In the resplendent interrogation room of “White Shield,” after communicating with his superior, Lance once again found himself in a standoff with Charlemagne.
To put it mildly, it was a negotiation.
The superiors hoped Charlemagne would “consider the bigger picture” and help “White Shield” resolve the crisis.
Charlemagne ignored Lance, his face set in stone, staring at the clock ticking away on the wall. He kept his words to a minimum, communicating only with brief interjections.
No matter how eloquent Lance was, using every trick he had, Charlemagne still wouldn’t relent, repeating just one thing:
“If you’re saying I deliberately destroyed the body of a man destined to die, fine—bring the evidence.”
It had been exactly 24 hours since Charlemagne had shattered his own son’s face with his own hands.
Now, he had to muster all his strength to deal with Lance, the envoy of “White Shield.”
Even though he was a seasoned veteran, he was beginning to feel the strain.
His son’s tragic death at his own hands had, at first, felt like a vague, unreal ache.
But time was turning the nightmare into a harsh reality.
Every time Lance questioned him with, “Why did you pull the trigger?” it felt like he was tearing open a secret wound inside Charlemagne, like a pain gnawing at his very soul.
Yet Charlemagne knew he couldn’t waver.
To get where he was now, he had sacrificed too much.
His dignity, his conscience, the reasons he had chosen a career in law enforcement—all of it had been gradually and painfully carved away, scattered behind him, and impossible to retrieve.
According to Charlemagne’s experience, as long as he remained firm and unyielding, “White Shield” would realize they couldn’t manipulate him, and they wouldn’t be so determined to sacrifice him.
Charlemagne knew that “White Shield,” like this absurd world, only favored the weak, the kind, and those who still had a shred of conscience.
Because such people were easier to control.
But Charlemagne had long since discarded all of those things.
And while time had brought him pain, it was also on his side.
The more time passed, the more thoroughly his subordinates covered their tracks.
The stronger his hand became.
In his secret communication channel, good news kept pouring in.
Most importantly, the doctor who performed the face-changing surgery on Xiao Jin had been silenced.
The facial mold and surgical records were, of course, gone as well.
Someone had reviewed Basil’s case file multiple times, ensuring there were no mistakes.
Even the key to the “Iron Lady” had been smoothly retrieved.
It had to be said that “Haina” was indeed the most popular underground mercenary organization in recent years.
This batch of mercenaries was entirely different from the inexperienced ones he had hired the first time—clean, efficient, and without any hidden agendas.
That person didn’t even have any curiosity, never asking why the mission existed or why it was suddenly canceled.
For extra caution, Charlemagne had someone check the surveillance around the parking spot.
That “Iron Lady” had been parked in its original place on “Eight Hundred Miles Road” the entire time—no one had approached it, no one had touched it.
—The mercenary had held onto the car key for almost a full day without making any attempt to sneak a look.
Such clean, efficient work made Charlemagne somewhat admire him. Even the psychological scars from dealing with those brutish, brainless mercenaries in the past had been smoothed over.
However, there was a minor flaw.
According to reports, the mercenary had beaten up the liaison, Rosen, while returning the key.
Apparently, Rosen had impulsively tried to propose some “flesh trade” deal with him, which ended in failure and a fight.
Charlemagne rubbed his face, feeling rather embarrassed.
It was his own man who had been out of line, and by all accounts, Rosen was in the wrong.
As for Rosen, Charlemagne had already decided how to deal with him.
A bottom-feeder who thought with his lower half—he’d find some excuse to dismiss him.
Charlemagne, despite his grief, was calculating, his brain busily working through it all.
Meanwhile, Lance, who was negotiating with him, was equally troubled.
He couldn’t understand why the chief insisted on making him convince Charlemagne to take full responsibility for everything.
Granted, shifting blame was “White Shield’s” usual tactic, and Charlemagne had indeed mishandled certain things, but there was still plenty of room for maneuver.
Given Charlemagne’s striking appearance, he had been the “Golden Inspector” that “White Shield” had carefully cultivated.
It was rumored that he had good connections with the higher-ups at the Interest Corporation as well.
No matter what, “White Shield” should at least make some effort to protect him.
Lance couldn’t help but wonder:
Had Charlemagne offended someone?
Yet Charlemagne, with his stone-like resolve, left Lance with no options, forcing the frustrated envoy to pick up his coffee cup and soothe his parched throat.
At that moment, a spindle-shaped airship slowly floated past the window, with lights flashing and changing on its surface as it broadcasted trending entertainment topics based on internet popularity.
It was a mobile hot search platform.
Everyone was used to it by now.
However, as Lance caught a glimpse of the airship in the corner of his eye, he nearly jumped out of his seat.
Seeing Lance, who had been rude to him since entering, suddenly lose his composure, Charlemagne sneered, “Mr. Lance, what seems to be the matter?”
