lu Kong seemed to have found the key to everything as he looked confidently at the two.

　　Meanwhile, a knife, honed to a shine in the darkness, was like a white wolf following a scent, searching for Ding Changji.