538: Chapter 538: The Man in the Net (Super-sized chapter for monthly pass) 538: Chapter 538: The Man in the Net (Super-sized chapter for monthly pass) He Ao turned his head and looked at Heish.
At the mont, Heish had one hand clenched into a fist while the other covered it.
When He Ao turned around, she slowly lifted the hand on top to reveal a coin with a portrait facing upwards.
This was a one federal coin, which theoretically should have the portrait of Ellenska, the first Mayor of Dawn City, on the front, and on the back, an olive and stars emblem symbolizing the unity of the Federation.
Heish glanced at the coin on the back of her hand, gave it a slight lift, and the coin flipped up and was snatched into her palm with a swift motion.
“A bodyguard mission, for tonight.
You just have to ensure the client’s safety during the mission, and I’ll give you the formula,” she said, retracting her hand that caught the coin, and looked at He Ao, “This mission is not illegal.”
“Where is the mission location?” He Ao asked calmly.
“Wel dical Building,” Heish answered promptly.
As a ga-conglorate in healthcare, second only to Stars Pharma, the headquarters of the Wel dical Consortium, Wel dical Building, was located in Vitland City.
“Who is the client?
What’s their capability?” He Ao inquired further.
“The client is ,” Heish said calmly with a smile as she sat on the couch.
He Ao glanced at the headless, burly man’s corpse that had just fallen to the ground.
The man’s capabilities were probably at the stronger end of D-level, and the fact that Heish had easily killed him indicated that she possessed the peak of D-level or even C-level strength.
Such capabilities requiring protection suggested that she might encounter C-level enemies.
He Ao picked up his suitcase and turned to continue walking out, muttering, “It’s cheap.”
It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it; it was that the price was too low.
The shiny coin tumbled between Heish’s slender fingers.
She pocketed the coin and watched He Ao’s retreating figure, saying again,
“You’ll only be responsible for my safety.
If nothing happens to and I co back safely once the affair is over, I will tell you the formula for the Secret dicine.
However, if I face danger and a C-level or equivalent enemy appears, then the price will be renegotiated.”
“It seems you’ve encountered so serious trouble?” He Ao turned back and looked at Heish.
“This is normal.
Sitting in my position, there are people who want to replace every day.
While it may look glorious, to those ‘important’ people, I’m just a dog,” Heish said with a smile, “They don’t care who sits in the dog’s position; they just need a dog.”
“You trust this much?” He Ao asked softly.
This kind of bodyguard mission could lead to Heish’s death if He Ao were not fully committed.
“I have to go to the Wel dical Building tonight, and I lack soone with C-level combat capabilities by my side, so I need a strong C-level bodyguard,” Heish explained, tilting her head, “Although we’re not familiar with each other, you seem reliable, and I can’t find a more reliable C-level, so I have to take a gamble.”
She shifted her gaze away from He Ao, looking down at the coin in her hand, “When I gamble on luck, I like to use a coin to hear God’s guidance.
If the coin ends up with the portrait facing up, I choose to gamble.
If it’s the emblem, then I decide not to,” the coin she was holding peeked out between her fingers, showing the portrait side up, and she continued with a smile, “God tells to trust you.”
He Ao glanced at the coin in Heish’s hand, then redirected his gaze, asking, “Is the Preacher’s Secret dicine formula at the Wel dical Consortium?”
In Jess’s mories, there had been an apparent joy from the Mysterious Person when Stars Pharma’s stock prices fell, and not many things could cause the Mysterious Person to reveal emotions.
Hence, He Ao surmised that the Mysterious Person likely belonged to an opposing force against Stars Pharma.
In Vitland, there were not many able to be called an opposing force against Stars Pharma with significant power, among which Wel dical Consortium was the most obvious.
Furthermore, the Preacher was a Talent Sequence na provided by the Mysterious Person, implying that the Mysterious Person’s faction likely had the formula for the Preacher’s Secret dicine.
Upon hearing He Ao’s question, Heish was startled, then laughed, “Theoretically, I shouldn’t give you this information for free, but since you’ve guessed it already, there’s nothing more to say.”
