Book 3, Chapter 374: Position
Book 3, Chapter 374: Position
After they left the Resolution Department’s basement, Chen Chuan thanked Guo You and headed to his office.
It was located at the southern corner on the thirtieth floor. He could see the parking lot, the streets, and various buildings from there.
His office was furnished in the standard manner for officers of his rank. It had its own independent domain connection entity, a personal storage room, a secure room, a large meeting room, and a lounge with an attached bathroom.
Chen Chuan had no intention of modifying the room. After all, he was an action-based lead investigator, and the tasks given to him usually required him running around outside. He wouldn’t be spending much of his time in the department.
Chen Chuan went to his desk and picked up the document set on top of it. It was a letter of commendation from the World Ring Defense System meant for him and his unit.
They would distribute the material rewards later.
Chen Chuan tapped on his Realm Pass. Since it was connected to Safe Shield, he could check the information of all the internal members of the Resolution Department as well as past and current cases.
One of the department’s ongoing cases was related to him to a certain degree. In terms of responsibilities, he should be in charge of it.
But since this was a long-term mission, he would only be able to deal with it after he came back.
Its main target was United Might.
During the Fu-Mu Entity’s propagation, this company had provided escort and mercenary-for-hire services for other companies. It even provided transport services for propagated offspring. Such companies needed to be targeted for crackdown or have their business removed from the city straightaway.
But this process took a long time. After all, unlike Ferris Wheel, this company’s headquarters weren’t in this Central City. It also had companies in other cities. Hence, it was going to be difficult to shake its foundation.
Since the Department of Administrative Affairs was incredibly displeased with this company, it was planning to set up an air freight company led by Skyshark Airships and steal United Might’s businesses.
After that, the Resolution Department would increase its investigations and punishment of United Might’s mercenary-for-hire service, but due to the unique geographical location of Jibei Road’s Central City, the city had a major influence on the island nations. After Ferris Wheel was destroyed, an entire pie had been left behind, so they were pretty sure that United Might wouldn’t just let it go. There was a high chance that it was going to compete for this pie.
After reading through the entire case, Chen Chuan noticed a message at the bottom of his Realm Pass. A few Resolution Department officers had applied to join his investigation team.
He checked their resumes and previous cases, but they weren’t outstanding people. It was highly likely that they saw that he was gaining power in the Resolution Department and wanted to join his side first.
After all, Chen Chuan was not even twenty years old yet. Even if he stood still and did nothing, he would last until his superiors retired from old age.
Besides, once he started working on the cases, he wouldn’t be able to complete a lot of investigations and do the logistics and all the technical things on his own. He would need a lot of manpower.
But he didn’t need to jump at the chance to get people on his team. He didn’t trust certain people in the department, and he couldn’t tell whether some of those who applied to join him were moles.
Chen Chuan was going to make good use of this recruitment chance, and he already had some ideas, but he wasn’t in a hurry to put them to use. He would wait until he came back from his holiday.
Getting stronger was his top priority. Only when he had strength could he have decision-making power.
He ignored all the applications and found a list of weapons, protective gear, and equipment he could buy. He could even get a resonator nest, and it was quite cheap.
It was a good idea to buy some necessary equipment to fortify his house. He was going to fight against companies in the future, so all of it would inevitably come of use.
Aside from these things, he also got access to some advanced implants developed by the country. Even though he didn’t need them, this was a good alternative for combatants who weren’t martial artists, office staff, and martial artists who were so badly injured that they couldn’t recover, just like Luo Xiucheng. Chen Chuan could tell that he was filled with advanced implants.
Chen Chuan didn’t look down on implants. As technology continued improving, the benefits of implants were bound to stand out even more. Their ability to let normal people possess a certain degree of fighting power was especially useful. They might also play an important role when the two worlds merged, and they had to fight against the existences from the other world. Either way, the implants were popular.
Chen Chuan stayed in his office for more than half an hour to take care of all the miscellaneous tasks before grabbing the box containing his uniform and walking out. The officer on-duty guarding his door saluted him before extending his hand, eager to please. “Let me help you carry that, Lead Investigator Chen.”
Chen Chuan didn’t reject the offer and handed the box to him. They took the elevator down. On the way, whenever an officer saw him, they would stand still, call him by his title, and only move after he walked away.
People he knew and didn’t know greeted him, and Chen Chuan nodded as a greeting. The officer on-duty following him puffed out his chest a little.
When they reached the entrance to the lobby, Chen Chuan saw that it was raining outside. The light-gray sky was slightly dark. The rain brought with it a cold blast of wind into the department, but it felt refreshing.
The officer on duty immediately ran to the side, grabbed an umbrella, and opened it while doing his best to extend it over Chen Chuan. He didn’t care that he was getting wet himself.
