Life Dungeon Game

The middle-aged man glanced at the information on his wristband.

······

He Ao pushed open the door and saw a young man with brown-gold hair standing in front of it, breathing heavily.

“Mr. Jess, I was just about to open the door for you.”

Winter looked at He Ao and smiled, then his gaze settled on He Ao's blood-stained clothes. "Mr. Jess, what happened to you...?"

"It was a minor problem, but it's been resolved."

He Ao looked calmly into the office.

Several burly men, disheveled and seemingly just awakened from sleep, were walking or working in the office.

"Mr. Jess, please come in and have a seat."

Winter glanced at the bloodstains on He Ao's body, hesitated for a moment, but still invited He Ao into the office. As he led He Ao inside, he smiled and said, "Mr. Jess, this is your second time here, isn't it?"

The first time was when Jess approached this detective agency to investigate the deaths of his parents.

Although the two had been working together for several years, due to various reasons, they mainly communicated online or arranged to meet in person. Jess never visited the detective again.

Office.

“Yes,” He Ao nodded slightly, glancing at the busy crowd in the office. “Does your firm also work at night?”

The moment the question was asked, Winter paused, his mind racing, and immediately replied...

"Well, you said yesterday that you were going to do something 'big' and asked us to release the information and contact the FBI. But you gave us too much information, and we need more people to organize it. The matter is quite urgent, so everyone was working overtime here last night."

At this point, he looked at He Ao's body again and asked with feigned concern, "Mr. Jess, are you really alright? Should I call a doctor for you? Our firm has a long-term family doctor who charges reasonable fees."

“No need,” He Ao shook his head, his gaze sweeping across the entire office. “Where is the head of your firm?”

“Our manager is also working overtime here. He’s in his office. I’ll take you there to see him.”

Winter quickly said.

"Need not."

He Ao took two steps at a time and quickly walked to the door of the small office.

The door to the small office was open, but there was no one inside.

Heo turned around and looked at Winter.

Just then, a middle-aged man who looked refined emerged from the restroom on the other side of the office. His gaze swept around the room before finally settling on He Ao, and he smiled.

“Mr. Jess, it’s been so long since we last met. I’ve missed you terribly.”

The previous times, this person in charge personally delivered the secret medicine to Jess.

"Me too."

He Ao smiled, his eyes narrowing slightly.

These people are stalling for time.

He strode up to the middle-aged man and asked quickly, "Mr. Norbeck, I'm here only to find out the answer to one question: who is your real client... or rather, who instructed you to monitor me and send me the specific secret drug? I need all his information."

The moment He Ao finished speaking, everyone—whether flipping through documents, typing on keyboards, or walking between desks—stopped, looked up, and stared at He Ao.

An eerie silence fell over the scene.

“Excuse me, Mr. Jess, what are you saying? I don’t understand,” Norbeck paused for a moment, then smiled somewhat blankly. “Aren’t you my client?”

"Of course, when you first investigated the cause of my parents' death, I was the client. But what happened after that? When you gave me the problematic Talent Sequence Elixir, when you leaked my actions to others, who was the real client then?"

Heo calmly looked at Norbeck and said, word by word.

Norbeck gazed into those calm eyes, and within those eyes, as still as an abyss, seemed to be a turbulent, mad undercurrent.

For a fleeting moment, his heart trembled, but he quickly regained his composure.

Because of the problem with his talent sequence, Jayce was already on the verge of madness, a fact he had known for a long time.

"What are you saying? I don't understand."

He smiled and shrugged, looking at He Ao's face with a deep look in his eyes.

With a hint of mockery.

In a sense, Jayce's madness was driven by him.

In the past, when he couldn't get a clear answer, the young professor would choose to compromise and doubt his own judgment.

"That's it."

He Ao nodded.

Things seem to be developing just as Norbeck had predicted.

Seeing He Ao nod, he slowly began to speak, trying out the words he had rehearsed many times in his mind, "Mr. Jess, I'm sorry to have troubled you. Perhaps there is some misunderstanding between us. Perhaps we should have a serious talk, clarify things, and clear up the misunderstanding between us."

As he spoke, he was about to lead He Ao to a semi-open meeting room on the side.

