Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 572 The Death of Taug
"Who are you?" Cheng Ming thought for a moment, then replied with a message.

"The first table by the window," the other party replied immediately.

Cheng Ming looked up and saw a young woman sitting at the first table by the window. She was wearing a white shirt, a knee-length skirt and slightly sheer black stockings. A suit jacket that she had taken off was casually draped over the back of an empty chair next to her.

The woman's features were very defined, and she didn't seem to be a pure-blooded Xia Zhou person. Her black hair also revealed a portion of its original light golden color at the roots.

The young woman smiled and waved to Cheng Ming, gesturing for him to sit at her table.

With a hint of doubt, Cheng Ming took his orange juice and walked over, sitting down opposite the woman. He asked, "Do we know each other?"

"I don't know him," the young woman replied.

"Then how did you get my phone number?"

“That registration form,” the young woman said, “Every hunter who registers has to fill in their contact information, right?”

"So, you're talking to me on behalf of the Bai Group?" Cheng Ming asked, puzzled.

His intuition told him that the power behind this woman was not the Bai family.

If the Bai Group had something to discuss with me, there would be no need for such a big fuss.

"It's not very convenient here. Mr. Cheng, would you mind sitting with me next door?" the young woman asked.

"Does 'inconvenient' mean there are security cameras in the store?" Cheng Ming asked.

"Yes." The young woman did not shy away from the question.

Cheng Ming was slightly surprised by the other party's frankness, but he still nodded.

"Please come with me." The woman stood up and picked up her coat, which was draped over the back of the chair.

The suspicious woman led Cheng Ming into the hotel next to the water bar. She did not stop at the front desk, but went straight to the elevator.

"What do you want from me?" In the cramped elevator car, Cheng Ming could clearly smell the shampoo scent emanating from the woman.

From a third-person perspective, this woman, like the two nurses placed beside Cheng Ming's bed, was part of the Bai Group's honey trap. However, Cheng Ming knew very well that this woman's identity was definitely not that simple.

If she was someone placed there by the Bai Group, she would have no need to avoid the ubiquitous surveillance cameras on this street.

The reason she brought Cheng Ming to the hotel was because the hotel rooms were one of the few blind spots for surveillance cameras on this street.

Faced with Cheng Ming's question, the woman smiled but remained silent.

With a "ding," the elevator arrived at the sixth floor. The woman took out a room card from her coat pocket and swiped it to open the door to room 601.

This is a double room with light pink bedding that creates a slightly ambiguous atmosphere, while the boxes of small umbrellas on the bedside table marked "Paid Use" seem to hint at something.

The woman pulled a metal briefcase with a combination lock from under the bed and opened it in front of Cheng Ming. Inside was a set of seemingly sophisticated instruments and a sealed disposable blood collection needle.

Cheng Ming was familiar with this equipment; it was a tool used to collect blood samples from infected individuals. The blood of infected individuals contained free-floating memes, but these memes would quickly become inactive after the blood left the infected person's body. Therefore, if one wanted to collect meme samples from infected individuals by drawing blood, the blood had to undergo special treatment to ensure the activity of the samples.

And this set of precision instruments, worth millions, is used for this purpose.

For infected individuals like Cheng Ming, whose memes are relatively stable, blood must be drawn every three months. Even when on long-term missions in other locations, they must undergo regular meme testing at the local Mysterious Object Research Institute to ensure the stability of the infection process.

"Are you going to draw my blood?" Cheng Ming frowned slightly. "You want my meme sample?"

“The person who wanted Mr. Cheng’s meme sample wasn’t me, but Tao Ge, the chief engineer of the Bai Group’s technology department,” the young woman said. “He was sitting in the interviewer’s seat on the day Mr. Cheng took the combat capability test. Mr. Cheng should remember him, right?”

“Yes,” Cheng Ming said calmly, “but as a private organization, isn’t it against regulations for the Bai Group to collect memetic samples from registered hunters without approval?”

"The person who wanted Mr. Cheng's meme sample was Tao Ge, not the Bai Group." The young woman shook her head. "If Mr. Cheng hasn't lost his memory, he should still remember the scene when G09 went out of control that day, right?"

