Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 506 Hourly Room

The two left the department store and went straight to a nearby small hotel. Since they didn't know what was inside the box, Sun Hang decided to find a more private place before opening it.

He had considered using mind reading on Copper Finger, but Copper Finger, though weak, was still a monster hunter. He could sense Sun Hang using mind reading on him, and if the two fell out, it would be difficult for Sun Hang to transfer the mission to him... not to mention what if even Copper Finger didn't know what was in the box.

"Hello, I'd like a room for a few hours," Sun Hang said to the hotel receptionist.

Zhulong had already booked a hotel in Longcheng before they arrived, but the hotel was too far from where they were now; it would take at least two hours to walk there.

As for driving... it will take about two hours.

"A room for an hour?" The young woman at the front desk looked at Sun Hang, then at Xue Yue, who was following closely behind him and looked slightly nervous. "Just one room? Twin or double?"

"Either is fine," Sun Hang said.

"Anything is fine?" The receptionist's breath hitched. "Are you sure?"

"Confirmed." Sun Hang was a little puzzled. Why was it taking so long to book a room? Was there some other procedure involved in booking a room in Longcheng?
He resisted the urge to read the receptionist's mind and continued, "Any room is fine, we're in a hurry."

"Oh, I see... Sir, please take a look. These are the rooms we have left in our hotel." The receptionist took out a booklet from under the counter and handed it to Sun Hang. While Sun Hang was looking down at the booklet, she kept winking at Xue Yue behind him.

"This one will do." Sun Hang randomly selected an empty room. As soon as he looked up, the receptionist's expression immediately returned to that professional smile.

"Okay, as per usual, we need you to register your identity... Is this young lady an adult? What is your relationship with her?"

“She’s underage, my sister,” Sun Hang said casually.

"Sister?" A hint of suspicion flashed in the receptionist's eyes as she reached into the pocket on the side of her skirt and grabbed her phone.

"Would you please show us both your identification documents?" the receptionist asked.

In that instant, Sun Hang suddenly understood why the receptionist was talking so much—it turned out this guy thought of him as a criminal who had abducted a minor!

"Ahem, she didn't have her ID with her..." As soon as Sun Hang said this, the receptionist's breathing quickened. The hand hidden under the counter had already turned on her phone, entered the police number, and was ready to make a call at any moment.

"I don't have an ID card, how about this?" Sun Hang took out a hunter's license and threw it on the counter.

"A monster hunter?" The receptionist became even more nervous.

In Dragon City, monster hunters are not uncommon. You could even pick up any random passerby on the street and there's a good chance they're a monster hunter... Her nervousness wasn't because Sun Hang was a monster hunter, but because a potential kidnapper was one.

Not all monster hunters are honest. Many freelance hunters use their special abilities to do shady things, especially in Dragon City. As the saying goes, "a big forest has all kinds of birds." Every year, quite a few freelance hunters are arrested or even "destroyed" for breaking the law.

Freelance hunters are subject to far less regulation than professional hunters, but they also receive far less "protection"... If they commit a crime, there will be no direct supervisor or research institute behind them to clean up their mess.

The receptionist took two deep breaths and silently deleted the emergency number she had just entered—if the other party was a monster hunter, calling the police department probably wouldn't solve the problem; perhaps she should contact the Hunter Management Bureau or the city defense force directly…

But what the receptionist didn't know was that Sun Hang had already read all her thoughts clearly.

Xue Yue stared at the receptionist with some confusion, wondering why this older woman suddenly seemed to be radiating so much negativity...

“Um, I think you might have misunderstood something. My sister is also a hunter. We're on a mission, and we booked a room to handle some confidential documents. Also, we're both employed hunters, not freelance hunters.” Sun Hang thought for a moment, then took out another identification card from his pocket.

