In the Name of Divine Abilities, Section 37

Zhang Like was somewhat stunned. The more he thought about it, the more alarmed he became.

A two-point increase in vitality in four months meant six points over a year.

For Lu Zhao to develop that quickly with low-grade life supplements while handling his busy duties, he was a genius among geniuses.

With that kind of talent, he really had no need to fear Lü Jinshan.

"At this rate, you'll reach fifty vitality points the year after next at the latest. Then you can choose your own civilian assignment without having to defer to anyone."

Zhang Like seized Lu Zhao by the shoulders and said, his face flushed, "Once you get into a better department and gain more resources, you'll develop faster and faster."

The Federation's administrative hierarchy had eight ranks: clerk, deputy officer, officer, official, deputy administrator, chief administrator, Martial Marquis, and Palace Martial Marquis.

Anyone who reached the rank of chief administrator, the administrative head of a commandery, was invariably a third-tier transcendent at minimum.

Lu Zhao's resources had been limited by his rank, while his rank had been suppressed by the faction led by the Chen Family. It had seemed he had little hope of climbing any higher.

Now, even with limited resources, Lu Zhao could develop so quickly that the Chen Family simply couldn't hold him down.

Lu Zhao was now Great Sage Sun about to break free of Five Fingers Mountain.

Zhang Like took out the twenty thousand yuan from earlier and said with a grin, "Brother Lu, I'll lend you another twenty thousand. When you become the chief administrator of a commandery, remember to pay me back a hundredfold."

"Get lost, get lost."

"I'm not joking. You still need money to buy your life supplement quota this month, don't you?"

Zhang Like pressed the money back into Lu Zhao's hands. No matter how the latter declined, he made it clear he intended to "take advantage."

Even though the two were already very close, Lu Zhao's disclosure of his level of life development still brought about a change.

Zhang Like was even more excited than Lu Zhao. He paced back and forth around the room, counting on his fingers to work out how many points Lu Zhao would develop in a year and how many he would have after ten years.

In the end, he concluded that Lu Zhao would become at least a third-tier transcendent and had a good chance of being promoted to chief administrator of a commandery.

"All right, let's get down to business."

Lu Zhao held the restless Zhang Like down and said, "How's the investigation into Lü Jinshan's younger brother going?"

Zhang Like replied, "His brother's name is Lü Bowen. He runs three bars."

"So he's involved with organized crime, then," Lu Zhao said with certainty.

"It'd be hard not to be." Zhang Like shrugged. "I'd guess he's a local gang boss, too."

In this day and age, bars were undoubtedly the most profitable businesses in the service industry.

Any bar could turn a profit margin of over ninety percent. It was practically like picking money up off the ground.

And that was only a small part of it. The real money came from the gray market.

Places like that were outlets for smuggled goods.

All kinds of smuggled contraband, female and male prostitutes sold from Miye Three Rivers, and dirty money from every source were laundered through bars.

At the same time, running a bar required a gang to keep order and the cultivation of one's own enforcers. Gunfights could even break out when necessary.

Anyone who could run a bar couldn't possibly have a clean background. If they were clean, they wouldn't be running a bar.

The era after the Great Cataclysm was already halfway to an age of chaos. The Federation could only maintain order in broad terms; it was powerless to deal with the disorder in the shadows.

Chapter 45: Investigation

The disorder in the Federation reminded Lu Zhao of his previous life.

His police academy teachers had told them about the previous century, when there had been no boundary between black and white. It had been normal for the two to mix into gray.

The Federation was in a similar state now, with black and white mixed together.

The Great Cataclysm had changed many things, and society's morals had long since ceased to be what they once were.

Lu Zhao asked, "How are you planning to investigate?"

"It's simple. We just need to ask around among a few lowlifes in the underworld. What secrets are there these days?"

Zhang Like replied, then changed tack. "But it won't do any good. The interests involved have long been tangled together. They smuggle life supplements out, where they can sell them for several times the price."

"If you report them, the complaint will be on their desk the next day."

Smuggling drugs was too low-end. Not just Federation officials like Lü Jinshan, but even gang bosses with a little influence didn't care much for it.

That was because life supplements offered even greater profits.

Someone might refuse gold, but they would never refuse life supplements.

Lu Zhao asked, "Even if there's concrete evidence?"

"It's no use for ordinary people," Zhang Like said, "but we can take it straight to the commandery or even the provincial administration."

"But that brings us to another problem. This isn't within our jurisdiction. We can't exactly pretend to be police officers and arrest Lü Bowen for questioning, can we?"

That was why he had told Lu Zhao from the start not to get his hopes up.

