Listening to his words, everyone furrowed their brows and looked at each other in bewilderment.
“You just got here. You have no idea what level of cases the Special Service Bureau handles, so how do you expect to solve them?” a man with a buzz cut was the first to speak, his voice dripping with skepticism.
Xu Mo sat in his chair, too lazy to even raise his head. He merely beckoned with his finger, his tone impatient to the extreme.
“Shut your mouth!”
“Hurry up and bring me the case files. Don't waste my time,” Xu Mo added.
He acted so naturally, as if he had been running the place for a long time.
Intimidated by his current imposing aura, everyone temporarily forgot to hold him accountable for the physical assault just now, their minds short-circuiting slightly.
People in Turing City generally maintained a decent facade on the surface, so this was the first time they had ever encountered someone like this.
Standing to the side, Xie Xuan already had fine beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Seeing things reach this point, he could only treat a dead horse as if it were alive. He spoke up to smooth things over:
“Let's show her the files first. Group Leader Bai has special abilities; perhaps she can actually do it.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a young girl with heavy dark circles under her eyes stepped out from a corner.
The girl was clutching a translucent data terminal in her arms. Her messy hair was tied back, and the dark, bruised-looking skin under her eyes made it seem like she hadn't slept in days.
With a tone that screamed "dead inside," she spoke up.
“All the cases within the Special Service Bureau are stored here.”
Xu Mo took the terminal and casually swiped across the screen a couple of times.
He was in no mood to carefully read through the case files; he was purely checking if there was anything he recognized. With a single glance, he spotted quite a few familiar cases.
Xu Mo casually tossed the terminal back to the girl with dark circles and said,
“Your name is Chen Yuan, and you're the technician responsible for coordinating cases for Group 7, right?”
Chen Yuan was slightly taken aback, having no idea how the person in front of her knew her name, but she simply nodded.
Xu Mo didn't bother to explain. This girl had top-tier computer skills and belonged to a rather unique research school within Turing City; he remembered her.
At this moment, he simply turned his gaze back to the crowd.
“The ones your Special Service Bureau wants to catch the most are those researching life sciences, right?”
As soon as these words were uttered, the atmosphere in the room instantly grew several degrees more solemn.
The term "life sciences" was not something that could be casually mentioned in Turing City; it was an absolute taboo.
After a brief moment of silence, someone spoke up:
“Of course. That is Turing City's greatest taboo. Anyone who dabbles in it is considered a heretic and faces the death penalty.”
Xu Mo nodded and said,
“Alright, then let's start with what you care about the most.”
“Among these cases, there must be some suspects who were recently detained, right? Take me to see them.”
The crowd was dumbfounded. Just as they were about to say something, Xu Mo raised his hand to cut them off:
“Don't waste your breath in front of me. Just take me there first.”
The members of Group 7 looked at each other with uncertainty and suspicion. In the end, only Chen Yuan spoke up softly.
“Very well, I will submit an application in the system backend now.”
...
The scene shifted. A helpless Xie Xuan and the members of Group 7 had already escorted Bai Feifei to the detention facility.
The underground corridor was cold and dim. They walked all the way down, making several turns before arriving in front of a heavy metal door.
After Chen Yuan presented an approved application protocol, the guard leading the way pushed open the door.
Behind the door lay a long, narrow corridor lined with individual cells on both sides. Bright light shone out from within them, and the air was thick with a mixture of rust and disinfectant.
Xu Mo walked at the very front with his hands clasped behind his back, looking as if he had just come for a tour.
He walked at a leisurely pace, his gaze sweeping over the prisoners in the cells on either side.
Inside the cells, there was a scrawny, middle-aged man with cloudy eyes.
There was a young woman whose neck was locked in place, her feet forced to stand constantly on an insulating plate.
There was also a teenager crouching in a corner, repeatedly banging his head against the wall.
Xu Mo's eyes swept over them.
Among these many faces, he still had some recollection of a few.
Every now and then, his steps would halt for a second, and he would tap twice on the corresponding cell door, leaving the people behind him even more utterly bewildered.
No one spoke. Once they reached the end of the long corridor, he suddenly spoke up:
“Gather all the people whose doors I just tapped on into one room.”
At his words, everyone behind him was stunned.
Chen Yuan couldn't help but speak up from the side to remind him:
“These people are not involved in the same case.”
“While any group in the Special Service Bureau can take on any case, under normal circumstances, we are supposed to take over and investigate them one by one.”
Xu Mo merely tilted his chin and said indifferently,
“Of course I know that. But as you said, those are 'normal circumstances.' Now that I am here, circumstances are no longer normal.”
“Don't teach me how to do my job. Just do as you're told. Wouldn't it be simple enough to just take over all the cases I pointed out?”
Chen Yuan: “...”
After a brief silence, she lowered her head and tapped on her tablet a few times, actually taking over all the cases just as Xu Mo had instructed!
Cold sweat instantly poured down Xie Xuan's face. He was starting to regret this a little now.
It was truly a case of being easy to invite a god, but hard to send them away.
The members of Group 7 following behind looked increasingly grim. If this went south, their already low-status Group 7 would become an absolute laughingstock.
The Shar-Pei-faced woman walked at the very back, a cold sneer playing on her lips.
However, halfway through her sneer, she agitated her abdomen, which had been kicked earlier. The sudden pain made her grimace, her eyes burning with resentment.
Hmph, the bigger the mess, the better. She wanted to see how this incredibly arrogant woman would clean up her own mess.
Before long.
Inside a spacious underground interrogation room, all the detained suspects had been brought in, each of them handcuffed to their chairs.
Some began coughing violently the moment they sat down, while others kept their eyes closed in silence.
Among them, a middle-aged man wearing a black suit, who looked like an academic, cracked his neck and spoke up:
“Isn't my temporary detention period about to expire?”
“The Special Service Bureau has no crucial evidence. If it's been over seventy-two hours, shouldn't you release me? I still have research to conduct.”
Without waiting for the members of Group 7 to reply, the other detainees around him suddenly grew emboldened and began shouting as well.
“Exactly! The Special Service Bureau's rules need to change. Holding us without evidence is just wasting our time!”
“I want to see my lawyer!”
“Why is it Group 7 handling this? Is the Special Service Bureau out of people or what...”
The atmosphere in the room instantly shifted as clamor erupted from all sides. Tables and chairs rattled, shackles dragged against the floor, and the room became a chaotic din.
Right at that moment, the Shar-Pei-faced woman, who had been sneering the entire time, finally couldn't hold back anymore. She squinted at “Bai Feifei” and couldn't resist running her mouth again:
“Well, shouldn't our newly appointed Group Leader Bai be... getting ready to solve the cases now?”
Xu Mo didn't even turn his head. Without sparing her a glance, he simply swept his eyes over the faces of the people in front of him, as if confirming something.
A few seconds later, he turned around and looked at Xie Xuan and the rest of Group 7 with absolute confidence.
“Alright, I've solved the cases.”
“Shoot them all!”
Everyone: “!?”
Bai Feifei: “?”
Rate on N.U.
