"'Coco' is an online handle. This girl's real name is Wang Jiake, twenty-five years old, just finished her postgraduate studies a year ago and is working as a music teacher at No. 33 High School. The photos and videos online came from a 'cloud storage' that her phone is connected to. At first, they were sent directly to an app called 'Little Prairie.' As far as we know, this is an app that has a networking function, and photos and videos can all be posted. Little Prairie automatically adds a watermark to the users' photos. Then, someone took screenshots and reposted them on social media."

Yu Yan brought two unfamiliar police officers to the Yang family home. They wanted to ask Yang Yifan some questions.

The male police officer who was speaking was around thirty years of age. His face was grave, his features looked like they had been frozen in a refrigerator, and the parts of his face other than his mouth did not move an inch. His gaze was dark and heavy, and his expression when he looked at others was a mixture of assessing and wariness. He looked just like the main character of the animation series Black Cat Detective interrogating a rat.

Yang Yifan, the one being interrogated like a rat, blew on her newly done nails, her manner cold and indifferent. "What has it got to do with me? I don't know her."

The police officers that the residents there usually came in contact with were the neighbourhood police like Yu Yan and his colleagues. The neighbourhood police sometimes came by to mediate a conflict or look for a missing person, and were already familiar faces to the old uncles and old aunties in the courtyard. They would even be held back by the overzealous crowd sometimes and forcibly introduced to dating partners. Yang Yifan was extremely unused to this kind of attitude where she was treated as a suspect right off the bat.

Yu Yan hastily smoothed things over. "These two are our higher-ups. For the matter at hand, there is heavy pressure from public opinion and the pressure on us is also great. It's the Lunar New Year after all and a grown woman disappeared just like that, and there's no news of her at all… right? We may be hasty in our words or our tone may not be very pleasant, I hope you can understand."

Detective Black Cat said coldly, "The two of you have added each other on WeChat and also belong to an active chat group. And you say you don't know her?"

"Handsome, that chat group has over 400 people. An internet community is also a community—do you know everyone in your residential community? If a passerby had once asked you how much were the cucumbers you had just bought, are you able to recite that person's family tree?" Yang Yifan shrugged. "Okay, then you're pretty awesome."

Her words nearly put Detective Black Cat's ears into airplane mode. "Don't give me that attitude!"

Yang Yifan raised her elbows and rested them on the back of the sofa behind her and crossed her legs. She replied, "What attitude you give me, that's the attitude I give you."

"Stop, stop, stop." Yu Yan separated the two, then said to Yang Yifan, "President Yang, we went through this girl's various social media accounts and found that she secretly saved many of the photos you took. She started following your personal blog when she first entered university and even quoted many things you have said before. She should be someone who looks up to you. Can we ask you to try and recall…"

Old Master Yang cut in. "Fan-Fan, speak to them properly. A grown woman going missing, her family must be very worried."

Yang Yifan rolled her eyes but cooperated in the end. "I have a friend who does proxy shopping who helped her buy a pair of shoes. The agreement was for her to pay the remaining amount upon receiving the goods but she still hasn't paid up and can't be contacted. On New Year's Eve, she even stole one of my photos and posted it in her WeChat Moments to show off and replied to comments, but once the outstanding payment was mentioned, she pretended to be dead. I only found out about this a couple of days ago. Maybe you can investigate her financial circumstances."

Detective Black Cat asked, "Does this person frequently display a high-spending habit that is not in accordance with the level of her income?"

"I don't know how much her income is," Yang Yifan said lazily. "Neither do I know what counts as high-spending. However, the people who only spend a few hundred yuan at roadside stalls are typically too embarrassed to mingle with us."

That one line was like the firing of a thousand arrows, shooting everyone around her until they all became hedgehogs.

Yu Yang patted his own chest and chuckled as he tried to moderate the atmosphere. "It's a good thing the country gives us our uniforms to wear. Otherwise, I might be a man who wears cleaning rags to work every day."

Detective Black Cat remained unmoved. He looked at Yang Yifan intently and said, "I have one more question. On the night of the fifth of January, where were you?"

The "Feast of Yanning," the subject of posts that were being busily being deleted online, was on the fifth of January.

Yang Yifan's eyes turned cold.

Yu Yan hastily said to Detective Black Cat in a whisper, "Captain Miao, there's an elderly person here. Let's talk about this later…"

Who would have thought that the "elderly person," Old Master Yang, was not the least bit deaf. "Xiao-Yu, what's the matter?"

