After Deputy Chief Lü was taken away, Chen Chuan put on a pair of gloves, picked up the piece of mutated tissue, and placed it onto the data processing console in his office.
A moment later, clear audio and video began playing from it.
However, the other party had clearly used a modulated voice, making it impossible to identify the real person through voice comparison. As for physical features, Chen Chuan allocated a portion of Fumu's resources to conduct a screening, but no matching individual turned up in the existing records. He surmised that this person was very likely an outsider who had arrived in Jibei Dao only recently.
Furthermore, this individual had maintained field interference throughout the entire operation. Without fixed-point surveillance in place, determining his specific movements was also impossible.
Yet Deputy Chief Lü possessed a degree of competence after all; what he had left behind amounted to far more than just this. Beyond managing to determine the person's approximate location through their conversation, he had also provided a crucial clue, greatly increasing the chances of locating him.
As for who was pulling the strings behind this person, it remained impossible to say with certainty for now.
However, he had not forgotten that people from the Gray Shell Agency had previously attempted to control him with an item, an incident that had seemingly involved a martial artist behind the scenes.
This was rather strange. Did a martial artist truly need to target him like this? Even if he belonged to the Purist Faction, there was no need for such a swift and aggressive reaction. He had later guessed that the other party might not have come after him because of his Purist identity, but for some other motive he knew nothing about.
And the method used today bore a striking resemblance to that.
Why, then, was the other party trying to discover his movements? Doing so was largely pointless inside Center City, where no one could make a move against him even if they knew his location. Judging by normal logic, the other party was most likely waiting for him to enter the Melded Lands before striking.
That was the most probable scenario. As a martial artist, entering the Melded Lands was an absolute necessity for his cultivation.
He pondered the matter. His first thought was whether he could turn this around to his advantage—voluntarily entering the Melded Lands to lure out the mastermind behind the scheme.
Yet the thought had barely crossed his mind before he dismissed it.
First of all, he had no idea who the other party was or how much strength they could mobilize. Since his return from overseas, the outside world was no longer completely in the dark regarding him, and they would likely make targeted preparations. Thus, taking such an approach would be not only passive, but overly idealistic.
Center City of Jibei Dao was his home turf. He held the advantage here, and it was only right to put that advantage to use.
Catching the person first was the immediate priority. If the clues Deputy Chief Lü provided were put to good use, they might be able to trace them back to the mastermind behind it all.
After thinking it through, he tapped his boundary credential. A moment later, the call connected, and he said, "Old Xu, do you have anything on your plate?"
Xu Chan's somber voice came through: "Section Chief, nothing critical on my end. I can make time. What do you need me to do?"
Chen Chuan said, "Old Xu, there's a task only you can handle. I'll have someone bring an item to you shortly." He gave Xu Chan instructions over an encrypted channel, concluding with, "Don't mobilize personnel from the bureau. I'll have my squad come over to support you."
Xu Chan replied in a low voice, "Understood."
He knew this was primarily to avoid exposing his own movements. As the current Investigation Supervisor, backed by Andun's cooperation, he could ensure his whereabouts remained concealed. The same could not be said of others—the more people involved, the easier it was to leak information.
He could also tell that by assigning this directly to him without going through standard procedures, Chen Chuan was doing more than maintaining secrecy—in truth, he was acting not in his capacity as Section Chief of Defense, but under the authority of his role as branch head of the Purist Faction. This matter was bound to be of utmost importance, and might even involve factional conflict.
Once Chen Chuan finished making the arrangements, he waited quietly in his office for the results.
With several third limit fighters taking action together, the outcome was hardly in doubt. In less than two hours, word came back.
He tapped his boundary credential, and upon the massive field screen before his desk, the scene inside an abandoned factory floor appeared.
Discarded firearms and spent cartridge casings littered the surrounding floor, where a group of armed personnel with extensive implant modifications lay sprawled in disarray.
The middle-aged man in sunglasses who had previously appeared before Deputy Chief Lü was also present. He lay flat on his back, the implants all over his body smashed to pieces, leaving only his head roughly intact.
Yuan Qiuyuan and Qin Qingque stood on opposite sides, while Wei Chang'an and several others were inspecting the surroundings. None of them showed many signs of battle, having seemingly broken no sweat.
Qin Qingque saluted toward the screen and reported, "Chief, we've gotten to the bottom of it. These men belong to a temporarily registered commission company. According to their documents and communication records, they were hired by an unconfirmed client to communicate with Deputy Chief Lü."
Chen Chuan asked, "Are all the participants here?"
