Obtaining a Memory Fragment (4k Words)

Harvest—Memory Fragment (4k Words)

Hearing the scream that echoed through the entire room, Qiu Tu woke up groggily.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked at Shen Ling Shuang beside him.

Then he saw Shen Ling Shuang clutching the blanket, huddled at the edge of the bed, staring at him in terror.

Qiu Tu yawned and asked, "What's wrong?"

Shen Ling Shuang glared at Qiu Tu. "Y-you... why were you sleeping with me?"

Qiu Tu froze for a moment, then innocently pointed at his tiny home. "What else was I supposed to do? There's only one bed in the house, and the sofa's so small. I couldn't exactly sleep on the floor, could I?"

Hearing Qiu Tu's words, Shen Ling Shuang was briefly stunned. Then she gave a soft snort and turned her head away. "Well, you brought this on yourself. Don't expect me to take responsibility for you!"

With that, she pulled on her pants and left.

Qiu Tu:??

Now it was Qiu Tu's turn to be dumbfounded.

Wait a second. Had he gotten up wrong somehow? Why did this feel different from what he'd imagined?

Thinking that, he paused, then lifted the blanket to check. His clothes were completely intact, without any signs of having been undone.

He then looked up at Shen Ling Shuang, who was walking toward the living room. The girl's ears were a little red, and her expression seemed somewhat unnatural.

Qiu Tu... understood.

As expected of a tsundere masochist young lady. Her mouth really was stubborn.

But shouldn't he tell her that tsunderes had already fallen out of fashion?

After silently mocking her for a while, Qiu Tu lay back down and found that he could no longer sleep.

He simply gave up on getting more sleep and chose to check what he had gained from last night's game.

After summoning the Loyalty Game panel, the first thing Qiu Tu saw was a game-over screen.

In the image, A Tai's pixel character held a Small Iron Hammer, hands on his hips as he laughed at the sky. Wang Xi's pixel character, meanwhile, sat on the ground with a bruised and swollen face, clutching his head and crying.

Along with that image, a package shining with Golden Light had appeared in the center of the screen.

Seeing this, Qiu Tu knew that A Tai had probably won last night's game, and that package should be the reward he had obtained.

With that thought, Qiu Tu did not waste any time and clicked on the package with his mind.

The next second, several notifications appeared before him.

Loyalty Game victory. Reward obtained.

Wang Xi Loyalty +5

Wang Xi Memory Fragment (Short) +1

After reading the game notifications, Qiu Tu's eyes lit up slightly. The haul was pretty good.

Not only had he gained some Loyalty, but he had also obtained a Memory Fragment.

If this Memory Fragment showed Wang Xi committing murder, then Qiu Tu felt that he could already solve the case.

Thinking so, he tried clicking on the Memory Fragment to see what it contained.

The instant he clicked it, Qiu Tu's vision went black. Then, he seemed to appear inside a cramped room.

Inside the room stood a strange man dressed in a black suit, with bright red dyed hair and a Clown Mask on his face.

He held a shotgun in his hands and was wiping it down.

After finishing, he tossed the shotgun to "Qiu Tu," then picked up another shotgun and flashed "Qiu Tu" a wide grin.

"Tomorrow, we're robbing a pharmacy. Your job is to deal with the clerks and customers inside."

"I'll handle the guards and any detectives who come as reinforcements."

At that point, the scene went black again. When Qiu Tu came back to himself, he found that he had Returned to the bed.

Qiu Tu sat on the bed, blankly stunned for a moment. Then, ten thousand alpacas stampeded through his heart!

Holy shit! This special task force of his really was packed with hidden monsters!

Of the four named members, one was a traitor, one was a spy, and another was... a vicious bandit?!

Qiu Tu recalled what he had just seen, then quickly searched through the original owner's memories.

Very soon, he found the relevant information.

Half a month ago, an Official Pharmacy on Lower Ward Street had been robbed.

Not only had the robbers stolen medicines and medicinal herbs worth several hundred Silver Coins, but they had also brutally murdered two guards, three clerks, three customers, six Temporary Detectives who arrived as reinforcements, and two full detectives—a total of sixteen people.

Because the incident had caused such a huge uproar, the Investigation Department received severe criticism from the Municipal Committee.

The Public Security Department where Qin ZhengGuang worked had also received a serious disciplinary penalty from the Investigation Department and was ordered to solve the case within a set time limit.