"We found a large amount of photos in Wang Jiake's cloud storage," Detective Black Cat said. He took out a phone from his shirt pocket and opened a few photos. "One of the photos captured a certain person. I think Ms. Yang should know her?"

Those few photos had been taken at a buffet's desserts station in a large hall. The lights were glimmering and the people standing or walking around the table were all dressed to the nines, creating an atmosphere of elegant beauty and luxury.

Next to the table, there was someone getting fruit juice. Perhaps the person had sensed something and had turned around to glance at the camera. More than half her face was revealed—it was Yang Yifan herself.

Detective Black Cat asked, "Does she look familiar?"

Yang Yifan leaned back, her arms crossed over her chest. "This was a charity dinner party organised by a friend's company to celebrate the company's tenth anniversary. Of course, the charity part is just a cover story but there's nothing wrong with that, is there? That night, I left at ten p.m. As for what time it was when the party ended and what activities they did after it ended… they didn't invite me and I don't know. Why, is it against the law to be wearing clothes and standing in a dining hall drinking fruit juice? Am I in any other photos?"

"In that case, we will need to ask you to take a urine drug test," Detective Black Cat said coldly.

"Ah…" Yang Yifan was first stunned, then she rubbed the center of her brows and smiled without the least bit of seriousness. "'Tch, some people really do not know how to behave."

"This matter is still under investigation. In the future, we might look for you again and we ask for your understanding when the time comes." A vein was pounding at the corner of Detective Black Cat's forehead. He stood up swiftly. "Other than that, Ms. Yang, during its early years, your company came up with many sensationalised stories for the sake of making its mark. You hyped up real incidents and by aggressively promoting the high-spending lifestyle, you attracted attention and earned large amounts of advertising fees. Later on, there were many people who followed the trend and did the same thing. You were the trendsetter. I admire your keen sense for the market and your ability to promote things, but I also hope that you can reflect on the negative impact on society that you have caused."

"Take care on your way back, Captain Miao." Yang Yifan did not care the least bit for those words. Beaming, she stood up to see the visitor off. "Your surname is really good, it fits you perfectly."

She closed the door with a bang, shutting the police officers out. The smile on her face that looked like it was painted on had yet to disappear when she turned around and saw Old Yang looking at her disapprovingly.

Old Master Yang slammed one end of the Dog Beating Staff on the floor forcefully. "Yang Yifan, what on earth is this about?"

"I'm being dragged in even though I didn't do anything, okay?" Yang Yifan waved him off impatiently. "She's an online friend that I'm barely acquainted with but just because we went to the same dinner party, I have to be interrogated by the police. I'm going to the office to work overtime."

"What overtime!" Sect Leader Yang's face was cold and frosty. "Why did that person say those words about you just now? What are you busy with every day? Come back here, Yang Yifan! Explain yourself!"

"Huh." Yang Yifan put on her coat and chuckled. "A minor, lousy civil servant who is paid a pittance every month. He doesn't have the ability to make money but thinks of himself as someone important. He probably feels that it's unfair and hates the rich, and can't stand the sight of the lifestyle that he can't afford and is also not worthy of. How would I know what he meant?"

"What are you saying!" Old Master Yang's short white hair was standing straight out from his head in his anger. "I've always told you that everything has its limit and you should know when to stop! Your no-good friends spend the whole day comparing-"

"What's wrong with depending on my own hard work to live the kind of life I like?" Yang Yifan cut him off impatiently. "I never told those young girls 'You need to make yourself look beautiful so that you can find a rich man to support you in the future.' I'm not afraid of saying this—I have never in my life said anything like that! I teach them to face their own desires directly! If you like branded goods, then scrimp on food and expenses to save money; if you like lipsticks, then get a second job or a temporary job to earn money and buy them. What's wrong with that? Shouldn't young people work hard? Shouldn't they fight? If they are like you and don't care about fame or fortune, and just take a tiny bit of pension money and nibble on steamed buns at home, would society become better just from that?"

"A gentleman bears poverty with a steadfast-"

"Sure, a gentleman bears poverty with a steadfast heart, only the wicked are driven to madness." Yang Yifan took down her crocodile leather bag from the clothes rack without the least bit of miserly air. "So, if you're a worthless good-for-nothing, go look for a corner of the wall to stand in and reflect on yourself. Stop poking your head out and envying other people for their riches. It's embarrassing!"

"Our family has been in Beggars' Sect for generations and has never asked for wealth. You need to have a clear conscience in everything you do."

