Chapter 746: The 17th Victim
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After investigating all the 16 crime scenes, it was already just after six in the evening.
Lin Huang and Xia Hou went to a ramen restaurant to have their dinner. Soon after, they went back to their own hotel.
As soon as he was back, Lin Huang started looking through all the information again together with Bloody.
Since he was an assistant, all the information that he got from the Union Government was pretty complete. However, due to the time constraint, he only managed to briefly browse through the information. If Xia Hou did not urge him to go to the crime scenes, he would have spent a whole day looking for clues from the information he had.
At about 11 p.m, only did the both of them finish looking through all the data.
“Still, there isn’t any useful evidence. Each time before the crime is committed, the monitor bird, Surveillance Mosquito, and all the other monitoring monsters were killed in less than two minutes. The Transmission Shell that records voices was destroyed as well. The murderer left no trace at the crime scene,” Lin Huang sighed. “The Union Government didn’t just keep watch on the content of the monitoring monsters on the day itself when the crime was committed. They even cross-checked all the surveillance videos that have been recorded earlier before the incident happened at all the 16 crime scenes. Still, they got no clues even after watching 30 days of the recordings.”
“What I can’t understand is if the murderer hasn’t been to the crime scene, how could he have known the position of the monitoring monsters and kill all of them?” Lin Huang expressed his doubt, “Could the person possess a territorial skill like I do?”
“One normally obtains a territorial skill after leveling up to imperial level as the person would have a Life Palace. The murderer was said to be an immortal-level. Therefore, it’s quite likely that the murderer has a territorial talent,” Lin Huang then explained.
“Perhaps he has disguising skills and appears as a different person each time. Therefore, the Union Government can’t figure out who he is even after cross-checking all the information. Of course, like what you just said, the murderer might probably have a territorial skill and is capable of sensing the number of monitoring monsters and their exact locations within a specific region.” Bloody agreed with Lin Huang and suggested that the murderer might have disguising skills as well.
“If it’s the former, it’ll be troublesome.” Lin Huang frowned.
As a person who possessed disguising skills, he knew how terrifying the talent was. Despite the fact that his disguising skills were much weaker than the masters, he almost managed to cheat all those who ranked below imperial-level. If the murderer’s disguising skills were more advanced than his, even imperial-levels might not be able to detect it. He could definitely enter the foothold freely by disguising himself despite there being many guards on duty. He might have even passed by the guards without being discovered.
“Perhaps the 17th crime will happen in less than half an hour.” Lin Huang took a look at the time and said, “Unfortunately, we’ve no idea who the next victim is and where the next crime scene will be. We can’t stop this from happening.”
Bloody was helpless. “We can only wait for it to happen and rush to the crime scene as soon as possible, hoping that we’ll find some clues over there.”
Half an hour passed. Despite it being midnight, Lin Huang did not feel sleepy at all. He was sitting on the sofa, patiently waiting for the announcement from the Union Government.
When it was almost about 12.10 a.m, his Emperor’s Heart Ring suddenly vibrated. A message popped out as soon as Lin Huang opened the communication page.
“All the investigators and their assistants, please come over to Chenxing Building as soon as possible!”
With that single sentence, Lin Huang instantly knew that a murder had happened at Chenxing Building.
Attached to the message from the Union Government were the coordinates. The coordinates were automatically synced to the map of the Emperor’s Heart Ring and the route was determined.
“The crime scene happened at the center of the area and it’s only about 100 kilometers away from us.” Lin Huang closed the communication page and walked towards the balcony.
Bloody then transformed into a purple shadow and twisted around Lin Huang’s left hand.
Lin Huang took a few steps to the balcony. Lazy to summon Thunder, he directly flew towards the destination.
In just a short while, Lin Huang arrived at Chenxing Building.
The building was quite big. Its logo was about 30 meters high and was made of tens of thousands of sunstones. They would all light up at night. Even those who were thousands of meters away could see it clearly.
As Lin Huang landed on the ground, about 10 of them were already gathered outside Chenxing Building.
Many of them caught a glimpse of Lin Huang and started sizing him up doubtfully. Soon, they shifted their focus to the others and a few of them were grinning because Lin Huang was just a purple flame-level and the majority of them were ranked above immortal-level rank-4.
Lin Huang looked at the crowd and saw everyone’s expression at a glance. Of course, he discovered those who were laughing at him. He did not bother, gazing at them calmly. Soon after, he shifted his gaze away from the crowd.
In less than a minute, a few of them arrived one after another and finally, Xia Hou was there.
“How’s it? Have you seen the corpse?” Xia Hou asked as soon as he landed on the ground.
“No, I haven’t seen the corpse yet as I’ve just arrived.” Lin Huang shook his head and looked towards the guards stationed outside the building. “Perhaps they’ll only let us in after everyone has arrived.”
At about 12.20 p.m, there were about 50 of them, including the investigators and their assistants. Soon, two people came out of the building.
One of them was in a grey coat and wore a trilby, holding a cigar in his mouth. Another man was dressed in a suit. He had short hair and looked energized. However, he had a serious expression on his face.
Seeing the both of them, the crowd shifted their attention to them and immediately remained silent.
The man in the coat studied the crowd. He took the cigar out from his mouth with his right hand that was originally in his pocket, exhaling the cigar smoke. Without saying anything, he put the cigar back into his mouth. He squinted his eyes and looked at the man in the suit that was standing on his left.
After exchanging glances with each other, the man in the suit nodded his head slightly and moved a step forward. He said, “The victim was 61 years old and was the boss of the Jingchen Financial Group. Li Jingbiao was an immortal-level rank-3 and he was usually accompanied by two immortal-level rank-9 bodyguards who were poisoned to death. We’ll provide more detailed information to all of you by tomorrow afternoon. You may come in now. The crime scene is on the 186th floor, room 001. We’ll carry out an autopsy at 1 a.m.”
The crowd rushed into the building. Lin Huang frowned. He noticed that when the man mentioned the name of the victim, many of their facial expressions changed, including Xia Hou’s.
“Xia Hou, is the victim a very popular person?” Lin Huang whispered.
“Don’t you know who Li Jingbiao is?” Xia Hou was surprised and asked. However, seeing Lin Huang’s perplexed expression, he realized something. “I guess you’re not from Division 3.”
“Yes, that’s right.” Lin Huang nodded. The conversation ended. Apparently, Lin Huang did not want to tell where he was from.
After waiting for a while, Xia Hou caught a glimpse of Lin Huang and continued, “The Jingchen Financial Group that was operated by Li Jingbiao is the second largest financial company in Division 3. He’s a legend. His parents are just ordinary people in the small foothold. However, it took him more than 40 years to build a business empire. It’s on par with the Royal Star Group which has been established for hundreds of years. He’s a commercial genius and his story has been written in the textbook of the schools in Division 3 more than 20 years ago. In Division 3, even a six-year-old kid knows who he is. I’ve never expected he’d be attacked…”
“It seems like the murderer has stirred up a nest of hornets.” Lin Huang smiled wryly, shaking his head. He could already guess how Jingchen Financial Group would react. With such a big financial group joining the investigation, the murderer would be unable to escape.
