hooklinebooks Chapter 38 Identity Investigation
Chapter 38 Identity Investigation
Chapter 38 Identity Investigation
After Shiracha Chika left, the temperature in the study seemed to drop a few degrees.
The smile on Bai Cha Zhengnan's face receded like the tide, revealing a cold, reef-like undertone. He picked up his teacup but didn't drink, merely gazing at the fine ripples on the surface of the tea. His voice was calm, almost indifferent: "Hongyi, have you found out who attacked Qianxia yesterday?"
The old butler slowly emerged from the shadows.
"It's been confirmed, Master. They're from the Ash Gang in the Parrot District."
"The Ashes Gang?" Shiracha Masanari's finger paused lightly on the rim of his cup. "A dog of the Tokugawa family?"
"Yes."
"What's the reason?"
"The Ash Gang once sent someone to recruit Bai, but the girl who seduced Bai later disappeared. According to the information we found, the girl was a pseudo-human with Awakening LV2 and was taken into custody by the Containment Department. The Ash Gang has taken this grudge against Bai."
"So, the sudden lockdown of Holly University to test for fake people a while ago was also because of this?"
"Yes."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan remained silent for a moment, the teacup tilting slightly between his fingertips before slowly straightening itself.
"By the way, have you investigated the background of that young man surnamed Bai? Is his background really as clean as it seems?"
"My life trajectory after adulthood is very clear, basically a straight line between school and my residence. My main social connections are some contact with the Viper Gang, but otherwise—I'm definitely clean."
Bai Cha turned his head towards the south. "But?"
The butler bowed slightly, as if apologizing for his hesitation: "But his records before he came of age are almost blank. The addresses listed in his file for residence and school are mostly in the back alleys and Luoshan District. If we send someone to those places to investigate his true background—"
"Not worth it."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan finished speaking for him, saying, "The gains don't outweigh the losses."
"Yes."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan did not speak immediately.
He put down his teacup and his gaze fell on a certain spot outside the window.
The koi in the garden are still swimming, circling around and around, seemingly tireless.
After a long pause, he slowly said, "You mean that kid probably made a deal with the Viper Gang, having someone forge a clean identity for him?"
"That's one possibility."
"That's quite interesting."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan's lips curled slightly, but there was no smile in his eyes. "To get Viper to help forge an identity, that's a lot of money. It's more than enough to buy an apartment in Hanjiang District. This kid either really has some skills, or his real identity is far more complicated than that."
The butler paused for two seconds, then said, "Master, there is another possibility."
"explain."
"A minority of children are able to survive to adulthood in a place like the Parrot District and be recorded in the Holly City archives."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan paused for a moment.
It was only for a very short time.
It's so short that if someone were watching from the side, they might not even notice it.
But the butler noticed.
He knows his master too well.
Then, Bai Cha Zheng Nan smiled.
This smile was different from the previous one. The curve remained the same, but something in his eyes seemed to have softened.
"you're right."
Bai Cha leaned back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, as if talking to himself, "Without realizing it, I started looking at things from the perspective of the upper class. I forgot that Dongqing City is a world of extreme polarization, where one thought can lead to heaven or hell."
The study was quiet for a moment.
"Owner,"
The butler slowly spoke, "Should I send someone to deal with those Ash Gang members?"
Bai Cha Zheng Nan didn't answer immediately. He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and asked, "What did Qian Xia and the others do after they were attacked yesterday?"
The butler answered in great detail, "Miss first went to retrieve the decorations, and then took that student Bai to Longjie Restaurant for a meal."
"and then?"
"Student Bai took Miss to church to do volunteer work for an afternoon."
Bai Cha held the teacup in the south, seemingly lost in thought, a hint of heaviness in his eyes.
After a long pause, he put down his teacup and leaned back on the sofa. "Hongyi, how many years have you been with me?"
"Forty-three years, Master. I've been with you since the old master's time."
Forty-three years.
Bai Cha Zheng Nan's gaze fell out the window. "Then you should remember how those four children died."
The butler did not answer, nor was it appropriate for him to answer.
"The drowning incident was orchestrated by the Tokugawa clan. The car accident was a setup by the Oda clan. The death from the supercharger was caused by someone from the Genji clan luring him into it. The fall was caused by someone from the Fujiwara clan pushing him."
The butler remained silent.
"Every time, I knew who did it. But every time, I didn't do it."
"Because it's not worth it."
The butler finally spoke, his voice aged yet steady, "If we had acted then, the Bai Cha family would have been wiped out."
"Yes."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan closed his eyes. "Four sons, in exchange for a new family. Is it worth it?"
He didn't wait for an answer, but laughed to himself: "Worth it. And not worth it."
Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the curtains, casting dappled shadows on his face.