Qin Qingque answered, "Remote-control data components had been pre-implanted into these people's cybernetics. We blocked the field data as soon as we entered, and split off a squad to trace the signal source."
Chen Chuan nodded and asked, "Any injuries?"
"None. They were only using decommissioned military weapons, and most of their implants were secondhand units or defective prototypes. Their combat capability wasn't high, so the capture went very smoothly."
Chen Chuan gave an affirmative sound. Soon after, word came from the squad dispatched to the other location: they had apprehended three resonators. According to their confessions, they had merely been hired to wait there and remotely eliminate those individuals upon receiving a specific signal, possessing no understanding of the broader situation.
It appeared as though the trail had gone cold, for these people were nothing more than hired hands with practically no direct link to the true culprit.
Yet Chen Chuan was in no hurry, continuing to wait where he was.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Jiyang District, a man dressed in ordinary worker's clothes stepped out of a secondhand taxi, lit a cigarette by the roadside, and leaned against a wall to observe his surroundings.
After a short while, he stubbed out the cigarette, turned, and stepped into a grime-coated alleyway. At that moment, he tapped his face, causing his features to morph in an instant. He stripped off his loose overalls, and by the time he emerged from the other end onto the main avenue, he had transformed into a corporate clerk wearing an imported suit.
This was the latest biological facial reconstruction technology, capable of altering one's appearance by adjusting synthetic muscle fibers and subtly reshaping the craniofacial bones with synthetic bone structures. It also made use of a neuromotor regulator, changing his behavioral habits and gait in tandem.
Putting on sunglasses and combing his hair, he prepared to leave. Just then, a voice came from behind him: "Impressive technique. But you didn't truly think you could get away on that alone, did you?"
The man froze, then slowly turned around. He looked at Xu Chan behind him. "How did you find me?"
Xu Chan did not answer. The reason they had been able to track this man down was that during their second encounter, Deputy Chief Lü had used an independent implant in his skull to record the other party's biological field. No matter how a person altered their physical appearance, their biological field could never be changed.
Those who had just been captured were merely pawns thrown out as sacrifices.
It was obvious when one thought about it: to meet face-to-face with a Deputy Chief of the Security Defense Department and orchestrate a scheme involving a martial artist was a commission that ordinary people would neither dare accept nor possess the competence to handle. There had to be a capable liaison operating in the middle to handle direct contact and communication.
The man abruptly ripped off his sunglasses and tore open his suit jacket, revealing an upper body etched with implant grooves. Brilliant blue-orange fluorescence surged across his abdomen, armpits, neck, and collarbones, as though some fluid were coursing within.
This was the hallmark of high-energy nutrients, capable of providing powerful combat support to the implanted recipient. Such implant technology stood at the cutting edge of the era.
Xu Chan cast a glance at him, then walked straight forward and reached out to grasp the man's shoulder. The man remained motionless at first, but just as Xu Chan's fingers barely grazed him, the fluorescence across his body abruptly flared, and he dodged to the side.
In that instant, his figure blurred as his speed spiked dramatically. The lights smeared into a haze as he slipped past Xu Chan's arm to reach his flank, swinging out a multicolored whip of light.
This was a high-condensation biological liquid blade. Relying on a biological field, it bound countless symbiotic microorganisms tightly together to form a stable, high-density structure; when whipped violently, these microorganisms entered an intensely active, high-energy state in an instant, generating tremendous cutting power.
Yet before the whip could strike home, a hand swatted his wrist aside. The fine spines along his skin did nothing to impede it. Immediately after, a fist slammed squarely into his face. Rampant power burst into his body in an instant; the mutated tissue implants throughout his frame shattered with a volley of crisp cracks, and he was flung backward through the air.
To Xu Chan's slight surprise, as the man flew backward, the damaged areas—both mutated tissue and bone—began repairing themselves at high speed, though the fluorescence across his body dimmed rapidly.
Clearly, this was an effect produced by high-energy nutrients working in concert with the vital essence inside the heart. Even so, the more extraordinary it was, the more it proved they had netted a big fish this time.
The moment the man hit the ground, he rolled over and abruptly vanished from sight. This was a biomimetic skin membrane, allowing him to blend seamlessly into his surroundings.
Yet after sprinting only a few paces, he suddenly felt another surge of residual force detonate from deep within his body. Bone after bone snapped and cracked, stripping away all support. He pitched forward, falling to the ground in violent, spastic convulsions.
Xu Chan walked slowly over to him, stopped beside his face, touched his boundary credential, and said, "Section Chief, the target is secured. I'll bring him back right away."
……
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Chapter 824