Chapter Forty-Nine: A Problem

They kept at it until nearly dawn. At last, things quieted down upstairs—after all, the three troublemakers weren’t robots running on batteries; after a sleepless night of incessant racket, they’d worn themselves out. Ning Shuyi couldn’t sleep, her mind a muddled mess, and she felt wretched. To keep her parents from noticing anything amiss in the morning, she left a note and slipped out early, catching the first bus to work.

At the office, she had no appetite for breakfast. There was a coffee machine that Kang Ge had brought in some time ago—normally, she didn’t care much for coffee and rarely drank it. But today, at this very moment, the thing seemed nothing short of a magical relic capable of summoning her very soul back. As she gulped coffee, she mulled over the situation at home. Some things she hadn’t told her parents, knowing they’d have no solution and it would only add to their distress.

To her, the tenants upstairs were nothing short of bizarre. Usually, with a security deposit at stake and the knowledge that the landlord lived just below, any reasonable person would be extra cautious, striving to avoid any unpleasantness over noise, and certainly wouldn’t risk having their deposit docked by trashing the place right under the landlord’s nose. Yet here were three people who not only disregarded all that, but routinely invited friends over to throw late-night dance parties directly above the landlord’s head. She’d never seen such brazen behavior.

Then there were other oddities—the unexplained defacement of her parents’ rental notices in the community bulletin, and the various false pretenses those three had put on when they first came to rent the place. Ning Shuyi couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

That’s why, the night before, she’d deliberately gone upstairs to remind them—making no fuss, not even a sharp word, just a calm, matter-of-fact warning before turning to leave. As she suspected, the more the downstairs landlord tried to reason with them, the more outrageous their behavior became.

It was hard not to dwell on the implications. At such a delicate juncture, here was a group of tenants causing a daily uproar, making her parents’ lives miserable. When the lease expired in a little over a month, would they really leave quietly? If they refused and dug in their heels, who would be the one to handle it? And when it came time to rent out the place again, would the whole ordeal repeat itself?

Huo Yan lived in the dormitory, which was close to work, and had the habit of early morning exercise, so he always arrived ahead of time. Usually, unless someone was doing a double shift or had pulled an overnight, the office would be completely empty at that hour. But today, as soon as he walked in, he saw Ning Shuyi sitting at her desk, staring blankly, her brows slightly furrowed in thought, the only movement being her steady gulping from a coffee mug. The air was thick with the aroma of strong coffee.

Getting closer, he noticed she looked completely spent—two heavy smudges of dark circles under her eyes, as if the evidence of her sleepless night had been scrawled across her face. Huo Yan was puzzled, but said nothing, simply taking his seat in silence.

“Huo Yan, let me ask you something.” Before he could speak, Ning Shuyi looked up and addressed him, “From your experience, is there any quick way to rapidly boost one’s fighting power? Something really fast and effective?”

Huo Yan glanced at her, then shook his head.

“I thought so. Everything requires steady, step-by-step effort—there’s no shortcut to mastery.” Ning Shuyi sighed.

Huo Yan shook his head again. “For those with a solid foundation, there are indeed ways to make rapid progress in a short time. But you, unfortunately, lack the basics. There’s no shortcut for you.”

His answer was bluntly honest, so much so that Ning Shuyi couldn’t help but laugh wryly. But he wasn’t wrong. She’d always barely scraped by the physical fitness tests; her refusal to give up meant she’d trained alongside him for a while and had improved somewhat, but even so, she was only passable—still not on par with teammates like Xia Qing and Yan Xue. Petite and lacking in strength, her physical shortcomings were undeniable.

“Why do you ask?” Huo Yan was ready to let the conversation drop, but seeing how drained she looked, he couldn’t help but press a little further.

“It’s nothing, just a random thought.” Ning Shuyi felt it was a private family matter, not something she wanted to share with a colleague—especially since most of it was just her own suspicions, with no solid evidence. She certainly didn’t want to air her family’s dirty laundry.

Huo Yan wasn’t foolish; he could tell she didn’t want to talk, so he said nothing more. After a while, when she’d nearly finished her coffee, he took out his notebook and handed it to her. “I’ve found the address for that club. It’s here. Take a look.”

The moment Ning Shuyi heard he’d confirmed the cosplay club’s address, her interest was piqued. She took the notebook and examined the address Huo Yan had written down. As people say, handwriting reflects the person, and Huo Yan was a prime example—his writing, like his character, was crisp and forceful.

The address was unfamiliar to her, so she checked it on the map and saw that the location was worlds apart from the commercial district where Wang Yuluo had her accident—practically on opposite ends of the city. She pulled up the club’s online promotional page and browsed its contents carefully, then glanced at Huo Yan. “Do you know anything about anime culture?”

Huo Yan shook his head, just as she’d expected.

“Go get some breakfast, then. I’ll do a bit of homework, and afterward we’ll head over to check out this club.” She checked the time. “It’s still early—even if we left now, there probably wouldn’t be anyone there yet.”

Huo Yan also checked the time, nodded, and headed out to the canteen for breakfast—without any unnecessary chatter or pleasantries, just as he always did.

Ning Shuyi herself knew little about anime culture—she’d only ever heard bits and pieces from relatives’ kids who were fans. She had no intention of spending hours on in-depth research now; she just needed to pick out a few convincing facts so she wouldn’t embarrass herself when the time came.

To her surprise, her crash course actually paid off. She discovered that most of Wang Yuluo’s wigs, costumes, and props were replicas of some of the most iconic and popular anime characters—so much so that even as a last-minute learner, she truly understood what Yu Mengpeng meant when she said her cousin was unrivaled in their circle.