Dark Ruins Dawn

Chapter 112 Lying
Linhai City, temporary command center.

Edward stood in front of the holographic map, examining the white areas marked "safe".

The moment the headquarters descended into chaos, the panel on his wrist simultaneously received the highest-level intrusion alert.

Lines of red error codes refreshed before his eyes like a waterfall.

When he saw Morisaka's attack and the brain capsule that served as a springboard, he understood everything.

The mastermind behind this is Morisaka; they may have already reached a secret agreement with the crows.

The bait called "Zhang Dafan" was fake, and the unfamiliar communications that lured the crow to the headquarters of Fengmang were also fake.

The crow was a spy; everything made sense.

He used a near-perfect self-destruction to smoothly enter the group's virtual brain capsule, and then silently left a fatal backdoor.

Ultimately, the group's mastermind suffered a major blow, just before the launch of the large-scale virtual game.

The timing was perfect.

Now, Morihan Networks is still putting on a show, trying to turn the tables and accuse the guilty party first.

Edward, as the Minister of Intelligence, has clearly failed in his duty this time.

The black chicken beside Edward, eager to impress him, hesitated for a moment:
"Minister, isn't this 'ruse' a bit too much? If Crow really is a spy, he wouldn't need to go through such a roundabout way."

"It has to be this obvious."

Edward did not turn around; his gaze remained fixed on the holographic map.

"Only in this way can the crow clear his name, but he probably will never understand until his death that he was just a pawn to be sacrificed at will."

He paused, a hint of self-deprecation in his voice.

"And judging from the current situation, this self-inflicted injury strategy has been quite successful, hasn't it? The most elite intelligence force at headquarters has been transferred to Linhai City."

The black chicken was speechless.

"Mind your own business." Edward's voice carried a hint of impatience.

"From now on, you will have full authority over the search operation in Linhai City, but funds are limited, so cherish them."

"I... am, Minister!"

Suppressing his inner elation, Wuji stood at attention and saluted.

Edward then issued orders to the nuclear forces stationed in the coastal city via an encrypted channel.

"All soldiers and intelligence personnel, gather your equipment immediately and assemble on the tarmac in ten minutes. Follow me back to headquarters."

Wu Ji was stunned. The soldiers had all retreated? How was he supposed to begin the search...?

After the order was given, all the camps sprang into action.

The soldiers moved quickly, destroying encrypted documents and packing precision instruments into metal boxes.

Edward walked to the window and took one last look at the gray city, his eyes showing no trace of lingering affection.

He turned around, his gaze falling on the black chicken, as if he were giving an order for something trivial.

"I'll leave a small team for you to continue searching the red-lined area. Report back to me if you find anything new."

"Yes, Minister!"

Edward walked to the door and stopped.

"Remember, don't cause me any trouble."

"Yes, Minister!"

The roar of engines grew louder as airships rapidly ascended, carrying away almost all the nuclear soldiers.

The black chicken stood still, watching the last airship disappear into the horizon.

The surroundings returned to deathly silence.

He knew that Edward had completely abandoned Linhai City; it was no longer important.

He looked around the dilapidated city, the humility on his face gradually fading, and he slowly straightened his slightly bowed back.

There were no more superiors to restrain me.

From this moment forward, all affairs in Linhai City will be governed by him.

A while later, Edward sent a encrypted message.

"Feng Mang has detained Grey Goose. There will be a public trial in a few days. Go and bail him out."

The black chicken was stunned for a moment, not expecting that Minister Edward valued the gray goose so much.

"Minister, rest assured, it will be taken care of."

Edward did not reply.

When the chicken entered the camp and took stock of the troops, it discovered that Edward had only left five hundred soldiers, plus a small number of armored vehicles and heavy weapons.

There seem to be a few fewer people... but it's not a big problem, as long as he's not a lone commander.

……

Outside Linhai City, the stronghold of King Maoshan.

The alloy fence slid open silently, and Mao Shanwang's round, chubby cat body practically squeezed out from inside.

