Chapter 144: Silhouette in the Rain 6
No Rule Zone appeared in Mingzhu Mountain. However, due to the detection of MaximeE-S in the bodies of the deceased and the suspect’s motives being closely linked to Evolved individuals, the case was ultimately transferred in its entirety to the Order Maintenance Department. Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke also joined the special task force, not only because of their personal abilities but also due to their private relationship with Pei Yuan.
Globally, this incident was dubbed the “Million Dollar Murder” by netizens. Overnight, MaximeE-S transformed from a highly sought-after new evolution agent into a synonym for poison. The debate on whether ordinary people could become Evolved through genetic modification reignited a wave of heated discussion. This time, because of the over one hundred lives just lost, the pro-modification faction was clearly at a disadvantage regarding arguments.
“So the supporters changed their rhetoric,” Lin Daguan introduced in the investigation team’s meeting room. “They insist that the drugs in this incident were fake, or they simply claim that MaximeE-S wasn’t detected in the victims at all. They say the so-called failure of the evolution agent is a lie deliberately released by governments to crack down on the black drug market and prevent non-Evolved individuals from achieving extreme transcendence.”
Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke had previously discussed the possibility of fake drugs. However, just an hour ago, Country T had successfully arrested the organizer of the corresponding incident in their country, named Ah Tai, who was indeed a member of the Invisible Giant. According to his confession, he received a mission from his superiors more than two months ago, in early August of this year, to find a group of ordinary people in Country T ready to undergo evolution experiments at any time.
“Such test subjects weren’t hard to find. Ah Tai quickly gathered a group of young people, similar to our situation here, also using the identity of a celebrity fan,” Lin Daguan said. “Then, just a few days ago, specifically at 8 PM local time on the 26th, Ah Tai received a notification to prepare for action. At 12 PM on the 29th, he was ordered to execute immediately.”
The rhetoric and location had been rehearsed long ago, and the drugs had long been distributed. Ah Tai completed the mission with almost no obstacles. Eight young people were taken by him to a seaside coconut grove late at night. After injecting the drug, they didn’t even wait for the four-hour onset period before dying directly in the car.
“The bodies in Country T were found in a seaside coconut grove. But following normal logic, after the experiment failed, Ah Tai should have thrown them all into the sea. That would be more reasonable; any normal person knows to destroy the evidence. Yet he specifically didn’t,” Yi Ke flipped through the documents. “The victims in other countries were also mostly found near scenic spots. Even if not scenic spots, they were areas with relatively dense foot traffic.”
“The planner didn’t want to hide their deaths. Or to be more precise, he even wanted to publicize these deaths, otherwise, he wouldn’t have chosen crowded scenic spots,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Including Mingzhu Mountain. Even without Pei Zheng, with over a dozen music festival attendees disappearing mysteriously, the police would definitely have launched a massive search and rescue in the mountains.”
MaximeE-S was found in the deceased, specialized syringe packaging was at the scene, plus the easily discoverable body dumping sites. The planner’s goal seemed obvious—to use this chain of deaths occurring almost simultaneously around the world to announce the ineffectiveness of MaximeE-S to the world.
“Why?” an investigator asked, puzzled. “Isn’t this a drug they launched themselves?”
Before this incident, everyone believed the MaximeE-S series would become a significant source of income for the Invisible Giant in the coming years. After all, its target customers were the billions of non-Evolved individuals globally, and the explosive popularity of the pre-order market had strongly confirmed this. But now, it had completely lost the market, declared thoroughly dead along with all the victims.
“No wonder some netizens insist this is all a government conspiracy,” the investigator said. “Setting aside the methods and looking only at the results, cracking down on illegal drugs is indeed what we have been doing.”
“It’s different,” Zhuang Ningyu corrected him. “What we are doing is cracking down on illegal drugs. The planner, however, might be doing this to strike a blow against all non-Evolved individuals who want to become Evolved.”
If looking only at the MaximeE-S incident, this point might not be obvious. But adding the kidnapping of Pei Zheng and the messages sent by the kidnapper himself, one would discover a commonality between the two events—both were opposing non-Evolved individuals gaining advantages originally exclusive to Evolved individuals, such as better constitutions and stronger physical abilities.
The investigator was confused. “What is the meaning of this boycott?”
Yi Ke answered, “Establishing group boundaries to realize monopoly control over scarce resources. If you understand Evolved individuals as the rich and non-Evolved individuals as the poor, the starting point of this boycott becomes obvious. After all, no one likes their own interests being forcibly diluted.”
