Chapter 950: Catching the Trash Can

That spot still held a faint sour, swollen feeling from the poke—no longer painful, but each blink brought a subtle odd sensation, like a bodily alarm reminding her, "the trash can is still out there waiting for you."

Since her eye was poked, she hasn't been able to forget that trash can.

During the day, when she went to the Exhaustive Observation Formation for questioning, she talked about the trash can with Kafuka; back at her residence she replayed the can's structure in her mind; at midnight, lying in bed, she stared at the ceiling, the same image looping in her head—the trash can lid opening a slit…

It tormented her for a full half‑night, then she sat up, dressed, and slipped out the window.

If she doesn't find it tonight, she won't go back!

When she slipped out from Walther's side, she only took a phone and a flashlight; the flashlight smashed against a wall in a dark alley and was ruined, and the phone still had thirty percent charge, set to ultra‑power‑saving mode.

But the sealed zone had no streetlights; though the moon was bright, it couldn't reach those alleys so narrow one could only slip through sideways.

She relied entirely on smell to find the trash can.

The mark was so shallow that anyone else would think it was just an ordinary scratch on the stone slab floor.

But she recognized it at a glance; it was a trace left by the rim of the can's bottom being dragged, its curvature and width unlike any ordinary trash can.

For example, the one she encountered during the day at Changletian.

Xing stood up, her golden eyes shining astonishingly in the darkness.

Following the wheel marks a few steps forward, she crouched in a corner and found another half‑can imprint; this time a complete circle, edges clear, diameter exactly matching the trash can she had measured with her arm during the day.

Her mouth lifted about three degrees—a reaction for her equivalent to an ordinary person spinning in place with excitement.

"You can't run away," she said to the imprint.

Then she stood and followed the trail.

This move had been meticulously planned.

Since the daytime at Changletian, she had been thinking about that trash can.

Mr. Walther gave her extensive analysis of the sealed zone's dangers; she nodded, took it in, yet still decided to come.

Because she discerned a pattern from those traces.

The trash can's route wasn't random; it actively avoided certain spots—crowded places, overly bright‑lit areas.

This avoidance behavior indicated two things.

First, the trash can possesses a high degree of autonomous mobility.

Second, unknown.

Xing crouched at a fork, pressed her left hand to the stone slab to feel the temperature difference, and brushed her right fingertip on some dust in a slab crack, bringing it to her nose.

Then she rose, without hesitation choosing the left path.

It smelled exactly like what she had detected on the trash can's shell during the day!

The true reason Xing pursued the trash can is hard to articulate.

During the day at Changletian, as she hunched toward the metal bucket, the moment her fingers touched it she felt a texture: soft rubber that gave slightly under her fingertips, with just the right elasticity, a fine rim pattern, feeling like the skin of a small animal breathing.

That sensation still lingers on her fingertips, impossible to shake off.

That trash can is the only one!

Xing vaulted over a pile of discarded wooden crates; when she landed, a small cloud of dust rose at her feet.

She then crouched behind the crates, peering forward through a gap.

About ten meters ahead, the alley's end formed a crossroads, and the familiar wheel mark reappeared on the ground.

The mark was fresh, its edges still damp with a bit of wetness; there's no water source nearby, so the moisture indicates the trash can passed here only minutes ago.

Very close.

Turning a corner piled with discarded bamboo baskets, she saw a half‑shut Chinese medicine shop ahead, its sign hanging askew on the doorway.

She slipped sideways into the doorway, crouched behind the dust‑covered counter, her golden eyes scanning every shadow inside, then spotted a metal trash can beside a heap of dried herbs scattered on the floor.

The can's size, color, and material were all correct.

The bucket even bore a few shallow scratches she had seen on it at Changletian during the day.

She recognized the scratch—it was the one she'd made when she tried to pry the lid open with her fingernail during the day!

Xing held her breath, hunched and moved forward slowly.

Her movement was as light as approaching a rare butterfly that could take flight at any moment.

Her fingertip brushed the sealing rubber ring on the lid again; the same soft, perfectly elastic, slightly indented feel returned.

Her golden eyes suddenly flared in the darkness.

Then she ripped the lid open.

It was empty.

The bottom was lined with a crumpled newspaper, its pages dotted with a few purple hairs.

Xing stared at the purple hairs for a moment, then plucked one with her finger and examined it in the moonlight.

Purple hair.

She carefully slipped the hair into her trench coat pocket, closed the lid, stood and brushed the dust off her knees.

"It ran away again."

She said, flat‑toned, though the curve at the corner of her mouth still lingered.

There was no disappointment, only deeper curiosity.

She pulled the phone from her pocket, marked her current location on the map app, then typed a note: "Trash‑Can King's movement route hypothesis. Next time bring a net bag."

After a thought, she added parentheses after "net bag" with two characters inside: "fishing net".

She thought again, then added another parenthesis after "fishing net" containing: "large size".

Her expression remained utterly serious throughout.

Xing slipped the phone back into her pocket, was about to rise and leave when a muffled thud echoed from afar.

"What's going on?"

She quietly poked half her head out from the shop doorway, looking toward where the sound came from.

Only at the end of the alley lay that deserted district, the ground covered with densely packed white bubbles.

The whole street was packed like a foamy sea produced after shaking a whole box of detergent wildly.

And these bubbles were all frozen.

The frozen bubbles held their about-to-drift pose, suspended in midair, like a whole white nebula that had been paused.

And at the center of the bubble ocean stood two people.

Precisely speaking, they were two humanoid presences, under the moonlight's cutting forming an extremely tense confrontation scene.

Xing's first reaction was, wow.

Second reaction was, expert.

Third reaction was, only in Xianzhou storybooks would appear, a hermit for many years, a peerless master who could blow up a mountain with a single move!

Xing indeed recently found in her residence a storybook published by Xianzhou, the cover printed with a few gilt characters "Tai Xu Sword Saint Charges the Pass of Love", the content tells of a white-haired sword hermit who has lived in seclusion for many years and a group of experts' grudges and emotions.

She still remembers the illustration in that book: the white-clothed swordswoman has long hair like snow, surrounded by visible sword qi vortex, standing opposite the villain whose body is entwined with dark vines, the scene's tension explodes.

And the scene she sees now is even more outrageous than that book's illustration.