Chapter 98: Something Is Wrong

To prevent corpse puppets from appearing and bringing disaster, the nations of Star Earth have long maintained a supervision system that is almost fully mature.

Under this system, the authorities watch, martial artists watch, and the common people watch.

The lower classes, in particular, are the most numerous, the most threatened, and the most active in taking action.

It is not as though anyone who wants revenge on society can simply hide away and take their own life, then successfully become a corpse puppet.

Kewenji’s case was truly an exception.

Before this woman regained consciousness, she had severed all ties with her family for the sake of Shiyanyi.

Even her coworkers at Hanyun Mall looked down on her.

For Kewenji to succeed, she relied on no shortage of coincidence and luck.

Unlike Meijinju, who was entirely driven and manipulated from behind the scenes by Zhou Hongsong.

Human society will never lack conspirators and ambitious schemers.

That, too, is why the supervision system can never become one hundred percent perfect.

Moreover, unlike Earth, on Star Earth, whenever a corpse puppet causes casualties in a city, the authorities publicly release the details of the incident, both as a warning and as a reminder to the public.

So it was with the tragedy caused by Kewenji.

After Li Linzhou personally led people to the Shi residence and came away empty-handed, the case was on television, the internet, radio, and in the newspapers that very night.

Although the Shi family held a press conference to explain that they were also searching for Shiyanyi and would execute him in public once found, the result was meager; hardly anyone believed them.

A storm of abuse crashed down on the Shi family overnight.

Clearly identified businesses under the Shi family were broadly boycotted.

Some shops were even smashed up and doused with filth by the relatives of those who had died gruesomely in the incident.

The Shi family’s reputation fell to rock bottom in an instant.

Aside from continuing to insist that they knew nothing, and from cooperating with the authorities in the search for Shiyanyi, the Shi family made no other move.

Shops were smashed, car tires were slashed, filth was hurled at their doors... and none of it was pursued.

That attitude led many to believe they truly had no knowledge of it, and the public outcry slowly subsided as the fervor cooled.

Of course, the curses did not stop entirely, especially at the crematorium, where the abuse never let up.

But soon enough, a sudden incident shifted everyone’s attention in the western suburban crematorium.

Gubo’s five-year-old daughter had gone missing.

As a veteran of the crematorium, Gubo knew every employee there, and he got along well with all of them.

His five-year-old daughter, Guduoduo, had also attended some private gatherings with him and had met quite a few people.

Though the little girl was mischievous and troublesome, she was kind and adorable, and everyone was very fond of her.

Su Jingxing had even made a promise with the child: on her birthday, he would give her a live squirrel.

And now, she had suddenly vanished.

Not only was Gubo frantic with worry, but everyone at the crematorium was equally anxious, each mobilizing the people around them, searching for clues, and looking for the little girl.

Su Jingxing was no different.

After getting off work that night and returning to the small courtyard at the foot of the mountain, he searched online for traces of the case.

The place where Guduoduo disappeared was a playground beside the residential complex where she lived, and she had been with her grandmother at the time.

The old lady had been watching her carefully, but in order to let a few children playing around make their way through, she had only looked away and shifted her position slightly.

Yet in less than three seconds, Guduoduo was gone.

The old lady first called out to her, then went forward, then entered the playground and searched everywhere, but she could not find Guduoduo. It was as though the little girl had vanished into thin air.

By the time Gubo and his wife arrived, the people at the playground hurriedly joined in the search.

But by then, it was already too late.

Guduoduo had disappeared without a trace.

Using the internet, Su Jingxing first infiltrated the surveillance around the playground.

After some searching, he found that many blind spots could not be captured by the cameras.

With no other choice, he checked the surveillance footage of the streets and alley entrances around the playground, but still found nothing.

Instead, while searching for traces online, he discovered that people disappeared every year, and there were quite a few of them.

Most of these missing people were women, spanning every age group.

After they vanished, their families had posted appeals for help online, offering money to anyone who could provide clues, but the effect was negligible, and the efforts were basically like stones sinking into the sea.

