Nong Zheng couldn't help swallowing before he said, "How could I possibly know anyone who works for the governor...? But... but I heard the boss of my old agency say that there were people in the sub-districts who specialized in handling dirty work for others."
"Is that so?" Xu Huo casually set his terminal on the coffee table. "Weren't you just saying that people with power and influence were behind this sort of thing? If even the Enforcement Department turns a blind eye, surely their own Players could handle it. Why hire outsiders?"
"That's not how it works!" Hearing the dangerous edge in his voice, Nong Zheng hurriedly explained, "The government doesn't actually employ that many Players. There are a lot of Players who've been injured or forced to step down from their positions. They don't want to cut ties with the government entirely, so some work directly as bodyguards for government officials, while others take private jobs. Don't be fooled by the way those people in the Enforcement Department pretend not to know the truth. Even if you asked them to do this kind of thing, hardly any would agree. They have respectable lives and promising futures—why would they do something like this...? Outsourcing is perfectly normal. They might not officially be government Players, but their methods are much the same, and they're easier to find."
"So you know someone like that," Xu Huo said.
Nong Zheng immediately told him about a Player he'd once met by chance while working for his former boss. "I don't know if these two things are connected, but people in the same line of work know a thing or two about each other. Not long after the company's actresses disappeared, the boss ran into this man and fainted on the spot. I figure