"But Chinatsu is different."
He opened his eyes and slowly looked at the butler. "She didn't grow up at home. The twelve years she spent outside—were harder than we imagined. But she survived, and she's doing quite well."
He paused.
"Those four children, each of them grew up in this house, protected like the back of their hand. Yet they still died."
She's the only one who survived without anyone protecting her. So I'm thinking, maybe my approach was wrong from the start. Locking them up here, assigning people to follow them, and watching them constantly has just made them targets.
Bai Cha Zheng Nan slowly stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the koi fish outside. The fish were still swimming, circling around and around.
"Chika doesn't need my protection; she knows how to live on her own."
"That Ash Gang—"
The butler asked tentatively, and Bai Cha Zheng Nan turned around, saying with a hint of amusement, "Let that kid handle the Ash Gang's matter himself. However, while we can watch from the sidelines, we still have to do what we're supposed to do."
"Please enlighten me, Master."
"Who in the Ashes Gang sent someone to seduce and recruit Bai?"
"One of the leaders of the Ash Gang's Parrot District, nicknamed Scarface. He orchestrated this whole thing."
"Scarface".
Bai Cha Zheng Nan pondered the name, "Does he still have any family?"
"I have a son who attends a private school in Hanjiang District."
How old are you?
"fourteen."
Bai Cha Zheng Nan was silent for a few seconds, then slowly said, "Let that child transfer schools. Transfer to a better school. We'll pay for it."
The butler was slightly taken aback.
"Master, what is this—"
"Don't touch him, just let the other party know who can be touched and who cannot be touched, so that he knows what's going on."
Also, have Longjie quietly and cleanly eliminate the group that chased after Qianxia yesterday.
Bai Cha walked back to the sofa and sat down again.
"clear."
"As for that kid,"
Bai Cha held the now-cooled teacup to the south, not drinking, but simply holding it in his palm. "Let him fend for himself. I want to see what method he plans to use to get rid of this obstacle."
The butler bowed slightly.
He suddenly stopped when he reached the door.
"Master, should we continue investigating Bai's identity?"
"check."
Bai Cha Zhengnan's voice lowered, tinged with weariness, yet it sounded more sincere than any of his previous words: "I don't want that child, Qianxia, to repeat the same mistake."
The butler did not answer.
He simply bowed deeply, then turned and left.
The door closed gently behind me.
Only Bai Cha Zheng Nan remained in the study.
He looked out the window.
The koi carp in the pond are still swimming.
Round and round.
On the other side, the parrot area.
Bai Yuzhe smelled the familiar sweet scent and felt as if he had come home.
He couldn't have come here just to gather inspiration.
Rather, it's about settling scores and seeking revenge.
But as mentioned earlier, the Ash Gang is a local power, and Bai Yuze would never take Okasan to wipe them out just because of a moment of anger. He believes that he and Okasan are not yet at the point where they can do whatever they want.
Eliminating the Ash Gang is easy, but provoking the big shots behind them would be a huge loss.
But then again, the Ash Gang isn't the only local tyrant in Parrot District.
If someone were willing to hand over the knife, I believe quite a few people would be willing to stab the Ashes in the back.
Thinking of this, Bai Yuze's gentle eyes gradually turned pale purple, and his body was gradually enveloped and covered by black miasma.
Whoosh!
His figure leaped across the rooftop like a weightless cat, landing on the sixth-floor roof. The door to the roof was locked from the inside, and it was a fingerprint lock.
Bai Yuze moved his wrist, and a few wisps of extremely faint, azure light quietly peeked out from his fingertips.
Click—
The door opened.
Bai Yuze pushed open the door and slowly walked in.
It was very dark inside, but to him it was like broad daylight.
As you descend the stairs, each floor has a different scent, which gradually becomes stronger and sweeter as you go down.
He walked up to the fourth floor and stopped.
At the entrance to this floor, he actually saw a Genji Technology Abyss Beast Detection Device, which could sense the energy fluctuations of Abyss Beasts within a radius of several kilometers.
To put it simply, their Wintergreen University has one, but this kind of high technology is appearing in the lair of a small gang like Parrot District.
That's really interesting.
Bai Yuze stood at the edge of the Abyss Beast Detection Instrument, squinting as he examined the device—Abyss Eye-7.
Obviously, this model is inferior to the one at the school. However, unfortunately, this Abyss Beast Detection Device is useless to him. As long as he can control his own Abyss Miasma, this detection device is just a piece of scrap metal.
However, Bai Yuzhe has rarely seen the Abyss Beasts that like to conceal their miasma. Most of the Abyss Beasts, especially those without intelligence, seem to want to spread their aura throughout the entire neighborhood.