Based on his understanding of Jayce, even if he didn't trust him, Jayce would be willing to listen to his side of the story in a 'friendly' manner.

Such conversations usually last for half an hour, or even an hour.

However, this time things did not develop as he had predicted.

After hearing his explanation, He Ao simply nodded quietly. "In that case, I won't bother you any longer."

After saying that, he turned and walked toward the open door.

Why doesn't this guy play by the rules?

Nobeck watched Heo's retreating figure and tried again, "Mr. Jess, we should have a talk."

He Ao did not reply to him, but continued walking towards the door at a relatively fast pace.

Seeing this, Norbeck realized that Heo was really leaving. He winked at Winter, who was closest to the door, and then suddenly raised his hand.

The instant he saw the signal from his boss, Winter rushed to the door and closed it.

At the same time, the burly men around them stood up abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jess."

Winter leaned against the door, watching Heo.

Glowing patterns appeared on his body.

Mechanical prosthetic body.

“Mr. Jess, I didn’t want things to come to this.”

Behind Heo, Norbeck also came over, looking at Heo with a hint of regret.

"So what price did he offer you?"

Heo smiled and turned to look at Norbeck.

He didn't have time to find evidence to prove that Norbeck was problematic, so he used a rather crude method.

It's obvious that everything Norbeck has done so far has been to stall him. It's impossible that the head of the detective agency just wanted to keep him occupied; it's clearly a 'commission' from someone.

So when Heo insisted on leaving and couldn't be stopped, Norbeck had no choice but to make some statements.

"I'll hold you back, two million."

Norbeck replied calmly.

Now that things have come to this point, he has no reason to pretend anymore.

All the burly men around gathered around, including seven ordinary people who raised guns and two cybernetic bodies that opened their palms to reveal miniature laser cannons.

Including Winter, there are eleven people in total: three cybernetic bodies, seven strong men, and Nobek.

He Ao used his divine sense to scan Nobeck, an extraordinary individual, rank D.

He glanced at the gun barrels, calmly walked to the center of the office, and asked with a smile, "Judging from this, it seems you don't intend to just stall for time."

I."

"Kill you, ten million."

Nobek gestured for the people around him to slowly approach.

He wasn't just saying this to He Ao, but also to his subordinates around him.

Sure enough, the moment he finished speaking, the burly men who were pointing guns at He Ao began to look at him with burning eyes.

Clearly, Norbeck hadn't communicated with his subordinates beforehand; he probably just instructed them to hold off Heo.

In fact, this is the right thing to do. Although ten million is a high price, you get what you pay for. Norbeck knows very well that with his abilities, he is not qualified to complete a ten million task. Moreover, if the other party is so rich and powerful that they cannot solve the problem, then he is not qualified to solve it either.

So he chose to use a scheme to stall He Ao and earn those two million.

But money can be tempting, and when his schemes failed, he refused to let go.

Especially when he saw He Ao covered in blood, clearly having gone through a fierce battle the night before, unrealistic fantasies began to surface in his mind.

No matter how good a person's recovery ability is, it is impossible to heal almost completely overnight, and he knew 'Jace's' strength.

He sold all of Jess's talent sequence potions, and he knew very well that Jess was just a D-rank non-combat 'giver'.

All of this made him feel that he might be able to get that ten million.

He Ao stared at the man with a smile. "Looks like I really am worth a lot of money. Now you can tell me who your client is, right?"

Although Nobek had tried to 'take down' Heo, the fact that he didn't act immediately suggested that he was still somewhat hesitant.

If he could earn those two million without bloodshed or paying any price, he would definitely be willing to do so.

So when He Ao asks a question that allows him to stall for time, he will still choose to stall for time as much as possible.

This forced him to answer Heo's questions in order to keep Heo calm.

Moreover, he is unlikely to choose to lie, because he doesn't know what kind of information He Ao has. Once the lie is exposed, the two will lose trust, and he will have no choice but to go to war with He Ao to gamble on that ten million.

In this moment of hesitation, although he was on his home turf, he had actually lost the initiative.

Although He Ao was standing in the crowd with a gun pointed at him, he had actually become the one in control of the situation.