Book 4, Chapter 58: Surround And Capture
Book 4, Chapter 58: Surround And Capture
Lead Investigator Han stared at Chen Chuan silently for a bit but said nothing else. He simply left.
Chen Chuan, too, left the meeting hall. Once he was outside, he saw that Lead Investigator Wen wasn’t too far away, even though he had left ahead of them. He was standing in the corridor as if waiting for Chen Chuan.
“Don’t mind him, Lead Investigator Chen. Lead Investigator Han’s thought processes aren’t the same as ours. He’s always in charge of important cases, so he often thinks about the big picture,” Lead Investigator Wen said with a smile.
Then, he fell in line with Chen Chuan and said meaningfully, “He’s older than us and has more experience. He’s also close to the higher-ups. In the future, after Director Wu retires, Lead Investigator Han has the greatest chance of taking over his position.
“It makes perfect sense why he regards himself to be in a higher position than us.”
Chen Chuan did know that most deputy directors were promoted from administrative officers, but since Wu Quan was in charge of operations, his position required him to be a martial artist, and those who took over had to be the same. Since the two were completely different paths, only one among the three of them could take over Wu Quan’s position.
Specifically, only Lead Investigator Han and Lead Investigator Wen had a chance of taking over. Chen Chuan was too young and didn’t have enough experience for the position.
Of course, the true deciding factor was whether the lead investigators had some organization supporting them. Right now, Chen Chuan had joined the purity faction. This made him wonder. Which faction did Lead Investigator Han join? Was it an organization within the government or some other faction?
There might also be some other reason behind why Lead Investigator Han said those things today. For now, Chen Chuan couldn’t decipher it.
He decided not to care about it and just deal with the mission handed to him.
He could tell that Lead Investigator Wen was trying to get on his good side, which was likely due to his own ulterior motives. After chatting a little more, they left the corridor and parted ways politely at a corner. Then, Chen Chuan returned to his office.
A subordinate handed him a report. This person was someone Chen Chuan had promoted. Over the past few days, his reshuffling of personnel had settled down. Captain Bao had been transferred to another place, and Captain Gu took over his place.
Based on the resume, he came from the military just like Captain Bao, but Captain Gu never backed down from a fight and always gave it his all. He was a little too hot-tempered, though, which led to him offending a lot of people. When Chen Chuan requested a reshuffle, the department sent him over.
Chen Chuan didn’t think it was a problem. He wasn’t worried about a subordinate having a bad temper. He was more worried about them being unreliable and unable to take up responsibility.
He stayed in the office to complete some final procedures, then checked the time and left the office.
Safe Shield sent him a message that Qu Tianli had confessed many things during his interrogation. The department put a lot of interest in this, especially the tunnel he took to come to Central City. They stationed officers to monitor it.
If anyone else came into Central City through there, they would lock the place down and capture them.
Chen Chuan nodded. This meant that he didn’t have to worry about that for the time being and said, “If anything new comes up, please tell me.”
“Understood.”
Chen Chuan left the Resolution Department and went to an underground entrance leading to the merged space. It was located in Martial Order District.
His three team members were going to arrive at around noon, so he came ahead of time to wait for them.
He waited for around half an hour. When it was almost 11 a.m., Yuan Qiuyuan, Qin Qingque, and Su Wei walked out of the tunnel with military backpacks.
They were dressed in military uniforms and were taller than the average person. They also looked heroic, so the moment they walked out, they attracted attention at the tram station.
Once they were outside, they saw Chen Chuan’s car parked in front. Yuan Qiuyuan lit up and said excitedly, “The captain’s here to pick us up!”
“Lead Investigator,” Qin Qingque immediately corrected him.
“Doesn’t roll off the tongue that well. Anyway, I’m sure that the captain doesn’t mind. Besides, calling him captain makes my heart swell.”
He then patted Su Wei. “What do you think?”
Su Wei said nothing, but smiled with a nod.
Chen Chuan walked out of his car, just as his team members arrived in front of him and saluted him respectfully. “Captain!”
Chen Chuan returned the salute and said, “Get in. I’ll bring you over to meet your new team members.”
Before coming back, they had been told why they were brought back. With a loud “understood,” they got in.
The minute they settled down, Chen Chuan started the car and headed to the training hall, where Wei Changan and the others went to train.
Wei Changan, Wu Han, Luo Kaiyuan, Feng Xiaoqi, and the others had been training there every day. Due to Chen Chuan’s guidance, they had managed to fix their flaws and started paying attention to what they had always overlooked. The more they trained, the more they improved. They never found the process boring, so they became more fired up as they continued training.
