Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 591 A visit

One day later, somewhere in America.

Han Zu, using Adenauer's appearance, arrived in a bustling city. Even near midnight, the business district and city center were still bustling with traffic.

Han Zu crossed the street in front of him and stopped at an overpass in the commercial district. He leaned over the railing and looked down. Traffic flowed like a silver river between the buildings. The light bands formed by taillights snaked along the street, interweaving with the neon lights reflected on the glass curtain walls of the tall buildings to form a flowing galaxy. Most of the windows of the office building to the right were still lit, and combined with the lights from the street traffic, the entire commercial district was unusually bright, almost indistinguishable from daytime. He looked up at a building in the distance. A retro clock projected by a holographic device on the exterior wall had just passed 11 o'clock.

I walked down the overpass and along the adjacent street. The 24-hour convenience store on the corner was always lit with warm light. As I passed the door, I could hear the tinkling of wind chimes mixed with the hurried footsteps of the delivery man.

The pace of this city seems fast, everyone in a hurry. Young men in suits hurried toward taxis, whispering work details to their phones. A nurse, freshly finished her night shift, wrapped her coat tightly around her, puffing out white mist as she waited for the red light at an intersection. College students walked together, clutching freshly bought milk tea, their laughter wafting through the cool night breeze. Each one, carrying their own story, rushed to their next destination amidst the midnight hustle and bustle.

The aroma of late-night snacks wafted from the restaurant kitchens, and steam condensed on the glass doors of the various dining establishments, glimpsing the rising heat and bustling crowds within. On the bus stop benches, overworked workers occasionally took a short nap, their phones lit with unread work messages. Even the street trash cans were overflowing with flowers and movie ticket stubs. While today wasn't a special holiday, it didn't prevent it from being a depressing day for some unsuccessful young people seeking love.

The city center at midnight is free of the daytime rush and crowds, yet possesses a more relaxed energy. Car lights slice through the darkness, briefly illuminating the leaves of the roadside trees. Taxi drivers listen to the radio while waiting for orders. These subtle sounds and light intertwine to form the city's most vivid pulse, proving that even in the deepest night, this land still beats with a throbbing vitality.

A long time ago, Han Zu did not like this lively atmosphere, but perhaps because of his age, or perhaps because he had experienced more things, such an environment now gives Han Zu a comfortable feeling.

Under normal circumstances, he might have stayed in the city longer, but not this time. He had other things to do. Christina had gone to find a place to confirm whether the nanorobot sequences had truly been removed, so she wouldn't return until she did. While Christina's information was important, Han Zu knew better than to put all his eggs in one basket. Christina's unique identity was also a destabilizing factor. Even if he took certain measures, there was no guarantee that he could force Christina to completely sever ties with the Ferdinand family. Therefore, Han Zu couldn't just wait for her, and he wouldn't do that.

Christina's sudden appearance did interrupt Han Zu's original action plan, but he believed that Christina's current information was at most an additional option and its priority was not very high.

Han Zu had originally planned to continue investigating intelligence regarding Xinshan City, but due to the length of training, the optimal window for investigating Xinshan City had already passed. Three months was enough time for the people there to accomplish a great deal, and a trip there now would likely yield nothing. Before Christina's appearance, Han Zu had originally intended to investigate the scientists who had created the synthetics, and now that Christina was gone, he had the perfect opportunity to complete this task.

According to the original investigation, the contractor's equipment hadn't located the scientist and her biggest supporter, her wife, where they lived. However, searching for relevant information, Han Zu found several places where they had lived, or where someone had seen one or both of them. The most recent hit was from six years ago, in the city where Han Zu currently resided.

Contrary to Han Zu's initial assumptions, the place they were spotted in wasn't some quiet villa complex or wealthy neighborhood, nor was it some suburban factory. Instead, it was a high-end apartment building on the west side of the commercial district. Due to the size of each apartment, this building was five or six times larger than a typical luxury apartment building. Just one building covered the same area as a typical medium- to large-sized residential complex. For ordinary people, the financial resources and connections required to live in such a high-end apartment building in the commercial district were indeed beyond their reach. However, for the two of them, living here was still too degrading. It was also unsafe.

While the building had 24-hour security, a very high level of security for civilians, it was still too low for their identities. However, according to intelligence gathered by the contractor's equipment, six years ago, the two of them were frequently spotted on the first floor of the apartment building or in the basement garage. They were also unacquainted with anyone else, which intrigued Han Zu. While it was normal for them to undergo some degree of biological modification to enhance their abilities, it was still unthinkable that they would be without a single bodyguard, not even a single synthetic.

The source of the intelligence regarding the two sightings was also somewhat puzzling. According to the contractor's investigation, while the two had been sighted numerous times, the number of witnesses was actually quite small. Aside from a few unrelated individuals, most of the other sightings came from a single police officer in the city. An investigation into his file revealed that these were likely surveillance duties, not assigned by the police department, but entirely personal actions. However, during this time, he had no contact with any suspicious individuals. Han Zu speculated that the officer might have stumbled upon some secret, but perhaps he wasn't entirely certain, hence the surveillance.

