Chapter 26

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Protagonist:

Milton

Mins

Seeing Milton, the anxiety on this Inspector's face eased by a few degrees, as if he had seen a savior.

"You're the 'Hell Tax Collector'?!"

Don't call me such an awkward and unpleasant nickname...

Milton roasted him wildly in his heart, wishing he could punch Brandon, this nonsense-spouting guy, but he still maintained a Boss's demeanor and replied in a steady tone: "Stand there and speak, don't get agitated, take your time."

The shared identity of Inspector could not make Milton feel closeness or safety.

Who knew what this person was here to do?

His enemies at the Checkpoint were too many to count.

That Inspector remained very anxious: "Three days ago..."

"Tell me your name first." Milton interrupted, "Take your time, we're not short on these few seconds."

It wasn't that he necessarily needed the other party to give his name first, but to seize control of the conversation, establish his own status, and use his attitude to make this colleague calm down as much as possible.

"Just call me Luz..." The other party's calm and composed attitude did indeed relax Luz's mindset a bit, his tone also gradually calmed down, "A colleague who went on an outbound mission with me has gone missing. The last place she appeared was right here!"

Colleague... missing...

Milton immediately thought of what those three vagrants had just said, that a police officer had recently gone missing nearby here.

It seems the one missing wasn't a police officer, but an Inspector...

At the same time, Milton also let down half his guard against this colleague before him.

The "Boss's" house location wasn't known to anyone beforehand, it was almost impossible for someone to have arranged everything in advance... yet a piece of information appearing simultaneously in two different channels, its credibility skyrocketed.

Of course, some extreme situations couldn't be ruled out, so Milton only let down half his guard.

"This matter, you should report to the police, not come find me." Milton's expression didn't change, "I'm not responsible, and I won't look for people."

"No... no!" Luz got agitated again, "This isn't a simple disappearance, Veronica just vanished like that... Do you understand? No one was surprised, no one reported it, colleagues never mentioned her again, no relatives or friends came looking, it's as if the Checkpoint never had this person at all."

The expression on Luz's face gradually turned sinister and fearful: "If it weren't for these past few days when someone said he'd seen Veronica while I was questioning people on 'Green Leaf Street', I would've even doubted whether Veronica actually existed at all, whether I had a mental illness and hallucinated such a person..."

"She just, evaporated from the world!"

Brandon, on the side, listened with his hair standing on end.

Milton pondered for a moment, then asked a key question: "Before she disappeared, did she investigate anything?"

Facing such a disappearance, Milton's mood rippled slightly, but not much — he knew if he died, it would probably be the same ending.

Luz recalled for a long time before uncertainly revealing a detail: "Veronica once complained to me, saying 'Green Leaf Street' recently had a whole bunch of good-for-nothing vagrants appear, complained about a charitable foundation... besides that there was nothing. We're not suicidal, we definitely wouldn't go touch any dangerous cases."

This isn't dangerous? Do you guys have some misunderstanding about medical industry charitable foundations?

Milton was momentarily at a loss for words.

People from small places generally have lower education levels... Milton could tell at a glance the drugs had problems, could immediately deduce from the history of this so-called charitable foundation what they were doing, yet many people, limited by their experience, couldn't realize this kind of thing.

It's just that Brandon often deals with the Fan Kang Gang, often deals with the Black Pharmacy, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been able to detect the problem at the first time either.

This Luz, his investigation direction is the same as Milton's... only he doesn't know what enemy he's facing, so before he realizes the severity of the problem and backs out, pull him onto the pirate ship first.

Milton immediately spoke: "I can try to help you find her, but you must also do something for me."

The missing female Inspector probably discovered some important information about the Qingteng Foundation, which is why she was silenced.

If we can find her or the clues she left behind, perhaps the investigation progress will have a major breakthrough!

