Chapter 44
To be perfectly honest, this was the very first time Bai Hewei had ever assisted a neighborhood cop in tracking down a thief.
According to his colleagues, this sort of arrangement was quite rare for their sub-district.
After all, with the ubiquity of digital payments and surveillance systems covering every nook and cranny these days, it was incredibly difficult for a thief to steal anything of substantial value. At most, they would take advantage of the dense crowds during a popular event to pick a few smartphones.
However, since the higher-ups had arranged things this way, there was bound to be a reason behind it.
Bai Hewei naturally had to cooperate.
Before long, all sorts of inside gossip began to trickle in.
“This time around, a thief actually broke into the home of a retired senior official. Word is they stole a massive amount of cash. That retired official originally didn’t intend to make a fuss about it, choosing to just suck it up and accept the loss. Who would have thought that the Discipline Inspection Commission happened to launch a ‘twenty-year retrospective audit’ and caught him? When they questioned him about the destination of the missing illicit funds, he finally claimed a thief had stolen them.”
“Seriously? Is that info accurate? The rumor I heard was that the official who fell from grace seemed to have dirty hands in other areas too. He might have been harboring illicit transactions with illegal Evolvers; otherwise, the Special Operations Department wouldn’t have stepped in.”
“The version I heard goes like this…”
There were simply no secrets within the government system.
Particularly when it came to the seemingly unremarkable temporary workers—there was a very high probability that any one of them was a relative of some leader.
Of course, there were also pure beasts of burden; at the end of the day, someone had to actually do the grunt work.
Bai Hewei listened for a good while, not paying it much mind.
Regardless of what the truth was, it had absolutely nothing to do with him. His only concern was when he could clock out.
Fortunately, cooperating with the neighborhood cop didn’t require going door-to-door to every household. Instead, they set up a table and a few stools, displayed some police mascot dolls, erected a banner, and commenced their public awareness campaign.
The neighborhood cop would occasionally question property management staff or retired elderly residents in the community about the thief. The average working-class stiffs were exhausted to death every single day, so they essentially knew absolutely nothing. But these property management personnel and retirees stood a very high probability of possessing useful tidbits of information.
Bai Hewei was primarily responsible for handling the QR code scans, verifying the number of likes on their Moments updates, and handing out the mascot dolls.
“I don’t know anything about a thief, but over the past few days, those troublesome young Evolvers on our street haven’t really been showing their faces, and no one’s heard anything about them landing jobs either,” a middle-aged auntie strolling past while pushing a baby stroller remarked casually. “You guys could look into them.”
“Evolvers?” The neighborhood cop instantly grew alert. He opened the specialized app exclusive to his profession, navigated to the Evolver roster for his jurisdiction, and inquired, “What are their names? Let me check.”
“I think one is named something like Zhiqiang, and another is named something like Zhenhua. Anyway, they’ve all got fine names, they just didn’t turn out to be decent human beings,” the auntie said, pursing her lips. “Their parents don’t bother managing them either. In the past, we even introduced them to a few jobs that offered free room and board, but they complained it was too grueling. Whenever they ran out of cash, they’d come eat at our community elderly canteen, and we couldn’t just stand by and watch them starve to death either.”
The neighborhood cop tried inputting a few variations of the pinyin “zhiqiang.” Only after discovering the individual was an E-class Evolver did a smile touch his lips.
No wonder he couldn’t recall the name initially.
The Evolver personnel listed in the police app were ordered by their Evolver rank. E-class individuals were ranked at the absolute bottom of the list, so they truly weren’t familiar faces normally.
An Evolver of this caliber was practically indistinguishable from an ordinary human being.
Bai Hewei leaned over to steal a glance as well. The ID photo displayed on the screen revealed a young man with a dyed perm who looked somewhat delicate and clean-cut.
“Auntie, please go on. Exactly how many days ago did they suddenly vanish from sight?” The neighborhood cop picked up a pen and notepad to begin recording.
“It must have been just this week, I don’t recall the exact day. Regardless, they must have raked in some cash recently—probably through illicit means. Every single day they’d hang around those barbecue stalls and nightclubs, laughing and acting rowdy. A few of them would gather together and howl like banshees; I nearly wanted to call the cops on them directly.”
“But after that, we didn’t really see much of them anymore. Who knows where they went.”
“Your mention of them just brought it back to mind.”
…
It had to be said that today’s work had yielded tangible results.
At the very least, they had identified a few suspects.
According to the neighborhood cop’s assessment, these low-level Evolvers carried a rather high level of suspicion. Even if they weren’t the specific targets the authorities were hunting for, they were bound to be entangled in things like telecommunications fraud.
“In reality, it’s easy for an Evolver to find work, just as it’s easy for an ordinary person who’s willing to endure hardships to find work. It’s these young people who possess a bit of education, have held decent jobs before, and possess a bit of superpower—but not much—who find it hardest to land a job,” the neighborhood cop remarked, sighing with emotion. “Middle-aged folks have elderly parents above and young kids below; when pushed to the brink, they can always go deliver takeout. A tiny minority of young people face no real pressure, and by simply lying flat day after day, they end up completely ruined. I’m absolutely not speaking out of envy or spite here; having worked this job for so long, this is simply the baseline reality I encounter most of the time.”
A person couldn’t harbor an excessive number of jobs, but they also couldn’t afford to remain entirely unemployed.
