Who was hiding their scent

In the car.

Ren Daguo looked utterly bewildered by Huang Wei's sharp question. "What player? What game are you talking about?"

Huang Wei's gaze was deep, a teasing smile curling his lips. "Heh, never mind. We'll talk when we get back."

Looking puzzled, Ren Daguo turned toward his son. "Why are you here? Where are Old Xu and Li Feng?"

Ren Ye gave his father an odd look too, offering only a vague explanation. "They're fine. The police are looking after them. We're going to... the office first."

"No, what exactly is going on? I was in the room... then I suddenly passed out. Who are all these people?" Ren Daguo seemed to have fully recovered his senses and kept questioning Ren Ye, who continued to give evasive answers.

A short while later, the convoy returned to 88 Lotus Lake Road.

Holding one hand over his wound, Huang Wei instructed the core members of the Qingfu District team, "Gu Nian will interrogate the two Bell Society members we captured. I want their complete statements within six hours... no, three hours at most."

"No problem." Gu Nian nodded slowly.

The Bell Society had deployed seven players in Ren Daguo's kidnapping. Mr. He had escaped with the little dwarf, while Prisoner Woman, the predator type player, and the Qigong Master had been killed on the spot. In the end, only two had been successfully captured.

Still, having those two in custody was enough to continue the investigation.

After acknowledging the order, Gu Nian took the criminal players away. Huang Wei climbed the steps, then turned to ask Xu Peng, "How many of our people were injured?"

"Four minor injuries, one serious." Xu Peng frowned. "When Old Yan tried to arrest that little dwarf, venomous insects burrowed into his body... he's not doing too well. Before we left the scene, I had someone take him to the infirmary in Huangjiang District. They have more light system players there."

Huang Wei involuntarily clenched his teeth at that. "Keep track of Old Yan's condition. If Huangjiang can't handle it... apply immediately to send him to headquarters in the Capital."

"Understood." Xu Peng nodded slowly.

Being a New Year's Watcher was undoubtedly a dangerous job. Its players not only had to survive the Star Gate's life-and-death trials, but also had to fight criminal players with supernatural abilities in the real world. Their death rate... was even higher than that of narcotics officers.

But there was no getting around it. In any era, stability depended on wave after wave of people making concessions and sacrifices where others couldn't see them.

After briefly handling the follow-up work, Huang Wei went to the infirmary and got his injuries under control with Xu Peng's help.

With gauze wrapped around his waist and a pill from Xu Peng taken on credit, Huang Wei finally waved to Ren Ye. "Come here!"

Ren Ye walked into the room, watching him warily. "I can tell. You're going after my dad."

Huang Wei paused. "Don't you think something's fishy about this?"

"It definitely is." Ren Ye thought for a moment. "So I agree. Go after him."

"Then let's do it." Huang Wei walked over and leaned close to Ren Ye's ear. "To tell you the truth, we have a magic-type player here whose first-stage title is Liar... he can detect lies too. He just finished a Star Gate mission half an hour ago... you get me?"

"Go after him." Ren Ye nodded firmly.

"Oh, right." Huang Wei suddenly remembered something. "We found an envelope at the scene. Xu Peng gave it to me. I skimmed the contents, and it actually has something to do with the Former Dynasty Princess's Tomb in the Qingliang Prefecture Star Gate. I'll give it to you later..."

"Okay. Let's go after him first." Ren Ye was deeply committed to putting his father through the wringer.

The two exchanged a conspiratorial look, then walked out of the infirmary.

Ten minutes later.

Ren Ye brought his father out of another infirmary. "Someone will ask you some questions in a bit. Just answer truthfully. But remember, whatever you do, don't lie..."

"What on earth is going on?!" His father no longer looked dazed. Instead, his face was full of anxiety and worry. "What is this place? It doesn't look like an official police department! What kind of people are you dealing with? And... why did that dim-looking Officer Huang ask whether I was a player? You know me... aside from little porn games on Steam, I don't play anything else."

Ren Ye paused, then spun a story on the spot. "This is Qingfu District's Major Cases Unit Six. It reports directly to the municipal bureau. Don't ask about the details. Just cooperate and give your statement first. I'll explain the rest... later."

By the time they finished talking, they had reached the door to an ordinary interview room. Ren Ye opened it and waved him inside. "Go on, get in."

Seeing the iron chair and the various slogans promising leniency for confessions, his father visibly lost his nerve. "Why are they treating me like a criminal...?"

"It's standard procedure. Go on." Looking at him, Ren Ye seemed to suddenly remember something. He leaned close to his father's ear and added, "Those... hooker things don't need mentioning... I can't take that kind of humiliation."

His father froze, then replied with righteous indignation, "Only Old Xu ordered one. I didn't... I was working the whole time."

"All right, go!" After pushing him inside, Ren Ye dashed into the monitoring room and stood beside Huang Wei at the monitor.

In the interview room, his father sat in the chair and looked apprehensively at the young man across from him.

The man was around twenty, with fine, handsome features and a neat appearance. He was the first-stage Liar Huang Wei had mentioned, summoned here as soon as he had left the Star Gate.

"Mr. Ren, don't be nervous. I just want to get a basic understanding of what happened." The young man smiled at his father, his expression warm and approachable. "Could you describe what you've been doing these past few days? Start from... when you went to that apartment. Don't leave out any details. Take your time."

His father looked serious. After frowning in thought for a long while, he said quietly, "Nothing special happened to me. Recently, I've been helping an editor rush a freelance job, the opening of a historical time-travel webnovel... after we got to the apartment, neither of us went out... we worked and ate in the room."