But in an era without surveillance cameras or DNA testing technology, how could solving a case be so easy?

Furthermore, after the robbers killed all the clerks and Security Personnel, they had left without a care. A great many onlookers then rushed into the store to snatch up the remaining valuables, making the traces at the scene nearly impossible to identify.

So, the case remained unsolved to this day.

Who would have thought that this major case had been committed by Wang Xi, that frail-looking pharmacist?

The thought left Qiu Tu somewhat stunned.

Sure enough, you never knew what your coworkers got up to after work.

After silently mocking the situation for a while, Qiu Tu briefly analyzed the information revealed by the Memory Fragment.

First was Wang Xi's contrasting identity: a violent bandit.

This identity proved that Wang Xi was not as honest and ordinary as he appeared. He was someone who prowled the edges of darkness.

Second, Wang Xi likely belonged to some small group or organization.

Judging from the scene in the memory, he had been taking orders from a strange man wearing a Clown Mask. That meant he was probably not the leader of that group or organization.

Moreover, this small group was clearly not very powerful. If it had been strong enough, it would not have resorted to robbing a Potion Shop.

Lastly, this small group's source of income was very likely Contraband Drugs. And there was a High Probability that Wang Xi made those Contraband Drugs after work.

After all, there were plenty of shops that were less dangerous to rob and offered greater profits, yet they had chosen a Potion Shop. Clearly, they had a way to make those medicines more valuable.

Namely, processing the medicines a second time, turning them into Contraband Drugs, and selling them.

As he considered this, Qiu Tu's gaze deepened. The main destination for Contraband Drugs was, in fact, the Anti-Government Armed Forces.

Could Wang Xi have come into contact with anti-government armed groups such as the Alliance because of this? And had he killed that female spy to silence her for money?

At that thought, Qiu Tu felt that he might really be able to test Wang Xi today—provided Wang Xi was still around.

Yet after making that decision, Qiu Tu sat on the bed without feeling particularly happy.

For some reason, he vaguely felt that something about this was not right.

He silently analyzed the case's several suspects.

There was no need to mention Liu Fuping. He had met her last night, and she had basically been cleared of suspicion.

Next was Song Qing. Qiu Tu had interacted with the girl for two days, and she seemed like a scatterbrained young woman. Her family background clearly appeared to be good, and she possessed a rare liveliness for these chaotic times. She did not seem much like a killer either.

As for Wang Xi, he was indeed somewhat suspicious. Qiu Tu truly intended to test him.

But on further consideration, the possibility that the Alliance had hired someone to commit murder did not seem very high.

After all, how could the Alliance have known that Wang Xi happened to be the pharmacist interrogating that female spy?

If Qiu Tu remembered correctly, last night's interrogation had been hastily arranged by Jia Shu to trap him. No one could have known about it in advance.

That made Qiu Tu feel that things were getting interesting.

If none of those three were the killer, could it have been the two duty agents? Or perhaps some other agent who had been able to come into contact with the female spy?

For no apparent reason, Qiu Tu felt there might be a much bigger secret behind this matter.

Meanwhile, as Qiu Tu quietly analyzed the case.

Military Department, a secret office.

Qin Shuman stood ramrod straight before a desk in a dark green military uniform, her gaze level and fixed straight ahead.

Behind the desk sat a tall, burly man. His forehead was full and broad, his face sharply defined. His expression was somewhat bland, but a ruthless, merciless glint lay deep in his eyes.

Seated behind the desk with a fountain pen in hand, he read the report before him and clicked his tongue twice.

Then he looked up at Qin Shuman, his smile slightly cold. "Rain Butterfly, I can't bring myself to sign a report like this."

"For the sake of one Fourth Master Qin, you lost a key asset planted at Yan Chen's side."

"And that alone would have been one thing. But in order to safely escort Fourth Master Qin out, you even had the Reconnaissance Section clean up afterward, directly exposing our Security Department to Yan Chen."

"In just one day!"

"Just one short day! Nearly all our assets among the upper ranks of the Investigation Department were uprooted!"

With that, the man flung the report straight at Qin Shuman's face. "And you still have the nerve to ask me to sign off on such a failure!?"

The flying report cut across Qin Shuman's delicate face, but she continued staring straight ahead. Her expression and posture did not change in the slightest. She simply let the cold report strike her face and fall to the floor.

