Chapter 1745: Mattley Dolay
He Jiaorong and the others didn't blink, but when the blanket came down, it fell as if covering air, fluttering lightly to the ground. Where was Xu Huo to be seen?
They immediately rushed forward and shredded the blanket to pieces, but the man was simply gone.
"He's not nearby anymore," Xiao Wu said, having used his own prop to check the vicinity and contacted the triangular-eyed man outside. He then said with a grim face, "No one."
What else was there to understand? They had treated Xu Huo as a fool, but he had been playing them for fools all along!
"How did he get out?" He Jiaorong asked in confusion. "Isn't this area restricted by props?"
She didn't understand, and neither did the other players lurking nearby. So someone entered the Eternal Star Hotel.
When they faced off, He Jiaorong and her group knew full well that Xu Huo had tricked them, but the other players didn't. They thought that since He Jiaorong's group had been buddy-buddy enough to follow Xu Huo into the hotel and stay in a room with him until midnight, and now he had suddenly vanished, it was undoubtedly their doing.
After dodging one door-opening kill, He Jiaorong and her group huddled in the room, afraid to go out for now. They also realized why Xu Huo had gone to such lengths to lead them to the hotel—but it was too late.
After leaving the hotel, Xu Huo went to a hospital. Even in Zone 019, there wouldn't be too many hospitals capable of implanting a positioning chip in a heart, because it wasn't a one-time procedure. The subsequent maintenance costs were also very high, and combined with the special materials used, it wasn't hard to find.
The hospital's material storage would certainly have a high security level, but he didn't need to find the materials themselves—he needed a record of the chip surgery.
The hospital had someone on night duty, and Xu Huo easily got them to open the database, finding the list of people who had undergone chip surgery over the years.
When he opened it, he discovered that the list covered almost all high-ranking government officials and key personnel from well-known companies, including their families.
Finding the family with the most post-surgery maintenance visits, Xu Huo clicked on the file, and a name he wasn't very familiar with appeared—Mattley Dolay.
This name was almost forgotten in present-day Zone 019, because it belonged to the previous District Government Grand Archon, who had stepped down a hundred years ago.
As for why Mattley Dolay's family members had the most maintenance visits, it was because the Dolay family were the first to have heart chips implanted. In fact, the early technology wasn't even that mature, yet they persisted in having their family members undergo surgery every few years.
And the time they started the surgeries was about a hundred and ten years ago.
Xu Huo then searched for related information on this project and found that its sponsor was also Mattley Dolay, and the start time happened to coincide with the year Suo Lan suddenly decided to start painting oil paintings.
The timing was a bit coincidental, but it could also be a genuine coincidence.
So Xu Huo searched for information on the Dolay family. Unfortunately, the Message Collection Terminal only had some scraps, mostly gossip about fringe members of the family. The true core members rarely appeared in public, and there was no record of family changes, such as marriages, funerals, or the birth of new members.
Time didn't allow him to read all the information, so he only recorded a portion before asking the hospital staff to close the system.
There was still some time before dawn, so Xu Huo found a place to rest and also looked into media figures from over a hundred years ago who specialized in tracking the government side.
The information would likely be hard to preserve, but perhaps living people might have some impressions. However, before he could take the next step, he was stopped by two patrol robots. The machines looked at him with very realistic human faces. "Sir, you have just violated Article 127 of the Public Security Regulations. Please cooperate and come with us to the Security Bureau to confirm the fine."
"Article 127 of the Public Security Regulations is about not littering, isn't it?" Xu Huo looked at them. "You've got the wrong person."
The robots quickly searched their records on him and retrieved two feathers that had accidentally stuck to him when he bought the Finger Bird yesterday.
"You're fining me for this?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "I remember Zone 019's regulations are quite flexible. Unintentional violations are not subject to punishment."
"Based on your behavior at the time, we cannot determine that you were not intentional. So please cooperate. Don't worry, the whole process will only take ten minutes," the robot said.
"Sorry," Xu Huo said. "I have other things to do and don't have time to pay the fine right now. Why don't you tell me how much the fine is, and I'll pay you directly."
"That doesn't follow procedure." The robots surrounded him, insisting he go with them.
Xu Huo certainly wasn't going to go with them. He took a step and teleported a kilometer away, then took out "Doorstep Visit" to switch cities twice, washing off the props and traits on him, before changing his appearance and returning.
This time, there were fewer robots with eyes scanning around him. He went to a breakfast shop and waited until dawn, then bought some gifts and went to a nursing home to visit a senior media figure.
In a situation where machines could replace human labor, Zone 019's nursing homes were very clean and tidy. Xu Huo found his target on the lawn of the garden. "Excuse me, are you Old Mr. Yue?"
The elderly man who was writing looked up and examined him carefully. "Who are you?"
Xu Huo didn't take out the credentials he had prepared. He confessed honestly, "I'm here about the Ember Maiden."
Old Mr. Yue wasn't surprised; instead, he smiled. "Many people have come looking for that painting over the years. I didn't expect someone to find me... But you've got the wrong person. I retired decades ago and don't know what's going on outside."
"You used to do government reporting for a while. I heard you were very sharp, able to analyze government movements from the smallest clues, and your accuracy was very high. Your peers admired you greatly," Xu Huo said.
Old Mr. Yue closed his notebook and waved his hand. "Those are all things of the past. No one recognizes me now."
Even so, his expression still showed that he was very satisfied with that period of his life.
"Do you remember the previous Grand Archon, Mattley Dolay?" Xu Huo offered the gifts. "I'd like to ask you about the events in the ten or so years before he stepped down, preferably around a hundred and ten years ago."
Although Old Mr. Yue was old, his mind was still sharp. After a brief recollection, he said, "What aspect do you want to know? I definitely can't remember anything too trivial."
Xu Huo sat down beside him. "Did the former Grand Archon have any major family changes during those years, such as casualties?"
Upon hearing this, Old Mr. Yue immediately nodded. "Mattley's youngest daughter went missing."