Chapter 1401: Chapter 1401: Cleaning (Big Chapter, Monthly Ticket Request)
“Scanning the ashes, restoring the ash-written text.”
Eve’s gentle voice echoed in He Ao’s ear, while He Ao’s gaze focused on the coffee table in front of him.
On the solid wood coffee table, there sat a smooth, glistening agate bowl, and inside the bowl were several sheets of paper that had already been burned to ashes.
These papers were not completely burned, leaving so edges not fully burned away.
This agate bowl was found by He Ao in a cabinet on the edge of the living room and was one of the two potentially effective pieces of ‘data’ located by Eve.
Through radar, Eve detected the unreasonable presence of the agate bowl and ashes inside.
The bowl was likely placed in a semi-sealed cabinet during burning, resulting in incomplete combustion, leaving so edges behind.
However, the main content of the papers inside the bowl was mostly burned clean, with almost all remaining edges being blank.
But because the bowl was placed into the cabinet during the burning process, when He Ao took the paper out, the ashes were relatively ‘complete’.
Normally, paper burns wouldn’t instantly turn entirely to ashes; without external interference, they retain so original shape and may even preserve so writing.
And due to insufficient combustion, these sheets showed partial signs of carbonization, making the writing more visible.
At this mont, Eve was scanning these ashes through multi-layered caras within the room, trying to restore what was originally written on the papers.
Judging by the handwriting, the text on these papers didn’t seem to be printed but directly handwritten, like so kind of diary.
He Ao could vaguely distinguish so text out of the ashes.
The most complete sentence among them was:
[Finally, I don’t have to look at that annoying mask anymore.]
While He Ao was gazing, Eve had finished analyzing and organized the deciphered text into a file displayed on He Ao’s wristband.
[This glass mask can burn into such an effect; it’s too beautiful, a true artwork. Denno City indeed has talented people. I must burn sothing I like next ti.]
[Put the mask at the front entrance, this should create the effect…]
[A bunch of fools, these guys are truly stupid. Working with them every day is a disgrace.]
[The plan went smoothly; he unknowingly got arranged, pretending to be smart, so ridiculous.]
[I got this far relying entirely on my talent; the group’s money was just a minor help.]
[Perhaps I can reach even higher.]
Eve ultimately restored few complete sentences, with no absolute logical correlation among them, and the tiline might not be accurate.
But from these sentences, it seed ‘Kailuo’ was a very confident person, attempting to ‘strategize’ sothing.
And making masks seed to serve so kind of ‘purpose.’
Putting the mask at the front entrance generally holds special intentions, either it’s so kind of ‘ritual’ or to ensure the mask is seen first upon entering.
But what effect would this mask have?
He Ao turned his gaze and glanced at the glass mask set on the table not far away.
“Any discoveries?” At that mont, Vigina approached from the side, holding a plastic casing that seed to contain faux books, and handed it to He Ao, “Found this on the bookshelf you pointed out.”
He Ao took the ‘fake book’, slightly opened it, revealing pages pasted with various kinds of information.
The Federation had a very high sales volu of fake books, and many with so family assets would spend money to set up a study room or decorative bookshelves at ho.
But filling these shelves with expensive real books would be too costly, as the owners of these bookshelves likely rarely read them.
Thus, the appearance of realistic plastic fake books, filling the shelves, looking good, and lowering cost.
In this room, most of the books on the shelves were fake, with only one or two brand new real books that seed never touched mixed in.
Of course, these real and fake books were contentless, with only the book Vigina found, disguised as a collection of information, potentially holding effective clues.
This book was also identified by Eve as the second suspected critical data point.
It had the appearance of a fake book but not the core, thus marked by Eve.
He Ao lowered his head and quickly opened the pages pasted with various information.
As his health declined, the external overflow of Super mory increased, and his ‘mory’ rapidly improved.
He barely glanced at the information, having roughly morized its content.
Quickly, he finished scanning the whole data book.
Most inside was ineffective information, roughly recording Kailuo’s ‘collection’ of information.
Starting with Denno City’s mineral proportions, so fairly obvious mine distributions, all public web information.
Going further, the information beca gradually professional, involving proportions of key rare earths.
In the process, Kailuo seed to have found Denno City’s rare earth mines didn’t match with the public mine outputs, and took notes on these places.
Further beyond, as he delved deeper into intelligence, ironically less information was pasted.
Among these data, there were increasing ‘investigations’ about various districts in Denno City.
Most of these districts were overlooked, controlled by gangs, unstable and chaotic districts.
He appeared to be finding a place of concealnt amid chaos.
Of course, all this ‘exploration’ ended on one piece of information.
This was a record stating Kewort Group having an unknown super rare earth mine.
But this information was very simplistic, not specifying the mine nor its location, just stating its existence.
After this record, no new data was pasted.
He Ao flipped through the information on the last few districts, clearly sourced online, and asked Eve to search through them.
Generally concluded the information corresponded to a tiline more than half a year ago.
From Kailuo’s trajectory, at that ti, he had just entered the power core of Kewort Group in Denno City.
Everything he wanted to know was known then, so he hadn’t sought more information.
The content of this ‘data collection’ wasn’t absolute ‘confidential’, hence he didn’t spend ti processing it before leaving.
Of course, probably, he no longer rembered the existence of this data.
And during He Ao’s reading, Eve also recorded the content through cara scans.
“Have you finished reading?” Vigina looked at He Ao, who closed the information booklet, her eyes widened slightly.
Then she raised her hand, mimicking the motion of quickly flipping through pages. “You finished already?”
“Pretty much.” He Ao ignored her shocked expression, placed the information back on the table, and replied casually.
