Chapter 1597: The Insects That Let Themselves Go

He glared at the Ghost Ape, which quickly stuffed the last candy bean into its mouth, its monkey face full of innocence.

Dong Rui pointed at the net bag in He Lingchuan's hand: "We searched the entire manor for several days, and finally caught these two. I told you, insect puppets have a mountain of flaws; the one surnamed Tian must have left behind some that slipped through the net!"

Tian Yun had come to Yongquan Manor last time and released many insect puppets to collect intelligence. Although he later shook off Wanqi Liang's tracking and successfully escaped, Dong Rui was convinced that it was impossible for the insect puppets he released to be 100% recovered without a single one missing.

Yongquan Manor was too big, with complex terrain and many trees, so there must be some stragglers among the insect puppets.

The Yangshan people and his two demon puppets searched the manor for several days and finally found these two insect puppets that had let themselves go.

"What now?" He Lingchuan asked the expert for help.

"I've already fed them, and even fed them some medicine, so they'll be a bit more obedient." Dong Rui didn't know where he took out a cricket cage, but it wasn't woven from grass, "This is a cage woven from the young vines of the Demon-Eating Vine. You tie them up well, and put them in. When I'm not around, don't let them out, lest they hurt people at will."

"Tie them up?"

"Didn't you play with tying up golden beetles when you were a kid?"

He Lingchuan shook his head.

"You rich young masters really haven't played with good things." Dong Rui sneered, took out a spider silk to tie the gap behind the beetle's neck, and tied a small knot.

During this process, the carnivorous beetle that could kill Situ Yu just lay obediently on his finger, not moving at all.

Dong Rui tied the spider silk and threw it into the air, and the beetle flew up.

It instinctively flew toward the window, but Dong Rui pulled it lightly, and the beetle was pulled back by the spider silk, landing on the desktop.

"The demon puppet master controlling it isn't here, so now it acts entirely on instinct." Dong Rui stroked the beetle's back to soothe it a few times, grabbed it, and threw it into the cricket cage, his movements very casual, "Insect puppets have no intelligence at all. Their demon puppet master must have conducted a large amount of instinct-strengthening training on them."

He Lingchuan pressed his neck, feeling a bit tired: "Can you say something I can understand?"

Explaining to Xiao Bai was more strenuous than doing an experiment: "Explaining too much you won't understand either, so I'll just say it simply. That guy Tian must have an ancestor bug in his hand, also called a King Bug, just like a queen bee or a queen ant. As long as the ancestor bug listens to him, the other insect puppets will listen to him too."

For the sake of rigor, he added: "Beetles don't naturally have this disposition; that guy Tian modified them."

"Oh, understood, very shallow."

"These two guys in the cricket cage have been away from the ancestor bug for a long time, and they have undergone instinct-strengthening training. Once they feel the aura of the ancestor bug—"

He Lingchuan followed his words: "Will they instinctively go find the ancestor bug?"

"Right, there are too many of these gregarious insect puppets, and it's impossible for the demon puppet master to control them one by one and recover them one by one, so their nature was designed like this."

"We take these two insect puppets for a walk in Tian Shui City, and we might find their owner?"

"Theoretically, yes." Dong Rui also had to face reality, "But there are two problems. First, Tian Shui City is very big, and we don't know which corner that guy Tian is hiding in; second, I don't know how large the range is for these two insect puppets to sense the ancestor bug. Maybe a few hundred zhang, maybe only a few dozen zhang. If the range is too small, we might miss it."

"It can't be too small." He Lingchuan asserted, "Tian Yun released them into Yongquan Manor, which shows he can control insect puppets over a large range."

Yongquan Manor covered a large area, and the east, west, south, and north were more than a few hundred zhang.

"The location where we ate that day was more than three *li* away from your mountain cellar." He Lingchuan pointed at the insect puppets and asked, "Where were these two caught?"

"In the dense forest behind the northwest warehouse."

"That's even further, more than ten *li* away."

This time it was Dong Rui's turn to shake his head: "That's impossible! No demon puppet master can control insect puppets from that far away! Unless they flew there randomly on their own. But this kind of beetle, its habit before modification was not to migrate. Although it has wings, it only likes to lie on a tree."

"Maybe it became more diligent after modification?" He Lingchuan tugged at the spider silk tying the beetle, "It's good that their sensing range is large. The next step is to determine the search area."

Tian Shui City is very big, how can we narrow down the search area? "Tian Yun said he came from the Zhengxin Chamber of Commerce. I sent someone to check, and there really is such a chamber of commerce, and the chamber of commerce has two storefronts in Tian Shui City. They really do pet business, and the leader of the chamber of commerce is really called Tian Yun, but the main store is not in Tian Shui City. I don't know if this Tian Yun is that Tian Yun?" He Lingchuan analyzed, "When he said the Zhengxin Chamber of Commerce, he should have wanted to gain my trust, and this is also easy to verify. He didn't need to lie about this."

"Then go to the Zhengxin Chamber of Commerce for a walk?"

"I sent someone to follow him, and he knew his tracks were exposed, so he definitely wouldn't appear there; he said the Zhengxin Chamber of Commerce, also because he was sure I couldn't find him through the chamber of commerce. In other words, he wouldn't go near any cargo warehouses, storefronts, or properties under the chamber of commerce's name, and could only find another place to live in Tian Shui City."

Dong Rui added: "Xiao An said, 'Father's' residence is big and spacious, and there are many people who listen to him. She went out with her father twice, and there was never a shortage of people by his side at any moment."

"Both are demon puppet masters, others have servants in groups and are wealthy, why are you all alone?" He Lingchuan launched a personal attack.

Dong Rui spat: "He has money! If I had that much money, I could also have a bunch of people kneeling down and calling me daddy!"

Who wouldn't want to have food delivered to their mouth and clothes delivered to their body? "Isn't it because my backer isn't hard enough?"

"Am I not enough?" He Lingchuan pointed at his own nose, "Did my 1,764,238 taels of silver go down the drain?"

"Uh..." Dong Rui was speechless.

Why does this guy keep such clear accounts? It seems he was the one who withdrew so much research funding from He Lingchuan, back and forth.

Dong Rui coughed: "In short, Tian Yun has many people around him, and he should be surrounded by people when he goes out; he has money, so he wouldn't stay in that kind of low-end small inn, so he either stays in a luxury inn or bought a large mansion himself."

He Lingchuan pondered: "When talking to him that day, he was very unfamiliar with the recent situation in Tian Shui City, didn't grab one or two properties in the new city, and even only heard the name of the Youhu Shanzhuang I was in charge of, not knowing what it was."

"In other words, in the past two months, he likely wasn't in Tian Shui City. Assuming he originally had property in Tian Shui City, if he bought it under the name of Tian Yun or the Zhengxin Chamber of Commerce, he can't live there now." ===== CHAPTER 1598 =====