Chapter 2134: Fleeting Truth
[1. Find the murderer.]
[2. Find the stolen declaration.]
This was another instance with an extremely broad scope but very few clues. The person who killed for the declaration had left no trace despite investigations by various city governments and player organizations, let alone any information about the declaration itself. On the Message Collection Terminal, paying a certain fee would yield detailed information on dozens of victims, but not a single clue could accurately indicate what the declaration actually was.
From the historical materials about Zone 008 in the library, many places in this district had a tradition of issuing declarations. For example, before a certain organization carried out some major activity, they would issue a declaration to show their resolve. Another example: when a certain government or organization wanted to win over the public, they would also issue a declaration to prove their sincerity. Or when certain organizations fell out with each other, they might issue a declaration to sever ties or declare war... In short, Zone 008 had a ritualistic sense of treating any event with seriousness and solemnity.
The first-hand information about the case would only be held by the local governments where the murders occurred. Additionally, whether the "declaration" was actually spoken by the thirtieth victim, or even whether that person was still alive, was up for debate.
Xu Huo glanced at the victim list. The thirtieth person was marked as "alive or unknown," but there was an address, and the location was not far from the Double-Bright Bird Administrative District where he currently was.
Without rushing to leave the Double-Bright Bird Administrative District, he first purchased a premium account on the enthusiast forum and logged in to check peripheral information about this case.
Compared to the city governments and player organizations, these ordinary people who enjoyed solving cases mostly relied on scattered information to make various speculations, aside from learning some peripheral details. Many of them were just seeking attention, but some happened to live near the victims and had uploaded records of Enforcement Teams or rescue personnel coming and going, as well as some secretly filmed conversations with the victims' families.
After spending some time browsing this information, Xu Huo posted a bounty on the forum, offering a high price for clues about this serial murder case, asking interested parties to contact him privately.
As soon as the bounty was posted, many people immediately sent messages. He didn't reply right away but logged out of the forum to check information about the Station City and the Tian Clan.
He had come out of Kex Biology, and under the witness of the media, he had publicly asked the Tian Clan three times about Old Lady Bai's death. Too many people knew about this, and the public opinion platforms on the Message Collection Terminal didn't all share the same voice, so the matter quickly escalated. No one knew who Old Lady Bai was, but some information about Block Fairy Tale City could be found.
The district where Block Fairy Tale City was located had become a breeding ground early in evolution. The entire district relied on one or two instances to barely avoid complete extinction. Thanks to its once-thriving tourism industry, many people who had been there expressed sympathy after learning about the situation. Recently, even the instances had disappeared, meaning the district's population was almost entirely wiped out—such things were not uncommon in the game world, and anyone who heard about it might only say, "Fate is fickle." But when a player came all the way to Zone 008 and confronted the people from Block Fairy Tale City face to face, it was hard not to let the imagination run wild.
Just as someone reported the Tian Clan for hiding corpses, another person came forward claiming they had played at a Tian Clan-owned entertainment venue, inexplicably lost consciousness, woke up in a different place, and had been assaulted. There were also some missing persons cases that could potentially be linked to the Tian Clan. Before the city government needed to respond, an outer zone player attacked Kex Biology, investigating someone from a recently extinct district. Connecting this to the starship incident a few days earlier, a truth seemed ready to emerge:
The Tian Clan was not only using locals for cost-free power and sex trades but also abducting people from their own and other districts for human experiments, even leading to the complete destruction of an entire district!
Once suspicion took root, countless pieces of evidence would instantly flood in. More and more people came forward to report the Tian Clan, and even player organizations got involved. Some players publicly demanded that the city government provide a satisfactory explanation, because Zone 008 wasn't just home to high-level players, nor could every player's family live in highly secure confidential zones. Their families were ordinary people too. They had contributed to Zone 008's prosperity, so they couldn't let their families live in such an unsafe environment. Moreover, some players actually had grudges against the Tian Clan.
It was nothing new for powerful districts to plunder newer game districts. Incidents like E27-017 might never have stopped. But districts that did such things usually covered their tracks well—either hiding their identities by posing as unknown forces or bribing third parties to act on their behalf. They would never openly reveal their identities, because doing so could not only invite revenge from players of the destroyed district but also provoke targeting from other equally powerful districts—if there was a legitimate reason to start a war, more people would join in.
Given Zone 008's relationship with the Game Government, the likelihood of being attacked by other districts was small. But if you kill without wiping everyone out, and the fact of the district's destruction is made public, then players from the destroyed district would naturally seek revenge!
Major districts had their own emergency measures for such situations. After confirming that the district where Block Fairy Tale City was located had almost no players from the very beginning of evolution, Zone 008 decisively blocked all information about Block Fairy Tale City. Even the projection recordings of Xu Huo's three inquiries to the Tian Clan were deleted, and no one was allowed to upload them to the Message Collection Terminal again.
In the end, the topic of Block Fairy Tale City only stirred up some noise for a certain period before quickly disappearing—what could surviving high-level players from Block Fairy Tale City do anyway?
However, the heat (redu) surrounding reports of the Tian Clan abducting locals and bribing government officials did not subside.
This was already quite good. If the Tian Clan could cross districts to abduct people, there was no reason to expect the Zone 008 general government to be innocent. Matters outside should be handled outside; one's own family only needed to deal with family affairs.
There was no need to pay further attention to how things would develop from here. Whether the Zone 008 government handled it or not, the result would ultimately be a minimization of the issue. The only difference was how much the Tian Clan would have to pay.
Xu Huo opened the enthusiast forum, selected a few people who had privately messaged him, and arranged to meet them not far from the library.
Five people came at once. Xu Huo met with them all simultaneously. Three of them were after the high bounty, bringing complete secretly recorded footage. They were probably not new to this kind of business and knew the ropes well.
The other two didn't want money. They were genuine criminal investigation enthusiasts who only hoped to exchange valuable information.
Xu Huo thought for a moment, then told them the same information: "I suspect there was a witness at the scene of the thirtieth murder."
(Chapter End)