The equivalent of an indirect confirmation of He Ao’s question.
However, even with the location of the Preacher’s Secret dicine confird, He Ao couldn’t be sure that there was a definite link between the Wel dical Consortium and the Mysterious Person.
So he lifted his head and continued to ask, “What are you going to do at the Wel dical Building tonight?”
“There’s a charity dinner being held at the Wel dical Building tonight,” Heish did not hold back and quickly spoke while clutching the coin, “I’ve been invited to attend the dinner, and generally speaking, guests are allowed to bring a companion.”
Of course, He Ao knew that Heish’s attendance at the charity dinner was not just for simple participation.
rely attending a charity event would not pose a life-threatening danger, and the Wel dical Consortium would not need to set a trap specifically for a character from the underworld like Heish.
However, He Ao did not expose her.
Heish must also have known that He Ao might have guessed sothing, but she did not spell it out either.
The two maintained a tacit understanding without explicit acknowledgent.
Attending the charity dinner at the Wel dical Building as Heish’s companion ant that He Ao had a legitimate reason to enter the building and perhaps discover so clues there.
At least before anything happened to Heish, this identity wouldn’t pose a problem.
“If there is a danger, when is it likely to occur?”
He Ao asked next.
“After the dinner, it’s very likely to happen when we leave the Wel dical Building,”
Heish quickly said, “Many important figures will be present at the dinner, and it’s improbable that anything will happen during the event, of course, I cannot guarantee that problems won’t arise.”
This matched He Ao’s own guesses; it seed Heish’s troubles stemd from so ‘big shots’ at the dinner.
After pondering for a mont, He Ao nodded gently, “Deal!”
Seeing He Ao nod, Heish breathed a sigh of relief.
Although she held what He Ao needed in her hand, it had always been her who was making concessions.
However, He Ao’s cautiousness undoubtedly enhanced his reliability.
“I hope we have a pleasant cooperation.”
She said with a smile to He Ao.
“I hope so,”
He Ao placed the suitcase on the desk, “When does the dinner start?”
“At seven in the evening,”
Heish watched He Ao’s actions, “but we need to prepare to leave by five in the afternoon.”
He Ao looked at the ti on his bracelet; it was twelve ten in the afternoon.
Then he looked up at Heish, “I have so business this afternoon, but I will be back before five.”
He then let go of the suitcase in his hand, “I’ll leave this here for now.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll swallow your belongings?”
Heish looked at him with a smile.
“Trust is mutual.
You choose to trust , and I can choose to trust you.”
He Ao adjusted his coat and said calmly.
“My decision to trust you is the will of Heaven.”
Heish glanced at the coin in her hand, showing heads up, and chuckled.
He Ao gave a glance at the coin in her hand, “If a coin with heads on both sides can represent the will of Heaven.”
“What a boring man,”
Heish tossed the double-sided heads coin in her hand, then snatched it back sharply, “Wait for a mont.”
She turned and walked out of the office.
By now, the enemies outside had mostly been cleared out by the bar’s staff.
He Ao watched her as she entered a room deep in the circular hall outside and then reerged about two minutes later.
Now, she held a Mithril test tube filled with yellow liquid in her hand, which she tossed to He Ao, “Here’s the ‘Terrorist’ Secret dicine you wanted; I’ll give it to you after the ritual formula mission is completed.”
He Ao didn’t hesitate.
He caught the test tube, putting it inside his coat, “Fine.”
Then he turned and left the office.
Heish watched as He Ao effortlessly pulled the tal door that was braced by a hydraulic rod, her eyes sparkled with a faint light.
“We’ve hardly had any contact with this one.”
The doorman who had initially been standing at the entrance of the bar approached Heish and, hesitating for a mont, spoke softly.
“But we can’t find any other powerful C-level assistance.”
Heish gently shook her head, her index finger and thumb pinching the coin in her hand, “We can only hope that I’ve bet correctly.”
He Ao’s last action of leaving the suitcase in the office greatly enhanced her trust.
She turned her head and looked towards the doorman, “Did you lock the door when you ca in?”
“Oh!