This is the highest-level access pass to the Tian Shu Tower granted to Sun Hang by the main brain. Its function is equivalent to a modern version of the "Imperial Sword". When necessary, Sun Hang can even use this pass to directly mobilize the city defense army of Longcheng - even if he orders the city defense army to bomb the Longcheng Management Committee, the city defense army must carry out this order.

“This document…I’ve never seen it before.” The receptionist examined the small black card with gold patterns several times. “The emblem on it…could it be the Tian Shu Tower of Chunming City?”

"You have a good eye for quality," Sun Hang said.

Ordinary people in other cities might not be able to recognize the emblem of the Tian Shu Tower—it's like the emblem of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. If you erased the text and asked someone on the street what organization's emblem it was, very few people would be able to answer correctly.

But it's different in Dragon City. There are just too many hunters in Dragon City, and if you want to deal with them, the Sky Pivot Tower is an important topic that you can't avoid.

For those in this circle, the importance of the Tian Shu Tower even surpasses that of the Federal Parliament.

"But there are no words on it..."

"You can try scanning it with a POS machine," Sun Hang suggested.

The receptionist, somewhat skeptical, swiped the pass on the POS machine. A barrage of dialog boxes instantly popped up on her computer screen, startling her – "Is it...it has a virus?"

Before she could react, a young man in a suit rushed downstairs in a panic.

"Mr. Sun Hang! May I ask which one of you is Mr. Sun Hang?"

He looked around—there were only two people at the hotel reception at this hour, and he almost instantly fixed his gaze on Sun Hang.

"Are you Mr. Sun Hang?"

"it's me."

"I am the owner of this hotel. I am very sorry. It is my dereliction of duty that I failed to manage my staff and wasted your precious time! The room is ready. Please follow me!" The young man bowed and scraped to Sun Hang. Looking at his appearance, Sun Hang even suspected that he would kneel down and lick his shoes clean without hesitation if asked to do so now.

The hotel owner led Sun Hang and Xue Yue to a luxurious room—Sun Hang noticed that this was not the room he had just chosen.

“This is the best room in our shop,” the owner said.

“But…” Sun Hang suddenly noticed a “Reserved” sign hanging on the door.

"The waiter must have hung it up by mistake." The owner took off the sign and stuffed it into his pocket, then pulled out four room cards and two keys from another pocket. "These are all the spare room cards and emergency keys for this room. Now, as long as you lock the door, no one but yourself can open this room. Furthermore, I guarantee with my integrity that there are absolutely no surveillance cameras or eavesdropping devices in this room!" "You mean there are surveillance cameras in other rooms?" Sun Hang glanced at him.

"No...no. In our line of work, invading clients' privacy is taboo...besides, it's illegal." After being glanced at by Sun Hang, large beads of sweat instantly appeared on the boss's forehead.

"Okay, you can go do whatever you need to do. I just need to use this room for a little while." Sun Hang took the room key and room card. "By the way, how much is this room?"

"No money needed! It's an honor for our shop to be requisitioned by the Tian Shu Tower!" the owner quickly replied.

“We’ll charge whatever amount is due. You’re making it sound like the Tian Shu Tower is some kind of extortionate institution. We’re not unreasonable; we reimburse all expenses incurred during missions,” Sun Hang said.

"Okay... okay."

The hotel owner finally breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the door close in front of him.

If this were an ordinary Tian Shu Tower hunter, he would definitely charge a fee—hunters sent by Tian Shu Tower have ample mission budgets and stay in the top hotels in Dragon City; they would never be able to afford a small inn like his in a remote corner.

But when Sun Hang pulled out that card, everything changed.

The moment the card was swiped on the POS machine, his phone was bombarded with calls—from people including, but not limited to, the director of the Dragon City Hunter Management Bureau, the director of the Dragon City Security Bureau, and the headquarters of the city defense forces…

The hotel owner wiped the sweat from his brow, turned around, and saw the receptionist with half of his body huddled behind the corner of the corridor.

