Chapter 53
“Cousin An’an! You absolutely cannot go out today! Don’t!”
Early in the morning, a life-or-death call from Cousin Hanzawa startled Fan An.
The winter nights were exceptionally long. It was far from dawn, and the sky outside the window was pitch black.
This was her deep sleep time. The dark-haired girl couldn’t even open her eyes as she answered the phone, yawning repeatedly.
“What happened?” she said groggily. “Is it that you’re being hunted, Cousin, and you’re worried I’ll get caught up in it? Don’t be afraid. My connections at the Metropolitan Police Department are terrifyingly strong. I guarantee you’ll get a luxury single room the moment you go in.”
Mr. Hanzawa: “Thank you, Cousin An’an. You’re so considerate… I’m not being hunted, and I have no plans to go to jail. The one in trouble is you, Cousin An’an!”
“Me?” Fan An rubbed her groggy eyes, which had been forcibly awakened, and asked sleepily, “What’s wrong with me? Has my case broken?”
“That’s right,” Mr. Hanzawa said. “Quick, look at the trending topics—oh crap, I’m almost late for work, I can’t talk anymore. In short, look at the trending topics, and absolutely do not go out today.”
He hung up after repeatedly reminding her, leaving a bewildered Fan An.
She grabbed a pillow and propped it behind her back, then swiped her phone screen.
The moment the screen lit up, a flood of pop-ups got stuck on the screen. The back of the phone grew hot from the program overload, as warm as a hand warmer.
Fan An glanced over. The glitching messages could generally be divided into three categories: trending topics, spam messages, and messages from Director Yuko.
Given that the latter had over 999+ unread messages, she began to consider whether she should merge them into one category, classifying them all as spam.
No, as an actress, she couldn’t disrespect the director. She should look at Director Yuko’s messages first.
Fan An clicked on the 999+ unread messages and glanced over them.
The girl calmly exited the page. “It’s spam.”
The 999+ messages were filled with meaningless howls, frenzied rants, mournful complaints about why An’an wasn’t online, self-absorbed fantasies, and a large pile of gibberish she couldn’t understand.
Fan An struggled to comprehend for a long time before she finally figured out what had happened.
Director Yuko wanted to release her new drama during the winter vacation. She had wanted to handle the editing, post-production, and promotion all at once, but unfortunately, she was not a descendant of ninjas and had neither the Shadow Clone Jutsu nor the Nine-Tails’ chakra. She had no choice but to outsource the promotion work.
The person in charge of the outsourcing, following the director’s instructions, had hired a master to calculate an auspicious date and time to release the trailer—that had been the original plan.
However, the weather is unpredictable. The day after the master had finished his calculations, he was arrested for spreading feudal superstitions and fraud. The person in charge of the outsourcing had been called to the police station for a full day of anti-fraud education.
The person in charge, whose eyes were empty after the class, only remembered the terrible news that the auspicious time was no longer valid and that the trailer release time had to be changed, forgetting that his own mind was not clear.
With a small tap, the release time was changed, to the most yin of yin hours on a cloudy day in the lunar calendar.
(T/N: “Yin” refers to the dark, negative, feminine principle in Chinese philosophy.)
In the dead of night, when even the dogs were asleep, the trailer was grandly released.
Director Yuko: Outsourcing company—how will you ever repay me!!!
She was so devastated she wanted to die. But what Director Yuko hadn’t expected was that there was a group of people who were abnormally active at such a ghoulish hour.
That’s right, it was the fans of the female lead, Miss An.
A quirky celebrity is bound to have a group of quirky die-hard fans. That night, the internet was like a battlefield where ghost soldiers had passed, leaving no blade of grass standing.
The trailer, personally directed by Director Yuko, had special effects, a budget, and grand scenes that were bombarded without a care for the cost. The camera was practically glued to the female lead’s flawless face, fully demonstrating the professional spirit of “we film what the audience wants to see.”
As expected, it exploded.
It was a huge hit. The editors-in-chief of various media outlets were dragged out of their beds by their bosses to write articles, their pens creating sparks in the cold winter, clattering away.
The internet was as lively as a pot of frying fish. Offline, the female lead was sound asleep.
Director Yuko had actually called Fan An in the middle of the night. It had been answered instantly.
“You’re not asleep either? Indeed, it would be a ghost if you could sleep. Have you seen the trending topics? My goodness!”
Director Yuko had rambled on for a long time, then suddenly realized there was no response from the other end of the line, only heavy breathing.
“…The key to skinning is to start from the back of the neck, and pull out the spine completely… The flesh and skin must be separated to be beautiful. First, scald it with boiling water…”
A demon was whispering in Director Yuko’s ear, accompanied by a clear swallowing sound.
The director, trembling, submerged her phone in a glass of water, hypnotizing herself. “This isn’t The Ring… This isn’t The Ring…”
Fan An: I think I dreamed of freshly grilled barbecue last night. Slurp.
She had missed the midnight carnival after the trailer’s release, but it didn’t matter. When it was time for the working people to wake up, the number of online viewers saw a new surge.
Cousin Hanzawa had frantically called to remind Cousin An’an: You’re famous. Not just ordinarily famous, but so famous that paparazzi are willing to risk the mortality rate of entering the City of Crime, Beika Town, to stake out your front door!
Don’t go out. The moment you go out, you’ll be surrounded. Cousin An’an, you’re all alone. Don’t get into a group fight easily.
