The sound of mechanical movement in the rubber factory masked Yao Ruoning’s intentionally suppressed footsteps.
It was getting noisier here.
She followed the sound of the gunshot from earlier, getting closer and closer until she was less than fifty meters away from the aura of Mana.
She also heard a voice; it was that officer.
“Repeating: the suspect has committed suicide. Over.” He was communicating with someone over his phone.
He didn’t notice Yao Ruoning approaching.
She quietly hid behind a pipe, peering at the scene through a gap.
That Mr. Zhang was sprawled on the ground with signs of a struggle on his body.
A hole had been blasted through his head by a bullet; it looked as if he had pointed the gun at his own chin and committed suicide.
Officer Liu was covered in a significant amount of blood, which he was currently wiping away.
There were also signs of a struggle on him. It seemed he had fought Mr. Zhang and won, which might have been what drove Mr. Zhang to take his own life.
“I know! I told you, I just subdued him. I was about to arrest him when he suddenly killed himself! I didn’t even have time to react!”
Officer Liu was agitated, shouting at the person on the other end of the line.
The person on the other side was likely from the Command Center or a colleague.
Officer Liu listened for a moment before replying, “How should I know? I only questioned him and then followed him. He spotted me, so I chased him. I never imagined he would do something like this.”
“How did I know he was suspicious? Damn it, this guy’s ID was brand new. But you have to swipe your ID to get Underground. How could an ID card that gets used every single time look that new?”
“That’s why I followed him. Sigh, let’s not talk about this here. Just send someone quickly; I’m guarding the scene.”
After hanging up, Officer Liu slumped down and sat on the ground, looking dejected.
‘He probably hasn’t killed many people, has he?’
Technically, he hadn’t killed the man himself, but the man had died because of him, so it was natural for him to feel uneasy.
Furthermore, his heart was filled with unrest. He didn’t know what was going on with this person, but he had a faint feeling he was involved in some major case.
‘What exactly did he do to go this far? To commit suicide the moment he’s caught?’
‘Could it be that if he were caught, something even more terrifying than death would happen?’
Both Yao Ruoning and Officer Liu were in a state of confusion, unable to find a rational explanation for what they had encountered.
A few minutes later, Officer Liu calmed down.
He began taking photos of the scene with his phone and sent them to his colleagues.
Then, he started searching the man’s body, arranging his personal belongings and photographing them all.
Next, he left the area, seemingly heading toward the employee breakroom to look for clues related to Mr. Zhang.
Perhaps he wanted to claim credit early. He realized this might be a good opportunity and wanted to find something valuable before his colleagues arrived.
After he left, Yao Ruoning quietly emerged.
She first made sure that Officer Liu had actually gone and wasn’t trying to bait her out.
Then, she also took out her phone and snapped a flurry of photos of the corpse, recording the man’s appearance and inspecting his personal belongings.
She didn’t touch anything with her hands, fearing she might leave fingerprints.
Present-day Yao Ruoning wasn’t as repulsed by the sight of a corpse anymore; she felt a sense of habituation.
After documenting the deceased Mr. Zhang on her phone, she began searching for the source of the Mana.
Suddenly, she felt the Mana auras moving.
She quickly gave chase, twisting and turning through the facility until she reached a delivery point.
There were numerous conveyor belts here, with dense rows of rubber blocks placed upon them.
Focusing her Perception on the sources of the Mana auras, she discovered it wasn’t just one item, but dozens of rubber blocks emitting the energy.
Robotic arms were moving the blocks onto the conveyor belts. She had no idea where they were being sent.
She hurried after them, her gaze and Perception firmly locked onto the Magic-infused Rubber Blocks.
When she reached them, she took one. It was large and heavy, and she could barely lift it.
She had no choice but to hide that one block in a secluded spot.
She continued to track the destination of the remaining Magic-infused Rubber Blocks.
Observing them closely during the process, she noticed that the rubber blocks on the countless conveyor belts looked almost identical to these special Magic-infused Rubber Blocks.
The color was just a tiny bit lighter. Without looking carefully, it would be quite difficult to tell the difference.
The Magic-infused Rubber Blocks were transported by a conveyor belt to a location where they were boxed up and mixed with regular cargo.
This crate of rubber was then moved by a robotic arm onto a freight train, leaving the rubber factory via the tracks.
To keep up with it, Yao Ruoning had to start flying, chasing after the freight train.
The chase lasted for thirty minutes, all the way to a Distribution Center.
There, she discovered another shocking fact.
She had lost the crate of rubber that emitted the Mana aura because there were many other items here emitting Mana auras as well. They were all already boxed up, and she didn’t know what was inside them.
Some of the items here were being sent to other locations for further processing, while others were being sent to the surface.
A shocked Yao Ruoning patted her head, trying to calm down and think about what was going on.
However, her little head didn’t have enough intelligence to figure out the sequence of events.
She hurriedly tried to check with Jin Luan and Huan Hong. Opening the group chat, she found they were still talking about the Tentacle Monster and Mother Li!
‘How can a Tentacle Monster be as important as this information?’
She quickly sent the photos of the corpse and some of the information she had gathered during her Investigation into the group.
In the end, Jin Luan and Huan Hong simply acknowledged they had seen it, saying they would look into it after they finished what they were doing.
They were completely captivated by the Tentacle Monster!
Checking Liang Tai’s Live Room again, she saw that the Defeated Team had been completely routed.
Now, they could only use helicopters to strafe from a higher altitude, continuously attacking the Octopus Tentacle Monster.
Jin Luan and Huan Hong had watched the spectacle for a long time.
To prevent the Tentacle Monster from hurting anyone else, they had prepared for battle and were about to join the fray.
It was understandable that they thought the Tentacle Monster was more important than the information Yin Lin sent.
The Tentacle Monster was tangibly hurting people and destroying property—it was an imminent crisis.
How could the small matter Yin Lin discovered be as important as the Tentacle Monster?
Thus, Yin Lin continued to wait there, hoping to see if she could find anything new.
She didn’t find any more objects containing Mana.
The rest of the goods at the Distribution Center were just ordinary cargo.
‘Should I tell Huang Yi about this?’
She shook her head.
‘Forget it, I won’t tell him for now. I’ve become too dependent on him, needing him for everything.’
Then, Yao Ruoning left the Underground Distribution Center.
She flew to a walkway and began walking, heading toward the next passenger Metro station.
She had to leave this place first.
It was difficult to continue tracking the goods from the Underground Distribution Center; she would have to check the cargo yards on the surface to find out more.
On her way back by Metro, Yao Ruoning opened her phone and watched the Magical Girl versus Tentacle Monster battle in Liang Tai’s Live Room.