Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 121: The Dojo
At midnight, rain fell into Qingchuan Street.

The flying vehicle descended slowly, its bottom swirling with moisture like a fine snowflake. Inside the cabin, several holographic screens switched back and forth. The screens monitored the Hive Apartments below the overpass from various angles. The apartments were quite old; the exterior finish was aging, and fiberglass mesh was exposed between advertisements and graffiti. Rain and mist swirled in the neon lights, and several spider-like robots sneaked into their destination through ventilation vents and sewer pipes.

The distress signal was located in this apartment building. The robot quickly scanned each room, like opening cans of sardines. All the residents' activities were transmitted to the vehicle. Yang Guan glanced at those illegally logging onto the dark web and indulging in digital drugs, then shook his head. This place was rife with illegal transactions, but he didn't see any truly suspicious targets.

"The area is wrong." Bai Miao's brain-computer interface projected a volume diagram of the apartment onto the screen. Each floor of the apartment had 120 rooms, but each room on the second floor was about 10 centimeters shorter than the others. The projection showed that these missing areas created a cavity in the center of the second floor. This kind of error wouldn't occur in a honeycomb apartment building that pursued the ultimate in space utilization; clearly, there was a secret room there.

The four spider robots recently received instructions. One spider scout entered the secret room through a ventilation vent, and the next moment, it lost signal—the secret room was equipped with electromagnetic shielding. The other three scouts hesitated for a few seconds, then quickly left to search for other exits. Soon, one scout found the entrance to the secret room hidden in an apartment building.

"The situation is not good."

The spies' search went too smoothly, but Yang Guan frowned.

"Why are there no defensive measures at all?"

"The person has been moved." Bai Miao shrugged. "Or..."

Yang Guan glanced down at the pulse gun in his hand, left the vehicle, and plunged into the night rain on Qingchuan Street.

……

As Suger entered the room, an indoor drone flew past him, its bottom spotlights casting streaks of blue light that marked various clues in the darkness—unidentified instruments, parts, and traces left behind in various places.

Yang Guan stood before an optical shockproof table, examining the corpse on the ground. On the green rubber mat of the workbench lay parts for a sniffer—he had used them to constantly monitor nearby private network data. In addition, he had deployed a surveillance matrix within a two-kilometer radius, including seventy-two cameras and six bionic insects. But none of these things, including the private hovercar in the underground garage that hadn't been started yet, could save him from this calamity.

He's completely dead.

Bai Miao's prosthetic eye's blue light swept across his face. It was the face of a middle-aged East Asian man, with a high, narrow, Caucasian-style nose in the center of his soft facial contours, handsome yet sharp. If one looked at this face for a long time, one could notice a slight disharmony in the arrangement of his features. But this was insignificant; for a fashion item, being eye-catching was far more important than being harmonious.

“He looks familiar,” Yang Guan said.

"Search results show that this face has consistently ranked in the top ten of the face shape popularity list. It's impossible to count how many people those underground clinics have had this face done." Bai Miao continued scanning the man's body. "It's not that we have no clues at all. He's very... clean. Apart from the implant in his face and the brain-computer interface, we can't find any other implants on his body."

"Meat-based ideology," Yang Guan said.

“It might be related to the Spiritual Society.” Bai Miao paused. “That’s normal, the Spiritual Society has a diverse membership and a wide range of information sources.”

Su Ge carefully avoided the areas marked with blue lights on the ground and approached the workbench. Yang Guan looked at Su Ge, who was about to say something when Bai Miao bent down and touched the back of the corpse's head. "The brain is almost completely liquefied." She withdrew her hand, her thumb tracing across the corpse's scalp and temples, where the electrode burn marks had formed a dense patch of blood spots on his skin.

Yang Guan had seen countless ways to die in the Security Bureau's database, but he still couldn't help but gasp. After a few seconds, he lowered his voice and said, "It's just about killing someone; there's no need to do it so 'cleanly'."

"It was for the information in his mind. The killer wanted to obtain, or completely destroy, the information in his mind," Bai Miao said.

“There are many simple and brutal ways to destroy information, and there’s no need to be so ‘meticulous’,” Yang Guan said.

"You mean..."

Yang Guan didn't speak. He slid his right ring fingernail open and extended a probe. He poked the dead man's nostril with the probe. There were traces of cerebrospinal fluid that had leaked out, and it was completely dried, emitting a faint stench.

“Soul-searching and soul-stealing,” he said. “The cerebrospinal fluid is deeply ionized; that should be correct. The killer did this to completely read the information in his brain.”

“It seems our informant knows something he shouldn’t know and has done something he shouldn’t have done.” Bai Miao looked at the blank space next to the workbench. Amidst the various instruments and mechanical parts, this blank space stood out so abruptly, as if something should have been placed there. “Once the traces from the scene are traced back and the autopsy results are in, this case should be closed.” She glanced at Su Ge. Su Ge’s original assignment was only to assist in the investigation of this missing informant, but he had directly found the informant’s whereabouts, which was once again beyond her expectations.

"Do you have any thoughts to add?" she asked abruptly.

Su Ge stared blankly at the corpse, Yang Guan's words about "searching souls and seizing spirits," and Bai Miao's phrase about "things one shouldn't know," all leading him to connect the dots between hibernating beings and those in the virtual art museum. He thought of the artworks there, the images that reminded him of hibernating beings, and a chain of logic began to form in his mind—the mysterious informant was also a hibernating being; he had come across the truth, and that's why he met such an end…

Bai Miao's sudden question caught Su Ge off guard; this was the first time she had asked for his opinion. He shook his head, not intending to voice his speculation. Then, Su Ge noticed Bai Miao's assertion that the deceased had 'done something they shouldn't have,' as if she knew exactly what the deceased had done to deserve such a fate.

“What is he doing here?” he asked.

“This information is outside your classified access level.” She looked at Su Ge with a warning in her eyes. “This case is no longer relevant to you. After you are officially appointed, the bureau will give you other tasks.”

"Understood, understood. I won't disturb you any longer." Su Ge nodded, avoided the blue light on the ground, and left the scene.

He walked out of the Hive Apartments, took the elevator up, and entered the pedestrian bridge on Qingchuan Street. Shen Ke's figure appeared silently, her green eyes piercing through the rain and mist, looking towards the Hive Apartments in the darkness.

"Interesting, a temple can actually be hidden in a place like this."

(End of this chapter)