If they didn’t have to be careful of their mutated tissue’s tolerance, they would have kept training day in and day out.
While resting, they engaged in discussions and sparring. After joining the Resolution Department as temporary officers, they didn’t have to worry about food, medicine, and other things. They only needed to focus on training, so they threw themselves into it. This did make them feel like they had returned to the university.
All of them got significantly stronger over this period of time.
When Chen Chuan brought Yuan Qiuyuan, Qin Qingque, and Su Wei over, they were immersed in training. Hence, once they stepped inside, they could feel the place filled with a drive to get stronger with every second they had.
Yuan Qiuyuan loved such atmospheres. After taking a look around, he asked excitedly, “Are these our team members, Captain?”
Chen Chuan nodded, but he didn’t go forward immediately. When Wei Changan and the others stopped, he introduced the merged space team to his friends.
Once they got to know each other, he brought out the can of Enlightenment Fruit, told them the effects, and distributed them to everyone.
Of course, he had no idea how many of them would benefit from it.
In Talu’s words, there was no rule deciding on whom the fruits worked. It all depended on their luck.
Chen Chuan had once wondered whether the fruit only kicked into effect if multiple people took one at the same time, but he had no way of proving whether his theory was true or not.
Upon hearing that the fruit could increase potential, everyone took the fruits curiously, but none felt anything special.
“Did Wei Dong get one?” Wu Han asked. Wei Dong was the only one not present. The training room in Martial Valor University was much better than this place.
Chen Chuan smiled. “Everyone got one. I already gave it to him. This thing will only kick into effect after twenty days, so just keep an eye out.”
***
Fang Zhixin was within an abandoned apartment in Oceanway District. He crushed a can and threw it on the floor. There were about a dozen of them littered all over the place.
He had a scruffy beard and long hair. His clothes were also dirty. Clearly, it had been a long time since he had cleaned himself up.
As he leaned against the cement wall, he cast a glance at the light shining through the window.
He had been hiding here for some time.
When he was taken away by the National Ad Hoc Special Operations Committee, some people had saved him on the way to the headquarters. Those people claimed to be Chen Bitong’s admirers, but he didn’t know them, so he had always been wary of them.
Over the past few months, those people had been asking about Chen Bitong and trying to figure out whether Fang Zhixin had anyone supporting him. He kept dancing around the subject and never gave them straight answers.
Recently, though, he sensed that they were losing patience. Before that could manifest into anything, a group of elites barged into the place where he hid and started fighting against those people.
Since Fang Zhixin had always wanted to escape, he made use of the chaos and fled.
Knowing that he was still a wanted man, he never showed his face in public. Instead, he went straight to this apartment and hid himself.
The apartment was in the north of Oceanway District and not covered by any domains, so no biosentient entity could find him. Fang Zhixin intended to contact his true companions in a few days.
But since yesterday, he had a feeling that someone was watching him; he had fallen under someone’s radar again.
Still, he didn’t flee in a hurry. He chose to rest while waiting for whoever was stalking him to arrive.
This lasted until the sun started setting. Fang Zhixin was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed when he suddenly opened them. Multiple black objects shot in through the window and sank into the wall on the other side.
He thought that they were javelins, but when he saw long, thin, metallic wings, his heart sank.
They were bioweapons he had never seen before.
Just then, their tails exploded, and thousands of thorns blasted out. They filled the entire space.
Fang Zhixin shielded his face with both hands. His sleeves were torn apart, and the thorns sank into the skin on his arms and his torso. The parts not buried in his skin were still trembling.
Fortunately, Fang Zhixin was a Third Limit martial artist and reacted quickly. He used his mutated tissue and prevented the thorns from burying even deeper. They were only in his epidermis. Otherwise, the things would have pierced right through him.
More of the bioweapons shot in. Fang Zhixin curled his back and slammed it against the wall, making it protrude outward. Then, he flipped backward, knocked the wall down, and arrived in another room.
The moment he got there, he felt his instincts scream at him. Before he could dodge, he felt his body tremble, and blood gushed out of his shoulder. Then, he heard gunshots from outside.
Bullets came flying at him from the other parts of the room.
He could even hear gunshots coming from the room next to the one where he originally was. He was locked down. It took him moments to realize that his enemies guessed that he’d run to one of the rooms and placed marksmen in both of them, so no matter where he went, he would have no way of escaping.
Clearly, his enemies were prepared. Their weapons were high-class too, so he couldn’t fight them head-on. Fang Zhixin slammed his fists on the ground, and with a loud boom, the cement floor cracked. He plunged down.