Tracking Down

There might have been clues. But Ji Jue couldn't find any. After carefully taking photos of the scene and carrying out all the work the police had completely neglected to do, Ji Jue found to his dismay that all he could see in the dust was a few trails of footprints. Yet he had no way of telling whose was whose. Whether the intruders were male or female, tall or short, or possessed any distinctive features was completely impossible to discern. Pulling out a textbook to learn forensic investigation from scratch was obviously out of the question now, but fortunately, there was another way. Ji Jue rested his palm on the old computer. And told it: —Wake up! After several attempts, that faint, elusive sensation finally resurfaced. An invisible hand took control of everything, forcibly powering on the overloaded power supply and bending to Ji Jue's will, bypassing burned-out circuits and patching them to a certain degree... The monitor flickered back to life! With practiced ease, he pulled up the shop's surveillance footage and adjusted the timestamp. Two shadowy figures appeared on the screen, entering through the back door as if premeditated. Yet they did not rummage through the counter or wherever money was kept; instead, they turned and headed toward other areas of the shop. It was as if they were looking for something else. Then, they encountered Mother Lu, who had been startled awake. Like an enraged mother bear, the roaring Mother Lu gave no thought to fairness, chivalry, or any such nonsense. Swinging a pipe wrench, she brought it down hard against the skull of one intruder, splitting it open on the spot. Blood splattered out, landing on her head—perhaps that was the reason behind the aberrant spiritus residue. Against an ordinary person, that blow would have caused a severe concussion if not killed them outright. But... what if the intruders weren't normal? In the surveillance footage, the figure on the ground merely twitched twice before his body stiffened as if struck by lightning. Scrambling to his feet in an unnatural, grotesque posture, he effortlessly seized Mother Lu's arm, wrenched the pipe wrench away, and smashed it across her head and face. The other attacker, completely unfazed as though caressed by a gentle breeze, moved in to pin Mother Lu, overpowering her with ease. Ji Jue watched Mother Lu struggle and fight back again and again on the screen. Rising, only to be struck down. Until finally, she lost consciousness. Collapsing to the floor. His expression gradually drained away; even his fury seemed to drain through some hollow void inside him, leaving only the old computer whirring and panting with a frantic roar. The footage abruptly froze. In Mother Lu's desperate resistance, she had ripped off one man's mask, revealing facial scars, a full beard, and abnormal eyes that differed from normal coloration. They instantly reminded Ji Jue of the old man who had attacked him in a frenzied madness. A crimson hue. By comparison, while their degree of mutation appeared less severe than that of the old man, the old man had inexplicably given Ji Jue an impression of severe malnutrition. These two had not been driven to ravenous insanity by hunger; their physical capabilities were simply far beyond ordinary humans. The recording soon reached its end. After searching for a long time and coming up empty-handed, the two went on a frantic rampage, smashing things left and right. In the end, unwilling to leave empty-handed, they struggled to haul Mother Lu off the floor, dragging her toward the back door. Ji Jue walked over to the back door, eyeing the faint tracks left on the ground, which disappeared outside. Washed over by the rain, there was not a tire track in sight. He looked up toward the telephone pole... where a long-neglected surveillance camera hung dead, unresponsive. The data cable extending from its housing had completely deteriorated over years of exposure. By the looks of it, no one had serviced it for well over a decade. Over the years, Yacheng had cycled through system after system of surveillance upgrades, but unfortunately, not a single one ever reached the haphazard shantytowns of Beishan District. It had long been forgotten. "Who says you can't find people without working cameras?" Ji Jue murmured softly, staring fixedly at the pole. Dragging a ladder from the storage room, he climbed up onto the perimeter wall. Under the light drizzle, nobody paid any mind to this poncho-clad figure who appeared to be patching a roof. Then, Ji Jue pulled wire cutters from his pocket. "Make or break—it all comes down to this." Ji Jue gritted his teeth, slipped on a pair of better-than-nothing cotton work gloves, identified the camera's cabling, and snipped it without hesitation. "Over to you, superpower!" Snap! Instantly, a faint hum seemed to burst from the severed cable, and the vibrations—initially almost imperceptible—gradually sharpened. It was like going from thousands of miles away to the next room, but it was still too distant! Ji Jue hesitated, took off his work gloves, and pinched the wire directly with bare fingers. The hum grew stronger, yet still fell short... until he hardened his resolve, parted his lips, and clamped his teeth down right on the data cable. In an instant, his soul felt as though it detached from his body, surging through the lifeless wire and plunging into the hollow surveillance camera. Once more, an extinguished spark was ignited! A red indicator light on the camera abruptly flickered on. "Damaged. Repaired. Thank you." A human-like consciousness emerged from the mechanism, intermittent, blurry, and faint. "How... may I... assist?" Holy shit, it's that smart?! From the spiritus Ji Jue infused into it, the camera had actually developed a self-awareness, dull and dim though it was. Ji Jue directly transmitted the scene he had watched from the shop's monitor through the spiritus connection. "Right under your nose, a burglary took place. Help me out. I just want to know where these two went." The camera fell silent. It vibrated. As though overloaded, sparks shot from the crevices, and a furious roar burst forth across the spiritus link: "Goddammit! All! Evil! Shall be brought to justice!!!!" Boom! Like a roaring waterfall, imagery cascaded from the other end of the