I’ll go unlock it right away.”
The doorman suddenly realized, and at that mont he turned his head to glance at the bodies outside, “What about the Iron Claw Gang?”
“After today, there will be no Iron Claw Gang.”
Heish gently shook her head, “Since they accepted soone else’s hire to attack us, they must be prepared for the consequences.”
“Alright.”
The doorman nodded lightly and turned to leave.
“Oh, and,” Heish called out to the doorman, “contact Enwit for .”
“Sure!”
The doorman nodded again and then swiftly left the office.
—
The sunlight slanted westward.
He Ao’s figure leaped from the top of a tall building, landing atop an adjacent one.
Leaping between buildings tens or hundreds of ters apart was thrilling, but one false step could lead to a fatal fall.
He Ao stood on top of the high-rise, activated Super mory, and gazed into the distance.
At that mont, he slightly furrowed his brow, looked around, but didn’t notice anything, then returned his gaze to the original spot.
At the end of his line of sight, an unassuming little building stood with a sign that looked quite ordinary:
[Boris Biological Laboratory]
This was the laboratory where Jess once worked on developing biological dications.
At this mont, the laboratory was still lit up, and people were sitting in the security office as if it were operating normally.
But in the enhanced clarity of Super mory, the lab was almost empty and most of the experintal equipnt had been removed, with only so ard rcenaries patrolling back and forth inside.
Indeed, since Jess was preparing to et with the ‘big shot’ behind the lab yesterday, he didn’t go to the lab, and the day before, as he left work, Jess saw several large trucks entering the facility.
The explanation he received at that ti was that the large trucks were delivering experintal equipnt.
However, from the current situation, it was likely that those trucks were there to move the equipnt out.
The previous evening and the whole day of yesterday had been enough ti for the Mysterious Person to completely empty out the laboratory.
This also matched with He Ao’s previous speculation.
This lab was now nothing more than an empty shell, a trap.
If ‘Jess’ ca back to check things out or to retrieve so important docunts, he would fall right into it.
He Ao didn’t know how many people the Mysterious Person had stationed in this trap, but there should be enough strength in it to hold him until the Mysterious Person’s additional support forces arrived.
And there were likely many spies around the lab lying in wait, ready to pounce on any sign of He Ao and keep him firmly in their sights.
That’s why He Ao didn’t drive here this ti, but instead took a taxi to a nearby location and then climbed up to the rooftops, jumping from one to another.
Most spies only cared about people on the ground and rarely watched the sky without moving.
And considering Jess’s past character, he wouldn’t have been one to engage in such extre sports, which ant the Mysterious Person wouldn’t instruct the spies to pay special attention to the skies.
Thus, He Ao successfully avoided the spies’ eyes and got close to the laboratory.
However, he was still a long distance away from the lab at this mont, and he could only clearly see the scene behind the laboratory windows through Super mory.
If it had been Jess without Super mory, standing here he would have needed an ultra-high magnification telescope to see the lab clearly.
But if it were Jess, he wouldn’t choose to stand so far away to observe; he would drive directly to the vicinity and with his naked eyes, he would need to be quite close to notice that the lab had been emptied out.
At that distance, there were no tall buildings anymore, surrounded by open spaces, already ensnared within the scout’s encirclent.
Strictly speaking, the Mysterious Person’s arrangent didn’t have many flaws; the trap was ant for Professor Jess, lacking in counter-surveillance capabilities, not for He Ao.
He recollected his thoughts and fixed his gaze on the small building in the distance, recalling once again the scene he just absorbed with his Super mory.
He hadn’t co here to return to the laboratory but to confirm one thing.
That was Jess’s every action was actually under the control of the Mysterious Person.
Since the detective agency that Jess found was arranged by the Mysterious Person, it was highly likely that the hacker Jess found was also arranged by the Mysterious Person.
He Ao raised his wrist and glanced at the content on the bracelet, which was the software analysis report provided by Eve.
The hacker hired by Jess had given him software that could remotely control a Trojan program in the laboratory and destroy all research data, but the size of that software far exceeded what was needed for remote control software and had obtained extensive permissions.
