SBTW 3

Shuttle Between Two Worlds: The Chief Minister’s E-Commerce Minion

Chapter 3: I Plugged a Bluetooth Earbud Straight into the Chief Minister's Ear

That streak of glowing green traces extended outward from the morgue, snaking along the base of the walls.

The faint fluorescence occasionally fell upon the blue-stone pavement or broke off near the edge of the perimeter wall, looking as though someone had intentionally tried to cover their tracks, though they ultimately failed to clean it up completely.

The trail finally stopped right outside the back wall of the Du Residence—the proprietor of the capital’s wildly prominent Wansheng Money House.

Beneath the night sky, towering crimson walls stood in quiet stillness.

Bright lights illuminated the estate from within, and the rhythmic, heavy footsteps of patrolling guards drifted over from behind the wall from time to time, making it clear that security was exceptionally tight.

Huangfu Ye stood outside the wall, his ink-black official robes blending almost seamlessly into the darkness.

He raised his gaze slightly to study the towering barrier, a layer of calm, heavy deliberation weighing permanently between his brows.

"The Du family holds immense power, and their ties across the imperial court are deeply entangled. Without concrete evidence, it is inconvenient for the Court of Judicial Review to forcibly search the estate in the dead of night."

His voice remained steady, yet the careful calculation behind it was unmistakable.

Standing right next to him, Tian Qiqi operated on an entirely different wavelength. "What's so hard about that?"

She gave Huangfu Ye a reassuring pat on the shoulder, her eyes sparkling as though she were gearing up for a brand-new project. "If we can't investigate out in the open, we'll just search undercover."

Huangfu Ye glanced down at the shoulder she had just slapped. Under normal circumstances, if anyone else dared to touch him so casually, he would have long since backed away with a freezing glare.

Yet watching Tian Qiqi’s bright, hyper-motivated eyes right now, he paused for a moment and surprisingly didn't push her away.

"What do you propose?"

A grin instantly bloomed across Tian Qiqi’s face. "Leave it to me," she declared with absolute confidence.

"I used to deal with customers and chat my way through customer service all the time. Extracting info is a piece of cake."

With that, she grabbed Huangfu Ye by the sleeve and detoured toward the back alley.

Near the back gate of the Du Residence, several large tubs of trash slated for disposal were stacked outside. A scullery maid carrying a wooden basin emerged from the side door, softly grumbling under her breath about how the night-shift guards were slacking off to drink again.

Tian Qiqi’s eyes lit up.

Before long, two White Rabbit creamy candies materialized in the maid's palm, and Tian Qiqi was already chattering away and hitting it off with her with a bright smile.

Lingering in the shadows, Huangfu Ye watched as she won the girl over and dropped her guard with just a few sentences, effortlessly coaxing out the exact details of where the guard rotation was slackest tonight and which alleyway had the least foot traffic. His expression turned somewhat complex.

This woman's abilities... seemed a bit different from ordinary people.

Tian Qiqi scurried right back. "Got the scoop."

Lowering her voice, a trace of smug triumph laced her tone. "The rockery in the northwest corner undergoes a shift change tonight, leaving a small window where it's completely empty. Climbing in from there is our safest bet."

The moment she finished speaking, she efficiently rolled up her sleeves with a natural fluidity, as if scaling people's exterior walls wasn't her first rodeo.

Huangfu Ye’s brow twitched faintly. "Just what kind of business do you normally run?"

Tian Qiqi answered with utter righteousness. "Legitimate e-commerce, obviously—just occasionally researching self-defense gear and evacuation routes on the side."

Huangfu Ye: "..." He had zero idea what this girl was talking about.

A moment later, the two of them had already slipped soundlessly over the back wall of the Du Residence.

When Tian Qiqi landed, she was as light and graceful as a cat, while Huangfu Ye maintained a steady, grounded posture, his dark hem brushing softly against the night breeze with barely a whisper of sound.

The entire Du Residence felt suffocatingly quiet.

In the distance, the muted voices of patrolling guards drifted over occasionally, but the direction of the study was abnormally pitch-black.

Judging from the path of the glowing green residue, the secret mechanism the victim had touched during life was most likely hidden inside.

Huangfu Ye raised a hand, preparing to pull out his fire striker.

Suddenly, a warm, soft hand reached out and clamped firmly around his wrist with a sharp clack. "Don't light a fire."

