Combined with the system’s “teleportation mechanism,” the Freak Organization also possessed Ancestral Anomaly Cells, and possibly even more than Shen Ge did. So it wasn’t surprising that they’d found a way to activate it through research. This also explained how the Freak Organization could “deploy” anomalies to specific locations.
These questions might all be answered once they captured Dr. Chen. With that thought, Shen Ge walked toward the door while pulling out his communicator to contact Deng Yuqi and the others.
“Minister, how’s it going on your end?” Shen Ge asked.
Soon, Deng Yuqi’s voice came from the other end of the communicator: “Headquarters has also noticed that there is a problem. The weird mecha unit, in coordination with the operations department, has sealed off the area around the hotel and is conducting a full investigation into the situation of the weirdo. It is known that two delegation members and an entire team of bodyguards are missing.”
“Mingyue is working with Old Fang to track down Dr. Chen. Tu Doubi has been discharged, so I sent him straight to the research institute to coordinate with Yang Yuxin and her team. Luo Chenguang has assembled agents from Counter-Anomaly Division 2 and has them on standby nearby. I’ll add their contact numbers to the channel and send them to you in a bit.”
Deng Yuqi was well aware of how important Cheng Shengnan was to Shen Ge. If the Freak Organization really managed to exploit that weakness, Shen Ge would probably abandon everything else for the next few decades and just hunt them down across the globe.
Based on current intelligence, the Freak Organization had already infiltrated the leadership of multiple countries. If Shen Ge went rogue, he wouldn’t care who anyone was—he’d crush them first, and that would spell global chaos.
So Deng Yuqi had to be cautious. Besides, Cheng Shengnan was the head of the Logistics Department at the Rong City branch, so her safety was absolutely paramount.
“What about you? Did you find Wang Han? How is he?” Although Deng Yuqi knew that with Shen Ge’s abilities, he’d surely rescue Wang Han if he intervened, she still asked out of concern.
“I found him. He’s right here with me,” Shen Ge replied.
Wang Han also took out his communicator and joined the channel: “Minshter, dish is Wang Han. I’m okay. Shen Ge shaved me. But righ now my face is kinda shwollen.” (Minister, this is Wang Han. I’m okay. Shen Ge saved me. But right now my face is kinda swollen.)
“?”
There was a two-second silence on the other end, then Deng Yuqi asked with a hint of uncertainty: “Is this Wang Han? Or some local villager?”
“…” Now it was Shen Ge and Wang Han’s turn to be silent.
When Shen Ge and Wang Han stepped out of the bathroom, they found the hallway already cordoned off by Captain Cai Hua, who was in charge of this section. At the same time, Fang Mingyue had just led a team out through the banquet hall’s main entrance.
“Detective Shen.”
“Detective Shen!”
Both groups immediately approached upon seeing him.
Fang Mingyue noticed Wang Han beside Shen Ge and, seeing his face swollen like a pig’s head, asked with a strange look: “Detective Wang, what happened to you…”
Wang Han, worried that mentioning the anomaly space might cause panic—and besides, with Shen Ge around, it wasn’t his place to explain—just gave an awkward smile: “Bathroom. Fell.”
“…” Fang Mingyue obviously didn’t buy that you could get that messed up from a bathroom fall. But compared to Wang Han’s pig face, the situation at the venue was more important.
She glanced at Cai Hua, then looked at Shen Ge. Shen Ge immediately understood and, after dismissing Cai Hua with a few words, stepped aside to a corner with Fang Mingyue.
“Grandpa found some intel related to Dr. Chen. It involves the Song family. The Songs wanted to secretly train a team to study freaks, but the higher-ups had explicitly forbidden such research. So they approached Dr. Chen, and the two sides hit it off. Plus, it coincided with the Great Capital’s Special Tactics Department splitting into three divisions, so the Songs pulled some strings and got Dr. Chen placed in Division Two.”
“My idiot brother was fooled by their smooth talk into undergoing freak cell transplantation. They advertised it as researching freak antibodies, but it was really cell transplantation. Grandpa had Yaori thoroughly examined and, sure enough, found Ancestral Anomaly Cells.”
“Following the trail from Yaori, Grandpa uncovered a few researchers who had helped with the cell transplant, but Dr. Chen got away.”
“However… you were right again, Detective Shen. The Freak Organization was indeed playing a decoy game. The venue was just a feint; their real target was a sneak attack on the delegation’s hotel. It seems whatever Sakura Country brought this time really piqued the Freak Organization’s interest.”