As he spoke, he turned his head in the direction of Lance’s gaze.
The words “What happened?” were bitten back by Charlemagne, so hard that he drew blood from his tongue.
Currently, the most viewed and top-ranked topic across the entire Silver Hammer City was a video.
The airship passed by the window quickly, but the information it carried was shocking!
Lance quickly turned on the television.
Charlemagne couldn’t believe what he had just seen and was eager to confirm whether it was real.
But a strange sense of guilt surged within him, preventing him from standing beside Lance to verify it.
Instead, Charlemagne strode toward the floor-to-ceiling window.
From a high vantage point, looking down, the entire city’s screens were displaying the same video!
Charlemagne’s face was pressed flat against the glass, disregarding his dignity and image, like an ugly flatfish, with wide-open eyes staring at the nearest public screen, desperately trying to understand what was happening in the video.
…
The video began by showing the headquarters of “White Shield.”
In front of the building, there were long steps, and a golden statue of Lady Justice stood by the entrance.
Her entire body was made of liquid gold, with a cloth blindfold covering her eyes. In her left hand, she held the sword of law enforcement, while her right hand carried the scales representing justice. She stood there gracefully, shining brightly, radiating brilliance in the night.
Ever since Charlemagne, with the help of the Interest Company, crawled out from a filthy, hopeless place and was transferred to the “White Shield” headquarters in the Atber District, Lady Justice had been watching him each time he ascended those steps.
Watching him walk the radiant path of his life.
The video took place deep in the night.
A hooded figure climbed the steps under the gaze of the golden goddess.
“White Shield,” having already implemented full smart security coverage, no longer bothered to hire patrols.
However, when faced with what was supposed to be Silver Hammer City’s bastion of safety, the man simply leaned down, scanned his face on the recognition device, and entered unobstructed.
His access level must have been high.
Someone had granted him significant authority, allowing him to roam freely through every corner of “White Shield.”
Thus, he walked without hesitation, straight toward the death penalty preparation room.
The video’s lower right corner clearly marked the time.
Midnight the night before last, just before “Raskin” was to be executed.
The video was edited and sped up.
Charlemagne watched helplessly as the man scanned his face to enter the death penalty preparation room, swiftly and silently opened the storage box, and replaced the syringes inside.
The box marked P-987, which just so happened to be “Raskin’s” serial number.
He placed his hand on the box, as if tracing the serial number P-987.
But the shape and direction of the writing seemed different.
The person in the video was the murderer who killed his son!
Charlemagne’s teeth ground together audibly.
Half of it was hatred, and half was fear.
…Because no matter whether it was the posture or the figure, the person in the video seemed incredibly familiar.
Too familiar.
But this was beyond Charlemagne’s comprehension, causing waves of panic to surge inside him.
His lips, flattened against the glass, trembled slightly, struggling to form words: “Xiao… Jin?”
The person in the video seemed to hear this call.
He turned his head, facing the surveillance camera head-on.
Charlemagne’s legs instantly gave out, his face turning ashen like a retreating tide, his body stiffened as he slowly collapsed, and his skin, rapidly cooling, scraped against the glass, emitting a rough, grating sound.
Charlemagne was far too familiar with that face.
…The face his beloved son had long since discarded because of his crimes.
Jin Charlemagne.
But how could this be?!?
Xiao Jin was supposed to… he wasn’t supposed to…
At this moment, he should be in prison!
Charlemagne’s mind was in a fog, his blood turning to mercury, weighing down his limbs, pulling him deeper into the earth.
——That vast, shadowy conspiracy, once elusive, finally rose over the horizon like a giant, issuing a chilling, sinister laugh.
“This is biomimicry face-swapping technology!” He came to his senses and stumbled toward Lance.
He heard himself defending—perhaps more accurately “roaring”: “This happened before in ‘White Shield’ too! Someone used biomimicry face-swapping technology to impersonate our officers and tried to infiltrate and steal data!”
Lance, Charlemagne’s deputy, had, of course, seen a younger Jin Charlemagne before.
Recovering from his initial shock, Lance quickly grasped why their superior insisted that Charlemagne take all the blame.
This video must have been seen during the investigation by their higher-ups.
In their view, the nature of the situation had fundamentally changed.
The public’s image of the “golden detective” smashing a criminal’s face was mere misconduct.
But the golden detective’s son exploiting his privilege to stir up trouble in “White Shield” was a humiliation!
So, of course, their superiors thought it was best for Charlemagne to take full responsibility.
But that was when the video had only been seen by superiors and hadn’t leaked out.
Now, it was too late.
Having figured out his superior’s intent, Lance quickly composed himself: “Yes, three times. But every time, they failed. Charlemagne, you know why, don’t you?”