Tian Qiqi inched right up beside his ear, keeping her voice down to a whisper. "If the light leaks through the window paper, we'll get busted instantly."

As she spoke, her warm breath brushed softly against the side of his ear.

Huangfu Ye’s spine stiffened involuntarily; never in his life had anyone dared to get this close to him.

Totally oblivious, Tian Qiqi remained entirely focused on rummaging through her backpack with a dead-serious expression.

"Then how are we supposed to see?" Huangfu Ye suppressed the strange flutter in his chest and asked in a low voice.

Qiqi swiftly fished out a small, black, rectangular device. "High-tech, obviously."

Her tone carried a hint of smugness. "This is a night-vision monitor. Even though the casing got a bit scratched and a customer returned it, it still works like a charm."

Huangfu Ye clearly had no clue what a "monitor" was.

Before long, he watched with his own eyes as the bright little panel gradually projected the interior layout of the study.

Tables, chairs, multi-layered display cabinets, and corner furnishings in the pitch darkness were all crisply reflected within that tiny square inch, as if someone had forcefully illuminated the dead of night.

A profound shock finally surfaced in Huangfu Ye’s eyes. "This object can actually pierce the dark?"

He instinctively leaned in closer, narrowing the distance between them significantly.

Keeping her eyes glued to the screen, Tian Qiqi didn't notice. "Yep, look right here."

She reached out and pulled Huangfu Ye even closer, pointing at the display cabinet on the screen.

"Right next to that stone lion on the third tier—the dust has been wiped away. The mechanism's probably right there."

Her hand was still wrapped around his wrist, and the warmth of her palm radiating through the fabric gave him an indescribable sense of restlessness, though strangely enough, he didn't want to pull away.

His slender fingers pressed against the stone lion mechanism.

Click! The delicate sound was exceptionally crisp in the silent study.

The display cabinet slowly slid apart to both sides, revealing a pitch-black secret tunnel in its wake.

A chilly gust of air billowed up slowly from the underground, carrying a rather unpleasant, stagnant, rotting odor.

Huangfu Ye’s expression grew heavy, his right hand already dropping to the hilt of his longsword. "There could be an ambush inside."

He instinctively pulled Tian Qiqi behind his back. "Stay out here."

Instead, Tian Qiqi glared up at the man. "Are you kidding?"

Her excitement was clearly peaking. "The best part about solving cases is exploring the map and hunting down clues."

With that, she ducked her head back down to rummage through her backpack. In a flash, a pair of Bluetooth earbuds was fished out.

Before Huangfu Ye could even process what was happening, she had already stood on her tiptoes and jammed one of the earbuds straight into his right ear.

Her soft fingertips accidentally brushed against his outer ear.

In the dark, the tips of those customarily composed ears quietly flushed with a faint, imperceptible red.

"What is this thing again?" he murmured, a rare touch of helplessness lacing his tone.

Totally oblivious to his internal turmoil, Tian Qiqi gave him a cheerful pat on the chest. "An intercom earbud."

"Hang on, I'm gonna tape the monitor to my entrenching tool and scout ahead."

As she chatted away, she efficiently hauled out a roll of packing tape and went to work.

"If anything moves down there, the audio feeds straight into your ear. We're doing a tag-team operation."

She raised her head, flashing Huangfu Ye an exceptionally brilliant smile. "You're in charge of keeping me safe, and I'm in charge of being your high-tech cheat code."

As the cold draft blew from the mouth of the secret tunnel, Huangfu Ye looked down at the girl standing before him—laden with bizarre magical gadgets and operating with such reckless, daring boldness—and felt something gently collide against the core of his heart.

It was entirely unfamiliar, yet far from unpleasant, and he could still faintly hear her steady, gentle breathing right beside his ear.

After a few quiet seconds, he finally answered. "Very well."

A faint, wispy curve even touched the edge of his thin lips. "This official will accompany you inside to take a look."

Tian Qiqi’s eyes lit up. Neatly securing the monitor to the tip of her entrenching tool, she took the lead and stepped right into the dark secret passageway.

Wielding his longsword, Huangfu Ye guarded her flank.

Cast by the faint glow of the smartphone screen, their silhouettes stretched across the stone walls, moving one after the other as they slowly swallowed themselves into the deep darkness.

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