Chapter 79: Personality

“Huh? Aren’t you Stack Qibing ?” Li Cheng stared in surprise, his hand still outstretched. “Alright, Red Riding Hood.”

“I’m not Red Riding Hood either!”

Yuan Zhixia slapped her own forehead and sighed. “We’re all foxes a thousand years old—why play Ghost Stories? I’m Jingzhe Xiazhi.”

“Got it.” Li Cheng nodded.

“You’re not surprised?” Yuan Zhixia raised an eyebrow. “Or did you recognize me? When?”

“Around the lake, when I was dragging you by the collar.”

Li Cheng said: “You changed your face, hairstyle, outfit, sprayed heavy deodorant, wore fingerprint gloves.”

“But some things don’t change quickly.”

“Like the distribution of pores on your nape, hair root patterns, weight, bone structure, the unique scent of sweat mixed with body wash.”

“If just one or two matched, I couldn’t be sure—but all these matching? That’s enough to lock your identity.”

“Alright, didn’t expect to leak info this way.”

Yuan Zhixia adjusted her thin-framed glasses, arms crossed. “According to Special Affairs Bureau protocol, new agents covering their real-world identities must undergo comprehensive disguise.”

“Including, but not limited to: laser-altered fingerprints, complete body hair removal, replacement with synthetic hair.”

“I was sent on short notice—no time for full disguise. Didn’t expect you to notice.”

“By the way, how did you guess my identity?”

Li Cheng scratched his head. “My Daoist robe, gun, bullets, even the ironing board and iron—all bought from Kill Lou Street shops via the e-commerce system. No traceable identity. I did full disguise too.”

“Palm prints.”

Yuan Zhixia lifted her palm, pointing to its ridges. “When you extracted Ishikawa Kenichi from the Fujita residence in San Dingmu, Shuijing City, your gloves were torn—full of holes.”

“I had a pinhole HD camera embedded in my coat button. After the script ended, I uploaded the footage to a computer, used AI to zoom and sharpen it—and through the glove holes, I saw your palm print.”

“Palm prints are acquired, shaped by physical and chemical changes. They change slowly—years or months. Even the fastest change takes at least eight days to become noticeable.”

“Meanwhile, on the lake, you revealed those bone blades extending from below your wrists—identical to the ones the mercenary Dazaiji used when he saved me and Ye Jiaying.”

“Dazaiji appeared in Yin City, so I used a supercomputer to compare your pinhole camera palm print against all human palm prints captured in Yin City’s subway, malls, and neighborhoods over the past few months.”

“After eliminating tens of thousands of close matches, I narrowed it down to a few hundred. You were right in that range.”

Using a supercomputer, comparing millions of palm prints—just to identify one person. Should I praise Yuan Zhixia’s persistence, or call her bored out of her mind?

“Special Affairs Bureau resources really are rich.”

Li Cheng spread his hands. “So they sent you?”

If so, Yuan Zhixia was probably recruited into the Bureau after the Ink Spider incident.

“No.”

Yuan Zhixia smirked, tilting her head. “You’ve saved me multiple times—in the Anti-Memetic Spider incident, in the Dead Curse’s mission.”

“One of my life principles: repay kindness, avenge grudges. Since you, as a player, don’t want to reveal your identity to the Bureau, I won’t tell them.”

Anti-Memetic Spider? Is that what the Bureau calls the Ink Spider?

Li Cheng asked, puzzled: “So you came here on your own? Don’t you fear I’m actually from the Laughing Troupe or the Demon Scientists’ Alliance—someone who’ll kidnap and sell you?”

“Pfft,” Yuan Zhixia rolled her eyes. “First, I’m a player too—I can run if I lose.”

“Second, the Bureau has a highly sophisticated personality profiling program, written by psychologists, anthropologists, criminologists.”

“Input your high school and college exams, homework, essays, music apps, social media posts, favorite emojis, frequently visited websites—and it generates a personality profile.”

“Your profile classifies you as Chaotic Good: outwardly normal, willing to pretend to be normal.”

“But inwardly, you act by your own will, follow your own moral code and logic, value rational thought, protect the weak, believe in fairness and justice—but not fully in the law. You’re generally pessimistic about human nature, yet secretly hope for universal harmony.”

“Hmm.”

Li Cheng rubbed his chin. “Sounds a bit like a Little Red Book MBTI quiz.”

“It’s professional personality profiling, not some MBTI nonsense!”

Yuan Zhixia’s eye twitched. “Anyway—you’re a good person. So I deleted every possible trace that could lead back to you in the real world.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“No need.” Yuan Zhixia paused. “As a friend—er, I mean, classmate.”

“I suggest you register with the Bureau. It’ll make things easier. If you run into trouble, they’ll help within their capacity.”

“Not yet,” Li Cheng shook his head.

With her Level 2 rank, Yuan Zhixia held two high-quality consumable items—proof the Bureau valued her.

But that didn’t mean they’d spend huge resources to help Li Cheng with the Worm Lord’s divine corruption just because of her.

“Still…”

Li Cheng thought a moment. “Can you use legal means to transfer cash into some ordinary person’s account?”

“Who? You?”

“No. A friend.”

Li Cheng recalled the bank account number from when he worked at the dessert shop—gave it to Yuan Zhixia. “Transfer a million. I’ll pay you in game currency.”

Large, unexplained transfers usually trigger bank alerts—but with Yuan Zhixia’s hacking skills and Bureau status, it was no issue.

“One hundred game coins equal about 1.25 million on the black market. The money will be legally transferred to that account within two days.”

Yuan Zhixia memorized the account number without writing it down. “Anything else?”

Li Cheng hesitated. “What about Yang Ling?”

(End of Chapter)