His large leather armor was wrinkled from being confined, his cat-like face was covered in sweat, and even his palm-leaf fan was gone.

"Say it again, what do you mean I'm free? Do I look like a criminal? What crime have I committed?"
"Hey, don't go! Look at me and answer!"

Mao Shanwang blocked the passageway, like a freshly fermented dough, and suddenly his voice exploded, spittle flying everywhere.

"I'm telling you, this isn't over!"
"You Mori-saka people are bullying me with your power. You can arrest people without any evidence? Do you know how much business I've lost and how much money I've lost? How will you compensate me for the lost wages?!"
"You detain me for a day today, lock me up for two days tomorrow, and this happens every few days. How am I supposed to do business? You might as well just put a collar around my neck and treat me like a slave!"

He let out all the bad luck that had been building up all day.

Even from a great distance, Team Leader Morisaka could hear the extremely penetrating roar, and felt his temples throbbing.

He waved his hand, signaling his men to quickly pack up the equipment and prepare to evacuate.

This operation was a complete mess from beginning to end; the real target wasn't found, and instead, it caused a lot of trouble.

But Mao Shanwang clearly had no intention of letting them go easily. His 300-pound body was like a mountain of flesh, blocking the middle of the passage and preventing the soldiers behind him from retreating.

"You're illegally detaining me and abusing your power! I'll definitely file a complaint with Black Gold Trading Company's headquarters! You know who Director Cat is, right? He's a distant relative of mine! Don't you even know who he is? Director Cat and I are purebred blue and white cats! You've all messed with the wrong people!"

Team Leader Morisaka muttered to himself, "The cat director has been dead for days, and he's still trying to claim kinship with us."

But he knew that he was indeed in the wrong this time.

Seeing that Mao Shanwang had already turned on the holographic projection and was preparing to transmit it to the black market public channel in real time, the team leader turned around and took out a heavy gold bar from his pocket.

He walked up to Mao Shanwang and casually tossed it over.

"You've misunderstood. This is just a routine inquiry. Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr. Mao."

Mao Shanwang caught it quickly, weighed it in his palm, 200 grams, not bad.

The anger on his face vanished, replaced by a warm smile, as if the previous rage had never existed.

"Oh dear, sir, look at this mess. It's all a misunderstanding, all a misunderstanding."

He became slick and obsequious, saying, "It is my honor to serve you, my lords."

He stuffed the gold bars into his inner pocket, jogged along, and respectfully saw Morisaka and his group of armored soldiers onto the airship. He even wiped the airship's hatch with his sleeve.

"Please take care, officers. Have a safe journey and welcome back next time!"

Inside the airship, the team leader kept a cold face the whole time; this fat cat was indeed disgustingly cloying.

He sent a brief message to his superiors via an encrypted channel: "Linhai City team, has returned."

The airship rose smoothly into the air, gradually leaving the outline of Linhai City behind.

Team Leader Morisaka sat inside the cabin, rubbing his throbbing temples and closing his eyes to rest.

But Mao Shanwang's hypocritical smile, and the trucks loaded with scrap behind him, lingered in my mind.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.

Would a seasoned black marketeer who has been navigating the black market for so many years genuinely engage in such a losing business?

Even with low processing costs, six truckloads of waste per day require a significant investment of manpower and time. When you calculate the costs, the profit is meager, and you might even lose money.

Unless... those scraps have other value, or that fat cat has mastered a way to efficiently clear away the decaying fog.

The moment the thought arose, it took root in his mind.

He immediately contacted his intelligence colleagues in Linhai City.

"Old Bai, I need a detailed report on 'Mao Shan Wang,' a second-tier supplier of Black Gold Trading Company."

"Him? Just a fat guy who's only interested in money, what's there to investigate?" The person on the other end of the line asked with a hint of confusion.

The team leader's tone turned serious. "You only need to keep an eye on one thing: how many truckloads of scrap he collects every day. I need to know where this scrap is taken, how it is processed, and who the sellers are."

