487 A mysterious hitman
the smoke in stronghold 63 had already dispersed. a small battle was not enough to cause much damage to the stronghold, after all. moreover, the civilians were not affected by the battle between the two sides, so casualties involving the stronghold residents were as good as negligible.
but to the wang consortium, the actual controller of stronghold 63, this was a challenge to their authority by the anjing house and the pyro company.
if people like the elderly sugar painter and vanilla, who could manipulate metal, were to enter any strongholds under the wang consortium’s jurisdiction again, a citywide search would be immediately triggered once they got identified by the surveillance cameras.
the reason why the price for killing a target in the wang consortium’s strongholds was so high was that most hitmen could only conduct one mission in them.
not everyone could parkour—fly over roofs and scale walls—like ren xiaosu.
at this moment, hundreds of employees were sitting and busying themselves in a huge control room within stronghold 62. in this control room were several hundred security monitors, and the all-white interior radiated a strong sense of technology.
wang shengyin pushed in wang shengzhi in his wheelchair. he looked at the staff members and said with a smile, “show me the ai report from last night. let’s see what it says.”
“when the anjing house assassin known as vanilla entered the stronghold, the ai issued an early warning and signaled that this person had trespassed into the stronghold. he sneaked in on a truck that was transporting frozen pork.” a staff member said, “we’ve already located the truck, but the owner is nowhere to be found. there’s a specially modified compartment in the truck, so vanilla must have hidden in it to enter the stronghold.” with that, the staff member handed a document to wang shengzhi.
the whole analysis report was fully documented. other than that elderly sugar painter, the others were all identified by the surveillance and they had received advance warning of the intrusion.
wang shengzhi had actually predicted a long time ago that this small battle would take place. however, the staff members did not understand why it was allowed to happen.
perhaps wang shengzhi had planned to let the pyro company and the anjing house build even more resentment between their two organizations.
wang shengzhi was flipping through the report when he suddenly noticed the final analysis. he saw nine photos, and in each one of them a blurry figure was captured leaping across roofs.
the staff member next to him explained, “this person constantly kept his activities to the roofs and was even so cautious that he avoided all our surveillance cameras on the roofs of the buildings. these photos were only taken by a surveillance camera on a tall building in the distance after our ai spotted him.”
wang shengzhi nodded and looked at the follow-up analysis report: “the suspect is 1.84 meters tall and possesses an unknown power. the six pyro company members who died that night were likely killed by this person. this includes one member of midnight and five members of dusk. this suspect is extremely dangerous, and it is recommended that we go all out to pursue him.”
“did you manage to find any trace of this person’s whereabouts after that?” wang shengzhi asked while looking up.
“no.” the staff member shook his head. “the ai’s analysis showed that he should have already fled from the stronghold.”
“is he a member of the anjing house?” wang shengzhi asked.
“no, please turn to the last page of the report. the ai analyzed all the participants of the battle and which organization they belong to. he’s the only one with no known links to any organization,” the staff member said while shaking his head.
wang shengyin looked curiously at the blurry figure while standing behind wang shengzhi. she said, “why do i feel like this person looks so familiar? it’s as if i’ve seen him somewhere before.”
everyone looked at wang shengyin in a stunned manner, only to see her shaking her head and saying with a laugh, “the pictures are too blurry, so i probably mistook it for someone else.”
wang shengzhi shook his head and said with a smile, “since this person is classified as extremely dangerous by the ai, we must be careful when we find him next time.”
...
when ren xiaosu returned to stronghold 61, he did not head home immediately but went to the tavern instead. ren xiaosu had not had a warm meal for several days, so he needed to get something to eat first.
before he even reached the tavern, ren xiaosu could already see ms. xiaolu sitting by the window from a distance. it seemed like she was folding something on the table with her head down. when she heard the sound of footsteps, she looked up and saw ren xiaosu.
but just as ren xiaosu was about to greet her, he heard xiaolu shout before sweeping everything on the table into her arms. then she ran into the backyard of the tavern.
ren xiaosu could only wave at the air with his raised hand.
as he walked into the tavern, the storyteller was relating a story to the customers. “everyone here might not know that something major has taken place in stronghold 63. it’s said that the pyro company and anjing house have been at loggerheads with each other for a long time, so both sides laid a trap for the other at stronghold 63. the pyro company wanted to capture the superhumans of the anjing house, while the anjing house was looking to take down the pyro company members in one fell swoop. an old man was seen waving his hand over an aluminum plate, and it turned out that the dragon he painted with some sugar syrup ended up soaring into the sky...”
ren xiaosu was stunned when he heard this. the incident at stronghold 63 had just happened two days ago, but the storyteller already knew about it?
however, he was not too bothered by it. after all, he already knew this storyteller was no ordinary person, and he was not particularly concerned about where his intel came from either.
it happened that he also wanted to hear how the news in the outside world portrayed this skirmish.
the storyteller continued, “however, the pyro company and the anjing house were not the protagonists of this battle. it was someone else! in the battle, although the pyro company had sent out a total of 15 members, a mysterious visitor ended up killing six of them single-handedly....”
ren xiaosu listened to the story and realized he was involved in at least half of the storyteller’s tale.
at this moment, xiaolu reentered the tavern from the backyard. she sat down across from ren xiaosu and asked casually, “did you see what i was doing just now?”
“no.” after ordering a bowl of lamb stew from the waiter, ren xiaosu smiled and said, “so what were you doing just now?”
“nothing much.” xiaolu changed the subject, “you should quickly go home and have a look after you’ve eaten. recently, the townspeople have been saying that your yard is haunted. there’s always the sound of people howling and screaming in there in the middle of the night, but no one dares to go in and check it out since they’re afraid of being devoured by the ghosts.”
ren xiaosu froze. how could a spooky event like this happen to him? but after a brief pause, he roughly understood what was going on.
ren xiaosu asked, “were there any other strange occurrences in town lately?”
xiaolu sneaked a glance at the storyteller before whispering, “don’t tell grandpa that i was the one who told you. you had better be more careful these days. it seems that someone’s been looking for you, but grandpa helped you to hide the truth.”
ren xiaosu grinned from ear to ear. “thank you.”
“grandpa didn’t want me to tell you, so you must not tell him about this.” xiaolu happily lowered her voice and reminded him.
a ways away, the storyteller was midway through the story. his voice clearly paused for a moment, and he nearly forgot about the latter part of the story that he was telling. what the hell was going on!