What happened next was completely predictable.

  Although the man in the bck suit could command the shadow clones, he was clearly an ordinary person.

  If the real shadow Oddities had shown up, seeing Zhu Shi, Ma Zao, and my faces would likely have made it flee immediately.

  Perhaps in Jin Yu's eyes, he was a mysterious and cruel former hitman with formidable killing skills, but those abilities had no room to be useful here.

  As for the shadow clones around him, they were only for show and intimidation, posing no real threat and actually appearing rather comical.

  I’m not sure when he started eavesdropping or how he understood our conversation, but clearly, he didn’t realize that most of us were far from ordinary.

  He might have assumed that since Chang’an didn’t seek help from us in advance, we must not have the power to handle the situation.

  What a huge misunderstanding.

  I immediately released a rge amount of fire, filling every inch of space in the room.

  The shadow clones were reduced to ashes in the fmes.

  Zhu Shi seemed to have used a sound barrier technique, simir to st night, as the sounds of the bustling street outside were no longer audible.

  The sounds inside the room probably didn’t reach the outside either.

  Chang’an was at least able to somewhat accept the turn of events, while Jin Yu seemed as if her worldview had shattered, staring at everything in a daze.

  Under my control, the fmes didn’t harm anything except the shadow clones, including the man in the bck suit.

  He really lived up to his reputation as a former hitman, as he immediately tried to react to the sudden change and made a move to rush out the door.

  "—Return."

  Ma Zao set down her straw and co, pointing at the man in the bck suit.

  With just that gesture, the man’s foot, which had already started moving, suddenly stopped as if it had been pulled back by an invisible force.

  He froze for a moment before hastily attempting to step out again.

  However, the strange force acting on him seemed to continue working, and this time, he only managed to take half a step before his foot was forced back again.

  He dispyed a look of terror and tried to move again, but this time, he couldn’t even take half a step.

  His body couldn’t even turn before it was twisted back on its own, and the fear on his face vanished as though it had been reversed.

  His subsequent struggles became increasingly feeble, with only his body trembling slightly.

  Within less than a second, even the trembling stopped, and his facial expression froze, as though all his attempts to resist had been nullified before they could even begin.

  He stood frozen in pce, like a victim of Medusa's gaze, turned to stone.

  This seemed to be another application of Ma Zao’s "Return" ability.

  "Is she also a superpower user?" Chang’an asked, surprised, with a hint of envy in his voice.

  Jin Yu, on the other hand, was completely stunned. "What... is going on...?"

  Even Zhu Shi looked surprised.

  I’m a person with somewhat "low-level interests"—I enjoy seeing others shocked by my power.

  And when I saw part of their attention being diverted by Ma Zao's "public demonstration," I felt a pure sense of satisfaction.

  Yes, my Ma Zao is this strong—though I wouldn't openly admit it, I might have had a thought along those lines.

  Why would I think that?

  Was it because, subconsciously, I saw myself as the first person Ma Zao met in this era?

  I pondered that inner feeling.

  Ma Zao didn’t seem interested in the others’ astonishment at all.

  She focused solely on asking for my opinion: "What should we do next? Should we interrogate him to find out the true identity of the Shadow Swap Oddities?"

  I thought for a moment, then asked, "Can you make him speak while keeping him frozen?"

  She nodded, loosening her raised finger slightly.

  While the man in the bck suit still couldn’t move his limbs or torso, it seemed that the area above his neck had been unfrozen.

  He desperately twisted his neck, showing his helplessness.

  I stood up and walked towards him, wondering where I should begin my questioning.

  I couldn’t rely on him to speak willingly, and even if he did, I couldn’t be sure if he’d tell the truth.

  After all, he was a former professional hitman—who knows how effective normal interrogation would be on him?

  So I decided to skip the unnecessary steps and directly took out the bck rope-lock heart ring from my pocket.

  My phantom right hand pierced through the bck suit man's chest and grabbed his heart.

  I thought to myself, regardless of the circumstances, I should thank Patrol Lu for giving me this ring—it’s certainly coming in handy now.

  Ten minutes ter, we had gathered all the information we could from him.

  The most important part: the Shadow Swap Oddities was indeed inside that nightclub and was, in fact, its hidden backer.

  About three months ago, he appeared before the nightclub owner and proposed a partnership.

  Though he called it a "partnership," it was more like an attempt to use force to manipute the nightclub owner’s connections within the local elite, in order to serve his own interests.

  I didn’t know much about the elite social circles, but according to the bck-suited man, despite the nightclub owner’s dark business practices, she seemed to have significant influence among the upper css.

  The true identity of the Shadow Swap Oddities also seemed to be a member of the local upper css, but the bck-suited man didn’t know who it was—only the nightclub owner knew.

  As a hidden backer, the Shadow Swap Oddities would provide assistance whenever the nightclub faced threats.

  The shadow clones we encountered earlier were actually transferred to the bck-suited man by the Shadow Swap Oddities.

  The transfer process was quite simple; the Shadow Swap Oddities merely had to order the shadow clones—who possessed a certain level of intelligence—to follow the bck-suited man.