"According to our information, you were staying in apartment 601. Why did you suddenly turn up in 501?" The young man watched his father's eyes and tried extending a particular perceptive ability.

His father answered without hesitation. "Oh, here's what happened. Old Xu had some spare cash before and wanted to set up a writing studio, so he bought three apartments in that building. They were meant to house ghostwriters, but then... the industry took a downturn, so he never went ahead with it. But he still owned the apartments. Not just 601, but 501 and 1101 too. We changed rooms... because the air conditioner in 601 broke. It was hot... so we went downstairs to 501."

"Did you leave at any point during that time?"

"No." His father shook his head. "We ate and did everything else in the room."

"Why did you suddenly ask Li Feng to come to the apartment building?"

"I'd left an old manuscript with him, but Li Feng had never used it. I thought its contents might help me revise this historical story, so I asked him to bring it over," his father answered earnestly.

The young man frowned. "Over the past few days, did you feel that anything you experienced was unusual? You can tell me anything..."

"No. We really were working the whole time. We didn't have any leisure activities either. After our discussions, we went to sleep. What would be unusual about that?" His father looked at him and suddenly asked urgently, "What exactly is going on? What is my son doing with you? Why did I pass out?!"

"Your son, Ren Ye, is helping us solve a case. You passed out because the criminals wanted revenge on him and put a sedative in your drinking water beforehand." The young man tapped the tabletop as he answered. "But you don't need to worry... we've already caught them, and Ren Ye isn't in any danger at the moment."

In the monitoring room.

After listening to his father's answers, Huang Wei and Ren Ye both fell silent.

His account did indeed explain why he and Old Xu had suddenly disappeared inside the apartment building.

They had gone downstairs because the air conditioner was broken. The trip must have been brief, and they hadn't gone outside, so it was perfectly reasonable that the New Year's Watchers hadn't seen them...

What wasn't reasonable was that one of the New Year's Watchers, a player skilled at tracking, had sensed the scent trails his father and Old Xu left behind, only for those trails to end beside a trash can in the stairwell.

Moreover, after his father and Old Xu disappeared, the New Year's Watchers had searched the entire building. More than a dozen people had used their abilities to sense ordinary people, yet they still hadn't detected the pair from outside apartment 501.

That was far too strange. How could New Year's Watchers with supernatural abilities fail to detect the two of them?!

That was why Ren Ye and Huang Wei had both suspected his father was a player back in the car, and why they had questioned him.

But now, his father's account was that he had known nothing of what was happening outside and had simply spent several days working in the room.

"What do you think?" Huang Wei turned to Ren Ye.

"Let's wait for the Liar to come back." Ren Ye sat in a chair, his gaze somewhat confused.

About half an hour later, the Liar entered the monitoring room and said plainly, "My perception tells me... not a single word he just said was a lie."

Huang Wei's brow furrowed slightly. "So we guessed wrong? We were being paranoid?!"

This Liar's combat abilities were average, but his ability to perceive lies was extraordinarily powerful. He could judge whether someone was lying from their emotions, tiny movements, and the aura their body emitted when they lied.

Moreover, he had served as a New Year's Watcher in Qingfu District for three years without ever making a mistake.

In other words, his judgment wouldn't be wrong.

So what was going on?

Huang Wei looked at Ren Ye. "If he wasn't lying, why couldn't our people detect him in the building?"

"To be honest, I suspected my dad was a player too." Ren Ye stood. "That night, I asked you to go near the apartment building to confirm it. But I tested him with my Enchantment ability... neither he nor Old Xu is one."

Just then, the Liar beside them suddenly interjected, "I think you're approaching this the wrong way. Based on what I just learned... there were two other mysterious figures involved in this incident. One was the Hunter from the Fraud Merchants' Association, and the other was a Soul Body whose identity we haven't confirmed. Both of them helped us, or rather, Ren Ye... whether intentionally or not. So is it possible they reached the apartment building beforehand, erased Ren Daguo's and Editor Xu's scents... and blocked our New Year's Watchers' perception? After all... both demonstrated powerful abilities. They're at least second-stage, so they should be capable of it."

Huang Wei's eyes lit up at that. "Then their purpose in doing that must have been..."

"If we'd found Ren Daguo ahead of time, we definitely would've brought him back here and given him the tightest protection possible," Ren Ye quickly supplied. "But then my sister, my dad, and I would all have been at the New Year's Watchers' office... the Bell Society would have had no openings to exploit, and probably wouldn't have made another move."

"So those two might have hidden your father to lure the Bell Society into acting, then catch them all in one sweep?" Huang Wei finished the thought. "That makes sense. Case solved, case solved...!"

Ren Ye paced around the room. "Then... who exactly are those two? Are they friends or enemies?"

Ring, ring!

No sooner had he spoken than Huang Wei's phone rang. He glanced at the number and immediately answered. "Hello?!"

"I'm at the high-speed rail station picking up Director Yan. He's furious that you privately allowed Ren Ye to act on his own... get to Pet Paradise as soon as you can." The person from Shanghai headquarters spoke at a rapid clip.

In the Capital, four people sat drinking tea around a stone table in a quaint little courtyard that couldn't be found on any digital map.

"...Word just came in. Ren Ye is fine," a beautiful woman wearing the Green Vine Dress said, lifting her teacup.

"Ren Ye is fine, but Shanghai is in for trouble." An old man across from her said calmly, "Yan Duoduo took office with his blade already drawn. As soon as he arrived, he carried out two rounds of strict internal housecleaning... that tells you how he operates. This time, the Bell Society tried to move against Ren Ye... and all sorts of riffraff came crawling out of Tongren Road to help... heh, I doubt he'll let this go."