“In recent days, multiple betas have been infected with pheromone resistance syndrome, with their glands undergoing mutation. The infections are highly concentrated in time, all occurring in the early morning hours of the past few days. Experts have preliminarily ruled out conventional transmission routes and suspect the primary method is the deliberate introduction of inducing drugs to alter beta physiological structure, but this remains only a suspicion, not yet confirmed. The perpetrator’s motive is also unknown. Panic is spreading among the beta population. The police and the War Chain Department have launched an investigation, and this station will continue to follow up on developments…”
Within just twelve hours, overnight, major hospitals reported over twenty similar cases. The transmission speed was astonishing, yet left no trace. Pheromone virus research experts finally realized the uniqueness of this new virus and began round-the-clock discussions, frantic and exhausted, but with no breakthrough.
The next morning, the wail of sirens shattered the silence of the War Chain Department. A transport vehicle came to a stop, and several police officers escorted a young alpha, bound in handcuffs and leg shackles, off the vehicle.
Li Qingchi had already been waiting at the handover point to personally receive him. His gaze swept over the suspect, and he gave a slight nod, signaling the armed soldiers behind him to take over.
“Major General Li, he’s in your hands now,” the lead officer said, his voice tense. “Orders from above: make him talk.”
By any means necessary.
Li Qingchi said nothing, merely waving his hand. The soldiers immediately dragged the struggling suspect into the War Chain Department.
In the interrogation room on the third underground level, cold air pierced through skin and flesh, and the air was thick with a strange mixture of frigid air and some indeterminate pheromone.
The suspect’s face had turned pale from the cold, his lips trembling. Li Qingchi sat across from him, watching him quietly with a cold, piercing gaze, scrutinizing him with indifference.
Though frozen nearly solid, the suspect’s expression remained defiant, that careless look still plastered on his pale, trembling face.
Li Qingchi stopped looking at him. With a suspect this emboldened, the approach was to let him stew first, to break down that arrogance.
The temperature in the interrogation room dropped even further.
Li Qingchi, as if utterly unconcerned with the interrogation, began operating the computer.
He sent an email to an old friend he hadn’t contacted in a long time, a renowned designer who had been responsible for the War Chain Department’s dormitory designs over the years. They’d known each other for quite a while, though this friend had no lofty ambitions; after making some money, he’d retired to rest and recuperate, reportedly now living like a wild man in Sessel.
Upon receiving the email, the other party immediately called Li Qingchi back.
In the empty interrogation room, the man’s distinctive voice was especially clear: “What does Major General Li need from me, sending a formal email like that?”
“The email says it. You didn’t read it.” Li Qingchi stated with certainty.
“Just got out of a dive; my phone pinged with an email and I skimmed it. Give me a moment to look again.”
A faint rustling sound.
“That’s all?” Lu Keyan gave a lazy chuckle, apparently having just reread the email.
“Am I interrupting you?” Li Qingchi countered.
“Not at all,” Lu Keyan said. “I’ll compile what you need into a document and send it over shortly, including the revision history and key points.”
The call ended, and within five minutes, an email arrived containing everything Li Qingchi needed, complete in every detail. The file certainly wasn’t compiled by Lu Keyan himself, but to Li Qingchi, who compiled it didn’t matter, getting the file was what counted.
He saved the file, annotated it, and sent it to Li Siyu.
The moment the file went through, Li Siyu pushed open the interrogation room door. Chilling air hit his face as he looked at the man sitting across from the suspect: “Talk outside?”
After spending so long in the interrogation room, the temperature outside felt almost normal.
Li Siyu spoke: “Just finished looking into it. The one in the interrogation room isn’t the same person who killed the other betas.”
If he hadn’t committed murder, why would this man take the blame for it?
Li Qingchi: “Voluntarily confessing to a crime? Looks like he thinks he’s lived long enough.”
“Who’s to say otherwise?” Li Siyu had been at the War Chain Department long enough not to find such things surprising, but he knew the reason this man was taking the fall was anything but simple. “From start to finish, all he did was inject the last victim with a catalytic agent. Nothing else. Yet he insists on claiming responsibility for the earlier murders. I suspect his motives run deeper.”