Once Chen Chuan walked down the stairs and reached the parking lot, a group of people walked up to him and saluted him. “I’m Yu Xiao, Lead Investigator Chen. My team and I will be in charge of protecting you while you travel. Where do you need to go?”
Chen Chuan took a look. There were four armored cars here. Aside from his new car, the other three were purely combat-based. All of them had machine guns mounted on them.
Even though he didn’t need any protection at his current level of strength, these were the benefits of a lead investigator in the Resolution Department. This was also the first time they met, so he saw no need to reject their protection. Besides, he also needed to familiarize himself with them.
“I’d like to go to Ferris Wheel’s ruins at Glowing Dew District,” he said after some thought.
“Understood.” Yu Xiao’s expression turned stern.
One of the guards immediately opened the car door for him. After he entered the limousine, the other armed combatants got into their own cars. Then, the motorcade drove away. The patrolling officers saluted him when his motorcade passed by.
***
Sun Rao was returning to the Resolution Department in a patrol car. He had been on duty for an entire night with Wei Yuji and had just come back. When they saw four armored cars driving out, they stopped their car by the side and waited for the motorcade to leave.
Sun Rao had been in the Resolution Department for a long time, so he knew that some chief or deputy director had left. It made him wonder whether something had happened.
Wei Yuji was sitting in the backseat with his elbow against the edge of the car window. He was looking outside in boredom.
He was quite sensitive, so after seeing the motorcade, he checked the news in the department’s channel to see whether anything special had happened.
Once he read through everything, he raised an eyebrow and turned around. “Sun Rao, check the news on the channel. Don’t you know the new lead investigator?”
“Lead investigator?”
Sun Rao cast a glance at the departing motorcade and remembered something. He had been slumped over a moment ago, but now, he straightened his back and started checking the news.
Soon, shock and awe appeared on his face. Once he finished reading the article, he read it again, then one more time to be sure. In the end, he mumbled, “I never expected this. He joined the department much later than I did, after all.”
“This is normal, Sun Rao. There’s a disparity of strength between people, and it’s not embarrassing to admit that you aren’t as good. You’ve always worked hard, and I see it, but you can’t catch up to the talented people with just hard work. It won’t do you any harm to accept this,” Wei Yuji said with a smile.
Sun Rao said nothing in reply. Once the patrol car started moving again, it headed to the square and stopped. “Head in first. I need to go to the washroom.”
After Wei Yuji left, Sun Rao put his hand on the Realm Pass to contact An Cheng, the other sponsored student.
The call went through in just a moment.
“Sun Rao? Why are you calling me at this time? Hurry up and tell me what you have to say. After I clock off my shift, I need to train,” An Cheng said.
“You don’t have to work so hard anymore,” Sun Rao said.
“How can I not work hard? If I don’t, I’ll have to patrol every single day for the rest of my life. I can’t accept that. Can you? Enough already. Why did you call me? Just tell me already!” An Cheng raised his voice. He sounded quite impatient.
“The Resolution Department got a new lead investigator,” Sun Rao said.
“Why are you telling me this? What does that have to do with us?” An Cheng found it quite strange.
Sun Rao said nothing.
Soon, An Cheng realized what he was implying, and his voice changed. “It’s him?”
“Yeah. He got promoted this morning. It’s on the department’s news channel,” Sun Rao said with a nod.
There was a moment of silence, as if An Cheng was searching for the article. A moment later, when he spoke again, his voice was full of disbelief. “How can this be? Isn’t he getting promoted too quickly?”
“If it’s really as the article said, then it’s not fast at all. We’re talking about a Third Limit martial artist here. As long as he makes some contributions, he will get promoted,” Sun Rao commented airily.
An Cheng fell silent, greatly shocked.
Sun Rao’s expression turned serious. “An Cheng, everyone is different, and it’s not embarrassing to admit that we aren’t as good as he is. You’ve always worked hard, and I see it, but you can’t catch up to the talented people just through hard work. It’s better to give up. It won’t do you any harm to accept this.”
***
At the same time, two people were talking about Chen Chuan in a bar on the street where the Resolution Department was located.
One of them wore a pair of sunglasses. “Is the one who left just now the person who destroyed Ferris Wheel?”
“That’s him. But I don’t think he relied on his own strength to destroy Ferris Wheel. We got information that he received help from Martial Valor University’s active biosentient entity.”
“That makes more sense. Even so, you need to be strong to bring out an active biosentient entity’s power. He’s good enough to join us,” the man with the sunglasses said.
“Should we recruit him?”
“Patience. We need to observe him a little more. We’re part of the refined training faction, not some group that lets any random person join them,” the man with the sunglasses said.