Han Zu originally planned to look for the policeman first, so he used the contractor's equipment to investigate his current intelligence and location. However, according to the police station's files, the policeman had died more than four years ago. Han Zu retrieved the video footage from the body camera he was wearing at the time and confirmed that it was just an ordinary bank robbery. The policeman unfortunately died while trying to save civilians during the exchange of fire with the robbers. Han Zu used the contractor's equipment to carefully check the authenticity of the video and found no signs of human tampering. His clue was temporarily broken. However, Han Zu found out that the policeman's body was buried in a cemetery in the suburbs. After he finished investigating the place where the two people used to live in this apartment building, maybe he could stop by and take a look.

Han Zu strolled leisurely, "dragging his tired body" into the first-floor lobby of the apartment. He yawned and nodded and greeted the apartment manager and the nearby security personnel. Amid their polite responses, Han Zu walked to the biometric authentication area.

"Welcome home, sir."

Facial, fingerprint, and voice authentication, though cumbersome, were no different from having no security measures in front of the contractor's equipment. Naturally, Han Zu entered the apartment building unimpeded. The building's interior was remarkably advanced, with virtually all facilities incorporating artificial intelligence. Entering the elevator, Han Zu chose one at random and stepped inside.

The elevator has no floor buttons, only a comprehensive intelligent recognition system. Residents of the apartment building can activate the elevator directly to their floor using any of their fingerprints, faces, or voices. Using the contractor's equipment, Han Zu pressed his finger against the scanning pad on the recognition system, successfully starting the elevator. The elevator immediately ascended to the desired floor, operating silently and smoothly.

Soon, the elevator reached the target floor. After stopping, the elevator door opened smoothly and quickly. According to the contractor's equipment scanning the floors, Han Zu was currently on the 23rd floor, located in the upper middle part of the entire apartment building.

There were five households on this floor. The room the scientist had stayed in was the second-to-last on the right. As Han Zu approached the rooms, his clairvoyance allowed him to observe the behavior of each occupant. One was empty, its owner seemingly still home; another was packed with young people having a party. Although their spirits were high, fueled by alcohol and drugs, thanks to the soundproofing of the floor, no sound escaped the rooms and entered the hallway. The corridor remained perfectly quiet.

In another room, a murder was taking place. A middle-aged man in a bathrobe, who had just walked out of the bathroom, had his throat slit with a letter opener. He was not yet dead and was lying on the ground struggling. His killer was a woman, also in a bathrobe, with water dripping from her hair. There was no anger or fear on the woman's face as she looked at the ground, and her hand holding the knife did not tremble. Revenge, a murder of passion, or even an accident could basically be ruled out. A morbid smile appeared on her face. As the man struggled with his throat cut, the woman knelt beside him, observing his fearful expression and struggling movements closely. His blood soaked their bathrobes, covered most of the bathroom floor, and flowed down the bathroom drain.

Han Zu investigated the identities of the two people. The man was an executive of a technology company. He was frivolous and lustful, and had committed many cases of sexual harassment. However, he had a certain status, so those cases were basically suppressed, and he had been at large until now.

The woman's identity was, on the surface, a well-known psychiatrist with a doctorate in psychology. But in reality, she was more than that: a serial killer. She targeted men and women who had committed sexual crimes but hadn't faced the consequences. Her beautiful face, voluptuous figure, and her reputation as a well-known psychiatrist made her nearly unstoppable. Although she had left some clues early in her crimes, she relied on her ingenuity to forge an alibi and evaded police suspicion.

But what's interesting is that Han Zu checked her information and found that she had never experienced a similar situation. She was not a victim, and neither had her friends or family. Her behavior of choosing prey seemed more like a sudden hobby.

"Sure enough, all psychiatrists are not mentally normal."

The strange, twisted, yet erotic scene soon ended, and Han Zu lost interest in observing further. He continued along the corridor until he reached the door of the house where the scientist once lived. He didn't rush in, but instead used his perspective to take a look at the last room at the end of the corridor.

The scene there was quite normal, with several international students racking their brains to try to work out the answer to a math problem. The table, floor, and even the sofa in front of them were filled with a large amount of calculation papers and several computers with very high computing power. It seemed that the problem they faced was indeed not easy.

The scenes inside the other four residences gave Han Zu a small jolt of emotion, reflecting on the different choices life offers. There were elites working through the night and not returning home, young people enjoying their youth and living in the present, those who thought they could escape evil, only to have their throats slit and bleed to death by another evil, and then there were international students who devoted themselves to their studies, defying stereotypes.

In this world, people of all kinds are never clearly separated; they are always intertwined. But Han Zu was clearly not one of them. He paused for a moment, briefly pondering: if he hadn't had such an experience, had never gained such power, which of the people in these four rooms would he be most similar to? Or perhaps even become one of them?

But soon, Han Zu came to the conclusion that even if he did not obtain such power, he would probably be a loner.

Pursing his lips, Han Zu put aside his distracting thoughts and shifted his attention back to using the contractor's equipment to overwrite the threshold of the room in front of him and open the door.

After entering the room, Han Zu began her investigation. Their apartment was a duplex, covering approximately 1200 square meters across two floors. While the rooms were few and far between, they were all large. Aside from basic furniture, some expensive decorations, and artwork, there was little else. Based on the contractor's equipment and her own observations, there were no hidden doors or other spaces, so the investigation took only half an hour.