Dark Light Chaser.

Chapter 186 Think of Your Family
Tian Hao's move completely baffled Jin Ping'an.

"You're saying he's the owner of the RV? But we were just here..."

"That was just for show, to make them think we didn't know Li Rong's whereabouts either."

Tian Hao asked Hai Tu for a cigarette, lit it, and took a puff: "After all, he's just the car owner, and we can't produce any evidence that he was involved in this kidnapping case in a short time."

He could easily use an excuse like "the RV parked in the garage was stolen," so instead of arguing with him in the team's interrogation room, it's better to get straight to the point.

"Didn't you say we can't use torture to extract confessions? What if someone finds out..."

“Special times call for special measures. Besides, when have I ever used torture to extract a confession? Weren’t we just looking for Li Rong’s whereabouts?”

Tian Hao put on an innocent act: "We just found Li Rong, who had been kidnapped by some unknown bounty hunter, in a nearby trash can through information from an informant."

He stepped forward and knocked on the glass: "Li Rong can't see outside. This glass is the same type as the one used in the detachment's interrogation, and it's also one-way transparent glass."

If you're worried, you can have the sea hare blindfold him later.

Just as Tian Hao was about to introduce the modified garage to Jin Ping'an, Hai Tu slipped a tablet computer into his hand.

He said impatiently, "Are you done talking? If not, stop talking now. Get started. You can talk for as long as you want after we finish asking the questions."

"Okay, once you've prepared everything, you can proceed with the interrogation."

Tian Hao temporarily abandoned his plan to introduce the secret base to Jin Ping'an.

He opened his tablet, tapped on a video app, and a man appeared on the screen, strapped to a chair and unconscious.

Jin Pingan glanced at the tablet, then looked at the room in front of him.

It was obvious that the footage being played on the tablet was from the surveillance camera inside the room in front of them.

Judging by how skilled these two are, this is definitely not the first time they've done this.

They say they follow the rules, but when it comes to actually doing things, they're ruthless!

Damn it! Adults' hearts are all dirty!

Jin Ping'an cursed inwardly, but wore a smug smile on his face.

"You're half an hour late! I've been ready for a while now."

The sea hare, wearing a monkey headgear with large, dark eyes and blood-red lips, looked incredibly eerie against the dark lighting of the garage.

Especially the eyes on the hood; they gave me goosebumps all over on a hot day, and made my skin crawl.

However, something even stranger happened next.

"Cough hmm↑ Hmm, ah~ hmm~ OK."

The sea hare's voice disappeared, and in its place came a girl's voice filled with an eerie atmosphere coming from inside the hood.

"Fuck!"

Jin Ping'an, who felt creeped out just by looking at the monkey headgear, immediately did a triple backflip after hearing the eerie voice.

Tian Hao looked at Jin Ping'an with a wry smile: "You're such a coward."

"After all, he's just a child, which is understandable."

"It's sea hare speaking in a girlish voice," said the sea hare.

Jin Ping'an clenched his teeth, grinding them together with a creaking sound: "That sound of yours?"

As Hai Tu put on his white coat, he said, "Haven't you heard of voice imitation? In our line of work, you can't get by without some skills."

Besides, Tian Hao always leaves all the dirty and hard work to me; who knows, I might get recognized by my voice one day.”

While explaining the reason to Jin Ping'an, Hai Tu also took the opportunity to diss Tian Hao.

Even if you say that, I won't pay more.

"Tsk."

The sea hare turned its head and made a clicking sound.

…………

It's so cold... Where am I?
The sea hare turned the air conditioning in the torture chamber to its lowest setting, and stimulated by the surrounding environment, Li Rong's consciousness began to slowly recover.

I remember late at night... I encountered it on my way home...

As he gradually regained consciousness, Li Rong's body trembled violently as he remembered what had happened the night before.

Li Rong subconsciously tried to get up, but found himself bound hand and foot to an iron chair, with even his feet tied up.

Kidnapping? Is it one of Wang Youcai's men?
Before Li Rong could think it through, a strange man wearing a monkey headgear and a white coat walked into the room.

"Who are you? What do you want to do?"

Li Rong uttered the standard line for a villainous victim: "If it's about money, we're easy to talk about. No matter how much they offer you, I can give double!"

This phrase may be overused, but it's actually quite useful in the black market.

Because you can't expect a desperate man doing dirty work to have any professional ethics.

Will a bad reputation prevent me from getting business?
Please, we're all outlaws, no fixed middlemen, we all do one job and live paycheck to paycheck. At worst, we can just change our name and location and still get jobs.

There are people who take a deposit and run away; it's perfectly normal for them to switch sides at the last minute for money.

