Chapter 54: Intricate and Complicated

On one side, there is the sound of the phone ringing. On the other, the vibration of a call coming in.

The timing of the two is so coincidental that it makes both Li Jing and Chen Yuran furrow their brows, glancing at each other.

After exchanging glances, Chen Yuran pulls out her cell phone to check it.

"The call on my end is from Dai Hong. It seems that the information you supplied has indeed revealed something, something relevant to the case of the Evil Cultivators. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be calling me."

With that, she gets up and moves to the side to answer her phone.

Watching her walk away, Li Jing, looking slightly puzzled, pulls out his own cell phone to check it. He sees the call is from Kong Wu.

Without overthinking it, Li Jing answers the call.

As soon as he picks up, Kong Wu’s words come through, sounding indifferent.

"Li Jing, maybe you should not return to work at all?"

!!!

Li Jing.

Was about to ask why, when Kong Wu chuckles with malicious glee.

"Just messing with you, don’t worry."

With that, he speaks seriously.

"Captain Dai of the Major Case Team Six just called me, saying he wants to borrow you again. He didn’t mention what the matter was, but consider your vacation cancelled. Go to the Patrol Branch and find Captain Dai now. Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu will join you there later. The areas your Heavenly King Group were patrolling will temporarily be shared between the Flying Immortal Group and the Long Night Group."

Knowing Dai Hong had reached out to Kong Wu again, specifically requesting him, didn’t surprise Li Jing too much.

Setting aside whether or not it was his information that revealed a lead for Dai Hong, most likely the latter’s call to Chen Yuran was due to new clues in the Evil Cultivators case.

Chen Yuran is from the Security Department, not part of Major Case Team Six.

If it’s unrelated to the case of Evil Cultivators, Dai Hong wouldn’t have reason to connect with her.

If he reached out to Chen Yuran, it was certain that he wouldn’t leave out him.

After all, he’d also been involved in the Evil Cultivators case.

With new developments in the case, it made sense to bring back the "old team".

However, he was surprised that Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu were also drafted in.

Dai Hong had met Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu previously, but back then, the three had barely spoken, scarcely even associates.

What exactly caught his attention about those two?

Li Jing was full of doubts, but he didn’t ask further over the call. He simply replied.

"Understood, I’m heading over to the Patrol Branch immediately."

"Hurry up, it’s urgent over there."

Once Kong Wu responded, he hung up.

As soon as Li Jing ended his call, Chen Yuran hung up her own on the other side. As she walked upstairs wearing slippers with a "click-clack" sound, she said.

"It seems there have been follow-ups to the Evil Cultivators case. Dai Hong didn’t give any specifics over the phone, just said it was related to the information that you provided and asked us to gather at the meeting room. Wait for me for a moment as I go upstairs to change."

Upon hearing this, Li Jing nodded, starting to clean up the leftover dishes from her meal while feeling secretly amazed.

Not too long ago, Chen Yuran was saying that it wasn’t a good idea to take direct action on this matter, and they could only discreetly search and investigate for useful information.

It had only been three hours since he relayed the information to Dai Hong, and results had already come in.

Not only were there results, but there was also confirmation that it had a connection with the case of the Evil Cultivators.

The efficiency of Major Case Team Six really deserved commendation - truly impressive.

...

About ten minutes later, Li Jing and Chen Yuran arrived at the North City Patrol Branch by flight.

When these two arrived at the meeting room, all the members of Major Case Team Six who took part in the operation to escort Yang Yongan that morning were already present, along with a few who did not participate.

Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu had also arrived.

At that time, these two were sitting in a corner of the meeting room.

Seeing Li Jing entering from afar, the two of them each raised their hand in greeting.

Li Jing responded with a slight smile, turning towards Dai Hong who had been waiting for him in the conference room, and walked over to sit next to Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu.

Chen Yuran followed him, also taking a seat next to him.

Seeing that the two were seated, Dai Hong began to speak.

"Now that everyone is here, let’s begin."

With these words, he waved his hand and activated the projector with a strand of Spiritual Qi.

Seventeen case files then appeared.