“Really?” Vigina picked up the materials and rapidly flipped through the pages, her eyes on the pages but her mind blank.
“Alright then.” Vigina placed the pages back on the table, seemingly accepting the fact that she hadn’t rembered anything. She looked at He Ao and gave up thinking, “What should we do next?”
“From the categorization of districts in this data, Kailuo seems to be searching for a chaotic place where he can hide.” He Ao stood up slightly and spoke softly.
“There are many such places in Denno City,” Vigina pondered, “and they’re unevenly distributed throughout the city.”
He Ao raised his bracelet and glanced at the districts Eve had filtered based on Kailuo’s ‘selection’ criteria.
As Vigina said, there are many chaotic districts in Denno City, and they’re quite scattered. Even with many conditions imposed by Eve, over a dozen small districts were filtered out, and they are scattered very unevenly.
He Ao raised his bracelet and sent the information about these districts to Vigina. “These districts all roughly et his screening criteria.”
“These are all the chaotic districts in Denno City, and each one isn’t very large,” Vigina looked up at the map displayed on her bracelet, “given enough ti, we could search them one by one.”
“We don’t have enough ti,” He Ao shook his head gently. “While we’re searching, Kailuo will also be relocating.”
“It would be best to complete the search tonight,” Vigina frowned slightly. “But these districts are too spread out; to search all these areas in such a short ti, we likely don’t have enough manpower.”
“We have enough manpower.” However, He Ao simply gazed at her, speaking slowly.
“Huh?” Vigina was montarily puzzled, then seed to think of sothing.
——
“Is he resting?”
The young man glanced at his bracelet, which showed the call couldn’t connect, hesitated for a mont, and decided not to continue trying.
It was already late enough, the ti when the superior would be resting.
“I’ll report it tomorrow morning.” He put away his bracelet, looked at his subordinates who were starting to yawn around him, and spoke softly, “Alright, gentlen, it’s very late now. Let’s continue the scheduled shifts to blockade and keep searching for Paxiu, first get so rest—”
Buzz—
However, before he could finish speaking, his bracelet vibrated violently.
“Sir, we’ve found a trace of Paxiu!” The mont he answered the call, a voice tinged with excitent ca through the bracelet.
“What?” The previously drowsy young man looked up, addressing the n dressed in black in front of him, and spoke quickly, “Gentlen, we’ve located Paxiu, right near the Kewort Building. Let’s head back imdiately and capture him!”
Instantly, everyone was invigorated, quickly getting into the nearby cars and driving off into the darkness like a writhing black snake.
——
Near Kewort Group Building · South Tenth District
“What are you doing?”
Vigina stood in the cold wind, arms crossed, and looked at the young man who suddenly appeared in front of her, along with the n in black behind him, sowhat puzzled.
“Director Vigina, we received intelligence that Paxiu is in this district,” the young man gave Vigina a glance but didn’t stop, striding past her quickly. “We need to blockade and search this district now.”
“Do you have a search warrant?” Vigina turned around, calling out coldly at the young man’s back.
“In ergencies, we have ergency procedures,” the young man didn’t hesitate at all. He raised his hand, pointing at the gang mbers erging from the corners of the district, and shouted loudly, “Gentlen, blockade the entire district.”
“Yes!”
With a chorus of responses, the n in black imdiately spread out along the streets, sealing off all the entrances and exits.
Soone noticed Vigina and the Federation agents standing on the outskirts and suddenly shouted loudly in the dark, “Gentlen, it’s the Federation Bureau guys here to take us down, right?”
“What about the group? The group?” A rough voice called out in the darkness. “Can the group save us?”
“No response from the group, boss!” soone answered, “We contacted group security but got no response.”
“Damn it, did they abandon us?” The rough voice spoke again. “Gentlen, charge and kill these Federation scums!”
“We’re not the Federation!” The young man standing in the middle quickly raised his hands and shouted loudly, “We just want to blockade the street.”
The agitated gang mbers cald down a bit.
“Blockade the street just to trap us here?” soone shouted from within the crowd. “Will you demand we hand over our weapons too? Without guns, we’d be at their rcy.”
“Screw it, let’s fight them!” Upon hearing this, the rough voice raised a handheld laser cannon.
“Soone’s sowing discord here,” anwhile, the young man lowered his hands, calmly watching the gang mbers charging forward. “Idiotic fools, clear them out.”
The n in black around him imdiately raised their arms, revealing the thin exoskeleton armor attached, and the miniature laser cannons mounted on their forearms.
Boom—
Intense gunfire erupted brightly on the street.
Vigina leaned against the wall, arms crossed, silently watching the scene unfold with a slight smile.
“Director, should we just let them fight here?” A young agent beside her asked in confusion.
“You haven’t been here long, have you?” a middle-aged agent nearby smiled. “The gangs in this district are the main source of contraband drugs for the nearby districts. The director has long wanted to take them down, but unexpected events always cause the plan to fail.”
“Is that so?” The young agent nodded in realization.
“Seal off the nearby areas, disperse the crowd, and ensure no stray bullets hit civilians,” Vigina instructed, arms crossed, casually.
“Yes, Director!”
The speaking middle-aged agent responded imdiately, leading the team toward the nearby district.
The young agent scratched his head in confusion, watching the middle-aged agent’s back.
He recalled this ‘senior’ was never really fond of this director, always doing just the bare minimum, going through the motions day by day.
The intense gunfire with its surrounding bloodshed burst brightly under the neon lights of the night.
When it was all over, the young man stepped over the bodies on the ground, puzzled as he looked at his subordinate next to him, “Didn’t find him?”
He turned back, looking toward where Vigina had been.
It was now empty.
Buzz—
At that mont, his bracelet sounded again.
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