Lady 5 had a pair of crescent-moon-shaped eyes. Whenever she squinted her eyes, they would disappear into two thin curves. Although she had small eyes, she had a uniquely beautiful face as a whole. It gave out a fresh vibe as if one had just stepped into a bamboo forest hidden among the cement and steel upon seeing her.
She didn’t have any make-up to cover up the dark circles under her eyes. Nevertheless, she still had an obviously better complexion than Ladies 1, 2, and 3.
She had well-trimmed but not polished nails. The callus on her right middle finger revealed that she frequently wrote with a pen.
There was only the smell of shampoo and no perfume. She had probably washed her hair in the morning. There was also a clear smell of alcohol and disinfectants. Could she be a doctor?
Xiang Kun’s attention shifted to the few books on her table. The thickest of them all looked like a brick. It definitely could be used as a shield against a knife attack.
From Xiang Kun’s angle, he could only see a portion of the book’s cover.
The first word was either “Shen” or “Chen[1]”. The last word was “Psychiatry”.
Xiang Kun did a quick search on his phone for a book that looked like it. It came out as “Shen Yucun’s Psychiatry”.
“So she’s a psychiatrist?”
Xiang Kun googled for nearby hospitals and clicked on the pages of their psychiatry departments. All top tier hospitals in the city offered pre-registration online. There were photos and introductions of doctors available too.
However, he searched through the psychiatry department of all three hospitals and still couldn’t find her.
“Maybe she isn’t from these hospitals?
“Is she from a hospital further away?
“Or she’s not a psychiatrist at all?”
Indeed, she looked a bit too young. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties.
“Maybe she’s actually a student?
“How about the medical schools around here?”
Xiang Kun was stuck.
He shot a glance at Lady 5 and met her eyes again. He had no idea when she had started looking at him.
The gaze lasted for roughly two seconds. But this time, it was Xiang Kun who turned away to look at his phone as if nothing happened.
When he looked up again, Lady 5 was reading again.
Xiang Kun observed her once more. The clothes she wore were very ordinary: a simple, oversized grey t-shirt and a pair of torn jeans. Xiang Kun could not tell what the prices of these clothes were. He couldn’t even tell the brand. But intuitively, they didn’t look expensive.
The watch on her left wrist seemed to be a G-Shock digital watch. It was dull black but surprisingly fitting.
On the table was a black iPhone. Xiang Kun had seen that it had a single camera when she had picked it up from the table. It should be an XR.
There was no phone cover. It also didn’t have any accessories or stickers common on girls’ phones. It was pure black. A few dents could be seen on the side. She must have dropped it many times. It really looked like a boy’s phone.
Fifteen minutes had passed from the moment she had sat down. Since then, she had been burying her nose in the book and occasionally wrote something in her notebook. She didn’t touch her phone a single time.
A studious girl!
Xiang Kun then deliberately dropped something so that he could bend down to glance at her handbag. It was a tote bag with a Nike logo. It was those complimentary tote bags given when one went shopping at Nike stores.
He then looked at her shoes. It was a pair of new basketball shoes.
Although Xiang Kun had limited knowledge about basketball shoes and rarely watched matches, he still instantly identified the symbol on the tongue. It was LeBron James’ symbol.
Xiang Kun’s college roommate, Chang Bin, was a LeBron fan. He would get a new pair of signed shoes every year. It was not limited to shoes—there were also t-shirts, jerseys, and caps. All of them had engraved that symbol deep into Xiang Kun’s mind.
It didn’t take long for him to find out that the shoes she was wearing were LeBron 17s, which was only released a few days ago. She must have pre-ordered them or had connections in Nike for her to have them so early.
“So she is a LeBron fan on par with Chang Bin?”
But it wasn’t a useful piece of information. It was not possible for him to obtain sales documentation from Nike to track down buyers.
But nice-looking females would always attract a lot of attention. If she had joined some basketball fan organization, it might be possible to find her this way. Asking Chang Bin might even work.
However, it would definitely be a huge waste of energy and time. He would be diverging away from his original purpose of training. He wasn’t here to dig up everything about Lady 5. All the asking and investigation would not enhance his senses in any way.
Xiang Kun stared at her pen. He hoped to decipher what she was writing. With sensitive vision, he could detect the path the pen was moving at. He then traced the path with his right hand by simulating how he would write.
However, he soon realized that it was impossible. She was writing too fast, so there had to be a lot of strokes that were not a part of a standard character. The movements of the pen were also very small and he was looking at it from a very awkward angle.
He couldn’t confirm her identity from all the information, even when she started packing up to leave after finishing her tuna sandwich and coffee.
Instinctively, Xiang Kun wanted to follow her when she pushed the door to exit.
Xiang Kun knew that he had the compulsion to always find out the complete story whenever he was puzzled.
But he was still rational and didn’t submit to his impulse.
There was no meaning in him finding out Lady 5’s identity. It might even cause unnecessary trouble and attract unwanted attention.
So he concluded:
She was a good-looking and studious girl. She had a utilitarian dressing style but probably came from a well-off family. She was either a psychiatrist or a student who was probably doing an internship in that field. Lastly, she was a fan of LeBron James.
Xiang Kun stayed in the cafe until 4 PM. He observed a total of 39 people, in which 23 were ladies, nine were men, and seven were children.
He was able to deduce the identities and occupations of 31 of them from close observation, the smell they carried, and their conversations. He even found out the names of 14 of them. It wasn’t too difficult, because those accompanying them would call them by their names, and those who made phone calls would always say who they were.
Among the eight whom he couldn’t identify, Lady 5 was still the most memorable.
“Hmm, it can’t be because she’s the prettiest.
“Definitely not…”
He had spent around five hours in total there. He couldn’t observe everyone who entered the cafe. Some of them simply left too quickly.
The observations were not very satisfactory. He had obtained too much redundant information that dragged down his efficiency.
But he believed that with more practice, reflection, and controlled transformations from his feasts, he would improve very fast.
By then, he expected himself to be able to make a rough analysis of everyone in minutes of entering a place with less than a hundred people.
Therefore, he would be able to spot those of a particular occupation or those of threat to him.
By then, his senses would finally release their full power.
[1] The Chinese characters 沈 (Shen) and 沉 (Chen) look similar.