Reborn: The Return of the Villainous Mr. Liu-Chapter 993: Recognize one’s own kind

Alix sat across from Chyou at the other side of the living room leaving Yating and Guiying with privacy to do their work. Jin leaned back on the couch, his arms crossed as he watched Chyou work with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times before.

"So, let me get this straight," Chyou said, adjusting the settings on her hig-tech laptop. "You’ve already got access to her main phone. Calls and texts. But you want me to figure out what’s going on with these mysterious burner phone calls you can’t track?"

Alix nodded and paid close attention to her. But she couldn’t help but keep peeking to Guiying’s side now and then. She cleared her throat and focused back on Chyou.

"Those burner numbers disappear into thin air as soon as the call ends. I need to know who’s behind them because Mui isn’t doing this alone. She can be vicious but she is not that smart."

Chyou paused to sip her green tea, raising an eyebrow. "She might not be but the other person surely is. Burner phones don’t leave traces on standard call logs. But here’s the thing - when he or she calls her, even on a burner, the interaction creates metadata on her phone. That’s what we will exploit."

Alix blinked. "Metadata?"

"It’s like breadcrumbs," Chyou simplified it for her. "The phone might not save the number but the call itself leaves traces - signal pings, timestamps and call duration. With a little digging, I can cross-reference those pings with nearby burner phone activity."

Jin asked, "And how long will this breadcrumb trail take to follow?"

Chyou waved him off, already typing. "Relax, Jini-boy. If your friend here has placed a bug in Mui’s phone, I can tap into that data directly. It’s like borrowing her eyes without her knowing."

Lines of code zipped across the screens. Chyou pulled up Mui’s call logs and overlaid them with a network of cell tower signals. The code scrolled up so fast that Alix could hardly keep up with her pace.

She looks like an undefeatable Goddess…

"Are you becoming my fan? Are you? Are you?" Chyou’s eyes twinkled with delight. "I am awesome, am I not?"

Jin rolled his eyes.

I knew this was going to happen.

Alix smiled. "I might even kiss you if I learn something significant from this trip."

"What kiss? Who talked about a kiss here?" Yating’s voice echoed from the far end of the couch.

Chyou beamed. "Yating! Me! Me! Alix wants to kiss me!"

"..."

What is this girl-on-girl action I will be witnessing?

"Liu Jin, can you sit between them?"

"Don’t drag me into this," he plainly refuted.

Alix sneered. "You better focus on Guiying’s novel, Mr. Chief Editor. At this point, I question if you are even doing a proper job."

"..."

Why am I suddenly attacked?

Guiying couldn’t help but get taken aback. It buzzed in her ears oddly when Alix suddenly addressed her with her name as if they were super close.

Strange…But it doesn’t feel so weird either…

Chyou hummed merrily.

"Let’s see…Here is the last burner number that called her. And the location is close to the Starplex area."

Jin blinked. "Starplex? That’s a whole commercial area. Many companies have their offices there."

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Alix’s eyes narrowed, her voice turning sharp. "Are you sure?"

"100%. And get this - it looks like that person changes burners every week but the frequency of calls to Mui is more or less regular. This guy is methodical, but he is not invincible."

Jin stepped closer, his expression grim. "Can you keep tracing this person’s new burners as he switches them?"

"Piece of cake," Chyou replied with a wink. "Once I have the pattern, I can track any burner he or she uses to call Mui. You will have every breadcrumb he leaves."

Jin eyed Alix, who seemed lost in some deep thought.

"What? Do you have an idea who it could be?"

From the moment Alix woke up from her coma until now as she faced Chyou - she went through a recap of her memories.

The breadcrumbs are not just in the call logs…They were always there right in front of me too.

"Does it not get any closer to Starplex?"

Chyou shook her head. "Unfortunately, no. The triangulation points here but exact coordinates are a limitation."

"Which is fine. Just wanted to check anyway."

Jin paused. "What have you figured out?"

"I haven’t figured it out. I just realized it. Kang Yuze’s company office is also at Starplex."

He stared at her unblinkingly. "Huh? I mean yes it is…but why…"

Suddenly, his gaze grew solemn. "Wait, you don’t think that…Kang Yuze called your sister?"

"I think I can be pretty sure now."

Jin couldn’t fathom her conclusion. "...He was your ex-boyfriend and he has already moved on. He even confessed to…"

He pressed his lips, an air of awkwardness settling in.

"But it makes sense."

"How? Ren Mui and Kang Yuze are colluding together to destroy you? I understand her motive but what motive does he have?"

Alix held a faraway look with the flashes of black and white broken memories of the past revisiting her.

"I don’t know his motivation yet. But I can feel that it’s him."

"That’s some strange confidence you have there," Chyou blinked.

Alix smiled.

Let’s just say that villains can recognize their own kind.

"The bad quality of raw materials is one point. It’s impossible that neither Mui recognized the error in the quality of the stocks nor Kang Yuze did anything to rectify it. Forget rectifying, he claims he didn’t even realize it. It was probably allowed to happen because they were in it together."

She scoffed. "Then the whole exclusivity contract with my family that only benefited him twas absurd in the first place. I broke it off but he kept pestering and warning me to keep my distance from Liu Jin and not take his help. Oftenly indirectly, he kept coming in my way. And last night, I learnt something new."

She tilted her head. "It seems that Kang Yuze could also be involved as to why Mui hates me."