Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 593 Continuing the Clue

"No similar energy signature was detected."

After spending a few minutes on the third underground floor, Han Zu carefully inspected the area. Neither the contractor's equipment nor his own perception could detect the energy from the man. The man had indeed escaped right under his nose.

In this case, it would be useless to keep chasing him, so Han Zu immediately left the third underground floor and returned to the balcony of his previous apartment as quickly as possible, and then returned to the apartment.

The apartment remained the same as before; the building's soundproofing prevented anyone from noticing what had happened. However, when he had damaged the elevator door, it had triggered the motion sensor in the elevator shaft. Several security and maintenance personnel were currently heading to this floor.

Han Zu used the contractor's equipment to transmit the shoes left behind by the man to γ4, hoping he could find useful clues to the man's identity. Strangely, the shoes contained no traces of any biological material. They looked as if they had just been manufactured on an assembly line. However, the wear and tear on the soles proved that the shoes had been worn for at least several months.

"Then, based on the data I gave you, can you analyze what exactly I'm facing?"

"The probability is low, the data is too little, but I can send this data to a specialized laboratory for testing, and perhaps I can find some clues, but it may take a long time."

"Okay, let me know if there's any news."

The maintenance and security personnel who had discovered the damaged elevator door had already arrived at this floor and were about to exit the elevator. Han Zu quickly closed the apartment door and left through the balcony. There was no information or clues he was looking for here, and those maintenance and security personnel had no connection to him, so there was no need to make a fuss here.

The only clue Han Zu had left was the police officer who had seen the scientist. Although he had been buried in the cemetery, perhaps Han Zu could find some clues from him. So, under the cover of darkness, Han Zu quickly flew to the cemetery and quickly located the man's grave.

However, upon seeing the man's tombstone, Han Zu frowned. Based on the location of the tombstone and the size of the cemetery, Han Zu could confirm that the officer had not been buried directly in a coffin. Instead, his body had been cremated and placed in an urn. The urn was small, so the possibility of anything hidden inside was low. But having arrived, Han Zu used his clairvoyance to peer inside the urn. As expected, there was nothing left.

But it wasn't like he had lost the clues again. After a brief thought, Han Zu decided to start with the police officer's interpersonal relationships. As a police officer, he must have dealt with a lot of people on a daily basis. This police officer had no black history and had never accepted bribes. He was a very upright person. If that was the case, he must have had some special reasons for going to the apartment building to stake out. Although there were no clues about this matter in the police files, Han Zu believed that he would not have acted completely alone. At least he should have told others some of the reasons, either relatives and friends, or trusted colleagues or superiors, or even partners he saw every day. Among all his interpersonal relationships, there must be someone who knew, or at least had heard some inside information.

The next task was simple: to find all the close contacts the officer had while he was doing the surveillance. Once they were found, Han Zu could question them and find out why the officer had come to the apartment building to conduct the surveillance. With the help of the contractor's equipment, finding the personal information of several people was a piece of cake.

"...Search completed, locating all targets' current locations."

In less than half a minute, the contractor's equipment searched for the information of all the targets and began to locate everyone's current position. Taking advantage of this time, Han Zu roughly looked at who these targets were.

The police officer who died had lost his parents, had never been married, and had no children. However, he had an older brother who lived in another city hundreds of kilometers away. The two brothers did not have a good relationship. They were half-brothers, so they rarely contacted each other. After their parents died, the two brothers never had any contact with each other until they died. His older brother did not even know about the police officer's death.

The officer's brother had a wonderful family: a wife, two children, and two dogs. He had barely left the city since moving there at the age of fifteen. After getting married, he returned to the countryside for his honeymoon. The officer's brother had visited the city once five years prior, but he hadn't met his brother. He hadn't informed him, and he was completely unaware of his arrival. Besides a brief exchange of words when their parents died, they hadn't had any further contact, effectively ruling out the possibility that the officer's brother had any information.

The police officer had several good friends in the same city, most of whom were also police officers in the same police station, and there were also a few college classmates. However, from six years ago until the death of the police officer, these classmates were basically not in the country. They did have contact with each other, but it was just basic greetings or chats, and no news related to the apartment was mentioned. These classmates could also be ruled out.

The other officers, who were also close friends of the officer, didn't have much contact with each other, aside from going to the bar for a couple of drinks after get off work. Furthermore, after the officer's death, these officers hadn't had any confidential conversations, so it was confirmed that they knew nothing.

After eliminating most people, Han Zu narrowed down the most likely targets to two people. One of them was also a police officer, now promoted to detective. She used to be the police officer's partner. According to the intelligence collected, the two had a good relationship and had solved many cases together. And the key point was that she was also at the scene of the bank robbery that resulted in the death of the police officer. She was also injured and lay in the hospital for more than a month. She was not even able to attend her partner's funeral. In addition to making her very sad, according to the clues found by Han Zu, the current detective had often visited the cemetery to visit the other party since his recovery, but the time was not fixed. Many people in the police station said that the two of them may have had feelings for each other, but neither side had the time to express it, which led to the current situation.

The other person wasn't a police officer, nor was he a family member or friend. It was a child, a child the officer had once saved and who had nearly been captured by human traffickers. Six years had passed, and the child was now a young adult, and the two had a deep connection. The child's father had died young, and his mother was addicted to drugs. The reason he was nearly captured by traffickers was actually because his mother had sold him to them. If the officer hadn't been investigating a case involving the trafficker at the time, the child might not be alive today. The officer was kind and would occasionally check on the child when he had free time. The child was very sensible and deeply grateful to the officer. Since the officer only had an older brother, whom he no longer associated with, the child actually helped a lot when the officer died. Out of respect and admiration for the officer, the child enrolled in the police academy, hoping to become a police officer himself.

