“Wait, there's a problem...”
Hearing Xu Mo's words, everyone turned to look at him.
“What is it?” Chen Ke asked.
“The location of his phone hasn't changed at all,” Xu Mo said, pulling out his phone and opening the location interface that he had implanted from a computer into his own phone. “When I called to get his location earlier, he was at this spot. Now that we've rushed over here, the location of his phone is still the same.”
Han Fei immediately understood what Xu Mo meant. His eyes lit up with excitement.
“You mean... the guy is hiding nearby and hasn't left!?”
“It's possible, but there's also a chance he left his phone here on purpose to lure us here while he uses that time to get away,” Xu Mo nodded.
Then, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number from the call history.
No phone ringing sounded from the vicinity.
“The phone is on silent mode. Let's look around! The location shows it's within this area, with an error margin of no more than twenty meters.”
The group dispersed to search.
If the culprit was hiding here, the case could be solved directly.
Even if he wasn't, he must have left the phone here. Finding just the phone could still provide some clues for the investigation.
Within a twenty-meter radius, most of the area was open ground, with nothing to hide behind except for the abandoned factory.
The officers immediately flocked into the abandoned factory.
“Quick, there's another body here!” Chen Ke shouted, being the first to rush into the factory.
Another body? The other officers quickly followed.
Entering the interior of the abandoned factory and following Chen Ke's pointing direction, everyone saw a body leaning against the wall to the left of the factory gate.
This was another male corpse.
Among the officers present, only Xu Mo could perform an autopsy.
The others wisely stepped aside to give Xu Mo space.
Xu Mo stepped forward, crouched beside the male corpse, and carefully examined it.
“The deceased was tied up with rope, covered in injuries... He must have been tortured before his death. The time of death was about three to four hours ago, but these injuries weren't fatal. The real fatal wound is in the chest, just like the previous male corpse, killed by a knife piercing the heart, one strike to the kill. Judging from the wound shape and technique, the same killer is responsible for both murders.”
At this point, Xu Mo's eyebrows furrowed slightly.
“However... besides the torture, this body has a significant difference from the two bodies we found earlier.”
“How so?” Wang Dachuan asked instinctively.
Before Xu Mo could answer, Han Fei pointed at the body and spoke on Xu Mo's behalf.
The previous two bodies belonged to men who were dark and thin, with poor skin conditions, and thick calluses on their hands, caused by long hours of toil or labor. It's clear they lived in the lower strata of society. But this body is different...
The most significant difference between this body and the previous two was that the owner of this body was clearly a 'successful person'. His skin was fair, his skin condition was good, and he was slightly overweight, giving him a prosperous appearance.
Additionally, his clothing also indicated this. His attire was very refined, and although the brand wasn't immediately recognizable, it was clear that he wore high-end clothing. This man was wealthy, at the very least, a member of the middle class.
“So... ?” Wang Dachuan's face was filled with confusion. He still didn't quite understand what Han Fei and Xu Mo were getting at.
“He's not from the same group as the burglary gang, or rather, he's not a member of the burglary gang. He wouldn't go crawling through sewers for money,” Xu Mo explained, glancing at him.
“Then why is he here?” Wang Dachuan was even more puzzled.
If he wasn't part of the burglary gang, why would he be in the same place as them?
Xu Mo pondered for a moment.
“Maybe he was an accidental encounter on the escape route, and the burglary gang decided to rob him on the spot.”
To the right of the body was a wallet that had been opened, containing only items like an ID card, passport, and business card, but no bank card.
This was the basis for Xu Mo's conclusion that the body had been kidnapped and robbed by the burglary gang.
These audacious thieves had stolen valuables worth nearly a billion yuan, so it wouldn't be surprising if they also committed robberies on the run. After all, they were already committing a huge crime, so what was one more?
The next moment, Xu Mo shook his head and sighed.
“Speaking of which, these thieves are quite something. They stole so much and still weren't satisfied, even managing to get the idea of robbery while on the run. Don't they fear that the time wasted on kidnapping will allow us to catch up to them?”
As he spoke, Xu Mo picked up the wallet that had been carelessly discarded beside the body and took out the ID card, passport, and business card.
He didn't pay much attention to the ID card and passport, but the business card made Xu Mo pause.
The business card read: Chairman of Huadun Insurance Company, Zhang Quan.
The name on the ID card and passport was also Zhang Quan.
The deceased was the insurance company boss who had been missing all along!
Not just Xu Mo, but the other officers also froze upon seeing the business card.
“They not only stole from the insurance company but also kidnapped the insurance company's boss!?” Chen Ke exclaimed in surprise.
Kidnapping, theft, murder—they had done it all!
Xu Mo's eyelids twitched.
This man was the boss of the insurance company, and the time of death was about three to four hours ago. I called about an hour ago... So the person who answered the phone back then wasn't the boss of the insurance company; in fact, Zhang Quan was already dead when I called. The person who answered the phone wasn't him!
The reason the phone's location hadn't changed was now clear to Xu Mo.
The person who answered the phone wasn't the owner but the killer. He certainly wouldn't take the dead man's phone with him. Most likely, he had answered the call and then casually discarded the phone somewhere before leaving on his own.
This explained why Zhang Quan hadn't gone to the company to check the situation. He had been kidnapped; how could he have had the chance to go to the company?
It seemed the mastermind behind this wasn't him.
At that moment, an officer's words drew the attention of everyone present.
“Captain Han, Captain Xu, we found the phone!” the officer shouted, holding up a phone.
He brought the phone over to Han Fei and Xu Mo.
Coincidentally, as the phone was handed to Xu Mo, it vibrated.
It was a notification from a ticket-booking app, and the content was a boarding reminder...
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