"Boss...who exactly is that hunter?" the receptionist asked cautiously. "Why is everyone so tense..."

"Who is he? He's someone we can't afford to mess with!" The hotel owner glared at his subordinate. "You almost ruined everything, you know that? You could have just given him a room normally, why did you force him to take out that card?"

"But...he brought a minor girl to a hotel room, I thought...I thought..."

"You still think he's a kidnapper? You're not planning to call the police, are you?"

"I...I didn't shoot it."

"Thank goodness you didn't make the call! Do you know that the head of the Public Security Bureau just called me? Who am I in Longcheng? It's ridiculous that the head of the Public Security Bureau had to call me personally! And do you know what's even scarier? Among all the big shots who called me, the head of the Public Security Bureau is only at the bottom of the list... My god, thank goodness you didn't call the police, otherwise when the police arrived, they would probably be arresting us."

"Huh?" The receptionist was completely dumbfounded.

“Obstructing official business, slandering public officials, making false police reports… they can pin countless charges on us if they want to.” The hotel owner sighed slowly. “Luckily, this big shot has a good temper… I told the other staff to make sure they serve them well, and to unconditionally meet whatever demands they make… Sigh, never mind, you guys don’t need to worry about it, I’ll serve these two myself…”

……

……

Meanwhile, inside the guest room.

Sun Hang locked the door from the inside, then walked around the room. After checking that there were no surveillance devices, he sat down at the table.

Xue Yue stood beside the large bed, carefully touching the soft bedding with her hands.

"This room is so beautiful... It's my first time staying in one," Xue Yue said softly. "Can I lie on the bed for a bit... It feels so soft."

"Lie down anywhere," Sun Hang said. "The Tian Shu Tower will pay for it anyway."

Xue Yue immediately threw herself into the soft bedding. A human-shaped indentation appeared in the middle of the fluffy down comforter, and Xue Yue, lying in the indentation, had a blissful expression on her face: "This comforter is so comfortable..."

Sun Hang took the box wrapped in white cloth out of his backpack and placed it on the table.

Seeing Sun Hang pick up the box, Xue Yue immediately jumped out of bed and quickly went to the table.

Sun Hang untied the white cloth, revealing a 3D-printed polymer box. The lid and body of the box were fused together... Clearly, this was a disposable container, and once opened, it would be difficult to restore it.

A flash of silver light appeared at Sun Hang's fingertips, and the entire lid was cut off, the cut as smooth as a mirror.

Lying in the box was a piece of cardboard the size of a business card.

The cardboard itself was nothing special and had no connection to memes—Sun Hang had already inspected the box the moment he received it, and neither the box itself nor the contents showed any meme reaction.

Sun Hang took out the piece of cardboard.

The cardboard was covered with many messy black lines of varying thickness. Judging from the pen marks, they were drawn by hand with a pen, rather than printed by a machine.

"What is this?" Sun Hang stared at the card with some confusion, lost in thought.

“These lines… give me a very desolate, very dilapidated feeling,” Xue Yue suddenly said.

"Desolate? Dilapidated?" Sun Hang was taken aback. "How did you tell?"

"I don't know, it's just a feeling." Xue Yue shook her head. "It feels...it feels like a wasteland."

"Ruins?" Sun Hang's eyes lit up immediately.

Could these lines actually be a "treasure map"?
The reason Copper Finger sent this card to Yumen was because someone in Yumen was waiting for this "treasure map" to explore the no-man's land.
As for the treasure mentioned in the treasure map... "Is it a fleshy Tai Sui? Or leftover gold?" Sun Hang muttered to himself.

"Master, check who sent this package," Sun Hang said.

"The package was sent by Chang'an '101' Private Detective Agency," the mastermind replied immediately. "Four days ago, an anonymous client commissioned a profiler at the agency to draw this card and then sent it directly to Longcheng. According to the agency's bill, the client paid 75,000 yuan in cash for this card."

(End of this chapter)