Pulling the table over, Jiang Bai Mian nimbly jumped onto it, using her left hand to remove the ventilation duct's outlet grill.
Behind it, sure enough, was "hidden" a person in black clothes, a person who was already dead.
She slowly dragged the corpse out and placed it on the table.
Long Yue Hong took one look and saw the bald head, chubby face, and wide-open dark green eyes.
"Hervig, it really is Hervig!" he exclaimed, comparing it to the photo.
"He's been dead for a while, the smell has dissipated, but he hasn't rotted yet." Jiang Bai Mian jumped off the table and calmly assessed.
She sighed, glanced at Long Yue Hong, and self-deprecatingly smiled:
"I knew a well-paid mission like this wouldn't go smoothly."
Right from the start, the employer had become a corpse!
Of course, Jiang Bai Mian originally wanted to lament, "Could our luck be any worse?" but considering Long Yue Hong's mood, she forcibly changed her wording.
To prevent Shang Jian Yao from "talking nonsense," she instructed:
"Go find the person in charge of Hongshi Collection's security."
Although they had heard that Hongshi Collection was more chaotic than Wildgrass City, they still believed there were armed personnel maintaining order here.
For such a settlement to survive, it must have a certain amount of order and corresponding organizations.
"Where do I find them?" Long Yue Hong recalled that most of the people here were hiding, who knew where the security personnel were.
Truly a magical and frustrating place!
Shang Jian Yao's expression showed no difficulty; he said with a smile:
"Haven't you ever played hide-and-seek?"
With that, he rushed out of the store called "Gunfire," went to the glass railing, and shouted loudly in front:
"Someone's dead! Someone's dead!
"'Gunfire's' Hervig is dead!"
Shang Jian Yao's voice was like rolling thunder, echoing throughout the underground structure.
Long Yue Hong listened blankly, muttering to himself:
"What does this have to do with playing hide-and-seek?"
"What did you say?" Jiang Bai Mian touched her ear.
Bai Chen repeated it for Long Yue Hong.
"I think, what he means is," Jiang Bai Mian pondered, "when we played hide-and-seek as kids, we might shout, 'Dinner's ready, come home!' and then, those who were hiding would come out."
Long Yue Hong recalled the past, his expression slightly changing, feeling like he might have been tricked similarly before.
Not long after Shang Jian Yao shouted, the metal box used to mark store layouts on the opposite glass railing suddenly opened, and a man holding a "short-necked" submachine gun came out.
"Hervig is dead?" He went over and asked Shang Jian Yao.
"Maybe he can still be saved." Shang Jian Yao replied sincerely.
For example, hurry up, upload his consciousness, and turn him into a Mechanical Monk.
The man glanced at the corpse inside "Gunfire" and took out a walkie-talkie:
"Team Han, something happened at 'Gunfire,' Hervig is dead."
…………
The lowest level of Hongshi Collection, inside the "Security Office" diagonally opposite the Hunter's Guild.
Jiang Bai Mian and the others met the security officer of Hongshi Collection.
"Han Wanghuo." He introduced himself.
This was a tall, thin man.
Of course, his tallness was relative to the average level of the Ashlands; in reality, he was about the same height as Long Yue Hong.
He had black hair, cut short, messy eyebrows, and looked fierce. There were two scars, one horizontal and one vertical, on his face. The most striking feature of his face was his eyes—the whites were a bit yellow, and the pupils were a pure black, rather than dark brown.
Jiang Bai Mian announced her name and then asked:
"There's nothing more for us to do, right?"
"Although we haven't done a further autopsy, based on the current situation, we can determine that Hervig's death occurred before you entered Hongshi Collection." Han Wanghuo had no intention of randomly finding someone to be the killer.
"How can you be sure of that?" Shang Jian Yao asked curiously.
Han Wanghuo, with two pistols on his waist, pointed to another man beside him:
"Weller, a doctor, and also our Security Office's forensic doctor."
Weller was a standard Red River race, about the same age as Han Wanghuo, in his thirties, with blonde hair, blue eyes, rough skin, deep-set eye sockets, and a face full of stubble.
"You still insist on education? You're still training doctors?" Jiang Bai Mian asked with interest.
Han Wanghuo shook his head:
"Weller came from 'United Industries.'"
Weller shrugged and said in Ashlands language:
"I just saw that my superior still didn't have any children, so I enthusiastically helped him out, and as a result, I was almost thrown into prison and tortured to death."
"You didn't help in the right way." Shang Jian Yao seriously criticized.
"Huh?" Weller was a little stunned.
Shang Jian Yao provided the perfect solution:
"You should use bio-organ transplantation, nerve reconstruction surgery, and an artificial womb, and give birth to one for him yourself. That way, he won't just not send you to prison, he'll also develop feelings for you."
"..." Although the few words he used were unfamiliar, as someone who studied medicine, Weller easily understood what they meant.
"I'm not, I'm..." He suddenly didn't know how to explain himself.
He was clearly just using a joking tone to mock himself, but the other party was so serious.
And facing such a serious person, he was too embarrassed to say that his real purpose was not to help his superior have a child, but to lust after his superior's young wife.
Long Yue Hong looked at Weller sympathetically, saying nothing.
Jiang Bai Mian suppressed her laughter and nodded to Han Wanghuo:
"Then can we leave?"
"Yes." Han Wanghuo gave an affirmative answer.
Jiang Bai Mian then flipped her wrist and looked at her electronic watch:
"Are there any hotels or anything like that around here?"