Seeing this, the man's anger subsided somewhat. He looked coldly at Qin Shuman and delivered his final ultimatum. "I don't care what method you use. Within a week, I want you to rebuild our line into the upper ranks of the Investigation Department! Restore our control over the Investigation Department's key intelligence!"

"In a case as major as Vice President Tian's mistress being silenced, we didn't receive a single piece of inside information!"

"Even now, we know absolutely nothing about how the case is progressing or what has happened!"

"This is an enormous dereliction of duty on your part as chief of the Reconnaissance Section!"

By the end, the man's voice had softened, but its chill remained undiminished. "If you can't do it, then wait for a military tribunal."

"Yes!" Qin Shuman snapped into a salute!

Seeing Qin Shuman accept the order, the man's expression improved somewhat.

He gave a deep hum, then added, "And the Qin Family."

"Since you paid such a huge price to bring him back, don't release him so easily."

"Ever since the previous generation, the Qin Family had been making arrangements in the shelter in advance. Not only had they gotten acquainted with Yan Chen and Jiang ShiGang, Committee Member Jiang, ahead of time, they had also continuously expanded their influence in both political and business circles."

"They're now entangled with the Alliance again. There's obviously something wrong here!"

"So keep digging! Get to the bottom of it!"

"I want to see exactly what's hidden in that muddy mess of the Qin Family!"

Meanwhile.

Investigation Department. The dim director's office.

Yan Chen sat behind the broad desk, looking rather at ease, without the slightest trace of the fury Secretary Bai had described.

Leaning back in his chair, he struck a match and lit the cigarette between his lips. Then, as he gently shook out the flame, he asked in a low voice, "How are things progressing?"

At his question, the man standing before him broke into a particularly brilliant smile—it was none other than Jia Shu.

He adjusted the gold-rimmed glasses on his nose and said with a smile, "Reporting to the Director, everything is progressing very smoothly."

"Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the Security Department, we removed the six informants they had planted among us."

"The Security Department made the first move. No one can fault us for what we did."

"After removing those informants, I used the death of Vice President Tian's mistress to release some bait. We successfully identified a group of suspected spies."

"After the act we put on last night ended, I recorded everyone who made any unusual moves. They're currently being compared one by one."

"Still, there were a few people I truly didn't expect."

Yan Chen gave an "Oh?" and looked up at him. "Who?"

A cold glint flashed behind Jia Shu's lenses. With a half-smile, he said, "For example... Secretary Bai."

"The moment he learned the news, he actually called Qiu Tu."

"I'm very curious what exactly he said to Qiu Tu during that call that lasted barely a dozen seconds."

"And then there's one subordinate in our Political Department whom I think very highly of."

"I never expected her to receive the intelligence too. And she was so anxious to meet several relevant people, including Qiu Tu."

Hearing Jia Shu's words, Yan Chen took a drag of his cigarette and asked with interest, "What about Qiu Tu?"

At that, the smile on Jia Shu's face faded considerably. He chose his words carefully. "Qiu Tu was rather surprising."

"He went to the Milan Hotel last night. He should have been following our arrangements and meeting with the Security Department."

"During the meeting, he received a call from Secretary Bai. After that, he made no unusual moves."

"On the way home, he ran into that subordinate of mine whom I admire. The two talked and lingered for a while, but nothing came of it afterward."

"Overall, his behavior seemed perfectly normal."

Yan Chen nodded slightly.

Then, lightly tapping the armrest with his fingers, he said softly, "In order to quickly and comprehensively bring New Realm City's public security under control, our department expanded rapidly over the past year—from several dozen core personnel to more than ten thousand people."

"During that process, we weren't particularly strict in our control over personnel."

"Too many eyes and informants from various factions have mixed in among us."

"Now that order in New Realm City has initially stabilized, we finally have time to screen the department's personnel."

"We need to distinguish carefully between those who are truly loyal to us and can be used, and those who have problems and must be removed."

"This is a rare opportunity. Make sure we seize it."

Jia Shu nodded slightly. "Yes."

After discussing that matter, Yan Chen added, "What do you think about the death of Vice President Tian's mistress?"

I've been sorting out the outline for later chapters today, so this update is temporarily only 4,000 words. It should return to 7,000 words tomorrow. Remember to keep reading~