So, after destroying the old bracelet, He Ao didn’t download this software onto the new bracelet; instead, he sent the software package to the cloud for Eve to analyze.
Eve’s analysis indicated that this software could mass collect local information and send it to cloud servers, conducting real-ti monitoring of the device that installed the software.
In other words, this software could in turn monitor Jess’s bracelet.
However, the other party was very cautious.
They shut down the cloud server after Jess was surrounded and killed, preventing Eve from hacking into the cloud server to see which specific data had been obtained.
Of course, the software alone proved that the hacker himself was unclean, but it didn’t confirm that he was definitely related to the Mysterious Person.
But now, considering that the Mysterious Person had calmly moved most of the equipnt from the laboratory, it seed that Jess’s Trojan virus hadn’t been effective, and the research data was still there.
The laboratory contained a lot of equipnt that Jess had assembled in strokes of genius; without the research data, no one except Jess could operate those machines.
Now, with Super mory activated, He Ao could quite distinctly observe that many of the assembled devices Jess had placed by the window had been taken away.
The Mysterious Person was a very pragmatic person, and he wasn’t short on money.
If he couldn’t operate the devices, he wouldn’t have taken those ‘pieces of junk.’
In fact, from the Mysterious Person’s behavior, one could discern certain problems.
While the Gene Potion was still under developnt, the Mysterious Person nearly satisfied most of Jess’s demands; once the Gene Potion was completed, he imdiately arranged for soone to dispose of Jess, the unstable elent.
If the research data had been destroyed, the Mysterious Person, who still wanted to develop the Gene Potion, wouldn’t have taken the extre step of eliminating Jess.
Ultimately, every single action of Jess was under the control of the Mysterious Person, including the data Jess had collected.
He Ao had examined those materials carefully.
Although so parts involved human experints, these experints had largely undergone official procedures and were hard to describe as completely illegal, and the laboratory had also been authorized by the governnt of Vitland City.
Even if he reported these materials to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau might not take action.
If the laboratory was indeed backed by the Wel dical Consortium, the dia might not dare to publish the materials even if they were leaked.
Jess’s plan was unworkable from the start; everything was within the control of the Mysterious Person.
The Mysterious Person must have found satisfaction in this control.
The day before yesterday, before Jess had finished work and left the lab, he had driven the moving truck into the laboratory building, a silent mockery and irony.
It was also because of his confidence that Jess couldn’t escape his control that the Mysterious Person let him collect materials without any scruples.
However, these materials weren’t completely useless.
Initially, to make Jess confidently step into his woven web, the Mysterious Person did provide him with quite a bit of valuable data, after all, Jess was only sowhat naive, not foolish.
It’s just that now wasn’t the best mont to release these materials.
In fact, judging from the Mysterious Person still planning traps based on his past understanding of Jess, his confidence in his control over Jess couldn’t be called confidence anymore; strictly speaking, it had turned into arrogance.
He believed firmly that Jess would fall into his trap, unable to escape his grasp.
But the arrogant eventually pay for their arrogance.
He Ao withdrew his gaze, sweeping a look around.
The vehicles and pedestrians on the streets were as insignificant as ants, while on the vast screens of the towering skyscrapers, most of them were broadcasting the election ads of Senator candidate Ned that he had seen before.
He activated his Super mory once more, sensing the thoughts of the surrounding crowd.
After advancing to C-level, Super mory could vaguely sense the emotions of the ordinary people nearby.
However, this sense was indistinct and didn’t achieve the Mind Reading effect possible when marked; He Ao had never paid much attention to these thoughts.
But when he had just activated Super mory to monitor the laboratory’s building, he faintly felt so unusual palpitations among the chaotic thoughts, but that sensation flashed by and quickly disappeared.
When he activated Super mory again, he sought to capture that sensation once more, but what entered his mind were only the ordinary chaos and clamor, as if that palpitation had never existed.
Was it an illusion?
He Ao deactivated his Super mory, his gaze returning from the surrounding buildings.
He looked at the Mithril Test Tube in his chest and left the high-rise building.
The first order of business was to advance this body to C-level.
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