Though the public security teams had been investigating all along, there had never been any real progress.

Over time, it had become an unsolved mystery.

Su Jingxing unified these cases and tried to see whether he could find any related clues.

And in the end, he really did uncover something.

That was that among the missing women, the young made up the majority.

Just like Guduoduo, there were also many little girls under ten.

Su Jingxing compiled all of their information together and carefully searched for common points.

Especially the places where they were the same as Guduoduo.

After spending more than half an hour, he finally found it.

Their birth times.

Without digging deeply, Su Jingxing would never have imagined that among these missing people, the majority had been born in a yin year, yin month, yin day, and yin hour.

Even Yumiaotong was one of them.

Yumiaotong, the woman killed by Shiyanfeng, like Guduoduo, had been born in a yin year, yin month, yin day, and yin hour.

A coincidence?

No.

“There’s a problem!”

“There’s definitely a problem here!”

“The Shi family...”

Su Jingxing’s eyes gleamed as his fingers flew across the keyboard, infiltrating company systems and network spaces related to the Shi family.

After a thorough search, he really did find a clue.

Someone was helping the Shi family, or perhaps it was simply someone from the Shi family, dealing with traces on the internet related to the incidents caused by women born in a yin year, yin month, yin day, and yin hour, who then disappeared.

If the person handling it had not been so technically inept and left behind so many traces, Su Jingxing would never have guessed that Guduoduo’s disappearance was actually connected to the Shi family.

“What exactly does this clan want to do?”

Su Jingxing frowned.

Although he now knew that Guduoduo’s disappearance was related to the Shi family, there were no other clues or evidence on the internet at all.

Report it to the Town Martial Office and have Li Linzhou demand the person from the Shi family?

Leaving aside whether Li Linzhou would be willing to deal with it, even if he did go to the Shi family, he might not be able to get anyone back.

The reason was simple: the Shi family would rather die than admit to such a thing.

If Li Linzhou went to demand someone, it would only alert the snake and provoke the Shi family into striking decisively, going straight for the destruction of the body and the erasure of all evidence, reducing everything to ashes.

What Su Jingxing wanted was not a pile of ashes, but a lively and breathing Guduoduo.

So the discovery he had made online could be known only by him.

If others knew, the disadvantages would far outweigh the benefits.

“A night raid on the Shi family?”

Su Jingxing considered it.

Thanks to Kewenji, and with the help of the sixteen-year martial arts card he had obtained, Su Jingxing had trained both the Qi-Control Chapter of the Heavenly Giant Blade and the Ghost Serpent Breathing Concealment Art to a competent level.

Right now, he had enough confidence to infiltrate the Shi family without making a sound and without drawing anyone’s attention.

Even if he were discovered, he had the confidence to retreat.

So—

“Go and take a look at the Shi family...”

Bang bang! Thump thump!

At that very moment, a burst of fighting sounds suddenly came from the river.

Su Jingxing listened carefully and realized the noise was steadily drawing closer.

He immediately shut down the computer, put on his cloak and mask, left the courtyard, leapt up to a large tree by the riverbank, and concealed himself amid the dense branches and leaves. He activated both his night-vision and long-range vision secret techniques at once, watching the two groups of people drawing nearer and nearer.

One side consisted of a single person, the other of three.

All four used swords, their true qi spilling outward as sword aura raged everywhere.

They fought their way along the riverbank, causing widespread destruction.

Now and then they would leap onto the surface of the water, throwing up spray in great bursts.

Su Jingxing watched the spectacle from afar.

Even when those four men, one fleeing and three pursuing, passed beneath the tree without the slightest trace of his presence being revealed, he gave away nothing at all.

Only when the fleeing martial artist was finally slain on the spot, at the cost of serious injury to one of the three pursuers, did the other two cry out in exhilaration.

“At last, we’ve killed that Nie bastard!”

“Haha, Jia Youbai never imagined that Nie Renchou, who escaped from his hands, would end up dying by the hands of the three of us brothers!”