The kind of assassins in movies who can't be persuaded and prioritize the mission above all else are usually trained agents or have a fixed intermediary.

Most killers are like programmers in a company; they only need either code or a person to run.

Li Rong's biggest fear was that the other party was a trusted subordinate trained by Wang Youcai.

However, Wang Youcai has only been in power for a few years, so he probably... can't cultivate loyal subordinates, right?
Li Rong's heart was pounding.

However, the sea hare's subsequent behavior frightened him even more.

Sea Hare opened the iron door to the torture chamber and pushed out a small cart and a gurney from the adjacent storage room.

The three-tiered cart was filled with all sorts of small items.

On top are scissors, tweezers, scalpel handles, a stack of replacement bagged blades, pliers, a small hammer, a bone chisel, hemostats, needle holders, absorbent towels, and other surgical supplies.

The pliers and bone chisels still bore dark red marks, as if silently telling the story of their purpose.

The second layer consisted of a pile of bottles and jars, some of which were transparent and contained a yellowish-brown liquid that didn't look like anything good.

The bottom layer contains a large battery with two wires attached.

To ensure Li Rong could see clearly, Hai Tu pretended that the cart was difficult to turn and deliberately pushed the cart in front of him.

"Ahhhh!!!!"

Just as Li Rong's toes were tense and he was filled with fear, a shrill scream came from the storeroom, startling him.

If the iron chair hadn't weighed thirty or forty pounds, his jump would have surely knocked it over.

A sinister voice came from behind Li Rong: "We don't have many replacement blades left, so use them sparingly."

"I know."

The sea hare said in a girlish voice filled with an eerie atmosphere, "You're making so much noise over there. Cut off your tongue first, then sew your mouth back up."

"Mind yourself."

A dozen seconds later, the piercing scream turned into a muffled whimper.

Finally, with the sound of the iron gate closing, that faint sob disappeared.

The iron door to the storage room was located to Li Rong's side and behind, so he couldn't see what was inside at all. He could only imagine what was behind him based on the sounds.

For example, on the operating table, a person whose intestines have been cut open looks at you with terrified eyes.

Or perhaps, after having their organs removed, the dying victim struggles to crawl toward the door, only to be grabbed by the heel and dragged back. In despair, they stretch out a hand and watch helplessly as the iron gate closes.

Li Rong felt increasingly terrified as he thought about it.

Could this guy have been targeted by those kidney harvesters?!

Outside the room, Tian Hao calmly used his tablet to turn off the Bluetooth speaker and voice changer.

Jin Ping'an, standing to the side, didn't know what expression to make, so he could only open his mouth and twitch his cheeks, giving the two of them a thumbs up.

"Brother... no, sister, let's talk this out. How much money do you want to let me go?"

Li Rong can only move his mouth now. Watching the sea hare begin to assemble the scalpel, he began to struggle: "Even if you take off all the usable things on my body, how much money can you get for them?"
How about this, I'll pay double! Double the price for the parts I need!

"Mr. Li, we are not after money."

Sea Hare drew an unknown liquid from the medicine bottle, held the syringe above his head, flicked it in front of the light, then expelled the air from the tip, spraying out some liquid in the process.

Even if the sea hare doesn't actually do anything, these preparatory actions alone are frightening enough.

Especially the monkey headgear and voice-altering of the sea hare; those are things that no ordinary person could pull off.

"What do you want? Everything is negotiable!"

Faced with the sea hare holding a syringe and gradually approaching, Li Rong's eyes widened so much they almost popped out of their sockets.

Sea Hare simply walked over and patted him on the shoulder: "Don't worry, someone wants to know some things and specifically asked us to invite you over. We're just doing our job for money, we won't do anything to you."

Could you move the needle a little further away?

Facing the needle pressed against her skin, Li Rong tried her best to stop her body from trembling.

What if you accidentally let the needle pierce your skin while you're shaking, and someone just happens to inject the weird stuff inside?
"What do you want to know?" Li Rong asked, suppressing his fear.

"Hu Yingshao".

The sea hare slowly uttered a name: "Tell me everything you know about him."

When Hu Yingshao was mentioned, Li Rong fell silent, as if Hu Yingshao's power was more terrifying than the torture he had imagined.

Seeing this, the sea hare said in a nonchalant tone, "Anyway, I never expected you to tell the truth from the beginning."

After saying that, he pierced Li Rong's skin with the syringe in his hand.

"and many more!"

Seeing that Hai Tu was serious, Li Rong quickly interrupted him: "I'll die if I tell anyone about him!"

