Chapter 42 – Silencing Witnesses
Tu Ran’s heart skipped a beat, and her gaze turned icy as she looked at Ding Naiqing. “You knew me before?”
“Yeah.” Ding Naiqing smiled, showing his small tiger teeth, still oblivious to the gravity of the situation.
Tu Ran instinctively pressed her tongue against her teeth.
Ding Naiqing had known her before.
Ding Naiqing had known her before!
These were the only two sentences in her mind.
She had always acted like a stranger towards Ding Naiqing.
Had he noticed anything unusual?
At that moment, Tu Ran considered many solutions, even glancing at the guards dispersing the crowd. If she took this opportunity to silence him and blame his death on the alien species…
“But Sister Ran, you probably don’t remember me, right? I never greeted you,” Ding Naiqing said.
The tension in Tu Ran’s heart eased.
“Why didn’t you greet me?” Tu Ran asked, testing the waters.
“At that time, you were very aloof, Sister Ran. I didn’t dare to approach you,” Ding Naiqing said, his furrowed brow relaxing into a happy expression. “But now, Sister Ran, you seem much more approachable and are even willing to team up with me.”
Tu Ran rolled her eyes internally. She would have preferred not to team up with him, but because he had interrupted and the more capable teammates had been taken by others, she was left with no choice.
Based on what Ding Naiqing said, she had taken many first places during training, which meant she was considered a top student. But then why had Xi Chunzhi said, “If anyone dares to laugh at you, I’ll beat them up for you” when taking her bracelet off?
Tu Ran had initially assumed the original owner of her body was at the bottom of the pioneer team and couldn’t bring back anything valuable from the Threshold, which was why she was mocked.
It now seemed that her assumptions were incorrect.
What was really going on? Tu Ran desperately wanted to know everything that had happened to the original owner of her body, but she couldn’t ask directly. Xi Chunzhi wasn’t around, and she couldn’t ask through the communicator either.
In the elevator, the AI had immediately detected Xi Chunzhi’s quickened heartbeat, so saying any sensitive words through the communicator would definitely draw attention.
Sighing, Tu Ran had to dismiss the thought for now. Once this mission was over, she would make sure to ask Xi Chunzhi everything about the original owner.
Li Wu and Liang Feng returned with Tubin following behind them.
“We couldn’t find the person. The one who was questioned alongside Naya Rivera is missing,” Li Wu said, looking troubled.
“How could she be missing?” Ding Naiqing was surprised. “Weren’t all 121 people accounted for just now?”
“It was chaotic at the time. We didn’t notice when she left,” Li Wu explained.
They had been dealing with the alien parasite and evacuating the crowd simultaneously, making it nearly impossible to keep track of one person’s movements.
“It doesn’t matter if we can’t find her. Her disappearance almost certainly confirms there is more than one alien parasite on the farm,” Tu Ran said calmly.
Suddenly, she turned her gaze to Tubin, staring at the tall, burly man in front of her. She asked, without any emotion, “Mr. Tubin, where were you just now?”
“The situation was terrifying, so I ran home. I didn’t know if it was safe outside, so I stayed in until I saw these two officers. Only then did I dare to come out with them,” Tubin replied honestly and straightforwardly.
In a dangerous situation, everyone’s instinct is to flee quickly. Tubin’s behavior was normal. If it weren’t for her role, Tu Ran would have run even further than him.
