Chapter 123: Clues of the Thousand Faces
Hearing Fang Xiaocao’s pitiful, soft-girl act over the phone, Wang Qiang couldn’t help but laugh.
If he didn’t know how crazy she could be, he might have actually believed her act.
“You don’t have to worry about meals.”
“I’ll have a colleague prepare one for you,” Wang Qiang said with a chuckle.
“Hehe~”
“Thank you, Officer Wang!”
Fang Xiaocao grinned, having achieved her goal.
Hearing her laughter, Wang Qiang rolled his eyes on the other end of the call.
“How much is the meal? I’ll pay for it!” Fang Xiaocao offered cheerfully.
“No need. It’s just a standard boxed meal from the police department—barely costs anything.”
“Our budget isn’t great, but one more or less doesn’t make a difference,” Wang Qiang said.
“Just a heads-up, though—our meal allowance for operations isn’t exactly high, so don’t expect anything fancy.”
“That’s fine! As long as there’s food, I’m good!”
Fang Xiaocao laughed.
Before gaining her cheat-like abilities, she had lived through tough times, working multiple part-time jobs just to get by.
There were days when she survived on nothing but two steamed buns and plain water.
Even now, despite being worth billions thanks to Hot Noodles’ guidance, she wasn’t one for luxury—often eating at street stalls or fast-food joints.
A simple boxed meal was no big deal for her.
“Alright, contact me if anything comes up,” Wang Qiang said before hanging up.
Fang Xiaocao put down her phone and lay on the bed, thinking about her current situation.
Life on the edge, constantly surrounded by danger—it was exhausting but thrilling.
She actually found it exciting.
Fun!
She loved it!
She thrived on it!
Now, to review the clues she had gathered so far…
Of the few friends she had, not a single one could be relied on.
In fact, she had to be wary of them.
Even Su Wanqing, the only one she could rule out as a suspect, had been manipulated by someone else and couldn’t be trusted.
Thankfully, there was still Officer Wang Qiang, her newly acquired friend.
And Song Lin could be considered half a friend.
“Good thing I still have one and a half friends,” she murmured with a grin.
Just then, her phone screen lit up.
A message?
“Huh? Who could it be?”
She unlocked the screen and opened WeChat.
It was from Zhi Qi.
[Zhi Qi: Xiaocao, are you still at the hotel?]
Seeing the message, Fang Xiaocao narrowed her eyes.
A question popped into her mind.
The person chatting with her on WeChat—was it really Zhi Qi?
She didn’t respond immediately.
Instead, she scrolled through their chat history, carefully analyzing their past messages.
The more she read, the deeper her frown became.
Something was off.
There was a problem with the chat history!
Whoever was using Zhi Qi’s WeChat account was likely not Zhi Qi herself.
“The person Thousand Faces replaced… could it be Zhi Qi?” she muttered.
She knew some of Zhi Qi’s habits.
Whoever was messaging her was trying hard to imitate Zhi Qi’s chat style, but subtle details gave them away.
Looking back, it seemed like Zhi Qi hadn’t been the one messaging her from the very start.
“I was careless!”
“How did I not notice this before?”
Annoyed with herself, she sat up in bed and reviewed every message carefully.
Comparing them to the way she remembered Zhi Qi texting, she tried to distinguish which messages, if any, had actually come from her real friend.
She needed to determine whether Zhi Qi was still… alive.
If two different people had been using Zhi Qi’s account, then maybe she was still alive, just without her phone.
But if only one person had been impersonating her all along…
Then Zhi Qi was likely dead.
Or rather…
The person currently acting as Zhi Qi was Thousand Faces!
“Catching a Thousand Faces impersonator is still a win,” she muttered.
After thoroughly reviewing the chat logs, she blinked in confusion.
“Wait a minute…”
“This doesn’t make sense!”
“There are three different people’s writing habits in these messages?”
She stared at her phone, completely baffled.
That was unexpected.
And none of them matched Zhi Qi’s usual typing style.
Annoyed, she ruffled her hair in frustration.
At this rate, she was going to go bald.
“Could Zhi Qi really be dead?”
“And the current ‘Zhi Qi’ is a Thousand Faces operative?”
These days, no one can function without a phone.
And certainly not without WeChat.
People used it for work, communication, daily life…
Especially someone like Zhi Qi, a corporate boss—even if she was only a trainee CEO, she still had plenty of responsibilities.
There was no way she would go without her phone for so long unless something had happened to her.
With that thought, Fang Xiaocao’s gaze turned icy.
Given all these clues, she was now almost certain—Zhi Qi was gone.
She was the person that Hot Noodles had mentioned—the one who had been replaced by Thousand Faces.
“If Zhi Qi is Thousand Faces… then between Wen Shi and Yun Luoshu, one of them must be the person trying to get rid of me.”
She murmured to herself.
“Wen Shi or Yun Luoshu…”
“Which one is it?”
She whispered.
From what she deduced, one of the people texting from Zhi Qi’s account was Thousand Faces—who was now posing as Zhi Qi.
Another was either Wen Shi or Yun Luoshu.
And the last person…
Had to be Su Wanqing!
The person manipulating Su Wanqing was one of the three.
“This is actually a great discovery.”
For her, it was indeed good news.
She had just narrowed down the suspect pool to her own friend group.
Earlier, she had been worried that the mastermind behind Su Wanqing was an outsider.
If that were the case, tracking them down would have been a nightmare.
But now, with the scope reduced, Fang Xiaocao’s head has been saved.
“Hm…”
“This theory makes sense!”
The more she thought about it, the more it added up.
If Zhi Qi had been replaced by Thousand Faces, then the seemingly omniscient and unbeatable investment strategies Hot Noodles had mentioned could be explained.
With Thousand Faces and the Blacklist backing them, even risky investments would never fail.
Even if they ran into trouble, the Blacklist would ensure things turned in their favor.
(End of Chapter 123)
