NOVEL WEB Chapter 136 - Disguise
Having learned from the example of Zhao Fenni’s family matriarch, who placed a bounty on Mai Dongzi’s head in the dark market for assassination, Mai Dongzi wouldn’t naively believe that Bai Zhizhi had no connections to the killer organization.
After all, aside from girls from prominent families like Lucy, who were intentionally made useless by Zhao Fenni, most girls with higher status within their families typically have some power at their disposal.
Given Bai Zhizhi’s family background, it’s only natural for her to have a few useful people at her command.
Although Bai Zhizhi’s hostility and malice towards her seemed inexplicable, they were undeniably real.
Seeing the message that Bai Zhizhi sent, Mai Dongzi instinctively felt it was related to her.
If Bai Zhizhi had a way to know about the bounty on her head in the black market, she would certainly provide the assassin organization with Mai Dongzi’s itinerary. This would undoubtedly be the best way to use someone else’s hand to do the dirty work.
Mai Dongzi felt relieved that for her own safety, and for Zhuang Huaiya’s safety, she didn’t plan to leave the school with Zhuang Huaiya.
After Bai Zhizhi sent that message, there were no further actions, but her malicious intent seemed to have lessened considerably.
Most importantly, Mai Dongzi noticed that Bai Zhizhi didn’t show any signs of triumph or resentment on her face.
After thinking for a moment, Mai Dongzi decided to give everyone who inquired about her week-long absence the impression that she was likely spending those seven days in the Phantom Team’s training room.
To create this illusion, she pretended that she was staying in the training room for closed-door training due to a setback in her cultivation.
In reality, after dawn, Mai Dongzi suppressed her martial aura to the late fourth level using her mental power, applied makeup to make herself appear unremarkable, and added some padding to her shoulders and waist.
Then, she calmly left the Phantom Team’s training room, using her mental power to diminish her presence, so that unless someone had a similar level of mental power, they wouldn’t notice her.
It wasn’t until Mai Dongzi blended into a group of students that she gradually relaxed her aura, appearing inconspicuously among them as they walked to the school’s external ferry port, standing among many students waiting for boats.
Using her mental power, she observed everyone around her without drawing any attention. However, during this process, she noticed at least three students paying attention to the Phantom Team’s training room.
Shortly after Mai Dongzi arrived at the ferry port, the other five members of the Phantom Team walked over together.
She quietly positioned herself beside them, and they glanced at her without recognizing her; they didn’t even sense anything amiss.
While she felt proud of her perfect disguise, she also thought these kids had poor observational skills.
The university arranged ferries and flying cars for students to take them to the nearest capital city, after which they could act freely.
However, students like Wang Yiyi and Tony had personal flying cars in their spatial devices, so they didn’t need to take the school’s larger flying vehicle to go home.
Although Major General Su sent Mai Dongzi off in the Anning ship, she had a two-seater lightweight flying car configured for her by the Xi family in her spatial device.
Yet, to conceal her identity, Mai Dongzi chose to go with the flow. With her current unremarkable appearance and ordinary cultivation level, as long as she mixed in with the crowd, she wouldn’t attract attention.
On the ferry, Mai Dongzi stood beside the five members of the Phantom Team, and astonishingly, they didn’t realize she had intentionally positioned herself near them, exhibiting remarkably low vigilance.
Zhuang Huaiya, while attending Imperial University, came from a poor family and didn’t have a personal flying car. However, Wang Yiyi and Tony both offered him a ride, and in the end, Zhuang Huaiya took Wang Yiyi’s flying car.
The two of them lived just one ring road apart, while Tony was four rings away, making it completely out of the way for him.
Mai Dongzi didn’t have such privileges and “suffered” through the crowded school bus. It was truly cramped; everyone had to stand shoulder to shoulder on the bus.
For Mai Dongzi, who had experienced sardine-can-like public transport, this wasn’t considered crowded at all, as there was at least half a meter of space between people.
But for the interstellar folks, it was already unbearably tight. The only reason they tolerated such crowding was that everyone on the bus was a student from Imperial University.
When getting off the school bus and entering the capital city, everyone had to scan their neural devices for identity verification.
Mai Dongzi, with her disguised appearance, nervously scanned her neural device at the mechanical guard, watching as the red light in the guard’s eyes flickered a few times before turning green.
This meant she had passed the verification, and no one following her noticed anything unusual.
After entering the capital city, Mai Dongzi summoned a flying car with her device, and in her disguised appearance, she also smoothly passed the identity check.
Although bodyguard Su hadn’t been by her side for these past few months, she had secretly used General Su’s connections to help Mai Dongzi in various ways.
One of those was arranging a small villa next to the Zhuang family’s residence. This way, if Mai Dongzi decided not to return to the Xi family after her extended break, she could stay there instead.
Wang Yiyi’s private flying car was registered and certified, allowing it to fly directly back to the third ring road.
Zhuang Huaiya returned to his new home on the fourth ring road an hour earlier than Mai Dongzi.
He was unaware that his cousin, after disguising herself, had returned to the small villa next door without raising any suspicions.
The fourth ring road was a hub for wealthy businessmen and high-ranking officials from second-tier families; private residences were not allowed, and one could only buy planned and constructed houses, which varied in quality.
Zhuang’s uncle spent one hundred million to purchase a small villa, which was considered mid-range on this street, so it didn’t attract much attention.
Mai Dongzi had bodyguard Su help her purchase a similar small villa using an installment payment plan, as her account didn’t have enough credit coins for a full payment.
Although she had taken General Su as her mentor, she didn’t want to rely on her credit coins as a matter of course.
While the official owner was Mai Dongzi, outsiders believed the owners were a middle-aged couple.
In reality, this couple had been arranged by Major Su as her guardians.
They were indeed a couple, and Mai Dongzi’s identity was that of their daughter studying at the Imperial Capital University.
Mai Dongzi was pleased with General Su’s arrangement, as it meant she had people around her with different backgrounds.
Though bodyguard Su was Major Su’s cousin and now served as Mai Dongzi’s guardian, her official position still belonged to Prince Arthur’s side, and she was assigned by Prince Arthur.