cable. Countless jumbled scenes nearly burst forth from the dormant camera, slamming into Ji Jue's mind like a sledgehammer. His vision went black for a second. Yet surging through the dizziness was pure ecstasy. Holy crap, it actually works?! Not only that—if biting a data cable allowed him to transmit imagery while bypassing all hardware accessories, model specs, data protocols, and preconditions, didn't that mean the next time he had to solve differential equations for a transmission system, he could just stick two RAM sticks in his mouth? The prospects were boundless! Never again would he have to dread solving dynamic models for multi-branch transmission systems! Wait, no—if it really worked like that, he could just wave a hand and make the computer calculate it for him... But as his scattered thoughts faded, Ji Jue immersed himself in the transmitted footage. Fragments stored over who knew how many years flowed past, disjointed and rambling, until the footage abruptly froze at the end. Amidst the gloom of night, a blurry image revealed a white minivan parked by the roadside. It was an older model from Haian Auto Works, battered and covered in scratches—no different from the illegal cabs commonly seen all across Beishan District. Carrying both passengers and cargo, it was practical, reliable, cheap, and fuel-efficient. In the fleeting moment when the headlights flared, the license plate showed up on screen, but sadly, it was completely blurred out. "Voltage... abnormal. Disrepair. Abandoned. Did not capture... number." The camera seemed dejected, stammering, "Apologies. Apologies. Apologies." "No, this is plenty." Ji Jue released the cable from his mouth, fully satisfied, and patted the camera's drooping head. "I'll treat you to a deluxe overhaul next time, Brother Camera." "You are welcome." The camera gave one final reply before lapsing back into silence as the spiritus dissipated. Standing atop the wall, Ji Jue gazed in the direction the vehicle had vanished, following the distant traffic lights along the route, and slowly exhaled a breath of white vapor. Having no license plate was no great loss. These days, anyone in the underworld committing crimes would surely have a few clone-plated vehicles. Experienced crooks knew how to keep trouble at bay. Still... who said you couldn't find a vehicle without its plates? * * * How do you find a single clone-plated car among tens of thousands of white minivans in Yacheng? The answer: just ask. Standing under a streetlamp, Ji Jue looked up at a camera. "Hey bro, quick question. Around five in the morning yesterday, did a white minivan pass through here? Looked roughly like this... Yeah, that's the one! Thanks a bunch!" "No sweat, buddy." The friendly camera swivelled its head as if waving goodbye. "Drop by again soon!" "Didn't see it. Why don't you check up ahead?" "Went left, but around eight o'clock it headed back south." "The car down there has a dashcam. Go ask it—guaranteed to help!" "Headed north." "...Further ahead. Yeah, a little bit further, then take a right." ... As one of the Federation's nineteen core cities, Yacheng spanned seven thousand two hundred square kilometers divided across seven districts. According to statistics, its registered permanent population exceeded twenty-six million; factoring in undocumented residents and illegal immigrants, the true figure easily surpassed thirty million. Trying to ask thirty million people one by one to locate a single vehicle across seven thousand two hundred square kilometers would be like searching for a needle in the ocean. People missed things, looked away, forgot, or simply refused to cooperate. But machines did not. If they saw it, they had it; if they didn't, they didn't. Across Beishan District, aside from the official municipal surveillance cameras along the main thoroughfares, there were countless others—factories, corporate offices, nightclubs, apartment complexes, villas, and even convenience stores and dim sum diners, down to the dashcam on every vehicle. Myriads of cameras dotted the city like stars hidden in the dark, watching their own little domains around the clock, faithfully recording every shift onto hard drives for retrieval. Ask, and they would answer. Telling all they knew, holding nothing back. More faithful than hounds. In just six hours, Ji Jue had mapped out the white minivan's route, general orientation, and specific details. And even its final destination! In truth, the actual inquiries had taken less than twenty minutes in total. The rest of the time, aside from traveling, Ji Jue spent waiting for his spiritus to regenerate—and furiously gorging on whatever roadside food he could buy. Six o'clock in the evening, Beishan District, Binhai Avenue. In a street-facing eatery filled with the clamor of people playing cards, Ji Jue leaned against a window table, eyes fixed on the white minivan parked by the curb as he waited for its absent owner to show their face. At the same time, he kept his head down, shoveling food into his mouth. He devoured shaomai, rice noodle rolls, and steamed buns like a starving ghost reborn. Hunger. Ravenous hunger. As spiritus drained and replenished, his body screamed for fuel. Vast amounts of high-calorie food were draining Ji Jue's bank balance at a heartbreaking rate. Even so, his head spun, his ears rang in waves, and his complexion remained as pale as a ghost's. The aftereffects of depleted spiritus, combined with the high-frequency use of an ability he had yet to master, proved almost unsustainable. The only silver lining was that his perceptual resonance, once hit-or-miss, could now be reliably triggered under deep concentration. He had finally gotten the hang of it. Yet the more proficient he became, the more jarring and strenuous it felt. It was like a kid driving an eighteen-wheeler. Thrilling and exhilarating as it seemed—and truly was—it sapped immense physical energy. A single lapse in attention and the heavy rig would wring him dry, leaving his spiritus overdrawn. If not for the watch having harvested a reserve of spiritus from that old bastard this morning, Ji Jue probably would have collapsed long ago. "A Celestial Chosen... huh?" Recalling the words of whatever bullshit system was inside his wristwatch, Ji Jue couldn't help but murmur under his breath.