"remember."

“Taug devoted half his life to the G09 project. The G09 meme sequence is very stable and would never go out of control under normal circumstances. After conducting a series of tests, Taug believed that the reason G09 went out of control was because there was a special reaction between Mr. Cheng's meme and the G09 meme. In order to confirm or rule out this possibility, he asked me to collect Mr. Cheng's meme sample,” the young woman explained.

"If that's the case, why avoid the Bai Group's attention?" Cheng Ming asked.

“Because the Bai Group has decided to halt the G09 development project, Tao believes that only by obtaining Mr. Cheng's meme sample can the project be revived.” The woman sighed. “As one of Tao’s few friends, I watched him develop G09 from scratch, bit by bit. This project is like his own child. Cutting it off is like killing his only child…”

The woman pulled a black card from the foam lining of her suitcase and placed it in front of Cheng Ming.

“This is an anonymous savings card with six million worth of gold in it. With this card, you can withdraw the gold or exchange it for an equivalent amount of cash at any bank under the Xia State Federal Banking Association,” the young woman said. “As long as Mr. Cheng is willing to provide your meme sample, this card is yours.”

……

……

At 11 p.m., Tao Ge, who had just finished dinner with a group of researchers, sat in his car and lit a cigarette.

He rolled down the car window and silently gazed at the commercial street across the road.

Compared to the brightly lit commercial street, this side of the road is much quieter, with even the streetlights spaced further apart. The shadowy green belt looks like a monster's lair, from which rustling sounds can be heard from time to time.

There is one hour left before Cheng Ming submits the "final investigation report." After he submits the report, the G09 R&D project will be officially abandoned at the board meeting tomorrow. All the data will be sealed or destroyed as appropriate, and he will no longer be the chief engineer of Bai's military technology department...

Tao Ge finished his cigarette in one go, and just as he was about to light another one, a woman in a suit knocked on the passenger-side window.

Tao unlocked the door, and the woman opened the car door and sat in the passenger seat, then frowned and fanned herself in front of her nose a few times.

"I told you not to smoke in the car, the smell just won't go away," the woman complained. "It stinks."

"Then I won't smoke next time." Tao Ge casually tossed away the cigarette he had just lit.

"Who cares about next time? It's not my car anyway." The woman took a metal tube out of her pocket and handed it to Tao Ge. "Here, this is what you wanted."

"Thank you."

“That Cheng Ming is quite easy to talk to, not as difficult to deal with as I imagined. Besides, he didn’t take your money.” The woman handed the black card to Tao Ge as well. “Why didn’t he take it?” Tao Ge was a little surprised.

“He said the Bai Group had already given him a lot of compensation, and he hadn’t done anything,” the woman repeated. “Since G09 is a project of the Bai Group, he is willing to provide his meme samples for free.”

"This person... is not bad." Tao Ge seemed unable to find a suitable adjective for the moment, resorting to the very general "not bad." "If I have the opportunity to deal with him again later..."

"Forget about the future, think about yourself first," the woman said. "What will you do if the experiment proves that the G09's malfunction has nothing to do with Cheng Ming?"

“If that’s the case, then it proves that G09 does indeed have serious flaws,” Tao Ge said. “Then I really have no choice but to do as Meng Yunfeng said…start from scratch.”

"Are you willing?"

“What can I do if I’m not satisfied?” Taug shrugged. “Compared to those researchers who have lived most of their lives without achieving anything, I’m already very lucky.”

"It's good that you can take it easy." The woman patted Tao Ge on the shoulder. "I was worried at first that you might do something drastic, but now that you say so, I'm relieved. I won't bother you any longer today, but you have to buy me a drink next time you're free."

After saying that, the woman opened the car door and got out.

“Okay, I’ll treat you to a drink next time.” Tao Ge nodded. “At the best pub in Dragon City.”

Taug stepped on the gas, and the car sped off toward the laboratory.

……

After changing into a white lab coat, putting on gloves and a full-face protective mask, Tauge walked through the sterilization room and into the laboratory.