"Grandpa," One foot out the door, Yang Yifan suddenly turned her head and said, "According to your words, my dad is exactly someone who doesn't ask for wealth and is a gentleman who 'bears poverty with a steadfast heart,' isn't he? Then, why did you feel that his intentions were dishonourable and even broke off all ties with him?"

Old Yang could not say anything to that.

When she finished speaking, Yang Yifan let out a scoff and turned to go.

Old Yang wanted to run out after her but he was so angered by her that for a while, his chest and his back felt numb. It took a long time before he recovered. He sighed and slowly walked into the corridor, just in time to see Yang Yifan drive her sportscar out, leaving a trail of dust as it rumbled away.

The world was changing too fast. From all directions, the clamour of worries and anxieties rose from the dust of the mortal world, the people's voices rising to the sky. The old ideas and principles that were passed down, that had been so deeply rooted in everyone's psyche since they were young, were now being eroded day by day by all sorts of new ideas. Even Sect Leader Yang, who held the Dog Beating Staff in his hands, was feeling fearful at the moment. There were times when he had a lot of things he wanted to say to the younger people but he was old now. It was not only his punches and kicks that had slowed down. More often than not, before he had finished saying a line, these well-educated young people had already answered ten lines with the rapidity of a machine gun. Every line could turn him speechless and make him wonder if he was indeed wrong.

He stood in the corridor for a while, then slowly returned to the house. He called the Beggar's Sect's core members in Yanning one by one and asked them to keep an eye out for the missing girl called Wang Jiake.

Gan Qing reopened the shop on the third day of the Lunar New Year. She had nothing to do at home anyway. Other than cutting things up with a blade, this person basically had no other hobbies. She got bored very quickly when she went online and had nothing better to do than to keep herself busy aimlessly. She had fried up a wok of doughcakes and a wok of crispy meat tenders, nearly working the exhaust hood to death. She gave them out to nearly all the neighbours, and there were still leftovers.

She scrubbed the floors twice a day. Meizhen-jiejie said that if she didn't look for something else to do, she was going to rub a hole into the floor.

"Welcome." Gan Qing was busy with customers. When she heard the noise from the door, she called out a greeting without even looking up.

The person at the door let out a hiss. "What's this nonsense?"

The ceiling near the entrance of Star Dreams was hung full of small resin door signs. The person who entered was too tall and accidentally crashed into them.

Gan Qing looked up. "Little Master Yu, you're here as a proxy shopper again?"

Yu Lanchuan ignored her. His brows furrowed, he looked at the resin signs hung up at the door. They were all written with "Overnight Millionaire."

"Crashing into a millionaire the moment you open the door, Little Master Yu, you will soar on the wings of success this year! I'll give you a 50% discount. Ten yuan and you can take one home, a good omen for the New Year," Gan Qing said with a wide smile. "Who knows, a rich lady might go after you and you won't have to pay your house loan anymore."

"With you as a… neighbour, I'm not going to soar anywhere," Yu Lanchuan muttered. "So tac-"

The word "tacky" hadn't left his mouth when the other two customers in the shop cut in.

"Teacher Meng-Meng, I want one!"

"Me too!"

"Who wouldn't want to get a taste of being filthy rich?"

"Even in my dreams I want to try running my hands over shoes and bags that are inlaid with diamonds…"

"Ai, that's all we're good for. We're so poor that our imagination is limited."

"After you become rich, you won't come to my small shop anymore." Gan Qing wrapped up the resin signs for the two young ladies and passed them over. "I'm going to lose you soon, my darlings."

Hearing these auspicious and gratifying words of fantasy, the "darlings" were overjoyed. "If it really becomes true, there will be a long line at your shop here, Teacher Meng-Meng. You'll be the living God of Fortune among the mortals… Teacher Meng-Meng, why do I have the feeling that you've become sweeter after Lunar New Year?"

Having stolen some tricks from the proxy shopper, Gan Qing smiled without saying anything. She darling-ed the customers for a while more, so sweet that the two darlings ended up buying quite a number of other items before leaving in a daze.

Gan Qing saw them off and looked at the time—it was nearly time for lunch. The stove at the next door Tianyi Crayfish had already started to sizzle busily, the smell seeping in through the cracks of the door. Without thinking, she casually asked Yu Lanchuan, "And what do you want, darling?"

Yu Lanchuan, "..."

"Cough…" Gan Qing saw him looking like he had been struck by lightning and returned to her senses. She cleared her throat awkwardly. "Damn, I got too used to saying it."