"Three hours ago, Assistant Inspector Li from the Assistant Inspector Department provided me with some information. Recently, quite a few people trapped in the One Realm have mysteriously broken through to the Second Realm, going to North City First Hospital for bodily examinations to confirm their realm. This matter is filled with peculiarities. However, since the First Hospital did not detect any abnormalities, it was not reported."

Listening to this opening statement, the members of the Major Crime Unit Six in attendance exchanged glances.

Even those who hadn’t participated in the morning action had already heard about Li Jing’s performance in the investigation of the case.

With a new development in the case, and one that was again linked to Li Jing, everyone was somewhat startled.

Lu Yangcheng and Yi Xiuzhu turned their heads to look at Li Jing when his name was mentioned.

Before the projector, Dai Hong continued with his narrative.

"There has been no progress in the investigation of this matter, but I have obtained a piece of information from the Intelligence Department. Two years ago, there was a case in Lingnan City involving a new type of illicit substance. The substance was touted as safe and reliable, exploiting the desperate hopes of the people trapped in the One Realm to make a profit."

"The so-called ’safe and reliable’ was, of course, non-existent. Virtually everyone involved with this new illicit substance died within a week due to the destruction of their spiritual foundation, succumbing to Spiritual Qi depletion syndrome."

"As only some residues were detected in the victims’ bodies, and no actual sample was available, the composition of the illicit substance involved in the case remained unclear. When the Lingnan City Patrol Branch traced related clues two years ago, the criminals had already escaped. In the end, all victims in the case, aside from five who went missing, died."

While speaking, Dai Hong accessed a piece of identity information using the projector beside him.

Li Jing and Chen Yuran were both startled when they saw the information.

The identity information belonged to none other than Xie Guangkun, whom the two of them had slain together.

Before the two could think any more about it, Dai Hong spoke again.

"The criminal Xie Guangkun, confirmed to be a member of an evil cultivator gang, has been slain. There is no one by this name in the Hua Country’s household registration system. There are quite a few people with similar names, but none of them have any related biometric certification information. The Forensics Department spared no effort in this regard, but they found nothing. That was until the Intelligence Department investigated the illicit substance case two hours ago, and a breakthrough appeared."

Saying this, he called up a list with the names of up to a hundred people.

"This is the victim list from the case of the new illicit substance in Lingnan City two years ago. Among them was someone named Xie Miao, who had a facial similarity of 70% with Xie Guangkun. A few months before it was confirmed that he was a victim, he underwent a liver transplant to replace his liver. To be thorough, I had the Forensics Department separately compare the biological characteristics of Xie Guangkun’s liver, confirming that it matched the liver recorded in the medical system that Xie Miao had received."

The people at the meeting exchanged puzzled looks upon hearing these words.

A similarity of 70% might mean they looked alike, but it was not enough to confirm they were the same person.

Moreover, Xie Miao was already a confirmed victim on record, and his biometric certification information would definitely be in the household registration system.

A simple comparison could easily yield results.

The biological characteristics of Xie Guangkun and Xie Miao did not match, indicating that they are not the same person.

Yet the transplanted liver was a match...

Li Jing, sitting in his seat, found this very strange and raised more questions in his heart.

Xie Miao was confirmed to be a victim in the new illicit substance case in Lingnan City, and should have been dead for two years. How could someone who is already dead appear as an evil cultivator?

While wondering, Dai Hong pulled up Xie Miao’s identity information.

"Xie Miao was not directly confirmed dead, but was rather one of the missing victims."

Li Jing furrowed his brow.

Xie Miao was not directly confirmed dead, only missing?

In which case, Xie Guangkun might indeed be Xie Miao.

But how did he survive?

The victims in the case in Lingnan City two years ago all had some residue detected in them, which confirmed it as a new illicit substance case. How could anyone survive after being contaminated with such a substance?

At this moment, Dai Hong, standing before the projector, began to speak with a serious expression.

"There is another situation you need to know about. Yang Yongan, who was killed at the examination institute’s court, turned into foam. The samples taken by the Forensics Department from the foam for testing did not match the biological characteristics in his personal identity record."