  The shadow clones who kidnapped and beat Chang'an two days ago were sent by the bck-suited man.

  The motive was simple: Chang'an’s efforts to gather evidence of the nightclub’s criminal activities had already been discovered, and the bck-suited man wanted to settle accounts with him.

  Shadow clones, even when exposed, wouldn’t reveal the nightclub’s secrets, making them perfect pawns for such purposes.

  However, before executing his pn, he needed to know how much evidence Chang'an had gathered and whether he had shared it with anyone else.

  Therefore, the shadow clones only beat Chang'an, rather than trying to kill him directly.

  His original pn was to beat Chang'an to the brink of death, causing his psychological defenses to colpse.

  Afterward, the shadow clones would use Chang'an’s phone to contact him remotely and interrogate him.

  However, things didn’t go as pnned.

  Before he could even get to that stage, the two shadow clones he sent out suddenly lost contact, and two days ter, Chang'an reappeared, full of life.

  That was the truth behind the events Chang'an experienced two days ago.

  “So that’s what happened…” Chang'an said, still with lingering fear.

  “Just to be sure, let me ask—what exactly did you mean by ‘settling accounts’?”

  “Speak,” I gripped the bck-suited man’s heart tightly.

  The man showed pain on his face and involuntarily spoke the truth: “It depends on the extent of the evidence you've gathered and how far you pn to go with it. If you're just someone who’ll completely colpse after a beating, someone who acted rashly in youthful passion, then I’d just let you go home."

  "But if you really have some backbone—if you're willing to oppose us even knowing you'll die—then I have no choice but to admit you're a real man, and I'd have to treat you as a true enemy and kill you."

  "So you actually considered letting me go? Aren't you a killer?" Chang'an was surprised.

  "I was a killer," the bck-suited man’s voice carried a hint of weariness.

  It sounded like he had his own story to tell, but now was clearly not the time to listen.

  I pulled my right hand out of his chest and removed the bck rope-lock heart ring.

  Zhu Shi took a sheathed longsword from his bck guitar case and knocked the bck-suited man unconscious.

  Honestly, I wanted to burn him to death right then and there, but since Chang'an was watching, I had to restrain myself for the time being.

  I felt a lot better now.

  The mystery of Chang'an's attack, which had been weighing on my mind, was finally solved.

  It was a great relief.

  Unfortunately, the bck-suited man didn’t know the true identity of the Shadow Swap Oddities.

  Although the nightclub owner did, we couldn’t just barge into the club and interrogate her—doing so might alert the Shadow Swap Oddities.

  After all, since the information had already come to us voluntarily, we couldn’t expect much more from him.

  ...Come to think of it, did he end up walking into our hands because of Ma Zao's jinx aura?

  I gnced at Ma Zao, who blinked innocently.

  "Brother, you should hand over all the evidence you've collected to our family. That nightclub will disappear for good," Zhu Shi said to Chang'an.

  "Huh? Is our Zhu family really that powerful?" Chang'an hesitated.

  "A few years ago, a family like ours—hunters of demonic beings—wouldn’t have been able to influence the secur world much, especially when it came to nightclubs with ties to the powerful elite," Zhu Shi expined, seemingly for my benefit as well.

  "But things have changed in the past two or three years. Retions between the official forces and Mount Luo are tense. A nightclub that exploits young girls, once exposed, would become ammunition for Mount Luo to criticize the legitimacy of the authorities. So the official forces would be more eager than us to wipe it out, and they’d use the harshest means possible."

  "We're a family of Demon hunters?" Chang'an was shocked.

  Zhu Shi froze. "Huh? Grandpa didn’t tell you anything?"

  Chang'an looked confused. "He just told me to stay quietly in my room..."

  "Wasn't Grandpa supposed to expin everything to you first?" Zhu Shi was puzzled at first, then seemed to realize something.

  "Could it be that he pns to directly lift the seal on your Demonic blood first? That way, you’d regain your childhood memories, and he wouldn’t have to bother expining or convincing you anymore…"

  Hearing all this, Jin Yu had a bewildered expression, as if she had stumbled into a grand exhibition of extreme chuunibyou antics.

  Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t help but believe that everything was real.

  It was the kind of expression that could only be described as sheer disbelief.

  This was my second time hearing about these things reted to Chang'an, but I had to admit that these words didn’t sound like something that should exist in the real world.

  Did I somehow unknowingly find myself transported into a fantasy battle drama where Chang'an is the protagonist?

  "Huh? Demonic blood? Seals? Memories?" Chang'an was even more shocked.

  "I actually have a backstory that sounds just like the protagonist of an old-school shonen manga?"

  "Alright, alright, this isn’t the time to talk about all that." Zhu Shi sighed in exhaustion.

  "Let’s focus on the Shadow Swap Oddities for now. Assuming he really is inside that nightclub, how do we go about finding him?"

  Perhaps influenced by me, Zhu Shi had also started referring to the creature as the Shadow Swap Oddities.

  As for the current issue, I had an idea—though it was still a bit rough around the edges.