Chapter 2139: The Unexpectedly Appearing Wanted Criminal

At this moment, Xu Huo also relaxed his mental interference, allowing the two players patrolling outside to see the faint light inside the office.

The two advanced players flashed over and kicked open the office door, "coincidentally" encountering Zhao Zizhen, who had just finished packing up her documents and was preparing to leave.

"A leaf before the eye!" Zhao Zizhen threw out a prop and shattered the window to escape. Although the two players were a step behind, they quickly gave chase, also notifying their colleagues in the process. By the time Zhao Zizhen stepped out of the transport company, six players had already surrounded her.

Six against one, and all advanced players at that. The props and instruments they deployed in turns left Zhao Zizhen somewhat overwhelmed. As they chased through the city, Xu Huo followed from two streets away, occasionally patching up Zhao Zizhen's situation.

"Bang!" During the pursuit, one player used a prop to slam Zhao Zizhen into a building still under construction. The moment the outer wall shattered, all the robots inside the building automatically stopped working, frozen in place, and issued warnings to the intruders.

"This building is under construction. Building materials may fall off easily. Please leave immediately."

Zhao Zizhen tumbled and knocked over two robots before finally collapsing beside a pile of construction materials. Seeing the six players closing in, she quickly adjusted her stance, but as soon as she stood up, she was hit by another trait, her legs giving way as she knelt on the ground. At this point, seemingly feeling the threat of death, she hastily threw out the instrument copying the files. "Here, take the stuff! Spare my life!"

The few players sneered. "With skills like that, you still dare to cause trouble? You took more than just these—hand it all over!"

Zhao Zizhen hesitated, actually waiting for the trait binding her feet to pass. The Tian family players saw through her intention and immediately moved to kill her, even using an instrument to interfere with the robots in the building before acting, putting them all into sleep mode.

Zhao Zizhen retreated step by step, but the building had already been sealed off from the outside. She could only flee downward. While dodging, she tucked the "declaration"—which had been written on and then erased as it floated down from the wall—into the documents she had taken earlier, then abruptly threw it at the pursuing players. "Take it back!"

The advancement of technology didn't bring only benefits; at least some things were inconvenient to handle on terminals, and the data on these documents was the same. So when the papers were scattered, the few players momentarily abandoned chasing Zhao Zizhen and focused on gathering the sheets, naturally retrieving the declaration as well.

"Trying to run!" Seeing Zhao Zizhen break through the outer blockade barrier, two players split off to chase her outside the building. One of them released a palm-length fine needle from his hand, and a sudden bolt of lightning struck fiercely toward Zhao Zizhen's crown!

The powerful lightning broke through her defense barrier, but she still managed to withstand the attack. However, under the assault of the other player, she plummeted straight down from the building. Just as she was struggling to escape, a portal suddenly opened in midair. As she vanished, the two pursuing players quickly retreated under the sudden appearance of Space Blades.

This advance and retreat widened the distance between them. By the time they tried to pursue again, they found that the person had already disappeared. The commotion had already attracted the attention of nearby law enforcement teams and armed robots. The Tian family side not only had to retrieve the documents and restore the building robots' work procedures but also had to coordinate with the law enforcement team.

Meanwhile, Xu Huo and Zhao Zizhen had already crossed half the city.

"If you had been any later, I would have truly become bait," Zhao Zizhen said as she applied medicine to her wounds.

"Acting needs to be convincing," Xu Huo replied without a shred of guilt, examining the video he had taken from two streets away. The footage wasn't very clear, but it was enough to show some of the information on the flying papers, as well as a few names crossed out at the end of the "declaration."

"I've already placed tracking marks on those few players," Zhao Zizhen said, having changed clothes as she walked over. "Relying solely on this recording probably won't be enough. We'll need to add other information."

"Naturally." Xu Huo used a purchased account to upload the video to the Message Collection Terminal, claiming he had accidentally captured the fight. Then he hired a professional team to create a series of speculative rumors.

For example, the dozens of murder cases triggered by the "declaration" weren't because the killers had lost the declaration, but because someone was forcing them to reveal its contents. The reason for this was that these people might have inadvertently seen or heard related content, so someone wanted to ensure they knew nothing at all.

For example, why did the "declaration" murder cases occur one after another without player intervention? Because someone didn't want the matter to blow up too big, fearing it would attract the attention of higher-level governments. Having the local government classify the killers as ordinary people or Artificers could avoid a larger-scale investigation.

For another example, the content of the "declaration" actually involved illegal experiments by certain organizations, which was why they were grasping at shadows, even killing people who had merely crossed paths with them...

Once these seemingly well-founded deductions were released, they sparked a massive wave of speculation, and the rumors Xu Huo had spread quickly evolved.

Someone used instruments to decipher the text on the documents in the video, not only confirming the identities of the transport company and those players but also discovering that they were actually assets under the Tian family name. Moreover, the redacted text on the documents looked suspicious, and there were some transport items not fully obscured, including several laboratories. Combined with the news from Station City about suspected "human experiments" by the Tian family, many people's imaginations ran wild, linking the two incidents together. Thus, new rumors were born, including but not limited to "the victims were actually experimental subjects selected by the Tian family for their experiments," "the victims also participated in the experiments mentioned in the declaration," "the Tian family's laboratories have never produced legitimate results, but people near them often go missing"...

In short, after two or three hours of fermentation, the Tian family had become a player clan that made its fortune through murder and extreme experiments, and the "declaration" being pursued was actually their internal pledge of allegiance.

Since they had nothing better to do, the Outer Zone Players who were already working on this instance naturally wanted to go check it out, along with some player organizations that had taken an interest. Additionally, victims' families and ordinary people with righteous intentions organized petitions to the city government, demanding an investigation into the Tian family's laboratories.

Originally, such a small frame-up would have been hard to stir up such a big commotion, but who could blame the Tian family for having dirty hands? Some things were indeed caught as evidence, and a few "inexplicably" insane researchers publicly declared that their consciences couldn't bear it anymore, unwilling to continue doing immoral things for the Tian family. To prevent the Tian family from harming more compatriots and their families, they could only risk their lives to testify.

"This spectacle is quite entertaining," Zhao Zizhen said, squatting on the rooftop and gnawing on bread, her eyes fixed on the transport company not far away. "It's like everyone's kicking a man when he's down."

"But too many people are showing up. How are we supposed to find the real killer?"

Xu Huo was browsing the messages on the Message Collection Terminal. When he scrolled to a news report about Station City, his finger suddenly paused. He stopped and zoomed in on a corner of the image. A three-dimensional figure gradually became clearer under the processing of the instrument. As the somewhat familiar face slowly turned to the front, he sneered and pressed his thumb onto the person's face:

"A wanted criminal moving around without even disguising his appearance—truly bold."