Shen Ge wasn’t surprised by this. He thought for a moment and asked, “So even at this point, Sakura Country still refuses to disclose what they brought? And what about the hotel? Judging by your reaction, the Freak Organization didn’t succeed, right?”
Fang Mingyue nodded: “Sakura Country wants to use this item to negotiate terms with us. Since the terms aren’t settled, they naturally won’t reveal what they brought. As for the hotel… after what happened at the Ping’an Hotel, headquarters is taking it very seriously. They specially assigned a covert ops team to work with the Counter-Anomaly Combat Unit and the Anomaly-Powered Armor units in a three-way defense. Not only did the Freak Organization fail, but two of their members were captured alive.”
“Two captured alive?” Shen Ge frowned. Something felt off.
The known Freak Organizations—and Shen Ge’s biggest enemies—were, first, the Freak Association, led by Rongshan Psychiatric Hospital, and second, the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches, which also split off from the Haiya Research Institute—though now they’d fractured again into “Celestial Stems” and “Twelve Branches.”
Simply put, all these organizations originated from the Haiya Research Institute, which was why they all possessed Ancestral Anomaly Cells.
The difference was that the Freak Association had been “co-opted.” They’d used the opportunity to whitewash themselves and had grown deep roots into the system, making rooting them out harder than reaching the sky.
Dealing with the Freak Association was basically no different from dealing with the Special Tactics Department itself. Unless you tore everything down and rebuilt from scratch, you could never completely purge them.
As for the other two, one wanted to ascend to immortality and become a god in the next civilization, while the other just wanted to live out his days as a carefree rogue immortal.
But now that Shen Ge had used his Specter Eye to access new “truths” about Worlds 1/2/3, the “goals” of the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches became highly intriguing.
If Shen Ge could learn all this through the Ancestral Anomaly Cells, there was no reason the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches wouldn’t know it too. Especially considering the research files on the three planets they’d intercepted during the Great Capital Anomaly Disaster—they might have already known the “truth” and were deliberately using this method to mislead the Special Tactics Department.
So, did the Freak Association, which had infiltrated the Special Tactics Department, know about this?
If they didn’t, then the Freak Association was clearly a step below the Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches. But with someone like Dr. Chen emerging from their ranks, and given Li Xiang’s condition, Shen Ge refused to believe the Freak Association was inferior.
If they did know… then the situation was even worse. That would mean that while the three organizations appeared to be rivals on the surface, they might actually be one and the same behind the scenes, conspiring toward some unknown “goal.”
Shen Ge leaned more toward the second answer. If that were the case, then the Freak Organization going through all this trouble to plan this operation—and still letting two of their members get captured—was itself a huge red flag.
“Where are those two freaks now?” Shen Ge asked.
Fang Mingyue answered instinctively: “It seems Division One took them back… Wait! If Division One is connected to the Song family, then sending captured freaks back to Division One is basically sending them ‘home,’ isn’t it?”
Fang Mingyue immediately realized something was wrong. If Division One took them back, this whole thing would just fizzle out. She pulled out her communicator to contact Old Fang, but Shen Ge stopped her.
Shen Ge said, “It’s not that simple. Division One might have ties to the Song family, but not everyone there is on their side. Don’t forget, the old man has his own people planted in Division One too. People like Cai Hua exist there as well. I understand this, and so does the old man. The fact that he hasn’t intervened probably means he’s already considered that.”
“But the real problem is, I suspect the Freak Organization’s goals aren’t that straightforward. If they really wanted to make a move on the Sakura Country delegates, would they only send two freaks who could be captured so easily? Besides, apart from the anomaly space Wang Han and the others encountered, the incidents at the banquet have been pretty minor.”
“Think back to the kind of trouble the Freak Organization has caused before. Has it ever been this much thunder with so little rain? If it were me, I’d use the banquet as a diversion to tie us down, then fake an attack on the hotel. Once the Special Tactics Department takes the bait and relaxes their guard, then I’d strike at the Sakura Country delegates.”
Fang Mingyue hesitated: “But the escort is being handled by Division One personnel, and the original hotel security team is still there. Wouldn’t the Freak Organization just end up losing both their pawns?”
That was exactly what Shen Ge couldn’t figure out. But since they were in the open and the Freak Organization was in the shadows, it wasn’t easy to guess their exact moves.
“You handle things here. I’ll go check out the hotel.” Whether it was to pursue Dr. Chen or to get a look at what Sakura Country had brought, Shen Ge felt it was necessary to visit the hotel in person.