This is their instinct, used specifically to mark territory and intimidate their kind, just as natural as wild animals urinating in the forest to mark their territory.
Bai Yuze glanced at the instrument, then turned and walked towards the third floor.
At the end of the stairs was a tightly closed metal door. Bai Yuze leaned against it, and a bright, cold white light shone through the crack in the door.
He reached out and sensed it slightly. The metal door was very durable; even a C4 bomb might not be able to cause it a single crack.
But clearly, this couldn't stop him; if he couldn't get in through the main entrance, he could just go in from somewhere else.
For example, ventilation ducts.
Entering the third floor, it's a completely different world.
The spacious open-plan room, approximately 200 square meters, has a much higher ceiling than typical floors. A row of industrial-grade shadowless lights hangs from the ceiling, illuminating the entire space as bright as day, without a single shadow. The floor is covered with light gray anti-static epoxy flooring.
The air was filled with a faint smell of disinfectant, mixed with the slightly acidic odor characteristic of some chemical agents.
The moment Bai Yuze entered, he thought he had stepped into Professor Mu's laboratory. The worktables were neatly arranged and filled with various instruments.
The grinder, centrifuge, precision balance, and spectrometer—each one was polished to a shine, without a trace of the dirt and mess that should have been present at the Ash Gang.
A dozen or so people wearing white dustproof suits were busy at their respective workstations.
Bai Yuzhe didn't disturb them and wandered around the laboratory on his own.
He recognized most of the chemical reagents and raw materials on the workbench. After all, as a student of the Abyss Biology Structure Department, he had seen a lot of biological samples, mineral powders, and chemical preparations.
But there were four types of powder that he had never seen before.
Milky white, light gold, grayish brown, and dark red are packaged in transparent, airtight containers, each labeled with only a number and no name.
But that smell—
Bai Yuze's nostrils twitched slightly.
Familiar with.
Very familiar with it.
I could often smell it when I took Okasan hunting.
Bai Yuze remained silent, simply standing aside like a devout apprentice watching them operate.
An hour later, the first batch of finished products was produced. Four bags of powder of different shades were neatly stacked in the center of the worktable.
Just when he thought the next step was to prepare for normal bagging, a middle-aged man in a suit walked out of the office with a strange instrument in his hand and began to test the powder. The first bag.
He glanced at the screen, his brow furrowing slightly.
The second bag.
His brows furrowed even more.
The third bag, the fourth bag... the seventh bag.
Suddenly, he slammed the testing instrument onto the table, shattering the screen into a spiderweb pattern.
"Am I keeping you guys around just to eat shit?"
The middle-aged man grabbed the sixth bag of ash, held it in the air, and almost squeezed the sealed bag apart with his fingers.
"Look at this yourselves, the purity of this batch is even lower than last week's! The stability curve looks like it was chewed by a dog! The residue levels are three times higher than the standard!"
boom!
He slammed the bag on the table. "Do you even know this batch is meant to be supplied to some important people up there?!"
The entire workshop was completely silent.
"I know you researchers from Maple Leaf District look down on me and despise a small-time hoodlum like me, but don't forget, if I hadn't taken you in, you would have been living under bridges and fighting with homeless people for food by now."
Instead of giving me attitude, let me make this clear: the person who needs these things isn't me, but the big boss above. If the designated time passes and the appropriate raw materials for the enhancement agent aren't handed over, I'll die, and those of you I've taken in will suffer an even worse fate.
Dead silence.
Bai Yuze stared at the bags of powder for a few seconds.
Big man?
Raw materials for reinforcing agents?
Bai Yuze's thoughts immediately expanded. If we're talking about the most famous company in Dongqing City for producing various potions, it has to be Genji Technology, which is the top 100 company he plans to join after graduation.
Unlike the various ash sold by the Ash Gang, Genji Technology's potions are known for being safe and having no side effects.
Are they the same thing?!
Bai Yuze remained silent, simply taking photos.
Just then, the glass door at the end of the workshop opened, and a young man in a black jacket strode in.
He walked straight to the middle-aged man and whispered a few words in his ear.
The voice was very soft, but Bai Yuzhe heard it clearly. "Boss, a big shot from the Security Bureau is here."
The middle-aged man's expression changed rapidly; the ferocity he had displayed while cursing vanished, replaced by a practiced, bone-deep flattery.
He took a deep breath, straightened his clothes, and asked in a low voice, "Where are we?"
"We're already inside the building, we'll be there in three minutes."
The middle-aged man nodded, glanced around the workshop, and lowered his voice: "Fellow colleagues, we're all in the same boat. I'll prepare all the raw materials again later, and I hope you can bring out the finished products the boss needs. Otherwise, not only you, but your families might also be in trouble."
He didn't finish speaking.
But every researcher behind him understood what he meant.
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