Then Li Siyu voiced his theory: “And he deliberately mimicked the earlier cases, probably to mislead us. Stringing his actions together, I think he’s using the murder charge as a smokescreen to make us overlook his real goal.”
His real goal…
If the War Chain Department hadn’t dug deeper and had simply pinned the serial murder case on this man, then following that thread back to Wen Zhiyu, he would just be an ordinary beta who’d narrowly escaped a serial killer.
Nothing special about him at all.
But if you knew this man wasn’t the serial killer, then looking at Wen Zhiyu, his identity would be far more complicated.
The first beta selected to be injected with the induction agent.
The first beta infected with pheromone resistance syndrome.
From the currently known information, a rough picture could be deduced: the suspect’s goal was most likely to make more betas contract pheromone resistance syndrome, he just happened to pick Wen Zhiyu as the first “test subject.”
Li Siyu: “Bro, you should interrogate him properly later. This guy isn’t simple. His identity is pretty special, you can bluff him a bit during the interrogation.”
“I’ll start the interrogation right away. You take some people back to the Pharmaceutical Bureau now.” Li Qingchi made the decision immediately.
“Great minds think alike.” Li Siyu had already anticipated this. “The Pharmaceutical Bureau and Feng Zhengguo are both tied up in this. That old bastard’s probably already caught wind of it. I’m heading over with the team now.”
Li Siyu turned to leave, then suddenly thought of something, stopped, and looked back: “Oh, by the way, what did you mean by that file you just sent me?” Li Siyu didn’t understand why his brother had sent him a bunch of design blueprints for the War Chain Department dormitory.
“It wasn’t for you, you don’t need to look at it.” Li Qingchi said. “Just forward the file directly to the company handling the design for the new War Chain Department dormitory.”
His brother represented the War Chain Department in liaising with the design company, he only needed to review the design blueprints they sent, approve them if they met the requirements, or send them back for redesign if they didn’t.
Since when did the client help the contractor?
Li Siyu raised an eyebrow. Though he didn’t understand, he still replied, “Fine, sending a file takes two minutes.”
Li Qingchi stepped back into the interrogation room. Cold air hit his face, lifting his hair, making him look utterly frigid.
He sat down across from the suspect again, but didn’t begin the interrogation immediately.
Instead, he waited.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Five minutes.
Seven minutes.
Ten minutes.
The cold wrapped around his fingers.
About time.
“You… what the hell are you trying to do?” The suspect finally couldn’t hold it in, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
Li Qingchi leaned slightly forward and finally spoke: “Tell me, where did the drug injected into the victim come from?”
“Bought on the black market.” The suspect answered without thinking, his gaze darting around.
“Black market?” Li Qingchi’s lips curled slightly, but his eyes were icy. “I’ve checked the black market transaction records, this type of agent you used has never appeared there.” He paused, his voice deepening. “Who gave you the drug?”
The suspect gave a slight start, then quickly shifted to an even more exaggerated, flippant tone: “Oh, did I misremember? Then… then it was probably a gift from some friend.”
He was arrogant, emboldened: “Hey, Major General Li, you dragged me into the War Chain Department, you must have a reason, right? Illegal drug trafficking? I’m not taking the fall for that.”
Li Qingchi seemed not to hear the rest of his words. His gaze landed on the suspect’s violently trembling hand as he leisurely picked up the air conditioner remote from the corner of the table.
A faint click, and the sound of air rushing from the vent instantly grew faster.
“I’d have thought someone who could set up a scheme like this would have at least some brains.” Li Qingchi’s voice was calm, yet razor-sharp. “But you being this stupid actually saves me the trouble.”
“You mother!” The suspect’s arm veins bulged as he glared at Li Qingchi. A few seconds later, a lewd, malicious smile suddenly forced its way onto his face as he suppressed his rage. “What, did I hit a nerve? That beta, Wen Zhiyu, how did he taste? Marking someone under the pretense of treatment… Major General Li, you sure know how to dress up taking advantage of someone as righteousness.”
