Chapter 61: Chengnan Bookstore 8
Back then, after the bombing, Dou Dekai’s timed suicide note was one of the key pieces of documentary evidence the police used to classify the case. An investigator said, “The technical team checked Dou Dekai’s social media login IP. When he set up the timed suicide note, he was indeed not using a domestic IP, but a virtual address that had been rerouted multiple times. But he was a programmer and had a habit of browsing the dark web, so he was already used to using virtual IP software with multiple layers of encryption. He even had one installed on his work computer.”
Zhuang Ningyu continued to flip through the materials on the kidnapping case. “What about his personal computer?”
The investigator replied, “The computer is there, but the hard drive is gone. We don’t know if it was physically destroyed or hidden, but its whereabouts are unknown.”
Before igniting the bomb, Dou Dekai had cleaned up almost every trace he could. The only two things he couldn’t erase were a bank transfer to a foreign country used to purchase explosives and the lengthy call records between him and Bao Yuzhou.
The investigator said, “Bao Yuzhou didn’t tell any outsiders about his son’s kidnapping and was immediately blasted into the ICU, so the police initially retrieved some of his phone call records. They found that at the time of the explosion, he was still on a call with a certain number. The number wasn’t registered to an owner, but the police found a feature phone not far from Dou Dekai’s body with that SIM card in it. Therefore, it was basically confirmed that the person on the phone with Bao Yuzhou was Dou Dekai.”
After regaining consciousness, Bao Yuzhou also admitted that he was indeed on the phone with the kidnapper at the time, trying to find out where to pick up his son. The next moment, he was knocked unconscious by the explosion.
“But ‘destroying all computer traces’ and ‘using his own bank card to buy explosives’ are inherently contradictory,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “One is trying to hide evidence of a crime, while the other is brazenly leaving proof of his actions. As a programmer, why didn’t he use cryptocurrency?”
“The police had the same suspicion at the time, but according to Dou’s colleagues, his sexual preferences were rather peculiar,” the investigator explained. “So if Dou Dekai wanted to create a heroic image for himself as someone who took a corrupt businessman down with him to avenge his housemate, the bank records wouldn’t really damage that dream. But a computer full of extreme videos definitely had to be deleted. Besides, there were certainly more than just videos in there—chat logs, photos, browsing history… It’s not just him; no one would want that stuff made public.”
“That’s true.” Zhuang Ningyu was convinced but still felt there was more to Dou Dekai’s death. The investigator said, “Director Huo has already arranged for us to contact the police. We will definitely investigate. Don’t worry, Captain Zhuang, we will verify your judgment.”
“Thank you,” Zhuang Ningyu said, then asked, “Can Bao Yuzhou speak now?”
“No,” the investigator said helplessly. “His post-stroke complications are severe. Both his cognitive and linguistic abilities have been affected. It’s been three years, and he still can’t communicate normally with people.”
“Alright, I’ll leave it to you then,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Contact me if anything comes up.”
After hanging up, Yi Ke handed the other earbud back to him. “Bao Yuzhou’s first wife has a strong personality and theoretically shouldn’t tolerate any betrayal, yet she has been actively applying for medical parole for him. Every time he’s hospitalized, she personally takes care of him. It seems like the couple is deeply in love.”
“Deep affection is easy to fake,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “In a family relationship like theirs, the connections are too deep. It’s not like with ordinary people, where a stamp at the civil affairs bureau is all it takes to get divorced.”
Yi Ke massaged the back of his neck. Zhuang Ningyu hunched his shoulders and dodged to the side. Before the two could develop their relationship any further in the dilapidated hall, a new, loud bang suddenly echoed from above the suspended hall.
“What’s going on?” Zhang Hugang asked, pressing his earpiece.
Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke sprinted toward the source of the sound. On the fourth floor, a blood-soaked figure was rapidly falling!
Third floor.
Second floor.
“Bang!” The ajar wooden door was slammed open by a heavy shoulder, and a fierce wind poured in. The members of the “groomsmen team” all stood up, but the agile figure had already leaped from the ground, grabbing the swaying crystal chandelier on the ceiling to dodge all incoming attacks! Then, it lunged with pinpoint accuracy toward Dou Dekai at the very back!
“Boom—” The floor was smashed through, and the two fell, tangled together. Below them was the side hall where all the trapped people were resting. Everyone watched in horror as the “resurrected” Tang Xiaoyuan, covered in blood, straddled Dou Dekai and once again stabbed her dagger into his neck. A “squelch” was accompanied by the panicked screams of the trapped crowd as blood splattered everywhere.
“Captain Zhuang!” A team member’s voice came through the earpiece. “Tang Xiaoyuan’s body is still on the fourth floor! She’s turned into one of the monsters from the rules!”
The operations team members quickly provided cover for the crowd to evacuate. Two bodyguards protected Fu Han between them. As they ran out, Zhuang Ningyu happened to brush past him from the opposite direction, followed by an equally armed Yi Ke. Fu Han stopped and was about to turn back, but he was already flanked by the bodyguards and swiftly moved to a safe area.
Dou Dekai’s face was once again a bloody mess. Yi Ke asked, “Do you think the ‘game’ will reload a save this time?”
“Probably not,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “The previous Tang Xiaoyuan was a rule-breaker, but now she’s become a monster. This means the rules have written her into the game’s logic chain. So even if the game reloads, she will still be here.”
“But the current theme of the rules is still Dou Dekai’s wedding,” Zhang Hugang asked. “If the groom is killed by her, does a ghost marriage count as a wedding?”