Just hold out until dark. These out-of-towners don’t have the ability to spend the night in Beika. If they insist on staying, they’ll just become a cold number in the crime rate statistics.
…
The dark-haired girl washed her face in the bathroom. She was much more awake now. She tiptoed to the front door.
An’an pressed her eye to the peephole and was met with a giant eyeball.
She calmly watched the paparazzi, who was so brazen as to press his face against her door, for a while, then walked to the kitchen and found a piece of peeled ginger.
Fan An removed the peephole, held up the peeled ginger, and gave it a gentle poke.
“OWWWW!”
The girl nonchalantly reinstalled the peephole. “The soundproofing in this apartment is really good. I can’t hear the screams from the hallway at all.”
An’an opened the refrigerator and was not surprised to find that it was empty except for the ginger.
She hadn’t cooked for herself in a long time. The good days of having food served to her had made her forget her roots.
“I can’t go out, and I can’t order takeout. Although I can starve until night, what restaurants are open at night in Beika?”
The daytime delivery drivers would seamlessly switch to another identity at night: bosozoku.
(T/N: A Japanese youth subculture associated with motorcycle gangs.)
Also known as biker gangs, experts in zero-dollar shopping.
An’an didn’t want to starve for a day and a night. She had to think of a way.
…
There seemed to be a sound from outside the balcony.
Like a bird landing on the air conditioner unit.
The sky was not yet bright. Although the night in Beika had passed, it was inevitable that some people would take advantage of the darkness. People who had lived in Beika for a long time were already used to all sorts of strange sounds.
Used to it or not, Amuro still opened his eyes.
He had been catching up on sleep last night and had slept a little longer. Usually, he would have been up by this time.
The blond young man casually threw on a shirt. The heating in the room was on full blast. He didn’t bother to button it up and first pulled open the balcony curtains.
An outlaw in a black robber’s mask and a Public Security officer stared at each other through the glass door.
The outlaw raised his fingers and made a gun gesture. “Don’t move. This is a robbery.”
Amuro: “…”
He raised his hands with a helpless yet amused expression.
Fan An’s gaze followed the blond young man’s messy, uncombed bangs down to the firm abs revealed by his open shirt.
The outlaw, who had originally planned to rob for food, was suddenly filled with evil thoughts, wondering which was more cost-effective, robbing for money or for sex.
“Come in and think about it,” the victim said proactively. “It’s cold outside.”
Amuro pushed open the balcony door. The warm air that rushed in corroded the suspect’s iron will.
“Did An’an climb over the balcony? Why would you do something so dangerous?” Amuro asked.
Was the lock broken?
According to a normal person’s thinking, shouldn’t she have called a locksmith in this situation? Calling him would also have been fine.
She could also have not asked for help. An’an could have picked the lock with her hairpin, or just used brute force.
She had passed on all of the above options. Amuro could only think of one possibility.
“Is this the play for today?” the blond Public Security officer asked hesitantly. “Should I have resisted more fiercely just now?”
Fan An: “…What kind of image do you have of me in your heart?”
Amuro: “Why don’t you take off the robber’s mask first and then ask?”
“No, this is part of my plan,” she shook her head.
Fan An explained the paparazzi’s blockade. “Although the paparazzi will naturally back off when it gets dark, there’s not a single grain of rice at home. I can’t just sit and wait.”
Amuro: “So you climbed over the balcony to my place? I just happened to have a lot of leftover ingredients from my last grocery run.”
The dark-haired girl nodded, then shook her head.
“Robbery is my Plan B,” she said, adjusting the robber’s mask on her head. “I have to execute Plan A first.”
“So what if the hallway is full of paparazzi? I won’t hide,” Miss An snorted. “I’m going to walk out openly.”
Wearing a pitch-black robber’s mask, as an ordinary passerby robber of Beika Town, she would walk out with her head held high!
“Tōru-kun’s role is the victim whose home has been ransacked by me,” she arranged everything clearly. “If you want to go with me, then you can also be the civilian man who was kidnapped by the robber.”
Tremble, you out-of-town paparazzi! This is the evil ecosystem of Beika Town!
Every time Amuro thought he already knew An’an very well, she would always pull some new stunt that made his vision go black.
Such a fresh romance, so exciting every day.
“How about we switch roles?” Amuro said. “An’an is the robber who breaks in, and I’m the Public Security officer on vacation who arrests the outlaw on the spot.”
He grabbed the girl’s wrist. “You’re caught. You can’t go anywhere.”
It can be like this too? Suspect An would not comply. She struggled with all her might.
“This script is so boring,” the girl complained. “Stuck at home all day. It’s a rare day off. Wouldn’t it be nice to go on a date?”
If he didn’t like the “kidnapped civilian man” script, it was also fine to change it to the victim being dominated by Stockholm syndrome and colluding with Suspect An.
“A rare day off can be very interesting at home too.”
Amuro took off her hat and threw it to the side. The girl subconsciously tried to grab it, fell onto the sofa, and was trapped under the man’s chest.
“Is this how a Public Security officer arrests a criminal?” An’an pushed him with her hands, the taut abs under her palms firm and powerful.
Hot knowledge: the lower abdomen is soft and elastic in a relaxed state. If you feel a distinct sense of strength, it’s definitely intentional.
Since it was an invitation, why be polite?
An’an followed her heart and had a good feel.
The girl had forgotten two things.
First, she was fighting on foreign territory and did not have the geographical advantage.
Second, the man in front of her was a man who had just woken up, and had been woken up by her.
Having lost both the timing and the location, the only thing left was the person.