Turning on the lights, the laboratory, where only Tao Ge was present, seemed quite empty. He quickly walked to the lab bench and turned on the power to each of the experimental devices that had been prepared in advance.

Once all the indicator lights on the devices were lit, Tao Ge took a deep breath, took out the metal tube the young woman had given him from his pocket, and carefully inserted it into one of the devices.

As the equipment emitted a buzzing sound, the laboratory lights began to flicker intermittently.

"Is it because the voltage is unstable?" Tao Ge looked up with some doubt. "The equipment power and the lighting power shouldn't be on the same circuit..."

Just as he was thinking this, he heard a "click" sound, and all the light sources in the laboratory went out, plunging the entire laboratory into darkness.

"Power outage? Circuit breaker tripped?" Tao Ge held his breath. He took out his phone from his pocket, wanting to use the light from the phone to check the circuit breaker, but found that the phone screen wouldn't light up no matter what he did.

It was as if the computer had completely crashed.

Tao Ge sensed something was off.

The laboratory was so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face—he remembered clearly that when he entered the laboratory, half of the curtains on the outer window were not drawn. Even though all the lights in the laboratory were turned off, the moonlight and distant lights from outside would still seep in, so the laboratory wouldn't be so dark that you couldn't see anything at all...

"Could it be because of... Cheng Ming's meme?" Tao Ge's neck stiffened as he turned toward the device with the metal tube inserted.

However, the expected anomaly appeared in another direction.

The computer connected to the device mysteriously turned on automatically—or to be more precise, the screen lit up automatically, because neither the screen nor the power indicator light on the computer case remained off.

The screen that was lit up was still black, as if it had been stuck in the background of the operating system, with a bright white cursor constantly jumping in the upper left corner of the screen.

Tao stared intently at the cursor, pondered for a long time, and finally tentatively asked, "...Cheng Ming?"

The cursor bounced twice and then went out.

Suddenly, many gray-white noises appeared on the black screen. These noises flowed like liquid under the glass substrate. Gradually, these noises gathered together and formed a blurry human face.

Tao Ge could vaguely make out that it was a girl's face, and a very pretty one at that.

He couldn't see the details clearly, but for some reason, he found the blurry, constantly changing, dynamic face beautiful, possessing a captivating aesthetic.

"Who...who are you?" Taug couldn't help but ask.

The face on the screen, made up of noise, suddenly smiled at him.

……

……

The next day, ten o'clock in the morning.

Looking at the group of hunters sitting below, Meng Yunfeng couldn't help but think of the words "a mob".

Compared to the free hunters of Dragon City, these hunters gathered from all over the Federation were far inferior in quality, especially in teamwork, where they had absolutely no experience.

Transforming this rabble into a hunting party capable of hunting large monsters within a week is more difficult than training an 80-year-old woman in a wheelchair into an elite soldier.

Just as Meng Yunfeng was feeling a headache coming on, one of his confidants suddenly rushed in and pulled Meng Yunfeng backstage.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Meng Yunfeng asked.

“Instructor, Taug… he’s dead,” the confidant said.

"What did you say? Tao Ge is dead?" Meng Yunfeng exclaimed in shock. "Who killed him?"

"According to the video footage from the lab, Taug committed suicide."

"Suicide? Say it again?" Meng Yunfeng could hardly believe his ears.

"In the video, Taug stared at the computer screen for a long time, then suddenly pulled out a pistol, pointed it at his temple, and pulled the trigger," the confidant said. "Could he have... committed suicide out of guilt?"

"Bullshit! Tao Ge didn't deserve to die, so how could he commit suicide out of fear of punishment?" Meng Yunfeng suddenly stopped there. "But I've heard that some researchers feel worse than if their research results were rejected... Could it be that Tao Ge did this because the G09 project was canceled..."

"Does the instructor mean that Taug cannot accept the board's decision?"

"Sigh... But it's all for the best. With his death, the board of directors and the city defense forces can have a satisfactory explanation." Meng Yunfeng sighed. "Tao Ge was in charge of the G09 project. With him dead, no one can hold him accountable."

(End of this chapter)