Swire stepped out of Ch'en's office. Hearing what Swire said, Ch'en gave up on finding a phone number from that notebook that was giving her a headache—it was simply too agonizing. She sat there, rubbing her forehead, contemplating what to do when she finally met Jeanne.
What exactly should she say? Was it better to be subtle and build rapport first, or just directly interrogate her? And how could she be certain if what the other party said was true or false? What if Jeanne was lying to her?
Obviously, for Ch'en, who had made up her mind to confront Jeanne and get answers, she still had no idea how to handle the situation. She knew she needed to remain calm, but when faced with a relative who had been missing for so long, that was truly difficult.
Outside, Swire, holding her phone, was just stepping out of the office when she realized that Hoshiguma, who had left not long ago, had already returned, bringing the little rabbit eyewitness with her.
"Whoa! You were pretty efficient today, Hoshiguma! How long has it been since you went out looking for someone, and you already brought her back?"
Swire looked at the pair, somewhat astonished by Hoshiguma's speed in solving the case. It was almost breaking the record for the fastest time the L.G.D. had ever taken to find an eyewitness. Swire felt that if Hoshiguma could maintain this pace, the efficiency of the L.G.D. in solving cases would increase by ten percentage points.
"Don't tease me, Officer Swire. I just got lucky and ran into the kid; otherwise, finding her today would have been a real question mark."
"Officer Swire, long time no see..."
Hoshiguma smiled and replied, while Rope next to her skillfully greeted Swire, like an old acquaintance she hadn't seen in a long time. In any case, she had become very familiar with these inspectors in the L.G.D. And she naturally remembered this kind-hearted person who sometimes casually brought her a meal when buying dinner.
To some extent, Swire was actually Rope's superior. Usually, when Rope discovered anything in the slums, she would find a way to pass the information to Swire. According to Swire, in the next few years, the L.G.D. would find a way to get her a position as a police assistant. That way, she wouldn't have to steal anymore.
"Didn't you say there were two people? How come you're the only one here? I wanted to get a look at the person who took you away!"
Swire remembered that her subordinates had searched for a long time at that spot and didn't find any trace of the two of them. Swire naturally knew very well how capable Rope was, and also knew she didn't have the ability to sneak a person away right under their noses; that was naturally done by the other person. It wasn't for any other reason, she just wanted to know how they escaped, and where exactly the loophole in her subordinates' work was, which was a point that needed to be corrected.
"Actually... you know that person too. It's Miss Jeanne, the one who came to pick up Exusiai and the others yesterday. I'll tell Exusiai and the others when I get back, and Miss Jeanne can come by herself tomorrow."
Before Rope could speak, Hoshiguma explained to Swire first. This was also considering the other party was related to Penguin Logistics; let them handle their business first and come over later. Besides, on the surface, she was just a tourist from out of town who had finished a mission and stopped by to visit a friend's family. To bring such a person back to the L.G.D. for two consecutive days, and the questioning yesterday was a bit too obvious, it would really ruin the visitor's impression of Lungmen. As a city facing the entire continent, giving others a good impression was also very important. Since there was a gentler way to do it, it was better to choose the gentler way.
"Jeanne? Do you know where she is right now?"
Upon hearing this, Swire immediately perked up. She didn't expect the Pink Sausage Dragon to have searched for so long, and yet this Jeanne appeared right here. Swire felt this was all just a bit too coincidental; if this really wasn't someone orchestrating it all behind the scenes, then one could only say it was heaven helping them meet.
"The kid said she finally went to Forest Road, and the two of them parted ways there. Why, do you have something to find her for?"
Hoshiguma noticed that when she mentioned the name Jeanne, Swire's expression was a bit subtle, so she asked Swire. Although she didn't clearly know what Swire wanted with Jeanne, it seemed Swire was now particularly invested in matters related to Jeanne. If she could have notified her sooner, she would have gone to Forest Road for sure to bring Jeanne back.
"It's nothing, just hurry up and take this kid to record her statement. I have something else to do, I still need to discuss with that Pink Sausage..."
Originally, this matter would have been more appropriate for Swire to handle, but now she was anxious to go and tell Ch'en about the current situation, so she could only trouble Hoshiguma to take Rope.
"Shall I just go inside and wait?"
Rope saw that everyone in the L.G.D. seemed quite busy, and even those who liked to drink tea when they had nothing to do were busy. Based on the current situation, it seemed these people couldn't look after the information on a little kid like her for the time being. Thinking of this, Rope took the initiative to ask Hoshiguma to go to the detention room; she knew the way there anyway, and Hoshiguma could busy herself with work. Rope also never really understood the difference between assisting in an investigation and being detained; in any case, every time she came to the L.G.D., she would spend a period of time there, so now she naturally followed her previous experience.
"You're being brought here to assist in an investigation, not to be locked up. If all goes well, you might even be able to treat me to that dinner."
Although Hoshiguma didn't know what had happened in the L.G.D. while she was away that made Swire so anxious, since Swire didn't say, it meant this matter needed a certain level of confidentiality. She didn't dwell on this point, just took Rope to assist in the investigation.
On the other side, Swire barged into Ch'en's office again, only to see Ch'en sitting there pondering something.
"Hey, hey! Just sitting here without any reaction, what are you spacing out about? Snap out of it, Hoshiguma's side found Jeanne's approximate location now."
Swire shook her arm in front of Ch'en, and Ch'en glanced at her, but didn't do anything else, just sighed.
"Where is she?"
At this time, Ch'en seemed particularly calm on the surface, but upon hearing there was news, she also instantly became a little excited.
"Calm down, you look like this, I'm almost afraid to tell you."
Looking at the somewhat distorted expression on Ch'en's face, caused by the combination of maintaining calmness and excitement, Swire still wasn't quite reassured about just letting Ch'en go over like this.
"Tell me quickly, where is the person right now?"
Ch'en asked Swire somewhat anxiously; she had no mind to continue wasting time here with Swire.
"Forest Road, I estimate she's gone to Uncle Lin's side now. Because we arrived at the scene in time, Uncle Lin's people didn't have time to gather information; going to Forest Road at this time, it's very likely there."
Others didn't know about the Rat King opening a shop on Forest Road, but with the Ch'en and Swire families being so close to the Rat King, they more or less knew a little about the specific situation. Having roughly guessed where the other party was, Ch'en rushed out of the office in one bound, quickly leaving the L.G.D. and heading towards Forest Road.
"Hey, hey! At least change your clothes before you go!"
Seeing Ch'en planned to go to Lin Yuxia's house to block the door in her L.G.D. uniform, Swire quickly urged her to change clothes before going. But before her words had even finished falling, Ch'en had already disappeared from her sight. Fearing that these two people, who already had some conflicts, would create some misunderstanding again, and might end up fighting... Thinking of this, Swire hurriedly called Lin Yuxia's number, telling her that Ch'en wasn't coming to settle scores with them because of what happened earlier.
However, the officers outside didn't feel anything strange about this; Superintendent Ch'en's swift and decisive way of doing things wasn't a matter of just one or two days, perhaps some case had a breakthrough?
Ch'en drove towards Forest Road. If it wasn't for maintaining Lungmen's traffic environment, and having to maintain speed, she estimated she would have had the mind to push the gas pedal into the engine right now.