“The suspect in this incident, Roman, indeed has a very overt complex of worshiping Evolved individuals,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “His father is an S-class Evolved individual, and his mother was an ordinary person. Rumor has it he suffered greatly because of this. When Roman was eighteen, his mother died in a car accident; the specific reasons vary. After this incident, Roman never had any intimate relationships with non-Evolved individuals again.”
“So can we understand it as the Invisible Giant also being divided into two factions internally?” the investigator summarized. “One faction prioritizes economic benefits, indifferent to Evolved vs. non-Evolved, focusing on selling drugs to make money. The other faction resolutely defends the boundary between Evolved and non-Evolved, strongly opposing acquired evolution. And this MaximeE-S incident is a warning from the opposition faction to the supporting faction? After all, based on the Invisible Giant’s research on the MaximeE series, it’s indeed unlikely that such large-scale deaths would occur unless the deaths were man-made—unless the opposition faction mixed poison into the evolution agent with the aim of causing panic, making non-Evolved individuals highly distrustful of evolution agents, thereby giving up on seeking evolution.”
Zhuang Ningyu nodded. “We can assume so.”
“Team Leader Zhuang!” Xiao Fang from the technical department ran in hurriedly clutching a laptop. “We traced a local IP! The kidnapper’s account logged in briefly a month ago!”
Everyone gathered around to look. “Yingxian Bridge Antique Market?”
“Yes,” Xiao Fang explained. “This chat app continuously collects user location information in the background, syncing data even in inactive states. The kidnapper’s virtual network likely experienced a momentary connection interruption for some reason, causing his real IP to be captured by the system. It’s right here.”
Yingxian Bridge was considered a relatively professional antique market in Jincheng, where both the goods and people were a mixed bag. Lin Daguan said, “I’ll take some people to check it out first. Pei Zheng is still in their hands; we shouldn’t alert the snake in the grass.”
Zhuang Ningyu agreed. “Okay.”
After Lin Daguan left, the rest continued the meeting. Yingxian Bridge Antique Market—this location was indeed somewhat unexpected. It wasn’t actually a good hiding place. There were large numbers of idle, middle-aged and elderly stall owners who, sitting on lounge chairs twirling prayer beads, possessed a strong desire to pry into and meddle in others’ lives. They were literally human facial recognition cameras; both their eyesight and memory were astonishingly good.
Sure enough, in less than half a day, Lin Daguan had results.
Someone with physical characteristics very similar to Liam had spent eighty thousand in cash to buy an oriental painting of court ladies in an antique shop at Yingxian Bridge last month.
“Liam? How could it be him?”
“This is the surveillance footage from that time.” Lin Daguan enlarged the screen. “Elder Zhong also confirmed it. There’s no mistake.”
The Invisible Giant’s Number Seven leader, the key figure who fooled the Fu Dong couple, and the one-armed Tony who electrocuted Zhuang Ningyu into a woolly perm with half a mechanical arm at Yuanbao Tower Pedestrian Street. In Song Qiaowei’s confession, she said he had returned to the South Pacific base. Unexpectedly, he appeared in Jincheng again.
Liam in the surveillance footage seemed to have completed his arm repair, showing no signs of disability. He was fully equipped with a hat, mask, and sunglasses, admiring the newly purchased painting of court ladies with the shop owner.
“So he wasn’t hiding at Yingxian Bridge, but simply ran there to spend eighty thousand yuan on a fake ancient painting worth at most eight hundred yuan?” a colleague who knew a bit about antiques asked.
Lin Daguan nodded. “Judging from the video, yes. He didn’t stay in the market. The surveillance clearly recorded him leaving by taxi. The technical team is now trying to recover the dashcam footage of that car.”
Zhuang Ningyu leaned back in his chair and glanced at his phone again. The kidnapper “1” hadn’t appeared again since sending the message “When we shall meet at compt.”
It was already deep into the night.
After work, the two drove back to Guanxing Tower. In the refrigerator were shrimp dumplings delivered by Zhong Yu in the afternoon. Yi Ke asked, “Want to eat?”
Zhuang Ningyu waved his hand, having no appetite at all, and lay on the sofa not wanting to move.
Yi Ke wasn’t hungry either, so he followed and lay on top of his wife. The curtains of the French windows weren’t drawn, and the two just stacked there in the dim light, motionless and quiet, watching the bustling city with its flowing traffic and flashing neon lights outside. After watching for a while, Yi Ke reached out to hug him, burying his face deeply into the warm side of his neck and taking a deep inhale.