It was getting late; if they took another mission, they would have to consider the issue of accommodation for the night.
Han Wanghuo pointed to the ceiling:
"On the other side of the entrance, there are a few rows of simple houses.
"You need to go to 'Kasha Inn' on the fourth floor first, exchange materials for an electronic card, and then you can open the door.
"If you try to force your way in, you'll see me again very soon."
Jiang Bai Mian nodded slightly, showing a smile and said:
"Thank you."
Weller glanced at her and volunteered:
"Let me take you there.
"Haven't you guys had dinner yet? My treat. I'm not bragging, but in Hongshi Collection, I'm second to none at finding people, I won't keep you waiting too long."
"Not for the time being." Jiang Bai Mian refused without the slightest hesitation.
At this moment, Shang Jian Yao asked with great interest:
"How good are you at hiding?"
Weller didn't hide his disappointment, and shook his head:
"I wouldn't be as neurotic as them, hiding for no reason."
"You're not a believer of the Vigilance Sect?" Jiang Bai Mian asked.
"No." Weller turned to look at Han Wanghuo, "Team Han isn't either."
"It's not conducive to maintaining order if the security officer is always hiding, so Hongshi Collection specifically hired me to do it." Han Wanghuo explained simply.
Jiang Bai Mian asked thoughtfully:
"You're not from Hongshi Collection?"
Han Wanghuo "Mm" said:
"I was originally a wasteland wanderer, and I've been a ruins hunter for many years."
Hearing this, Jiang Bai Mian turned to look at Bai Chen, as if saying with her eyes that she was similar.
The only difference was that Bai Chen ended up joining the large faction of Pangu Biology, while Han Wanghuo could only become a member of the smuggling node of Hongshi Collection.
Saying goodbye to Han Wanghuo and Weller, after leaving the Security Office, Jiang Bai Mian took Shang Jian Yao and the others and re-entered the Hunter's Guild diagonally opposite.
"Hervig is dead, does that mean our mission is automatically invalid?" She asked the same female clerk wearing the tiger mask.
If the mission was invalid, there would be no restrictions on them taking on other missions.
The clerk with the tiger mask said quickly:
"Don't worry.
"Hervig still has family, and the mission to retrieve the munitions is likely to continue, and you might even get a new mission to assist the Security Office in investigating the cause of Hervig's death, which you can take together."
"I see... then when will there be a definite answer?" Jiang Bai Mian was naturally reluctant to give up this well-paid mission.
Especially since they hadn't officially started the process yet, and didn't even have a general understanding of the bandits' situation.
The clerk with the tiger mask replied:
"By tomorrow afternoon at the latest."
"Okay." Jiang Bai Mian waved her hand, preparing to leave.
At this moment, the clerk with the tiger mask said with a slightly trembling voice:
"Everyone, you should still buy some masks; it's dangerous for you to walk around looking the way you do, I'm scared just seeing it.
"Hervig must have been killed because he didn't hide well enough."
Although Hervig could have hidden better, so that the murderer couldn't find him, then he probably wouldn't have died, but when you say it like that, it always feels like the person who fails at "hide-and-seek" will die silently... Jiang Bai Mian slandered in her heart, nodding "following good advice":
"Thank you."
"So, where can we buy masks?" Shang Jian Yao asked with bright eyes, helping.
"Aren't you going to 'Kasha Inn'? You can exchange for some masks when you exchange for the electronic card." The clerk with the tiger mask said quickly.
"Okay!" Shang Jian Yao responded with great pleasure.
After leaving the Hunter's Guild, Jiang Bai Mian glanced at him:
"You want to do as the Romans do?"
"Don't you think it would feel great to play music on the speaker while wearing a mask to fight enemies?" Shang Jian Yao tried his best to describe the scene he imagined.
"It's a bit like an old-world masquerade ball..." Jiang Bai Mian recalled, "As for what it feels like, it depends on what song you play and what kind of mask you wear."
After that "ball" in the City Lord's Mansion's Noble Council Hall, she confirmed that Shang Jian Yao's speaker had a lot of strange songs, and she didn't know if they were there originally or exchanged from the "Rootless" Merchant Group.
In short, she didn't dare to think back to those scenes at the time, for fear of contaminating herself.
While speaking, they first returned to the parking lot, took a box of supplies, and then went up to the fourth floor and found "Kasha Inn."
Without a doubt, there was no one here either.
Inside the door was a row of chairs, seemingly for waiting. The room wasn't deep; at the bottom was a wall with a metal door like a window.
On both sides of the metal door were notices written in Ashlands language and Red River language:
"Please knock."
Shang Jian Yao swooshed over, bent his fingers, and knocked on the metal window called the "door,"咚咚.
After a few seconds, the loudspeaker high in the room rang, transmitting a deliberately changed female voice:
"Everyone, how many rooms do you want, how many nights?"
"Awesome." Shang Jian Yao sincerely praised.
He could sense that the innkeeper was behind that wall, but there were at least three thick obstacles in between.
In other words, other than an Awakened, no one could attack the innkeeper in a short period of time.
This was a way of hiding.
Jiang Bai Mian shook her head:
"Crude.
"Exchange some surveillance cameras with 'Mechanical Paradise,' and then pull a few lines, hiding outside Hongshi Collection and remotely operating them, wouldn't it be more hidden and safer?"
The loudspeaker high in the room rang again:
"Lady, that's the hiding method for the rich, it requires robot assistance, responsible for collecting supplies and issuing electronic cards; if you don't have money, you can only do it like me."