Interrogation Results

"Director Li, Shen Zuohu is being awfully arrogant. He specifically asked to speak with you."

At the Yunhua City Public Security Bureau, Li Meng was writing in his office when he heard his subordinate's report. He stopped working. "Oh? He's awake? I'll head over now."

In this Apocalypse Rules Era, kidnapping a High Mind Power User was an extremely serious case. Li Meng had intended to interrogate him personally anyway.

He entered the interrogation room. Shen Zuohu was firmly secured to an interrogation chair, and when he saw Li Meng enter, he grinned.

"Isn't this Director Li? We meet again. More than ten years ago, you were still a captain, weren't you? Now you've worked your way up to director. Not bad."

"Yeah, I should thank you for that. If I hadn't arrested your Tiger Roar Gang back then and earned myself a major merit, I wouldn't have been promoted afterward." Li Meng smiled. "Unlike you, Shen Zuohu. More than ten years have passed, and you still haven't improved one bit."

The flesh on Shen Zuohu's face twitched, and he glared at Li Meng with an unfriendly look.

"Didn't you want to talk to me? Go ahead." Li Meng asked, "What was the purpose of your kidnapping operation? Where were the victims transferred to? Who was your superior?"

Shen Zuohu's heart stirred. "Superior? What superior?"

Li Meng said flatly, "Shen Zuohu, you're not young anymore. Don't imitate youngsters by playing dumb."

"..."

Shen Zuohu fell silent for a moment, then sneered. "Li Meng, do you think I'll obediently tell you?"

"Oh." Li Meng gave a faint, ambiguous smile. "Still pretty stubborn, are you? But your little brothers were much more honest. They all confessed that you were the mastermind behind the kidnapping case. They also spilled the murder you committed two days ago."

Shen Zuohu's face turned ashen, his teeth grinding audibly.

"You can't blame anyone else for that. When trouble came, you made your underlings take the hit while you secretly crawled through a concrete pipe to escape... You were so disloyal. Can you really blame your men for turning on you?"

"Shen Zuohu, just make it easy on yourself. You know you lost this time. Once you're in here, you're never getting out again. You might as well come clean and confess."

Shen Zuohu craned his neck and said viciously, "Li Meng, let me tell you this! I, Shen Zuohu, wasn't brought down by you cops! If not for that damned little brat..."

He remembered it now. The kid sitting in the back seat had looked exceptionally young and had not been wearing a uniform at all. He clearly hadn't been a public security officer!

That filled him with regret. If he had simply stolen a car and fled after dealing with the two public security officers guarding the place, instead of bothering with that kid, he might have already been safe by now!

Li Meng said, "That 'little brat' you mentioned is a special case-solving assistant for our Public Security Bureau. Falling into his hands is the same as falling into ours."

Shen Zuohu's face darkened. He had spent so many years in the underworld and seen every kind of storm, yet whenever he recalled that pitch-black arm clamped around his throat—an arm without a single hair or pore—his back still went cold.

He remembered using his Knuckle Duster to smash that arm before he lost consciousness—his Knuckle Duster was a Mind Power Artifact! Yet it had done practically nothing.

The thing choking him from behind definitely hadn't been human! But what had it been? A monster?

"Shen Zuohu."

Li Meng's voice pulled him back to the present.

"At this point, just honestly reveal your superior. I know you. Now that you're in trouble, you definitely won't let anyone else off easy either. That's your nature—hurting others even when it gains you nothing."

"...Li Meng, you're right. I, Shen Zuohu, am indeed not someone who values loyalty. Even if I die, I'll drag others down with me. But the question is, even if I tell you who my superior is, do you dare arrest him?"

"Tell me."

Shen Zuohu slowly said, "The person who dealt with me was just a minor lackey, not worth mentioning. But I'm not useless—I secretly found out who that lackey was working for. Do you know who really wanted to kidnap those High Mind Power Users...?"

He smiled and named someone.

"Zhao Jiping."

Upon hearing that name, Li Meng's expression abruptly turned serious.

He adjusted his glasses and said in a low voice, "You mean Zhao Jiping, chairman of Hengyun Real Estate."

"That's right, him—the owner of the largest real estate conglomerate in Beixing Nation, and also a member of the Development Department." A mocking smile appeared on Shen Zuohu's face. "Li Meng, do you, a city Public Security Bureau director, dare arrest him?"

With only three days left before the Third Apocalypse Rule, [Fasting Therapy], expired, the Hidden Rule that items in the Ascension Shop had limited quantities was finally discovered.

The first to discover it was an Ascender in the Solloma Empire.

This Ascender had originally planned to endure the fifteen-day Rule Time purely through sheer willpower, but with three days remaining, he could no longer hold on.

Afraid that excessive hunger would cause irreversible damage to his body and leave severe aftereffects, he opened the Ascension Shop and bought a Food Box.

But the moment he completed the purchase, he clearly saw a line of small text appear beneath [Bronze Grade Basic Food Crate] in the shop.

Remaining quantity: 9999999

This text indicating a limited quantity had definitely not existed before!

Besides being shocked, the survivor posted about it online. Before long, the news that "Ascension Shop items are limited" spread throughout the world via the internet!

Discussion erupted across every country. On Beixing Nation's social media, the news immediately rose to first place on the trending list.

"The boxes are actually limited???"

"Looks like the remaining item quantity only appears once the stock drops below ten million!"

"Holy shit! There was hidden information like this too! What the hell is the Countermeasures Office doing? Why wasn't this included in the White Paper?!"

"Stop blindly flaming them. This kind of information would be hard to think of, wouldn't it? No matter how capable the Countermeasures Office is, they don't have enough Ascension Coins to run tests like 'buying out the entire shop'..."

"Go check your terminals! The Food Box stock is dropping way too fast!"

"Huh??? It's true! I just looked, and there are only 9,967,151 left!"

"Over three hundred thousand sold in such a short time?!!"

"Damn it! There are this many rich people with coins hiding out there???"

Guan Tong, who was currently in Room 306 of the Limei Hotel, saw the news online as well.

"I didn't expect this information to be discovered in the end."

On the first day the rule was announced, he had already learned through the note in the Hidden Rules that the boxes had limited quantities.

But worried that it would trigger a buying frenzy and prevent those who genuinely needed them to survive from making a purchase, he chose not to disclose the information.

As the Rule End drew closer, Guan Tong had thought the information might remain undiscovered. Yet with three days still left before the rule ended, the number of boxes had reached the threshold, causing the limited-quantity notice to appear.

He opened the Ascension Shop on his Personal Terminal and took a look.

The remaining quantity of [Bronze Grade Basic Food Crate] had already fallen to only 8,921,743.

Less than an hour had passed since the news broke, yet more than one million boxes had already sold.

Seeing this, Guan Tong marveled at the immense purchasing power of Ascenders around the world, while secretly thinking, Good thing I didn't release the information back then. Otherwise, they probably would have sold out one or two days before the rule took effect...