Chapter 94: It is Unsafe to Go Out at Night |
Occupying a computer usually reserved for the manager, Angie sat at the keyboard, tapping away.
Her agent partner was outside networking and requesting access channels to ensure her investigation went smoothly.
Not everyone was willing to give the Pan-Continent Alliance face. There were always a few blind fools who disregarded the title of a global military organization, opening their mouths to spout, "Business secrets, no comment," stubbornly refusing to cooperate with the Alliance's operations.
There was no need to get angry in such situations. All it took was a brief report, and a large swarm of journalists and busybodies in the area would quickly obtain "investigative rights," launching a series of inquiries into everything from sexual fetishes to corruption.
The ones who showed up next would either be Special Commissioners from the Heart Language Department or military personnel responsible for ensuring the investigative rights were enforced.
With a few miserable precedents already set, the Alliance's credentials had become quite effective.
No matter where a large secret organization's Stronghold was located in the city, there had to be people stationed there to maintain it year-round. Where people lived, there was a need for food, water, and electricity. Logistics could solve the food problem, and a Generator could mask power consumption anomalies, but water was much harder to handle.
All tap water supply and billing in Yunling City was completely monopolized by the private company she was currently sitting in.
Compared to official institutions, the advantage of private enterprises was that they never missed a single opportunity to squeeze out money. As long as the fees were paid in full, no one cared if you were growing weed in a den or throwing wild parties every night. The tap water billing data displayed in front of Angie indirectly confirmed this—it was far more detailed than the data another team had obtained from the municipal government.
Facing the batches of flashing red dots on the screen, she could not help but think, 'I know Yunling City is the economic metropolis of the Tenth District, but this is way too lively...'
This organization could not have just emerged recently. Poaching people from the Management Authority across major districts required far too many resources; their power was definitely not on a petty scale. Assuming their Strongholds within the city had been established for over a year, and then factoring in transportation and area...
[Filtering complete. Showing 7 Anomalous Water Usage Locations]
Got it.
Angie snapped photos of the remaining suspicious locations onto her Work Device and turned off the Desk Lamp, plunging the office back into darkness.
"Got the goods. We can pull out now."
The agent shooed away the security guard outside and trotted over, leaning in to glance at the computer screen. "Whoa, these are all major clients, starting at nearly a thousand tons a month. The locations are all outside the Third Ring Road? Isn't that a bit too obvious?"
"You haven't lived here. Yunling City is different from those rural areas outside; the housing density here is packed as tight as a Sardine Can. Unless they have the financial backing to rent out an entire office building, they have to move outwards." She grabbed the coat draped over the back of her chair and shook it out, slipping one arm into a sleeve. "Are we heading to the site?"
"We still need to conduct a field inspection first. If it's not among these seven, we'll have to check those hundred-plus locations one by one. Haven't you seen how the Spirit Vision Department works?"
"Are you planning to show me?"
The agent gave a mischievous chuckle. He made a "call me" hand gesture and wagged it by his ear.
Angie understood, and so she smiled as well.
The two members from the Pan-Continent Alliance continued to snicker in the pitch-black office. With the shadows of the window frames draped across their faces, only four rows of floating white teeth could be seen. No matter how you looked at it, they resembled an evil syndicate.
Dark clouds pressed down like an Impending Crisis, and the moonlight grew sparse. A rumble of thunder rolled past the window—it was the perfect time for an operation.
By this time, far away in the city outskirts, Shi Rang finally determined that he had shaken off the third party.
He stepped out of the vehicle and watched the passenger bus, which served as a moving light source, drive away.
Standing in the darkness, he heard the viscous, dragging sound of bloated flesh surging nearby. The next moment, the roar of an operating excavator echoed out. By the time Shi Rang snapped back to his senses, he had already fled far down the road, nearly tripping over a guardrail.
It seemed that no matter what he did, he would always end up embarking on a journey late at night.
He was afraid of the dark, afraid of the monsters lurking in his surroundings, and afraid of the rain that could fall from above at any moment, but he was even more afraid of losing his chance to find Ying Shang.