The child was currently in a police academy dormitory on the other side of the city. His experiences and family background had made him extremely hardworking and ambitious. Even at an age when he was normally noisy and playful, he was able to calm down and study diligently. While his two roommates were out having fun, he was back in the dorm, reviewing some judicial studies.

The police officer's partner was not far from the cemetery. It seemed that he had come to visit the police officer again. However, due to traffic reasons, the detective was currently stuck a few hundred meters away from the cemetery.

Since the other party was about to come to the cemetery, Han Zu could decide who to question first. So he found a tree not far from the police officer's tombstone, leaned against the tree and waited for the other party to arrive.

Ten minutes later, the traffic jam eased, and the detective's car quickly arrived at the parking lot in front of the cemetery. With his powerful vision, Han Zu saw the detective take a bottle of wine from the trunk and walk towards the detective's tombstone.

Arriving at the tombstone, the detective sat down directly opposite it, placing the bottle of wine in front of it. She looked exhausted, saying nothing, and simply sat there. For over ten minutes, she remained motionless. Seeing this, Han Zu, who had been hoping to hear something, stood up from beneath the tree, shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and slowly walked over to the detective's tombstone.

There were several small streetlights on the path near the police officer's tombstone, so Han Zu was easily spotted by the detective when he walked past. Seeing a burly man in a long trench coat in the cemetery at midnight naturally attracted the attention of others, including the detective, who stopped directly near the tombstone and stood beside him.

"You are also... an acquaintance of Joseph? How come I have never seen you before?"

"We're just acquaintances, not friends. I just heard he passed away, so I came to see how he died."

"The robbers shot him in the lungs and heart, and he didn't make it."

The detective was naturally wary of the man who suddenly appeared, but when he heard him talk about Officer Joseph, his expression became depressed. Han Zu made a rough judgment that the rumors in the police station might be correct, and there might really be some feelings between the two, or at least there had been.

Although the loneliness of missing someone had briefly affected the detective, the man he had never met, despite offering an explanation, was unable to dispel his suspicions. It was late, and coming to the cemetery at this time was indeed a bit strange, but after all, he had also come at this time, so using this incident as a topic of conversation was not a good choice. The detective planned to inquire about the man's identity from other aspects.

"Have you known each other for a long time?"

"Not really."

"You don't look like a local, are you here for tourism?"

"I'm on a business trip and stopped by to take a look."

The other party's answer was brief, and it was obvious that he didn't want to respond. Just as the detective was trying to find another way to inquire about his identity, he surprised her by sighing and taking the initiative to tell her something.

"Huh... Listen, I know you're a little suspicious of my identity, and that's normal. After all, not everyone would choose to come to a place like a cemetery at this time. If you want to know who I am, you can ask directly. Of course, I can also tell you about the relationship between Joseph and me, but it's better to change places. Standing in a cemetery for too long always makes you feel uncomfortable, right?"

"...Alright, let's go first."

The detective took Han Zu out of the cemetery and came to her car.

"There's no one around here, is that okay?"

"Fine, as long as we're not standing in a cemetery. What do you want to know?"

"How did you and Joseph meet?"

"One of Joseph's friends is a private investigator. I'm kind of his... colleague. Six years ago, Joseph asked him to help investigate something, but he was busy with other things at the time and wanted Joseph to wait. However, Joseph seemed very anxious about the matter. I happened to be visiting my colleague at the time, so he introduced Joseph and me to help Joseph with the investigation."

"You mean Harrison?"

"You're remembering it wrong? His name is Harran."

The detective planned to use a small trap to test whether Han Zu's words were true, but for Han Zu, who knew all of Joseph's interpersonal relationships in advance, this method would never succeed.

"So what exactly did he ask you to do for me?"

"He asked me to help investigate an address. It's a high-end apartment building. It seems to be quite famous here."

"why?"

"I'm not sure about that. Joseph didn't elaborate, he just told me to keep an eye on someone."

Han Zu took out his cell phone and showed the detective a photo of a scientist's profile. When the detective was observing the photo, Han Zu was also observing the detective. But according to Han Zu's observation, the detective seemed very confused. She did not know the scientist in the photo. When he was telling her the relevant information before, she also seemed very confused. Han Zu initially judged that Joseph should not have told the detective about this.

"So what happened to this matter later?"

"Joseph said he had ruled out the other party's suspicion, so he stopped observing. I left the country after that. It wasn't until two years ago when I was chatting with Harlan that I accidentally learned about Joseph's death. I happened to have some things to do recently, so I stopped by to see you."

With the aid of advance information, Han Zu's acting was flawless, quickly dispelling the detective's suspicions. With the aid of the contractor's equipment, even if the detective wanted to investigate him, he would only find information that was completely consistent with what he had said. As for whether she would confront Harlan in person, Han Zu was not worried. Since the detective's knowledge of the information was ruled out, they would most likely never meet again.

"Goodbye, I have other things to do."

"Goodbye."

After confirming that the other party was completely unaware, Han Zu quickly ended their conversation. After a brief greeting, they parted ways. The detective left the cemetery, presumably heading home, and Han Zu quickly took off in a deserted area, arriving shortly below the Police Academy dormitory.