Charlemagne, like a dead fish, opened his parched mouth.
Lance continued for him: “Because the technology wasn’t good enough… Our system is highly intelligent, and to deceive it, someone would need the original facial model of your son.”
“As everyone knows, the original face model must be collected while the subject is alive and in a highly stable, conscious state, otherwise it wouldn’t be effective.”
Lance looked at Charlemagne and elegantly asked, “So, for what purpose did Jin Charlemagne willingly lend his face to this person?”
Charlemagne began sweating profusely.
It wasn’t because of the suddenness of it all—it was because he realized he couldn’t explain it!
He could argue that Xiao Jin voluntarily swapped faces due to some accident and someone stole the face model, using it for nefarious purposes.
But he couldn’t produce a living Xiao Jin.
Because he was dead—killed by Charlemagne’s own hand just yesterday.
And, just moments ago, the doctor who performed Xiao Jin’s face transplant was dead too.
The face model had been destroyed.
By his own order, he had destroyed the evidence.
He couldn’t even provide this clue to the police!
As soon as he mentioned that his son had gone to a doctor to change his face, the doctor died.
It was just too much of a coincidence.
Each step of the calculation, each trap laid, had led him to personally destroy the evidence, resulting in the worst possible outcome:
The detective’s son had broken the law, using the high-level access his father granted him to swap the original death penalty injection with a lethal poison.
At first, public opinion would likely praise the “Jin Charlemagne” in the video for ridding the world of a menace.
After all, many people didn’t want the wicked “Raskin” to die painlessly by lethal injection.
But soon enough, the praise would be replaced by suspicion.
Everything about him would be dug up and exposed online.
Just like Charlemagne had secretly scoffed at that victimized girl who, after her disfigurement, resorted to selling herself.
It wouldn’t take an hour for someone to discover that he was Charlemagne the detective’s son.
The son of a high-ranking official, with access to the death penalty preparation room in a high-security area?
Such a revelation would easily hit a sensitive nerve with the public.
And then, someone would discover that Jin Charlemagne had not appeared publicly since he came of age.
He had started disappearing right after his high school graduation party.
——At that party, due to an “accident,” a girl had died.
For Jin Charlemagne to defend himself, he’d have to be alive.
But he was already dead, shot through the face by his own father, condemned to be forever scorned as both “Raskin” and “Basil,” the dual identity killer.
As for Charlemagne himself, he was completely ruined.
The mere fact of granting his son such privileges would be enough to topple this “golden detective,” who had built his career on grandiose interviews and a reputation for upholding justice.
Not to mention the possible cover-up and indulgence implied.
…A dead end.
A meticulously crafted trap aimed at both him and his son, one that had been brewing for a long time, designed to pull him down into the abyss!
Charlemagne, who had once thrived on manipulating public opinion, now found himself swept up in a storm of it.
He could vividly foresee his own downfall, torn apart, utterly destroyed.
The cruelest part was that even after seeing it all clearly, he still had nowhere to hide.
Lance sounded the first horn of the impending storm with a single question: “Dan Charlemagne, would you mind telling us where your son Jin Charlemagne is?”
…
Ning Zhuo had no interest in watching the chaos he had orchestrated unfold.
After completing the deal with the “Tuner,” he returned to the “Haina” and opened the door to his room.
Shan Feibai was still inside, but he looked like he was bored to death.
His upper body lay sprawled on the floor, with his long legs draped over the bed, trying to use his entire body to convey just how bored he was.
The sight of this chaotic display as soon as he entered made Ning Zhuo’s head throb in pain.
Seeing Ning Zhuo return, Shan Feibai’s eyes brightened, and he flipped over, extending his right hand toward him, his palm open, making grasping motions in the air, full of childlike anticipation.
It took Ning Zhuo a moment to remember that Shan Feibai had asked him to bring back some food before he left.
With so many things going on, he had forgotten.
Without a shred of guilt, he shut the door with his foot and heartlessly said, “None.”
Shan Feibai pouted, flipped back over with another roll, and resumed lying there.
In front of Shan Feibai, Ning Zhuo casually took off his jacket, leaving only a black tank top and shorts.
It had been a full two days and nights without a proper rest, but Ning Zhuo wasn’t tired.
There was still something he hadn’t resolved.
Before he could speak, Shan Feibai beat him to it.
“Oh, by the way,” Shan Feibai said in a curious, casual tone, ” Ge, who’s that person you have locked up on the ninth floor?”
Ning Zhuo was just thinking about how to tell him that he had cut off all of Shan Feibai’s and the entire “Panqiao’s” paths of retreat.
Lost in thought, his reaction was a bit delayed.
He glanced at Shan Feibai. “What?”
With his chin resting in his hands, Shan Feibai said leisurely, “…Why does he look exactly like Jin Charlemagne?”