The sea hare chuckled, amused by his words: "You're talking like you can walk out of this door alive just by keeping quiet."

As the needle pierced his skin, Li Rong felt the cool liquid flowing through his veins.

Sea Hare pulled out the needle and said, "You have fifteen minutes, or maybe ten. After all, this is my first time injecting according to the prescribed dosage, so please forgive me if I'm unsure about anything."

Damn it! That crazy woman!

Li Rong cursed inwardly.

Will he betray Hu Yingshao and be disposed of, or will he choose to remain silent and die in this house?
The former would surely die as long as Hu Yingshao didn't fall from power, and the latter would also surely die.

Both paths lead to dead ends, but Li Rong is more inclined to betray Hu Yingshao, at least he still has the chance to abscond with the money like Wang Youcai.

But when he thought of Hu Yingshao's methods, he began to hesitate again.

"Oh, by the way, I remember your wife and kids went on a trip recently? Hmm, Shuimu City is indeed a nice place. Although the tourism industry isn't as developed as Qianhua, it's still a place to have some fun."

Sea Hare pulled out a photo of a mother and child and uttered his usual interrogation phrase: "Think about your family. Would you prefer to be reunited on the surface or underground?"

This sentence became the final barbell that broke Li Rong's psychological defenses.

"What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with RVs. Do you know about Hu Yingshao's unusual hobby?" Hai Tu asked.

“…I know a little.”

"explain."

"This all started three months ago. He transferred ten million to me through overseas channels and asked me to help him buy a motorhome."

Li Rong recounted what he knew in detail: "Later, through Tao Jun, he introduced me to someone who looked very similar to Wang Sheng..."

Tao Jun and Wang Sheng were both subordinates of Wang Youcai, and Wang Youcai, like me, was promoted by Hu Yingshao.

As if worried that Hai Tu wouldn't understand their relationship, Li Rong explained it again.

Hai Tu glanced at Li Rong: "Then why didn't he go directly to Wang Youcai but instead went to you?"

"Because I'm easier to control? Who knows? After all, since Wang Youcai appeared, Hu Yingshao has paid little attention to me and has been very laissez-faire towards me."

Li Rong chuckled self-deprecatingly, a hint of resentment in his voice: "I was clearly one of the first people to follow him, but in the end, he promoted a peasant from the countryside to the top!"

Tian Hao, who was outside, couldn't help but roll his eyes.

Wang Youcai built himself into one of the underground industry giants in just a few years, relying on his own abilities.

You've been with Hu Yingshao for so long and you've only opened a few stores. No wonder they're not willing to support you.

Given Hu Yingshao's personality, the only reason he didn't deal with you, an insider, was because of our long-standing relationship.

………………

The first thing the sea hare did after coming out of the torture chamber was to take off its hood: "Damn it, wearing this thing was suffocating."

Jin Ping'an glanced at Li Rong, who was unconscious, and asked, "Hey! You didn't actually kill him, did you?"

"Kill him my ass, we injected him with fentanyl solution, not tetrodotoxin."

Sea Hare walked to the table, turned on the computer, and uploaded the video backup to the cloud.

Tian Hao's expression was not good, because Li Rong only confessed to some things, such as Hu Yingshao helping others launder money illegally through his works, and did not know much about the kidnapping case.

The only thing that could possibly help advance the case was the code name of the bald killer from last night.

"Thirteen."

Tian Hao muttered the numerical code to himself.

Was this just a name the assassin came up with randomly, or is it a disciplined criminal organization?
No one knows.

The more Tian Hao investigated the case, the deeper the waters became.

Every time he thought he had figured out the whole case and had overcome the obstacle, he found that there was an even bigger mountain behind it.

Tian Hao walked into the torture chamber and cut off a tuft of Li Rong's hair with a scalpel.

He planned to revisit the case once Jin Ping'an's condition improved slightly to see if Li Rong had lied.

………………

Two days have passed, and until the crucial evidence is found, everyone can only watch helplessly as Hu Yingshao continues to attend various events.

To avoid seeing it and being bothered, Jin Ping'an went back to the hospital.

Anyway, his body still needs to be observed for a while before he can be discharged from the hospital, so he can take care of the unconscious girl next door while he's at it.

While it was called taking care of him, it really just meant staying in the ward, playing on his phone, looking at the information Tian Hao sent, and keeping up with the progress of the case.

As usual, Jin Ping'an was curled up on the sofa in the ward, looking at the documents.

But today, an unexpected guest came to the ward.

"I heard you were hospitalized?"

Hearing a somewhat familiar voice, Jin Ping'an looked up at the door.

Ai Liang's figure came into his sight.

(End of this chapter)