Chapter 23: The Haunted Phone

"It's fine, leave it to us. Go take care of your own things," Ning Shuyi waved him off, indicating there was nothing to worry about.

Zhao Dabao had been run ragged lately, busy both at home and outside, barely managing to keep his head above water. Today, he still had to go out and conduct an investigation on Wu Caimei—he truly had his hands full.

Handing Wang Yuluo’s phone to Ning Shuyi, Zhao Dabao offered her and Huo Yan an apologetic grin, then got ready to head out.

Ning Shuyi took Wang Yuluo’s phone and began transferring whatever she could to the computer, assigning Huo Yan the task of combing through the data for useful information while she herself checked the contents that couldn’t be transferred.

Huo Yan accepted the assignment, sitting upright at the computer and diligently reviewing the data, which included some of Wang Yuluo’s photos and chat logs.

Meanwhile, Ning Shuyi delved into Wang Yuluo’s phone, looking for recent payment records and other information in hopes of piecing together the details of her daily life.

It didn’t take long for her to notice that, regardless of the app or payment service she checked, there was no record of Wang Yuluo purchasing a ticket—in fact, Wang Yuluo wasn’t even a member of the private cinema.

That meant the movie ticket must have been provided by the girl who accompanied her, or perhaps transferred to her by someone else.

Surveillance footage at the cinema’s main entrance had clearly captured the moment: as the two girls stopped at the self-service ticket machine, it was Wang Yuluo who pulled out her phone to operate the machine, while her companion simply stood to the side with a tub of popcorn, waiting for her to finish.

If the ticket information was in Wang Yuluo’s phone, why, then, could Ning Shuyi find no trace of it—no evidence in the mobile apps, chat logs, photo albums, or messages?

Frowning at Wang Yuluo’s phone, Ning Shuyi pondered this mystery.

She soon discovered something even stranger. While transferring files from the phone to the computer, she’d caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye: the “Recently Deleted” album in the phone’s gallery displayed several hundred photos.

But now, when she reopened the album—since “Recently Deleted” items can’t be transferred—she was shocked to find that the hundreds of photos were gone without a trace!

The phone had been in her hands the entire time, yet the “trash bin” had been emptied automatically without her doing anything? No wonder the records on Wang Yuluo’s phone felt so incomplete earlier—clearly, since the accident, much of the phone’s data had begun to “vanish” on its own.

Was she witnessing a haunting in broad daylight?

Ning Shuyi gave a cold snort. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she did know people who could “catch” them.

Once again, “Ghostbuster Constable” Kang Ge was enlisted to help by Ning Shuyi.

After hearing her description, Kang Ge quickly grasped the gist of the situation and chuckled, “Someone’s left a ‘backdoor’ open on this phone and is coming in to tidy up for you! This isn’t hard—leave it to me!”

He then raised his eyebrows, flashed a “peace” sign with his fingers, and grinned, “That’s two meals you owe me now!”

Ning Shuyi, long used to Kang Ge’s irreverence, agreed without hesitation.

With the phone now in Kang Ge’s hands, Ning Shuyi and Huo Yan set about sorting through the data already imported to the computer.

After a while, Huo Yan tapped his finger on the desk to get Ning Shuyi’s attention.

“This person is highly suspicious,” he said, pointing at his computer screen. “Look at what she posts in her Moments.”

Ning Shuyi shifted her gaze to the screen. Earlier, she’d logged into Wang Yuluo’s WeChat on that computer, and now they were viewing the Moments posts of one of Wang Yuluo’s friends.

This person posted daily selfies and scenic photos, all with a cute, girlish flair, interspersed with short videos. At first glance, everything seemed perfectly ordinary. But if Huo Yan had singled it out, there had to be something more.

Sure enough, Huo Yan indicated a particular post. “You know what these are, don’t you?”

Ning Shuyi enlarged the photo. It showed a girl’s slender hand holding an adorable, cartoonish bubble tea cup—almost like a pretty keychain, though larger than most and a bit smaller than a phone case.

The caption below read: “Are today’s bubble teas already out working at just one month old? How can something be this cute!”

“I know what this is,” Ning Shuyi nodded. She’d seen these before, back when she attended distance training. “It’s an unregulated e-cigarette sold through unofficial channels—nobody really knows what’s inside those things.”

“Worse,” she continued, “they’re deliberately made to look cute to target students, and they can even fool unsuspecting parents and teachers!”

Huo Yan nodded. “Look at her name.”

Ning Shuyi looked closely. The user’s WeChat name was “Mosquito Surviving the Winter,” and Wang Yuluo had added a note—“Zhang Jiawen.”

“Wenwen!” Ning Shuyi exclaimed, realization dawning. “She could be the Wenwen that Yu Mengpeng mentioned yesterday—the one who invited Wang Yuluo to the nightclub!”

Huo Yan took the mouse and opened the chat history between Zhang Jiawen and Wang Yuluo. It was completely blank—nothing at all.

“There’s no record—no way to tell if they were in contact,” he said. He’d overheard Ning Shuyi’s earlier conversation with Kang Ge about the phone. “Whether it was deleted before or remotely wiped later using technical means, I can’t say.”

“That’s not important,” Ning Shuyi waved off his concerns, returning to browse through Zhang Jiawen’s Moments.

Sure enough, there was something fishy. In addition to those “bubble tea cup” ads, there were photos with poetic captions and a certain casual charm, yet the location tags showed they were taken in a nightclub in W City.

It was as if the content itself didn’t matter—what mattered was sending a secret signal, letting those in the know find her.

“We can’t just go looking for Zhang Jiawen outright, even if we know where to find her,” Ning Shuyi told Huo Yan. “Yesterday, when I reported to Captain Dong, he reminded me that if we uncover any leads pointing to a major long-term target, we need to keep things quiet—don’t alarm the suspects, or we risk tipping them off and coming up empty-handed in the end.

“Yu Mengpeng said Zhang Jiawen was always inviting Wang Yuluo to nightclubs. I suspect her motives weren’t just friendship—she probably saw Wang Yuluo as an easy mark: plenty of cash, no one watching over her, ripe for exploitation.

“If that's true, then she’s almost certainly connected to the substances we found in Wang Yuluo’s blood during the autopsy. All the more reason to proceed with utmost caution!”