“That’s just the base nature of alphas. What’s with the holier-than-thou act? That drug… that drug I got from my old man. He and you-” He cut off mid-sentence, suddenly realizing he’d slipped up. His face changed drastically, his mouth snapping shut, a flicker of panic flashing in his eyes.
Before this, Li Qingchi had investigated the suspect, including his family background. After all, someone who could evade capture for so long after committing crimes must have family protection, and his background was bound to be anything but simple.
And indeed, as he’d expected, the suspect’s father was Feng Zhengguo, the director of the Pharmaceutical Bureau. Li Qingchi had dealt with him a few times before and still remembered him.
That was also why he’d just sent Li Siyu to check on the Pharmaceutical Bureau.
Li Qingchi’s brow arched slightly. He slowly rose, walked over to the suspect, and stood before him, his tall frame completely overshadowing the man.
“So it seems your father has wiped your ass quite a few times.” Li Qingchi’s tone dripped with mockery. “But he seems to have forgotten to teach you that fools should know when to shut up.”
He looked down at the man before him from above: “That little slip of yours just now is worth half your father’s lifetime of achievements.”
The suspect reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, instantly flying into a rage, thrashing wildly: “Bullshit! Li Qingchi, you wouldn’t dare touch me! My dad will fucking destroy you. He’ll get me out of here any minute, that’s the best way to settle this.”
“The best solution?” Li Qingchi repeated, his gaze icy cold.
He agreed with that assessment. For a man wielding immense power with secrets to conceal, silencing this reckless, loose-tongued son forever, or keeping him firmly locked away where he could never speak, was indeed the optimal choice.
Placing such an indiscreet fool in the War Chain Department’s interrogation room posed the greatest threat to his father.
But this fool’s utter lack of restraint suggested that what he knew, understood, and controlled far exceeded what he had already revealed.
He must be holding critical information.
Li Qingchi narrowed his eyes, studying him. His vetiver pheromones erupted in an instant, flooding the entire interrogation room at breakneck speed.
The oppressive pheromones formed an impenetrable wall, sealing the suspect within, cutting him off from the air itself.
One of the War Chain Department’s standard interrogation methods, alpha-to-alpha pheromone suppression.
Soon, the suspect was crushed, gasping for breath, his body feeling as though it were being pierced by needles. He was only a B-grade alpha, utterly defenseless against an S-grade alpha’s pheromones. Agonized screams and curses echoed throughout the interrogation room.
The guards stationed outside the door felt their hearts jolt.
Li Qingchi leaned forward slightly, closing in on the suspect. “The greenhouse your father gave you has completely wasted you.”
His gaze swept over the suspect’s contorted face as he spoke with unwavering authority: “How many doses of the agent do you still have?”
The suspect was in a miserable state by now, the pheromone suppression leaving him without even the strength to curse.
Li Qingchi precisely controlled the pressure of his pheromones, easing off just as the man teetered on the brink of suffocation, granting him the illusion of a reprieve.
“N-none… none left.” The suspect barely forced out a few words, his eyes unfocused, his tone pleading. “All used, just one dose, used it on Wen Zhiyu…” He seemed to be trying to provoke Li Qingchi with that name.
Li Qingchi’s gaze remained utterly unmoved. “Last chance. Where is the agent? Who told you to do this? Who gave you the orders? Why did all the betas infected with pheromone resistance show symptoms on the same day?”
“No… it wasn’t me.” The suspect screamed in breakdown. “I told you, the agent isn’t in my hands. It was transferred long ago, even my father doesn’t know the exact location. They arranged it directly. The one I had, I stole.”
He rambled incoherently: “The same day was a signal, the activation signal for the samples. Those twenty-something betas were the first responders, proving the agent worked. After that… there’s more… more…”
They…
“‘They’, who are they?” Li Qingchi pressed. “After the samples are activated, what do you plan to do? What’s your goal?”
The suspect didn’t answer. After a pause, he instead burst into manic laughter.