Fang Mingyue said, “Alright, leave this to us. I’ll notify you immediately if anything comes up.”
“Shen Tan, can I come wif you?” Wang Han asked.
Shen Ge shook his head: “You stay and assist the Minister. After all, we’re from the Rong City branch. She doesn’t have many people here she can fully trust.”
“Okay den,” Wang Han nodded.
Shen Ge asked Fang Mingyue to “cover” his departure. As the number one Counter-Anomaly Detective in the Great Tian Dynasty, his every move drew attention. He couldn’t exactly make a grand entrance at the hotel.
Fang Mingyue escorted Shen Ge to the underground parking lot, found him a car, and personally drove him out of the cordoned-off area. After getting out of the car, Shen Ge hid in a hotel, and when he came out again, he was in an invisible state.
Upon arriving at the hotel district where the delegation was staying, it was indeed as Fang Mingyue had said; the level of security was no less than that of the banquet venue.
To be safe, Shen Ge maintained his “invisibility” while adding an extra trait: “Untraceable,” to avoid detection by the Special Tactics Department’s new anomaly-energy sensors.
Once inside the hotel, Shen Ge first had the system run a “scan,” only to find that the situation was not what he expected—there were no freaks lying in ambush.
He then went to the Sakura Country delegation’s floor and, using the “Collapse” ability to phase through walls, checked each room one by one. Strangely, he found nothing unusual about the delegation—and no clues at all about what they’d brought.
Left with no choice, Shen Ge gave up exploring the hotel. Just as he was about to leave and head back to the research institute, he spotted a “familiar face” getting out of a car and walking toward the hotel.
“Watanabe Natsuko? He’s back so soon?” Shen Ge frowned slightly. Though something had happened at the hotel, it was still under control, so headquarters hadn’t made it public. The banquet was still ongoing, so Watanabe Natsuko returning to the hotel at this time was clearly suspicious.
Shen Ge decided to follow him. He trailed Watanabe to the Sakura Country delegation’s floor. Watanabe entered one of the rooms, spoke with a few people in a flurry of Japanese, then left with a bald man in sunglasses.
Shen Ge once again missed his little buddy Xiao Qi. Without Xiao Qi’s real-time translation, his Japanese was still stuck at the level of “baka, yamete, ganbatte.” But judging by Watanabe and the bald man’s reactions, they were likely going to meet someone else.
Shen Ge followed them to the underground parking lot. Watanabe got into the driver’s seat, and the bald man took the passenger seat. Shen Ge used “Collapse” to phase through the car door and sat in the back, hitching a ride completely unnoticed.
The car eventually stopped at a residential building near the Fifth Ring Road. Shen Ge followed the two to a penthouse guesthouse.
Watanabe knocked on the door. No one opened it directly, but the lock clicked. Watanabe knocked again at a different rhythm after hearing the sound, and this time, the door opened.
Shen Ge stood “openly” behind Watanabe and was surprised to see who opened it—it was none other than Watanabe’s sister, Watanabe Natsumi.
Shen Ge followed them inside. He couldn’t understand what they were saying in Japanese. Watanabe Natsumi led Watanabe Natsuko and the bald man into the bedroom, then opened the wardrobe, revealing a door that led to the adjacent unit.
“…Hey, you’re not supposed to knock down load-bearing walls, you know,” Shen Ge muttered to himself. He followed them through to the next room, but that was only the beginning.
After a series of twists and turns, they eventually reached a basement-turned-bedroom. It was clear these properties had been bought up by Sakura Country spies—otherwise, such modifications wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
There were quite a few people in the room. A sharp-dressed woman sat on the bed, typing on a laptop—and she was none other than the previously missing “Matsubara Yuna.” However, Shen Ge already knew she’d been taken by the Sakura Country agents, so seeing her here wasn’t surprising.
In the corner, a middle-aged bald man with a potbelly was tied up, blindfolded, and had several layers of tape wrapped around his mouth.
After Watanabe and the others entered, Watanabe Natsumi had someone remove the man’s blindfold and tape. The moment he saw Watanabe and the bald man, the middle-aged man frantically kowtowed and shouted at the bald man: “Guangzhi, save me! Guangzhi, save me! Tell them I’m not lying! The thing really might be in the hands of Shen Ge from the Rong City branch! I want to help you guys, but I can’t do anything about him!”
?
Shen Ge was stunned. First, he hadn’t expected this middle-aged man to be from the Great Tian Dynasty. And second—how did this involve him again?