Zhuang Ningyu hesitated. “It’s hard to say. There have been too many unreasonable, sudden situations with the rules this time.”
The monstrous Tang Xiaoyuan retained her S-level evolution from the drug injection. She swept aside a circle of operations team members, dragged Dou Dekai by his legs, and slammed his head hard against the wall! Yi Ke rushed forward in time and kicked Dou Dekai’s shoulder from the opposite direction, saving him from the fate of having his head smashed open… although his situation was already dire enough.
He let out a pained roar!
And Tang Xiaoyuan’s roar was even more agonizing than his!
Pain piled on top of pain, emotions tangled intensely, and the white mist grew thick again, like countless cold snakes, slithering rapidly through every corner of the Zeus Grand Hotel. The crowd was initially lost and panicked, but they were quickly snapped back to their senses by the shouts of the operations team members: “Watch out for mental Contamination!”
People quickly activated their protection bracelets. In an instant, the values on the dials shot up from green to red, then to deep red. 78, 202, 487… finally stabilizing around 599. Level: Severe.
“The value is unstable,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “It will probably continue to rise.”
“Severe” was already considered a very high concentration of mental contamination. Once the value surpassed 999, reaching an uncontrollable level, even with a protection bracelet, the trapped individuals would have an extremely high probability of being mentally contaminated.
Yi Ke glanced at his own bracelet. In the time it took to speak, the value had already risen to 628.
The team members expended a great deal of effort to finally separate Dou Dekai and Tang Xiaoyuan, stuffing the mouths of the two monsters with whatever they could find. But the mental contamination did not subside; instead, it jumped further to over seven hundred. Seeing the crowd in danger and with no time to consider other options, Zhang Hugang decided to take out Tang Xiaoyuan first. He pulled the trigger. A laser pierced her head, bringing with it a thick, foul smell. The headless body swayed and fell face down, quickly disappearing like data erased by the system, leaving only Dou Dekai’s heavy panting in the hall.
But before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, the next moment—
“Thud!”
Another, brand-new Tang Xiaoyuan descended rapidly from the large hole in the ceiling!
“Fuck!” The surrounding team members were dumbfounded. What kind of bug was this thing exploiting? How could it infinitely replicate itself?
No new rules appeared, and the contamination index showed no signs of receding. Zhuang Ningyu took a deep breath, grabbed Yi Ke’s wrist, and pressed something into his hand. Yi Ke looked down and saw a protection bracelet. Zhuang Ningyu’s own wrist was now bare.
“You’re going to let yourself get contaminated?” Yi Ke guessed his intention, his heart sinking. Before he could clasp the bracelet back on, Zhuang Ningyu pressed down on his arm. “This is the fastest solution. I’ll be fine.”
After being mentally contaminated, the vast majority of people lose their consciousness and become monster NPCs in the “game.” However, because of their extraordinarily strong physique, evolvers have a certain probability of becoming a new “source of contamination,” thereby using their own mental power to suppress the original, old contamination.
Zhuang Ningyu’s willpower was rated the highest among all the team members present, S++, extremely stable, and almost impossible to be completely polluted. But no matter how strong one’s willpower, it couldn’t erase the intense discomfort that came with mental contamination, especially at this terrifying level that was infinitely approaching “uncontrollable.” Yi Ke’s eyes were bloodshot as he gripped his arm tightly. Zhang Hugang stood guard nearby, his heart nearly leaping into his throat.
Normal schools, during instruction, would at most set simulation data to just over 100. Military academy simulation exercises were generally only around 650, and the duration would absolutely not exceed one minute to avoid causing irreversible harm to the students. But now, Zhuang Ningyu had been exposed to mental contamination with a concentration exceeding 900 for a full five minutes. Large beads of cold sweat seeped from his forehead, but thankfully, his pupils were still normal. He had not lost his sanity.
Time passed, second by second, and the density of the white mist finally began to gradually fade. Although Zhang Hugang knew that Zhuang Ningyu’s personal abilities were extremely strong, he had never had a concrete concept of just how strong he was. The scores on his file were always just cold numbers, and the rule zones in recent years had not been difficult to break, so a nearly one-hundred-percent mission success rate didn’t seem to be proof of “genius.” It wasn’t until he witnessed firsthand the man’s almost crushing level of terrifying talent—before this, he would never have believed that someone could actually remain completely lucid in this level of mental contamination, and swallow the absolute pain without a single sound.
Yi Ke wiped his own cold face haphazardly, his fingers slightly relaxing their grip. He didn’t want to hurt him, even though this bit of pain was so minuscule as to be insignificant at this moment.
In another corner, Tang Xiaoyuan was still writhing frantically. Even though she was tied up like a dumpling, she still managed to force out muffled roars from her gagged mouth. Dou Dekai, with broken arms and legs, leaned against the wall, groaning along with her. Although the two monsters’ suffering did not seem to diminish, the mental contamination value within the rule zone was decreasing bit by bit.
From Severe, to Serious, to Moderate, and finally, completely returning to zero.
Zhang Hugang looked at his bracelet, unable to believe his eyes. The other team members were equally shaken, as everyone had previously thought that even if it could be suppressed, it would at most be reduced by one or two levels. For the first time, they had a real sense of the legendary S++. The ability to clear a contamination value that had shot up to 900 throughout the entire rule zone within ten minutes, all while maintaining a clear head, was a level of control that could almost be classified as a military weapon.
Zhuang Ningyu swayed, his body tilting, and he wearily buried his face in Yi Ke’s shoulder.