Luz nodded gratefully: "You say it! Thank you so much for your help... Veronica once saved my life on a mission, her cousin also got sick and died, I can't just ignore her. Whatever you need me to do, just say the word!"

"When you execute missions, help me gather all suspicious intelligence. Including things like what you just said, about charitable foundations." Milton spoke blandly, "If I have an urgent matter and call you, you must drop everything and come over. Of course, all this comes with compensation. Can you do it?"

Doing work and actually getting compensation?

Luz found it a bit hard to believe he'd hear such a niche term in a place where gangs run rampant and order is near collapse.

Even working part-time for the Checkpoint doing outbound missions, being a Customs Pursuit Officer has no compensation — Pursuit Officers must use a search document that's at most used to scare small-time hoodlums to extort fines and taxes, must hand over a not-small figure to Varta every month, only the remaining income counts as compensation.

He thought this "Hell Tax Collector", "Murder Maniac" would just directly shoot dead anyone who didn't listen to him, never expected there'd actually be compensation?

"No problem! No problem!" Luz thought of his unemployed wife and elderly at home, and the child just born, and hurriedly nodded agreement, "I'll work for you!"

【Luz has become an "Informant", currently an Ally】

Seeing this prompt, Milton finally let down that last half of his guard, he turned and got in the car, instructing: "Change locations to talk, keep up."

First go collect the two thousand US dollars from the Fan Kang Gang killer, then return to the stronghold, handle some loose ends, discuss the next countermeasures.

The Fan Kang Gang won't give Milton too much time.

The address the killer provided was near the Central Church, Milton searched the room and found over 2300 US dollars and a Tokarev TT-33 pistol.

After taking a simple look at the "Boss's" grave in the church cemetery, the three returned to the Black Pharmacy on Old Street.

The pharmacy exterior had already been cleaned up, a new main gate installed, the half-collapsed stairs at the sewer entrance propped up with a few iron frames and iron plates as a temporary replacement, barely usable.

Milton followed the stairs, walked into the small living room on basement level 1, Brandon and Luz followed behind and entered, then each stood on one side of the room, faces serious, waiting for Milton's orders.

This scene... finally looks like a small team.

Milton sat on a worn sofa covered in patches, enduring intense drowsiness, mentally calculating his current funds — aside from the cash flow necessary to maintain the underground stronghold, the usable money now totaled over 24,000 US dollars, usable Red Points totaled just under 70,000.

Converting gold bars and the pharmacy's drug reserves into cash takes time... not necessarily in time.

Good news is, after preliminarily having his own faction, Milton exchanging some pistol models and all ammunition no longer requires Red Points, bad news is, exchanging with points still has cost-effectiveness far worse than buying with money.

Milton basically figured it out, no matter what's exchanged, the Panel exchange is for emergencies, quantity is limited, cost-effectiveness isn't high either.

After figuring out all resources he could mobilize, Milton turned to look at Brandon: "Go find the neighbor, buy his house, use it as our garage, when bought come find me for reimbursement."

The Panel can now exchange Normal Points for some civilian vehicles, but the prerequisite is having at least one garage.

So, buy a garage first!

Brandon nodded: "Alright, I'll go right now. I'll also check how much fuel is left in the generator while I'm at it."

Luz watched Brandon leave out of the corner of his eye, then saw Milton looking at him; as a Newcomer, he couldn't help but feel some Tension in his heart.

Don't Know what Mission I'll get. Hope the Danger isn't too high...

Milton forced his eyelids open, waved at Luz, and Opened his Mouth to say: "You go out, close the Door behind you."

Luz couldn't quite understand his Mission, and let out a puzzled sound: "Ah... ah?"

Milton took a deep breath, Pointed at the Door, and said: "Get out, I want to sleep."

PS: Begging everyone not to stockpile chapters during the free period, it'll really kill the book. Readers who like this book, please read along during the free period! Begging, begging, and begging again. A group has also been created, everyone can Enter to discuss plot and settings.