The two of them were military officers and transcendents. Even if word of their report got out, they had nothing to fear.

Would those thugs really dare come looking for trouble?

But for matters outside their jurisdiction, they could only rely on connections. Without them, they could only leave it to fate.

Lu Zhao was undeterred. "The smuggling route in the mountains is within our jurisdiction. One way or another, we can make Lü Jinshan suffer for it."

June 11, evening.

Lu Zhao first went to inform Zhang Laoniu, asking him to help conceal the fact that he and Zhang Like would not be returning to the unit that night.

The two then drove out of camp. The soldiers on guard found it a little strange, but they didn't ask any questions or even make a record of it.

The entire border outpost was effectively under their control.

Night, on the back slopes of Ant Ridge.

The vehicle was parked halfway up the mountain, on the slope closest to the smuggling route.

Zhang Like cautioned, "You haven't reached the second tier yet. If you get shot and lose too much blood, you'll die. Be careful."

"I will."

Lu Zhao entered the dense forest alone.

The air felt as though it were wrapped in a damp cloth. As he breathed it in, it carried the moisture rising from soil baked by the day's scorching sun, along with the strong smell of rotting leaves.

A thick layer of decaying leaves covered the ground, squelching under every step.

His spiritual power continuously extended in all directions, eventually forming a vague map of the terrain within fifty meters in his mind.

It kept him from stepping into holes, drainage channels, or underground streams and getting hurt.

At the same time, Lu Zhao had discovered another use for the Visualization Method: magnifying his five senses. Each time he visualized all five senses, even faint sounds and movements became exceptionally clear.

He smelled the scents of the present, and they also reflected the sounds and rhythms of the past four years. Memories of countless small details surfaced, allowing him to immediately identify the source of a sound.

Drainage channels, dead leaves, puddles, mud...

Lu Zhao had been "smelling" these things for four years.

He had a faint, inexplicable sense of freedom. The body was a cage for the soul, and he was breaking free of it.

After his sense of taste, Lu Zhao had touched the threshold of his sense of smell.

Visualizing the five senses relied on the body and didn't seem as difficult as his teacher had said.

Half an hour later, Lu Zhao stopped. A hidden smuggling route lay fifty meters ahead.

Under the touch of his spiritual power, every trace on the path was perfectly clear. Judging by their depth and age, he could tell someone had passed through within the past day.

The night passed without anyone coming or going.

As the tip of the sun began to peek over the horizon, Lu Zhao returned to where Zhang Like was.

"There are fresh footprints, but I can't tell when they come and go."

"We'll stake it out again tonight," Zhang Like said. "There's no need to rush."

The hard part about smuggling routes was finding them.

In the Ant Ridge mountains, the border outpost could effectively keep less than five percent of the area under constant watch, and smuggling here was generally done by people carrying loads on their backs and horses bearing packs.

From what Lu Zhao commonly encountered, the smuggling crews were often not gun-toting desperadoes, but ordinary people with baskets on their backs slipping along mountain trails.

They broke up all kinds of contraband into small batches and transported them frequently. Even if a few were occasionally caught, it was hard to deal the operation a serious blow.

On June 4, Lu Zhao and Zhang Like continued their stakeout.

At midnight, a faint light appeared in the pitch-black forest.

Lu Zhao, who was using his spiritual power to "strangle" mosquitoes, looked up. His spiritual power spread out like a tide.

Three people with headscarves came along, driving a mule. His spiritual power "smelled" a strong odor of insect repellent on them.

In the sacks filling the two baskets on the mule's back, Lu Zhao "smelled" life supplements.

Life supplements were hard currency no less valuable than gold, and were often used for settlement.

Lu Zhao made no move, quietly waiting for them to pass.

Those people could not serve as evidence to bring down Lü Jinshan. They could only prove the existence of the smuggling route.

On June 5, the smugglers appeared again, heading into the country.

Lu Zhao followed slowly and silently behind them, all the way out of the dense forest and into a village beyond the Ant Ridge mountains.

This was also one of the reasons smuggling persisted despite repeated crackdowns.

This was not simply a battle between good and evil. The Hua People also took part in many illegal and criminal activities, and for the most part played a leading role in them.

Lu Zhao memorized the appearances of the villagers who met them, then turned and disappeared into the forest.

On June 6, Lu Zhao and Zhang Like drove after the villagers and tracked them into Fang City's urban district.

The surrounding mountains and dense forests gave way to tall buildings. Structures faced with white ceramic tiles and blue glass stood everywhere, while factory workers rode home in groups on 28-inch roadster bicycles.

The two followed the vehicle from the east side of the city all the way to the west, where the surroundings abruptly changed again.