“PHEW!”
Zhou Haizhi breathed a sigh of relief.
He shot an exasperated glare at Bian Ying, who stood frozen on the spot, and muttered, “Why did you hesitate just now?”
However, he didn’t dwell on it for long.
After all, she hadn’t undergone closed-door special training; she had only participated in a short-term orientation when she joined.
At this moment, he had completely forgotten that during their one-week intensive training, Bian Ying had scored perfectly in marksmanship.
Zhou Haizhi crouched down, his calm gaze landing on the humanoid Deceit.
Having seen countless Deceits, he could tell this one’s origin at a single glance.
“It mutated from a human,” he said while parting the thick hair on the Deceit’s body.
As he moved it aside, whatever was embedded in the creature’s back was revealed.
Seeing the object lodged there, his expression drastically changed.
“Is this…
a Deceitful Device?!”
The dark-green, fleshy mass seemed to have developed a consciousness of its own.
It pulsed and bulged, with a faint crimson light flickering within.
“This thing is a Deceitful Device?” Bian Ying snapped back to her senses, utterly bewildered.
She hadn’t attacked immediately precisely because she hadn’t figured out what this thing was.
It simply didn’t look like a natural part of the Deceit.
Zhou Haizhi nodded with a solemn expression.
“It looks like flesh gouged out from a Deceit…” He paused mid-sentence upon noticing Bian Ying’s deeply furrowed brows, asking in amusement, “What, never heard of this before?”
Bian Ying shook her head honestly.
“On the Deceit Net, there is a massive, mysterious group known as ‘Ghost Hunters.’ These people specialize in tracking and hunting Deceits to sell for a high price.”
These hunted Deceits would end up in the hands of various people to be used for research, dissection, or to manufacture chaos.
Take the chunk of flesh before them, for example.
It seemed as though someone had intentionally used it to spark a riot.
If so, the intelligence the Investigation Bureau had received earlier might have just been bait deliberately laid out by the mastermind behind the scenes.
“Wuhai City is in for some turbulent times,” Zhou Haizhi sighed softly.
To brazenly set up a trap right under the nose of the Deceit Investigation Bureau meant that the faction behind this was definitely not to be underestimated.
“I’ll file a report and have the Operations Department come over to contain the Deceitful Device.” Even Zhou Haizhi hadn’t expected them to bag a Deceitful Device during this field mission.
Any further clues would have to rely on investigations by the Supervision Department.
Bian Ying shuffled closer, watching the flickering red light on the dark-green flesh grow brighter.
“Chief, what is this red light?” she asked curiously.
She was certain it hadn’t been there when she looked at it earlier.
“Hmm?” Zhou Haizhi stared blankly at the Deceitful Device.
Something flashed through his mind, and his expression instantly twisted in horror.
“Run!!!”
But he was one step too late.
The red light suddenly flared blindingly.
The Deceitful Device on the Deceit’s back abruptly exploded into countless shards of flesh.
Thick fog billowed outward as their wristbands blared a pale-red danger alarm!
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!
Being the closest, Zhou Haizhi was caught off guard and inhaled most of the pollution.
His face turned deathly pale, and his pupils lost focus.
“Go, go…” he panted heavily, the whites of his eyes gradually being consumed by pitch-black as he tried with all his might to urge Bian Ying to leave.
They had miscalculated.
And they had severely underestimated the ruthlessness of the mastermind.
To think this Deceitful Device could be remotely detonated.
Furthermore, it contained highly concentrated Deceit pollution; once it erupted, the concentration was several times higher than its original state.
It had been a very long time since Zhou Haizhi last felt this way after retiring from active duty.
His mind devolved into chaotic madness.
It felt as though he had been thrown back into that ultra-high-risk Deceit incident, enveloped by despair and a sea of blood, completely losing control of himself.
“Urgh—”
It was as if an invisible vice was clamped around his throat.
His brain slowly suffered from oxygen deprivation, and his consciousness was dragged inch by inch into an abyss of darkness.
“Chief!” Bian Ying dropped to one knee, swiftly retrieving the Purification Agent strapped to her arm and jabbing it directly into him.
Zhou Haizhi gradually calmed down.
His limbs spasmed and twitched from his violent struggles moments prior, leaving him incredibly weak, but thankfully, his consciousness was returning.
“…A Purification Agent?” he mumbled.
A serum capable of suppressing Deceit concentration was both rare and exorbitantly expensive.
Normally, it was only issued to members of the Operations Department.
He never expected Bian Ying to have actually brought one along.
It seemed the higher-ups truly placed a lot of importance on her.
Zhou Haizhi felt a wave of relief.
“I’m alright now.” Zhou Haizhi tried to stand, but his entire body felt so sore and limp that he gasped and collapsed right back down.
“Thanks to your Purification Agent…
Wait, you’re fine?!”
He suddenly realized something was amiss.
Even though the brunt of the Deceit concentration had hit him, Bian Ying had been right beside him.
It was impossible for her not to have absorbed any of it at all.
Yet not only was she perfectly fine, but she had also remained calm enough to save him.
He stared in absolute disbelief into those bright, clear black eyes of hers.
“I didn’t really feel anything,” Bian Ying replied honestly.
At most, she had squinted when the thick fog rushed over.
“…”
They had truly found a diamond in the rough.
Zhou Haizhi sighed inwardly.
“Cough.
Help me up.”
As she supported his weight and hoisted him up, his sharp gaze swept their surroundings.
“The mastermind must be hiding nearby, monitoring this place.
We shouldn’t stay here any longer.”
***
On a hilltop opposite the harbor.
Two figures stood on the edge of a cliff.
One of them was using binoculars to observe the situation inside the building.
He appeared quite young, but his eyes were murky and perverse, his posture lazy yet sinister.
Seeing Bian Ying emerge while supporting Zhou Haizhi, the young man let out a sound of surprise.
“They’re actually still alive?
They still look very lucid.”
At his words, a flash of surprise crossed the eyes of the tall man leaning against a large boulder nearby.
The long, narrow scar stretching from the corner of his eye all the way down his neck twitched as his expression changed.
He walked over and snatched the binoculars from the younger man’s hands.
Upon getting a clear look at the situation, his brow furrowed.
“Didn’t the guys at the lab say it was foolproof?
What is the background of these two?
Elites of the Investigation Bureau?”
“They don’t look like official agents,” the young man shrugged.
Seeing his partner’s solemn and grave demeanor, he patted his shoulder in amusement.
“Alright, Shi Yu, we’ve already done what the lab asked of us anyway.
No one could guarantee the results.
If you want to blame anyone, blame their stuff for being useless~”
Shi Yu shot him a sideways glance, shoved the binoculars back into his hands, and turned around to pick up another case.
“Let’s go.
We still need to find one more person.”
“Sigh, and we finally made it to Wuhai City too…
Speaking of which, it’s been years since you last came back, hasn’t it?” Cui Zhaohe laced his fingers behind his head and lazily followed in Shi Yu’s footsteps.
“What a shame.
The Deceit Investigation Bureau in Wuhai City keeps too tight a leash.
Otherwise, I would’ve definitely made you show me a good time around here.”
“There is nothing special about this place,” Shi Yu replied flatly.
Cui Zhaohe scoffed.
“You lived here for over ten years; of course you don’t think it’s special.
Where are we going now?”
“My home,” Shi Yu said without looking back.