Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1180: Chapter 21: Ongoing Investigation

Still in the living room, the lady with butterfly wings practicing oral skills suddenly got startled by Long Xiruo bursting out furiously.

The original pronunciation should have been “family,” but being startled, the sound after “f” suddenly shifted to “ʌk” instead of “æməli.”

“I need to make a trip to the capital, not sure when I’ll return, keep an eye on things here. If Mo Xiaofei comes looking for me, tell him to call me directly.”

“Ah?”

Without further explanation, nor waiting for Pianqian to react, the Godly Land dragon hastily rushed out once again.

“Sister Long, didn’t you just say you wanted to eat turkey cheese calorie explosion noodles? I already made it!”

Long Xiruo was no longer at the pet hospital.

After thinking for a while, figuring it would be a waste not to eat the noodles, and since she didn’t particularly like them, the lady with butterfly wings put on white canvas shoes, grabbed some food—planning to feed the cats.

In the past few days, two more stray cats showed up on that vacant land.

“I wonder if I’ll run into the boss…”

The last time feeding cats with the boss was quite a while ago.

…

…

After Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao left the pet hospital, they quickly sought out Director Liu in the city—Officer Ma’s brother-in-law.

The application materials were written overnight by Director Liu, but he didn’t expect people to arrive this quickly—for the encrypted red-headed document, only three people in the city knew about it, and it was classified only at the city level; not even the county level was informed.

Upon seeing the credentials Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao held, Director Liu was quite startled.

However, he didn’t ask much, instead cooperating with their actions and immediately took Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao to the problematic detention center overnight.

Due to the issues here, suspects who were detained, but not yet sentenced or being interrogated, were moved to another holding place; only the guards remained.

After Liu Minghao asked Director Liu to remove the guards from the holding room, he and Wei Zidao began inspecting the murder scene.

At this moment, Wei Zidao placed the suitcase he brought along on the ground, opened it up, and took out various standard equipment from the Management Bureau—Liu Minghao then used an instrument named ‘Exotic Energy Detection’ to examine the surroundings of the cell.

Yet after half an hour of inspection, both were completely fruitless.

“Strange, the incident should have happened around eleven yesterday morning, less than thirty-six hours ago.” Liu Minghao frowned: “Based on previous data, any demonic power or magic fluctuation, even the weakest, remains for over forty-eight hours, right?”

“No traces of destruction around.” Wei Zidao began analyzing: “Since the camera didn’t capture anything, it leans towards spiritual bodies or ghosts… I checked, and there’s no residual Yin Qi either.”

“Seems like there’s nothing more to find here.” Liu Minghao nodded: “Let’s go look at the corpse, perhaps we’ll discover something.”

Wei Zidao nodded, quickly gathered the tools.

Afterward, Liu Minghao found Director Liu, requesting to view the corpse—naturally, the director agreed immediately, and got Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao into his private car, driving straight to where the body was stored.

This entire trip was personally accompanied by Director Liu, naturally avoiding any scrutiny—this was Liu Minghao’s request; one of the most crucial rules of the Management Bureau is to avoid leaks as much as possible to prevent unnecessary impact.

“By the way, Director Liu, how do you plan to handle the matter of this deceased?” Liu Minghao casually asked.

Director Liu, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, responded sternly: “We can’t announce publicly that a convict was murdered… but this convict confessed his crimes, thus I think… we can use suicide to avoid punishment as a reason. Of course, I’ll ensure all related personnel keep this a secret.”

“That works too, the reason is quite sufficient.” Liu Minghao simply nodded without stating anything directly—essentially, if it can’t be resolved locally, the Management Bureau must take action.

As for Director Liu’s assurance of confidentiality among related personnel, Liu Minghao wasn’t entirely convinced. Many people tend to slip up inadvertently.

However, the Management Bureau already has a mature procedure for such cases—among the many Taoist magic tools developed by the bureau, there are cost-effective props.

Otherwise, society wouldn’t have remained calm all these years—every year, numerous mysterious incidents occur.

Yet one concerning matter during the ride was the ‘Exotic Energy Detection’ instrument, which continuously detected crazy output, almost detecting demonic power with every step.

