Chapter 2408: You Got Caught Again?
The woman nicknamed "Attract Wealth and Bring Treasure" looked at him with eyes full of resentment and killing intent, speaking haltingly, "You think you can get away clean after killing me... someone will come to deal with you soon..."
Xu Huo stepped on her twitching fingers, "You'd better not use that item in your hand, or it won't just be broken limbs."
Blood bubbled from the woman's mouth. Her other hand released, and an already-activated device fell to the floor—a positioning device, the same kind worn by the security players on this floor.
"Didn't your bodyguards already send out a location signal? Too bad no one came even until your death. Will your positioning be useful?" Xu Huo said flatly. "Just say a few names. Whether they come to me or I go to them, from the result, there's no difference."
The woman couldn't hold on any longer. She barely managed to turn over and lie on her back, staring blankly at the ceiling. "I won't survive... but you'll die too..."
After waiting a minute without seeing any players arrive, and seeing the woman was about to breathe her last, Xu Huo had to inject a dose of medicine into her arm, hoping to get some useful information before she died.
The woman's consciousness quickly faded, but when Xu Huo asked who her boss was, blood gushed from her mouth and nose. Her failing body only twitched slightly, and in the end, she couldn't utter a single word.
Xu Huo frowned. Clearly, a chip had been implanted in her body as well. If hypnotized or drugged, the chip would activate and kill the person directly.
It was similar to the situation with those waiters in the Fish Feast Building.
The woman was already dead, and no backup had arrived. Xu Huo's gaze swept around the room, finally settling on several overturned doll ornaments on the floor.
He casually picked one up, turned it over, and saw the brand name on the back of the doll. It wasn't any well-known company, so he quickly found the address of this small factory through the Message Collection Terminal—it was in Chunyi City.
Tucking the doll into his pocket, Xu Huo pulled open the door and walked out, calling to the Painting Woman waiting outside, and headed directly for the small factory.
Logically, with the building attacked and the woman and her bodyguards continuously sending out distress signals, the people connected to them should have reacted long ago. But the factory was calm, with only a few C-level players gathered together smoking.
This fake factory used as a cover was utterly perfunctory. They didn't even use a basement to hold people—just found a windowless room in the factory and crammed in over a dozen people, both men and women. The players had been injected with a drug; they were still conscious but couldn't move. Most were ordinary people, huddled in the corners.
None of them were wearing clothes, with only a blanket laid across the middle to separate men and women.
There was even a familiar face among them.
Xu Huo walked straight into the factory, grabbed some clothes drying on the rooftop, and then entered the room.
At the sudden appearance of someone, aside from a few players who got a bit agitated, the others only glanced up before deeply lowering their heads, doing their best to minimize their presence.
Xu Huo tossed the clothes to them, then walked over to the female player leaning against the wall. "How did you get caught again?"
It was the same female player who had previously been scamming and fishing, then forcibly sent to the Fish Feast Building as a mermaid. She had been lucky enough to run into him when escaping and had left the Fish Feast Building early. He thought she had made it home safely, but she had been caught again in such a short time.
The woman finally recognized him and the Painting Woman. Her eyes immediately reddened, and she pleaded with her gaze for them to save her.
The Painting Woman had already crouched in front of her with clothes, asking curiously, "Are you playing art?"
The woman couldn't speak and could only frantically signal for her to cover her with the clothes.
Fortunately, the Painting Woman didn't make things difficult for her. She slowly draped the clothes over her, then turned back to Xu Huo and said, "She's mute too."
"She's not mute." Xu Huo purchased several doses of medicine on the game platform and handed them to the nearby women who could still move, telling them to inject the players.
These mobile people didn't make a fuss. They silently put on their clothes, didn't pry into the players' affairs, and just waited quietly—perhaps the long-term bad experiences had imprinted this silent survival method into their minds, but this abnormal silence was unsettling.
Soon, the female player could move. She first thanked Xu Huo, this time much more sincerely than the previous two times, then begged him to take everyone away.
"They were all captured. In the end, there are only two outcomes: the good-looking ones are sent to the Fish Feast Building, and the ordinary ones are given to certain big shots in the city."
The female player said through gritted teeth, "What do those people think we are? What do they treat people as!"
The other players had also mostly recovered. After thanking him, they couldn't wait to leave—whether teleporting elsewhere or directly hiding in the game, they had places to go. Xu Huo turned to ask the women who had voluntarily helped, "Do you have anywhere to go?"
One woman gathered the courage to answer, "No... and even if we can run out now, we'll be caught again tomorrow."
Xu Huo looked back at the female player. "Can you settle them?"
The female player thought for a moment before making up her mind. "I do know a place, but I'm not sure it can take everyone in."
She listened to the sounds outside for a moment, then said, "While no one has noticed yet, let's hurry and leave."
The female player's container item couldn't hold everyone, so the rest were loaded into Xu Huo's "Staff Dormitory." He let the female player go first while he went to find the factory's account books, then blew the place up.
This time, he didn't use the "Big Mushroom Cloud." Xu Huo controlled the range. Although the range was small, for a city, it was a major incident. Before he left, government players responsible for city security and members of player organizations had already gathered.
Obviously, most of them knew what kind of place this was. After arriving, they didn't conduct any rescue operations but instead watched the players guarding the factory struggle in the flames.
Xu Huo didn't linger. He then went to meet up with the female player.
The two had agreed to meet in a densely populated residential area. Seeing him, the female player breathed a slight sigh of relief and led him out of the residential area into a distant residential building.
"This is where I stay," the woman explained. "It's safe. Those people won't find this place for a while."
In the cramped rental room, the woman first served tea to Xu Huo and the Painting Woman before formally introducing herself.
Her real name was Wu Xing. She wasn't originally from Chunyi City but had moved here later, living here for five or six years. She had a good understanding of the local situation.
"Chunyi City didn't originally have any human trafficking operations. About five years ago, a local family somehow got in touch with people from the Fish Feast Building, and then they contacted some local forces to provide convenience for the Fish Feast. At first, they just lured some players into the Fish Feast Building. Of course, most of those who went in never came back. Later, it gradually developed into finding people with outstanding looks to send in..."
Wu Xing curled her lips, her expression both sorrowful and ironic. "Even when their own homeland is shattered under the attacks of other district forces, there are still people tirelessly betraying their own compatriots."