“We’re short-handed lately. The nuclear and Apocalypse cults are causing chaos in the city.”

"It's okay, I'm not in a hurry. What I need is a detailed report. Take your time."

"That's fine."

Communications cut off.

The team leader leaned back in his chair and looked out the window.

That gray wasteland seems to hide even more secrets.

……

After confirming that the airship had disappeared into the night sky, Mao Shanwang slowly returned to the safe house in the city.

As soon as the door was pushed open, Xiong Er's furry raccoon face came close, and Zhuang Fan immediately came out as well.

"Haha, I'm back!"

Mao Shanwang gave Xiong Er a firm hug, and then tried to hug Zhuang Fan, but was pushed away by the latter in disgust.

"Old Cat, are you alright?"

"What could possibly happen!"

Mao Shanwang sank into the sofa with a thud. "You old cats, you dismissed those bastards with just a few words!"

The atmosphere inside the safe house was much more relaxed.

Xiong Er said in a muffled voice, "This time, the boss put in a lot of effort, and I also drank a lot of magic bull."

"Come on, tell me what happened."

After hearing the whole story of the plan, from luring the nuclear attack to framing the Morisaka Network, Mao Shanwang felt a chill run down his spine.

"Wow, I've known you're smart since you were a kid, but I never expected you could outsmart Konjac and Morisaka so well!"

He slapped the cat's leg, his fat jiggling as he said, "Following you, there's definitely a bright future ahead!"

Zhuang Fan stared at him sullenly, then suddenly said, "Since I saved you, give me a 20% discount."

"Business is business, but if it really doesn't work out, even brothers need to keep clear accounts!"

Zhuang Fan ignored his banter and walked to the holographic map, his expression turning serious again.

"We've temporarily stopped tracking Morisaka, and we've also drawn away the main force of the nuclear weapons. For a long time to come, neither of these two will be a threat."

His voice gradually turned somber, "But Grey Goose and the others still don't know where they're being held."

Mao Shanwang put away his palm-leaf fan, and the smile on his face disappeared.
"If all else fails, in a few days we'll gather enough men and storm the execution ground, overturning them all!"

"That was the last and worst option."

Zhuang Fan shook his head. "Before that, we must be fully prepared."

He turned to look at Mao Shanwang and said, "Let's go and deal with those six cartloads of scrap. You should hurry up and sell them; we should be able to get back 300,000 gold coins."

"Okay, then what?"

"Then help me rent twenty powered armor units."

"Twenty units?"

Mao Shanwang's palm-leaf fan froze in mid-air, his cat-like eyes wide. "You're going to wage a tough battle, aren't you?" Zhuang Fan asked, "Can you handle it?"

Mao Shanwang clicked his tongue and tapped his fat paw on the table: "Twenty units is impossible, sixteen at most. That's only because they're my second-tier supplier that they're willing to waive the deposit."

"I estimate the rental period will be at most seven days. When I return it, I can tolerate minor wear and tear, but if it's missing an arm or a leg, I'll have to sell my belongings to compensate for it."

Zhuang Fan knew that those arms dealers were all shrewd people, and seven days was exactly the cycle from the outbreak to the end of a local conflict.

They figured that the people who rented this thing were definitely going to fight tough battles, so naturally they wouldn't give them too much leeway.

"Okay, sixteen units it is."

So the two set off again.

Zhuang Fan was in charge of dealing with the six truckloads of rotten waste, while Mao Shanwang drove the truck to sell the goods.

They kept going until 2 a.m.

A heavy transport truck silently drove into the underground garage of the safe house.

The rear door of the carriage slowly descended, revealing sixteen fully black powered armored vehicles standing silently, creating a strong sense of visual oppression.

Mao Shanwang jumped out of the driver's seat, patted the metal shell of one of the armored vehicles, and looked smug.

"How about it? All good stuff."

Soon, the safe house became crowded.

Six masked cat-men under Mao Shanwang's command walked in. They were agile and skillfully donned power armor.