It truly is the Godly Land dragon’s own territory… surely plenty of demons are hidden here?

Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao sighed simultaneously; arriving here, it was just the two of them, feeling isolated and vulnerable… a sensation of daunting danger hit both’s hearts.

…

Soon, the Management Bureau duo, accompanied by Director Liu, arrived at where the corpse was—prior to their arrival, the body had already been moved to the inspection place.

“Director? Why are you here?”

In the workspace, Director Liu spotted a young man with messy hair—Xiaobao.

Seeing the two brought by the director, Xiaobao opened his mouth intending to say something, but the director stopped him with a look. Afterward, Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao went directly inside.

Xiaobao instinctively tried to stop them, but Director Liu stretched out a hand to hold him back, “Xiaobao, they’re here specifically for handling matters. Whatever they do, pretend you don’t see, don’t know… come, chat with me.”

“Well… alright.” Xiaobao nodded.

The two walked to the outer corridor, Xiaobao couldn’t resist, feeling extremely sleepy, and yawned in front of Director Liu.

Director Liu patted Xiaobao’s shoulder, “It’s been rough for you while Old Qin is away. But don’t worry, I’ve applied; actually, a new forensic doctor is coming tomorrow to temporarily replace Old Qin’s duties. There’s also a mutilation case which is huge and urgent, you need to appropriately assist the new forensic doctor, got it.”

Xiaobao was stunned, frowned, and said: “Director… what’s up with Chief Qin? Technically, his leave shouldn’t be this long, right? I called the chief, but couldn’t reach him.”

Director Liu said: “This matter isn’t clear even to me. Old Qin used to be reliable… it’s been half a year, and he’s seemingly vanished. I’ve already had people search for him, but there’s no news yet.”

“Could it be the chief encountered some accident?”

Director Liu shook his head, indicating he wasn’t sure, “Alright, stop waiting here, go home, get some rest.”

Xiaobao nodded, packed up, and ran back to the office—knowing the director said a new forensic doctor is coming tomorrow, Xiaobao wouldn’t dare to slack.

Speaking of these days without Chief Qin around, Xiaobao had the office to himself, enjoying the freedom, slacking off at work, with the air-conditioning and internet covered, the cafeteria catering three meals a day—it was splendid.

“Hmm… This position needs adjusting; we can’t let the new forensic doctor keep staring from behind…” Xiaobao pondered over the office setup issue — ideally, merging the two desks so that the two could sit facing each other while working would be much better.

“Oh… Has the new patch finally updated? How long have I been waiting!”

The game company said a new version was going to be updated, and the servers had been down for several days already — closing the servers for days during updates is such a bold move, only this game would do something like that, right?

“I haven’t raided dungeons for days, I kind of miss Brother Xiu and Sister Rou Rou.”

Without further ado, Xiaobao began to click the update download option… Let them mess around outside, first I’ll take a look at the update content.

“Oh? Hero Achievements? Dark Age? Demonic Land? A demon named ‘Taiyin’ has invaded from a different dimension, and the land has been demonized… Is this version about defeating the big devil?”

…

Inside the room, Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao were carefully examining the corpse of the deceased — though they were not professional forensic doctors, they had a mature examination technique.

“The wound hasn’t changed since it formed; it’s a one-time wound. No bullet remnants… maybe some method disguised as a bullet attack.”

“But there’s still no trace of exotic energy in the examination… It’s strange.” Liu Minghao frowned at this moment.

Just as the two were baffled, the exotic energy detection device suddenly reacted — however, the reaction didn’t come from the corpse, but from the nearby cold storage cabinet!

The two were curious and stunned, and then they opened the cold storage cabinet. From the innermost part of the cold storage cabinet, they found a container — and at this time, the data on the detection device began to rise slightly.

Inside the container, there was a small, nail-sized meat tumor, slowly contracting… very slowly, barely moving about once per minute.

But this active reaction seemed to grow stronger as the temperature rose after the container was removed from the cold storage cabinet — when the temperature approached normal levels, the meat tumor started a slight writhing!

