"Wei Yanchi is missing? A minute and thirty-odd seconds-how did you calculate that?"
Was this a joke? Had it even been twenty minutes since he and Wei Yanchi parted?
730 fell silent for a moment, then finally decided to tell the truth. "Ever since Wei Yanchi burned the Book of Creation, I have been monitoring his location."
"Within ten minutes of your departure, he and Zhang Mingqi planned to leave the Wei Family by helicopter. While Zhang Mingqi went to find where the helicopter was parked, Wei Yanchi said he was going back to the Wei Family to get something. Then he disappeared. I activated every surveillance feed, but could not find any trace of him."
"..."
Xie De went silent for a moment. "Wait, you've been monitoring Wei Yanchi all this time?"
730 answered meticulously, "Rest assured, I only wanted to know his location. I have no intention of invading anyone's privacy. I am not interested in what happens between you and him."
"...You really are something."
Xie De felt a headache coming on. He pulled a cigarette from a drawer, picked up the incense beside him, and lit the cigarette with its glowing ember. He took a deep drag and exhaled, then held the cigarette between his fingers as he laid things out methodically.
"You know, my team members just reported a few things to me. First, one of my programmers who can breach a system's defenses has disappeared, sometime within the past three days."
"Second, there's the test subject the Laboratory lost. What the hell are they doing? You haven't had a hand in any of this?"
455 quietly popped up. "Host, you're quitting smoking... Where did that cigarette come from? Didn't you throw them away?"
"Stop asking pointless questions. I didn't throw all of them away."