Zhuang Fan also summoned the four members of the Torchlight team who remained at the base. They came over after removing their power armor.

Now, all ten members of the "Spark" team are gathered together.

Jetta, Santana, and three other Skaven confidants also crawled into their power armor.

The ratmen are generally short in stature, and when they put on full-size armor, they look like children wearing adult clothes, which is somewhat comical.

The underground garage of the safe house was now completely filled with twenty-four armored soldiers.

Humans, cat people, and rat people—three distinct creatures—are all encased in the same steel shell, forming a bizarre army.

They stared at each other, neither moving.

Zhuang Fan frowned as he looked at the hastily assembled team.

We still don't have enough manpower.

He glanced at Xiong Er in the corner, who was wiping his sniper rifle.

"Xiong Er, why don't you try again..."

"Boss, I really can't reach the endoskeleton adjustment of this iron lump."

Xiong Er glanced at his own height, which was less than a meter, and said in a low voice, "Besides, I'm more used to my own body; it's much more flexible than this thing."

After hearing this, Zhuang Fan did not press the matter further.

But he decided that he would definitely customize a special raccoon-man powered armor for Xiong Er in the future.

Night had fallen, and the group returned to their respective homes.

Zhuang Fan returned to the map and looked at the strongholds marked with red circles, feeling a surge of irritation.

"Now all we can do is wait, and this feeling of torment is unbearable."

He was not one to sit idly by and wait for death; he shook the fast-sleeping Mao Shanwang awake.

"Old Cat, let's continue tomorrow."

"Huh... continue with what?"

Zhuang Fan's gaze sharpened. "Dispose of the scrap and keep making money."

"Not enough money?"

Mao Shanwang was startled awake. "What else do you want to do?"

"Earn a million gold coins."

"One million? What kind of amazing treasure do you want to buy?"

Zhuang Fan glanced at the arms list on the wall and nodded at a few words.

"Stockpile another batch of high-powered bombs, buy a batch of combat androids, and suicide drones."

Upon hearing this, Mao Shanwang's eyes lit up again, and he waved his palm-leaf fan, making a rustling sound.

"Fine! I love the art of explosions!"

……

The night is getting darker.

In a secluded cell somewhere in the vortex, the walls are pure white, without any superfluous decorations.

The bright white light hanging from the ceiling illuminated the scratches on the table with perfect clarity.

Chu Ningyan sat alone in a metal chair, her hands resting flat on the table.

She did the math; this was the ninth interrogation, and each time it was the same questions over and over again, with nothing new to offer.

But this time, it was clearly much more formal.

Three uniformed interrogators sat opposite them, while four holographic video recorders hovered in mid-air, recording everything that happened here.

The lead interrogator interlaced his fingers and spoke in a steady voice:
"Team Leader Grey Goose, it's still the same question: why did you suddenly leave the team and disappear that night?"

"I'm tired."

Chu Ningyan's voice was cold and clear, "I'm not interested in cat meat either."

"So you went back to Linhai City ahead of schedule?"

"Correct."

Another interrogator took over, his voice sharper:
"In the central area of ​​the campfire banquet, all the officers of the squad leader rank except you were killed, and you are the only survivor. How do you explain that?"

"A coincidence," she replied with just two words.

The third interrogator, who had been silent all along, raised his head and adjusted his glasses.

"The files show that you and Lieutenant-Captain Harry have a long-standing feud, which is an open secret within the regiment."

"The file also mentions that you are extremely disgusted by his behavior of preying on cat people, and your motive for committing the crime is very strong."

"Moreover, as an S-class hunter, you are fully capable of silently killing Harry and the other six group leaders in the midst of chaos."

"I did not kill Harry."

Her voice remained restrained. "If I really wanted to kill him, he wouldn't have lived to see that night. Everyone, please don't insult the professional abilities of an S-rank hunter."

The lead interrogator seized on the loophole in her words, a slight smile playing on his lips: "So you admit it, you've always wanted to kill him."