“What is this thing?” Liu Minghao frowned directly and then looked at Wei Zidao, “Go ask.”

…

98%… 99%…

The update was about to complete, Xiaobao blinked and placed both hands on the keyboard, doing warm-up exercises, getting ready to enter his account and password at any moment.

“Xiaobao! Xiaobao — come out for a second!”

It was Secretary Liu’s voice — Secretary Liu was standing outside the door.

Just a little bit more…

Xiaobao internally groaned, then put on a smile and quickly ran out, “Secretary, I’m here! What’s the matter?”

At this time, the computer screen suddenly flickered, and the game jumped directly to the login interface after the update was completed — and then, another small window popped up, covering the game login interface.

A rare window.

“Do you want to feel the meaning of life?”

“YES/NO”

The small window didn’t remain for long — it slowly disappeared after about a minute, leaving only the normal game login interface.

…

Xiaobao looked a little uneasy at the two men in black suits in front of him — before coming in, Secretary Liu had instructed that no matter what these two asked, he had to answer truthfully, without any concealment.

But Secretary Liu didn’t come in himself and was still waiting outside in the hallway — are these two men with a big background? At this moment, Xiaobao couldn’t help but wonder about their identities.

Liu Minghao was direct at this time, directly placing the container on the table, “This thing was found in the cold storage cabinet, I’m asking you, do you know the origin of this thing?”

Xiaobao was stunned for a moment, looking at the container, and was quite shocked — mainly because the meat tumor inside had a kind of creepy feeling — this thing in my workplace?

Xiaobao swallowed, his hands trembled a bit as he used tweezers to turn the container around to the side with the label — it had a ‘Qin’ character written on it.

“Well, do you know?” Wei Zidao asked directly.

Xiaobao thought for a while, “Oh… I remembered. This is a sample planted by Chief Qin earlier! Yes, yes, I remembered!”

“Tell us in detail, don’t leave out any specifics.” Liu Minghao said in a low voice at this time.

Xiaobao instinctively shrank his neck and recalled, “This thing, it should be a sample left from a murder scene that happened around last National Day. At that time, we found some strange liquid and tiny tissue remnants at the scene. I remember the chief wanted to use it for cultivation to see exactly what it was. But…”

“But what?” Liu Minghao immediately followed up.

Xiaobao shook his head, “But it was kind of strange, the culprit of that case appeared in the end but escaped. The wanted notice is still out there, and our chief has been on leave since then and hasn’t returned. I didn’t dare to touch this thing, so I just tucked it in the back of the cold storage… If you hadn’t taken it out today, I would have surely forgotten.”

Speaking of which, Xiaobao frowned again, “But I remember, at that time it was only the size of an ant, wasn’t it? It didn’t move either, did it? Growing in low temperatures? Such a strong life force? It can’t be eating something big, right? What on earth is this thing?”

Seeing Xiaobao going into deep thought, Liu Minghao and Wei Zidao exchanged glances, and Wei Zidao then said calmly, “Can you show us the detailed documents related to that case?”

“I can at most find all the examination documents from the crime scene.” Xiaobao shook his head, “I don’t have any other handling process, maybe you can ask the secretary.”

“You are done here, you can go back.” Wei Zidao suddenly picked up the container and placed it into the briefcase he had brought along.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Xiaobao was somewhat shocked, “This thing can’t be taken just like that!”

Liu Minghao didn’t say anything either, directly took out a small bottle from his pocket, unscrewed it, took out a blue-white capsule from inside, and under Xiaobao’s surprised gaze, he directly grabbed Xiaobao’s jaw and put the capsule into Xiaobao’s mouth.

“What did you give me to eat?”

“Forgetfulness.”

Xiaobao suddenly felt a dizziness, then slowly calmed down, but Wei Zidao quickly caught Xiaobao and helped him sit down to the side.

This is one of the tools used by the Management Bureau to handle related personnel, just one capsule, generally able to make ordinary people forget things that happened within a few hours.

Of course, there are many similar measures, but certainly not one where you just press a flash stick and forget everything, because that would require licensing.