Chapter 34: The Murderer

At 7:30, the immersive grand movie playing in the base suddenly flickered out, and the surrounding walls reverted to their original silvery hue.

"Has someone arrived?" Chu Zhu reacted instantly. He rubbed his cheeks and sat down in his chair, acting nonchalant.

Footsteps echoed. Li Kang, expressionless and almost charging into the base, came to a halt before Chu Zhu, his mouth opening as if to speak. However, he remained silent.

"?" Chu Zhu felt a flicker of confusion. After a long moment, Li Kang finally said, "I brought you breakfast."

Chu Zhu took the steamed bun Li Kang tossed to him but didn't eat it. He stared at it for a few seconds before asking in a low voice, "Did something happen?"

The relationship between Chu Zhu and Li Kang was complex and subtle, a mix of senior and junior, old friends, and partners in crime. When a partner in crime struggles to speak and brings you breakfast without being asked—something was definitely wrong, and it was certainly no small matter.

Li Kang lowered his gaze. Chu Zhu didn't press him, simply staring at his face with a blank expression.

"...Zhou Ze is dead."

Chu Zhu stiffened.

"And," Li Kang’s words cut off abruptly. His tablet vibrated at that moment. He pulled it out, swiped across the screen, his cheek twitching as he stole a cautious glance at Chu Zhu. "The latest news: five senior officials of the Redevelopment Zone Union are dead. The estimated time of death is between midnight and 3:00 AM."

Chu Zhu said nothing; he closed his eyes.

Zhou Ze was the General Secretary of the Redevelopment Zone Union and the successor Chu Zhu had personally appointed before stepping back. He had been doing a fine job with the Redevelopment Zone—he hadn't performed any grand, over-the-top feats that surpassed Chu Zhu, but that in itself was a rare virtue. After all, there were plenty of people who took office with grand ambitions, insisting on outdoing their predecessors, only to wreak havoc through rash actions. A prime example was a certain nameless sage emperor of the Sui Dynasty.

Chu Zhu rose abruptly and spoke in fluent, rhythmic tones: "Nuwa 17, if I recall correctly, you should be directly connected to all electronic surveillance equipment in Jinghai City, right?"

"What are you saying?" Li Kang looked bewildered. Aside from the opening invocation, the rest was completely unintelligible to him.

"Yes, User with Authority," replied Nuwa 17. "However, currently, this unit can only connect to equipment under the jurisdiction of the Jinghai City government offices. Other devices remain inaccessible."

"Now, pull up all intelligence and information regarding Zhou Ze and the other five deceased officials. Review every piece of footage recorded by devices near their deaths! Flag every suspect and unearth their identities," Chu Zhu’s voice was chillingly calm. "Immediately. Now!"

"Processing initiated. Estimated completion time: three minutes and twenty-seven seconds."

"Good." Chu Zhu uttered a single word. He was acutely aware that the person who struck at the Union was likely the same mastermind behind the reset he had been forced to undergo.

A deathly silence followed.

"...Wait! Just hold on a second." Li Kang finally regained his senses. His scalp tingled, his mind reeling to a degree that defied description. He felt that even if his own dead father had jumped out of his grave right now, he wouldn't be this shocked—after all, in this world, there were cultivators who possessed ghostly arts capable of reanimating corpses.

"Are you... communicating with a god? How could you..." Li Kang stammered, his thoughts descending into chaos. How could this be? Even the City Governor couldn't commune with gods! Wait—those strange syllables that spilled from Chu Zhu’s lips, they weren't prayers. They were... a language?

"Could it be that you are actually royalty? A secret heir? No, that doesn't make sense either..." Li Kang couldn't grasp it. He had only heard rumors that the Imperial clan held the power to converse with gods, but these were merely rumors, with no direct evidence to prove it.

"Don't ask," Chu Zhu interrupted, his gaze unreadable to Li Kang. "Because even if I explained it, you wouldn't remember."

Li Kang’s eyes widened. *Could it be memory erasure?* But memory erasure devices only worked on non-supernaturals, didn't they?

Li Kang instinctively took a step back. Though his knowledge dictated that such things were impossible, Chu Zhu had just displayed such a feat before his eyes that he couldn't help but believe it.

"Retrieval complete! Analysis complete! Organizing data! Categorization complete—"

The massive silvery walls suddenly shifted, displaying small, square screens that played various videos. Suspicious individuals were highlighted one by one, with detailed identity dossiers listed beneath them.

"Seven suspicious targets, two of whom cannot be traced," Chu Zhu muttered.

All seven targets had wrapped themselves tightly, obscuring their physical forms. To be honest, such attire wasn't exactly rare in the Redevelopment Zone. As for the inability to trace them... that was expected. The Redevelopment Zone had no cameras. Before Chu Zhu had "flipped the table," the area was a lawless zone that even the authorities wouldn't touch. Even now, under Chu Zhu's forceful intervention, the zone merely possessed a semblance of order; the government’s control remained severely limited.

Even in official districts, the density of cameras was terrifyingly low, found only near core government assets like the Third District Office or the wealthy enclaves. The concept of this surveillance density was perhaps even lower than that of the real-world India. To put it bluntly, if one tried to install them on a large scale, they would likely be pried off the very next day—after all, these were ancient relics, and even damaged ones could fetch a high price.

Chu Zhu was already surprised that they had managed to filter out any targets at all. If it were this easy, he would have had Nuwa 17 run a big data search last night to identify his would-be assassins. The fact that they could pinpoint suspects from such limited footage only proved one thing: Nuwa’s capabilities were formidable.

"However, we cannot rule out the possibility that the true culprit isn't among these suspects... Given the low camera density, if the assassin was cautious, they could easily have maneuvered around them..."