Chu Ningyan remained silent and did not deny it.

The interrogator took a transparent evidence bag from under the table and pushed it in front of her.

Inside the bag was a brass bullet casing.

"The 7.62mm special armor-piercing rounds, after ballistic analysis, are completely consistent with the ammunition models in your personal firearms arsenal."

He paused, raised his hand and made a sweeping motion in the air, projecting a holographic image.

The image was shaking violently, and a figure with a silhouette highly similar to Chu Ningyan could be seen quietly sneaking into the camp under the cover of night, and then quickly leaving.

"We have restored some of the surveillance footage from that night, and the figure's silhouette and gait match yours by a rate of 98%."

"Team Leader Grey Goose, your physique is unique within the entire Sharp Edge organization. How do you explain that?"

Chu Ningyan looked at the bullet casing, then at the blurry figure on the screen, and couldn't help but laugh.

"Thank you for your hard work. You've fabricated a video, found a bullet casing, but is there any other evidence?"

Grey Goose rarely smiled, but her smile at this moment still caught the attention of one of the interrogators.

The interrogator on the far left leaned forward, as if he had expected her to say that.

He pulled up a new document, on which Chu Ningyan's salary advance record was clearly displayed on the screen.

"You've taken three months' salary in advance. Are you preparing to run away?"

"I have already paid back the money."

Chu Ningyan replied softly, "Moreover, according to the agreement, Fengmang still owes me 200,000 yuan in investment principal. It was promised that the principal would be guaranteed, but now only 100,000 yuan remains."

“Team Leader Grey Goose, we have not found any record of you repaying the money.”

The interrogator placed his hands on the table, looking down at her, his voice suddenly becoming stern, "Now, you are not only guilty of murder, but also suspected of embezzling public funds."

"I've already paid it all back."

Chu Ningyan met his gaze, "Unless, you've tampered with the accounts."

"enough."

The lead interrogator interrupted her, a hint of impatience on his face, "You've been lying all along; it's time to expose your true colors."

The metal door to the interrogation room opened, and two figures appeared in the doorway.

It was Qiushan and Pipi.

Qiu Shan's face held a perfectly measured seriousness. Behind him, Pipi's eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was as haggard as a crumpled piece of paper.

The moment Chu Ningyan saw Pipi, her heart tightened, and her usual aloofness faded somewhat.

"Pipi, are you alright? Are you okay? What did they do to you?"

Pipi didn't respond, keeping her head down the whole time, not daring to look her in the eye.

Chu Ningyan felt a sense of confusion, and an ominous premonition spread through her heart.

"Team Leader Grey Goose, you and Dr. Peterson are good friends, right?"

Chu Ningyan sensed something was wrong. She glanced at Pipi and then slowly nodded.

"Yes, she is my true friend."

"very good."

The interrogator's smile deepened: "So you trust her too, right?"

"……Correct."

"From what we understand, you and Dr. Peterson spend a lot of time together, almost inseparable, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Dr. Peterson, has he ever lied?"

The interrogator added, "If it's a white lie told to terminally ill patients, that doesn't count."

Chu Ningyan didn't hesitate much. "Since I've known Pipi, she has never lied. She is a very kind and honest child."

"Team Leader Grey Goose, thank you for your cooperation."

The interrogator received a satisfactory answer, then looked at Pipi, his voice becoming even gentler.

"Dr. Peterson, can you assure me that every word you are about to say is true, without a single lie?"

Pipi's lips moved, and after a long while, she managed to squeeze out a faint syllable from her throat.

"……Yes."

"So now, are you trying to confirm that the Grey Goose leader killed Harry?"

Pipi used all her strength to finally lift her head, her nails digging into her palms.

Her gaze bypassed Chu Ningyan and landed on the faces of the three interrogators. Her voice was soft but clear.

“I can confirm… that Vice Captain Harry was killed by the Grey Goose leader.”

"She has been lying all along."

(End of this chapter)