The Mini-Humans called him stupid and said there was something wrong with his head. They were wrong; he had never been normal to begin with. His life had no distant aspirations and had even lost its meaning at one point. He only hoped to escape the Second District, holding onto the lifelong wish of getting as far away from that home as possible. Behind him lay nothing but blank confusion.
He had even considered ending his own life in a state of freedom...
It was Ying Shang who taught him to look forward to the future.
Together, they had envisioned countless possibilities for happiness. No matter what happened, they always stood side by side.
With such a true love, what more could a man ask for?
Because of this, Shi Rang absolutely refused to let anything snatch her away from his life.
The Management Authority was not his target, the Alliance was not his destination, and the third party could forget about hindering his steps. From beginning to end, his only goal was to find her.
No matter what that thing, that faction, or that mastermind behind the scenes truly was, he would fight them to the bitter end, even if it meant tossing himself into the fire like a moth to a flame.
The ride-hailing app had stopped servicing the area; he could not get a car at this hour—not to mention that the ride-hailing services in the Tenth District had always been half-dead anyway. Shi Rang dared not turn on a light, fearing he would attract criminals even more terrifying than the monsters.
With his backpack strapped on and his suitcase in tow, he navigated through the dark using his phone's GPS. He stuck out his thumb at the occasional passing vehicles and waved his phone's flashlight, but none of them stopped. They probably feared he was a robber or a serial killer.
The nearest Hotel was still an hour's walk away. He would spend the night there and wait for daybreak.
Just one hour. If he kept quiet, nothing bad should happen. Not many people came to the suburbs at night; who would wait in ambush here? Cars drove past Shi Rang one by one, either oblivious to him or actively steering clear. A few minutes later, a vehicle accompanied by the roar of an engine voluntarily pulled over beside him.
The driver rolled down the passenger-side window. "Need a ride?"
Shi Rang glanced at the car, which lacked any commercial paint or logos. The only vehicles that would show up at this hour were these Unlicensed Taxis. "Are you heading to this place?" He showed his phone to the man, carefully maintaining a distance from the window in case his phone was snatched.
The driver cast a careless glance at it. "Seven hundred."
Double the usual rate. That was reasonably fair.
Shi Rang swept his gaze over the back seat to confirm no one was hiding there, and seeing that the trunk was also separately isolated, he finally hugged his bag and squeezed his small suitcase into the right side of the back row, keeping his distance from the driver's seat. After confirming the address, the driver casually steered with one hand while playing on his phone with the other, occasionally shooting him a glance through the rearview mirror.
Given that the man had decent driving skills and this was an Unlicensed Taxi, Shi Rang did not bother arguing with him.
It was only a two-hour drive anyway; he just had to endure it, and it would be over.
The car carried him onto a Mountain Road in the suburbs. The winding paths lacked guardrails, and looking out into the distance, their headlight was the only beam of light among the rolling mountains.
If any suspicious vehicles approached, he would notice immediately.
More than half an hour later, a flash of lightning crashed down accompanied by a startling clap of thunder. Dozing in the back seat, Shi Rang jolted in fright.
It was going to rain.
He had never encountered anything good on rainy nights before.
He dispelled the illusions of the Stitched Walkers and the deep pit, suddenly feeling his phone vibrate in his palm.
He quietly peeked at the screen.
[You have deviated from the route. Planning a new path.]
The car had just missed the fork in the road and was speeding along the wrong route at eighty kilometers per hour.
"Driver, did you take the wrong road?"
"You ruined their business, kid." The driver watched him through the rearview mirror. "Did you really think you could hide by using a journalist's alias?"
A chill ran through Shi Rang's heart.
The Alliance was biding its time, the Management Authority was completely unaware, and the third party had already been shaken off. Yet the ones who came knocking on his door now were a criminal syndicate from the ordinary world—Blue Signal.
Shi Rang's eyes flickered, noticing the man's hand reaching for the central locking switch on the door.
The rear passenger door slammed open into the rainy night. The vehicle's rear wheels braked hard, shrieking as they carved skid marks into the ground. The driver pulled a Handgun from the glovebox and aimed backward, but Shi Rang did not give him the chance, throwing himself directly out of the car.
His body bounced off the road surface carried by the momentum, tumbling over the edge of the road and plunging down the cliff.
He screamed as he fell, and then, he crashed into the darkness.