Chapter 1657: A Brother from a Different Mother and Father
Not to mention controlling an ordinary person to act differently than usual, even if the Special Defense Department discovered them, as long as these people didn’t want to be exposed, they would have many ways to escape.
The Southern City Special Defense Department branch couldn’t catch these slippery individuals, and under their investigation, these people had reduced their crime frequency, appearing less and less often, which was frustrating.
The reason the Southern City Special Defense Department uploaded this matter to the internal network was mainly out of concern that this group might flee to other cities.
The Special Defense Department had a lot on its plate recently, not to mention many more urgent situations that needed handling, so they hadn’t had time to focus on this small place like Southern City for the moment.
However, some players active in the area posted replies below, saying they would check it out after completing their tasks.
So far, only three suspected members of a player organization had been discovered in Southern City, but they hadn’t been caught—they escaped into the game.
Xu Huo registered an account and posted a reply below asking for a few specific details. The players from Southern City replied fairly quickly, but probably because they really hadn’t found anything substantial, their explanations weren’t very clear.
“Ding-dong!” A message popped up.
The profile picture was a smiling Barbie doll, and the nickname was a string of auto-generated letters.
“Hey! Do you want to know about the cannibal organization in Southern City? I have inside information I can sell to you.”
“How much?”
“I don’t want money. Give me a B-grade item.” The other party had a big mouth. “I know who you are and where you live. You’re specifically looking at Southern City’s data, so you must be interested in that cannibal organization.”
Xu Huo called Jiang Qiao. “Team Leader Jiang, could you please check Yu Qingqing’s account on the internal network for me?”
Besides members of the Special Defense Department, some players who cooperated closely with them could also access this internal network. Of course, the content was also classified. Xu Huo could only see information below B-grade, but his registered address and name were all real-name.
Jiang Qiao gave a reply, which was different from the account currently chatting with Xu Huo.
“What has she been up to lately? Where has she been?”
Yu Qingqing had obtained preferential treatment from the Special Defense Department through Xu Huo’s connections, including when the military had nearly fallen out with Xu Huo before—they hadn’t made things difficult for her. Although she was top-notch at causing trouble, her overall ability was still decent. It hadn’t taken her long to gather a group of capable players and form a small organization.
Xu Huo didn’t waste words and reported the account information.
“This person is a D-grade player who just joined ‘Unpredictable.’ Quite a capable guy. His profession is a diving instructor. With his items, he can turn a small space into a water area to restrict others’ movements. He has a record of ten kills against players of the same grade,” Jiang Qiao said quickly.
“Unpredictable” was the name Yu Qingqing had given her player organization. It wasn’t very impressive, but it fit her original intention for naming it.
After hanging up, Xu Huo replied to the message, “Not in an instance?”
“Whether I’m in an instance or not, what’s it to you?” the other party replied quickly.
“The Special Defense Department gives you quite a lot of benefits, don’t they? Lately, their own people have been having their resources cut back,” Xu Huo hinted.
A few seconds later, a message came back: “My current benefits are earned by myself.”
Xu Huo smiled slightly. “I can make sure you don’t earn them.”
There was a long silence on the other end before a message came through: “I’ve never seen anyone as stingy as you. Can’t even part with a single B-grade item.”
Xu Huo dialed the number and asked directly, “The information.”
Yu Qingqing reluctantly spoke up. “My people stayed in Southern City for a few days and happened to run into a player being tracked by the Special Defense Department. They followed him for three days and found he went to a foreign-invested factory. I checked that factory—it’s backed by a multinational company called Southern Pearl. But I only know the person entered the factory. Whether the disappearance cases are related to this company is unclear. The players they have operating outside aren’t cannibal players, and they’re very law-abiding with no bad records.”
“But based on my gut feeling, the disappearance cases are definitely connected to them. This company has a food processing subsidiary. Isn’t it common for them to mix living human flesh into meat products to create cannibal players? I reckon they’re doing the same thing.”
Xu Huo’s expression turned serious. “Have you been to the food processing plant?”
“Not yet. I’m still thinking about whether to get involved in this matter,” Yu Qingqing said lazily. “Big company, probably pretty wealthy.”
“Don’t go for now,” Xu Huo said. “They might have too many people.”
In fact, it was more than that. Screening targets, taking action, having extremely strong planning and restraint—they were almost openly abducting people, and after being discovered, they cleanly disappeared. Besides having enough manpower, they also needed very clever minds and extremely tight hierarchical relationships.
Brains were very important, meaning they might also have a complete crisis management process specifically for dealing with the Special Defense Department or players who meddled rashly.
Openly killing Special Defense Department personnel might be troublesome, but ordinary players didn’t have that concern.
“Are you afraid I’ll lose out?” Yu Qingqing quickly said. “If you’re that worried, just give me a few good self-defense items!”
Xu Huo didn’t think she would be eager to help the Special Defense Department; instead, she might try to fish in troubled waters and directly rob their headquarters.
“I’ll come over tonight.”
Yu Qingqing understood his implication. “Got it. I won’t cause trouble before you handle things, alright?”
Xu Huo thought for a moment but still gave her three B-grade items and one A-grade item. The two B-grade players he killed in the Midsummer Night Star River instance had plenty of items. He had lent a few A-grade ones to Yan Jiayu, and the remaining two or three overlapped with his original A-grade items, with effects not as good as his existing ones, so they were just sitting there.
“Brother, you’re the best!” The voice on the other end immediately turned into Yu Qingqing’s cheers. “From now on, you’re my brother from a different mother and father. Whatever you tell me to do, I won’t hesitate!”
“You’re coming over tonight, right? I’ll throw you a welcome party. Let me tell you, there’s a beautiful sister in my team—she’s got everything you could want, an absolute beauty, definitely your type…”
Xu Huo hung up.
“Ding-dong!” A smiley face popped up on the chat interface.
Xu Huo turned off the computer, went downstairs, picked up the fruit basket the Special Defense Department had sent over, and knocked on the neighbors’ doors to inform them that the Xu family had moved in and ask them to keep an eye out in the future.
The neighbors were very polite, especially those who knew Xu Huo was a player. They assured him that as long as they were home, they would always keep an eye on the Xu family’s situation—the final outcome of the military and Special Defense Department’s high-level changes was ultimately beneficial to most players, and Xu Huo, who had contributed, had a very loud reputation.
Having achieved his goal, Xu Huo said a few words to his family and then left the safe zone, heading straight for Southern City.
(Chapter End)