Zhuang Ningyu dodged to the side. “I haven’t showered.”
Yi Ke laughed. “It’s fine, you’re sweet-smelling even without showering.”
His voice was a bit hoarse, lacking his usual “wer-wer-wer” energy, reverting to a slightly tired adult. Zhuang Ningyu patted him backhanded. “Get up, go shower first.”
Yi Ke propped himself up, exhaled a long breath, gathered his energy, and went to the master bedroom for a shower. When he came out, the kitchen light was on, and the air was filled with the aroma of food. White dumplings were tumbling up and down in the pot. Zhuang Ningyu was tending to another small pot, carefully making sour soup.
Yi Ke hugged his wife from behind. In the misty steam, the scene was actually very heartwarming, it was just… He nuzzled his head again before saying, “I heard news from the capital today. The operating speed of the ‘Monolith Project’ computer cluster has reached the ideal value. Minister Huo might look for you tomorrow to discuss this.”
Zhuang Ningyu’s hand holding the ladle tightened. “Mm.”
Reaching the ideal speed meant that humanity officially possessed the ability to destroy Rule Zones.
Yi Ke took the ladle from his hand and served the cooked dumplings. Zhuang Ningyu took chopsticks from the disinfection cabinet. As usual, the two sat together to eat, chat, and clean the kitchen. Neither mentioned the “Monolith Project” again, as if that brief dialogue had never happened.
A world without Rule Zones.
Even for Zhuang Ningyu, whenever he thought of this phrase, his brain would automatically undergo extremely complex processing. Immense anticipation, immense joy, immense anxiety, and immense uncertainty made every human involved instinctively want to maintain psychological stability through avoidance.
A world without Rule Zones.
At 4:00 AM, Zhuang Ningyu lay on his side in bed, watching the bit of neon light seeping through the curtains, repeatedly chewing on this sentence.
His powerful mental strength allowed him to maintain absolute emotional stability most of the time. For example, if the “Monolith Project” failed to run, and Earth suffered a new round of crazy backlash, with “Moral Judges” becoming entities roaming the world and tens of thousands of Rule Zones appearing simultaneously, he would inevitably rush calmly to the forefront immediately. But now, when the plan hadn’t run yet and everything was still unknown, he wanted to indulge himself in the complex emotions of an ordinary person, fully feeling and remembering this apprehensive eve of great change.
Yi Ke pressed up against him silently, placing his palm on Zhuang’s chest.
His heart was beating fast, thump-thump.
Similarly, Zhuang Ningyu could feel the synchronized pulse against his back. He held Yi Ke’s hand. The palm, usually dry and soft, was now coated with a thin layer of sweat.
“Wifey,” Yi Ke called him in a very low voice.
“Mm?” Zhuang Ningyu turned over so they were face to face.
Yi Ke didn’t speak again. He just opened his arms anew and hugged him tightly.
Outside the window, thousands of stars faded.
The east turned white; the morning sun rose.
In the early morning, just as Zhuang Ningyu arrived at the unit and before entering his office, he received a new email.
“What is it?” Yi Ke parked the car and caught up to walk beside him.
“From Fu Han,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Reminding us to be extremely careful of Liam, saying his status within the Invisible Giant is far more than just number seven.”
“Fu Han knows about this too?” Yi Ke pressed the elevator button.
Zhuang Ningyu handed him the phone.
There were many photos in the attachment showing Liam’s office and residence; it was unclear how Fu Han found them. From the photos, it wasn’t hard to see that Liam was a fanatical lover of Eastern culture, just that his love was a bit nondescript. Combinations of porcelain, Buddha heads, tea sets, and sandalwood prayer beads appeared together, vividly interpreting what “a foreigner who loves Eastern culture” looks like. He belonged to the same school as the white guys online who tattooed “If · Forgot Love” on themselves. He probably didn’t really understand it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have spent eighty thousand buying a fake painting and stood there admiring it intoxicatingly for so long.
“Fu Han said Liam is a hoarder. He likes collecting everything he believes represents the beauty of the East,” Zhuang Ningyu said.
Hearing this, Yi Ke frowned. His fingers clenched slightly, but he swallowed back the words on the tip of his tongue, only walking into the elevator silently with him.
Zhuang Ningyu continued, “Also, apparently this guy has fifteen mechanical arms in total. And the one I dismantled happened to be his favorite, which even had a name, Oliver. After returning to the base last time, he even held a grand funeral specifically for Oliver.”
Yi Ke: “…Sick.”