If someone didn’t work, floating by for three to five years might seem fine, but once they grew accustomed to an unemployed lifestyle, they could never reclaim their skills again, destined to merely circle around their own tiny plot of land indefinitely.
Gradually, they would fall completely out of touch with society.
And these vagrants often constituted the most troublesome link in public security.
“Thank you guys for your help today. Once I head back to the station, I’ll need to compile a report.” The neighborhood cop bid farewell to Bai Hewei and his colleague.
“Don’t mention it, it’s you who had the hard work.” Bai Hewei also bid the officer goodbye, planning to head down to the food street to pack a portion of delicious food to bring home.
Recently, a colleague had mentioned that a vendor in the food street made homemade stinky tofu that tasted absolutely spectacular, and the recommendation posts on Xiaohongshu had completely blown up. The colleague had personally gone to try it and confirmed it was excellent, so Bai Hewei harbored the intention to buy a portion to test the flavor for himself.
The moment Bai Hewei arrived at the food street and followed the route to the vicinity of the stinky tofu stall, he spotted a massive queue stretching out in front of it.
“So many people?” Bai Hewei was astonished. In that case, he truly had to test just how delicious the stinky tofu here actually was.
However, with so many people lining up, Bai Hewei couldn’t be bothered to queue. Right now was clock-out time, so the crowd was likely at its peak; it would clear up after a while.
Bai Hewei scanned his surroundings, first picking a small stall to sit down at. He ordered a bowl of ice jelly, intending to play on his phone while eating and waiting.
After eating for a bit, Bai Hewei’s peripheral vision caught a faint disturbance originating from the adjacent alleyway.
There was a fluctuation of evolutionary energy.
Bai Hewei tracked the direction of the fluctuation, discovering that on the other side of the wall inside the narrow alley, a few individuals were currently surrounding a young man, locked in a heated argument.
“Where’s the item?”
“Hurry up and hand it over! Do you have any idea how tightly the police have been screening us lately? Don’t ruin the Boss’s grand plans just because of you!”
“I didn’t take any item,” the cornered youth barked furiously. “Didn’t we already divide all those gold bars among ourselves? I pried that small box open to take a look, and there was absolutely nothing inside, so I just threw it away.”
“Quit bullshitting! That box couldn’t be burned open at all back then, and you didn’t know the password either. How could you possibly have thrown it away? Zhiqiang, we’re all brothers who go way back, and I don’t want to make things difficult for you, but don’t make things difficult for us either.”
Zhiqiang?
Bai Hewei’s ears twitched slightly. This name sounded rather familiar.
He stole another glance, discovering that the cornered youth sported a buzz cut. However, looking closer, his features still bore a striking resemblance to the ID photo he had seen on the neighborhood cop’s phone today.
This kid actually knew his hair was bound to draw attention, so he had gone ahead and shaved it off.
“We’re the ones who grew up together since childhood! Why are you guys listening to that Boss Ji? How much cash does he even throw our way? It isn’t even as much as a single gold bar I distributed to you guys.” Seeing his lie exposed, Zhiqiang stopped playing dumb. “You guys might as well follow me instead. As long as we sell that small box and track down a suitable buyer, we’ll be able to afford Evolver serums when the time comes. Don’t tell me you guys want to remain low-level Evolvers for the rest of your lives?”
“Are our superpowers really inferior to anyone else’s? I’m a flame type, you’re a telekinesis type, and Xiaohua is a manipulation type—we all count as highly decent categories among Evolvers. It’s solely because the concentration of evolutionary factors in our bodies is low that we’re stuck being evaluated as E-class and F-class. Trying to land an Evolver job requires a D-class starting point! As long as we get our hands on a single vial of Evolver serum, we can elevate ourselves to D-class and never have to endure this kind of life again.”
Zhiqiang lowered his voice, adding, “Does that Boss Ji really outclass us by that much? Look at those Evolvers who are even slightly decent—which one of them would look down on him? The only reason he picked us is because we’re easy to control!”
Once Zhiqiang spat out this torrent of words, the few Evolvers surrounding him fell completely silent.
Indeed, they were the ones who had known each other for far longer. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been able to locate Zhiqiang’s hiding place this quickly either.
“It’s easy for you to say, but Evolver serums count as illicit substances here; we have absolutely no way to purchase them. On the black market, a single vial of Evolver serum—even a first-generation version—costs nearly a million yuan. Where on earth are we supposed to dig up that kind of money?”
“Exactly. Boss Ji promised that as long as we rack up achievements, his organization can provide us with the third-generation Evolver serum. This is our sole avenue for upward mobility.”
“Zhiqiang, is that small box really that valuable?”
“I… I don’t know either, but I’ve established contact with an Evolver who awakened X-ray vision. He should be able to see exactly what’s inside the small box.” Zhiqiang hesitated slightly before continuing, “For this small box to be hidden away this securely, it’s bound to be something excellent and worth a fortune. As for Evolver serums—are you guys seriously in the dark? Pre-orders have already opened up on the black market recently.”
Regarding this matter, Bai Hewei had actually heard Pullman mention it briefly before.
The last time he ran into Pullman and chatted, Pullman had mentioned that the foreign pharmaceutical conglomerates had been absolutely severely fleeced this time around.
Originally, the third-generation Evolver serum they had engineered was the ultimate tool for controlling Evolvers. Once used a single time, the user would subsequently be forced to purchase the mitigating agent countless times moving forward. This represented a perpetual goldmine, while simultaneously allowing them to control many insubordinate top-tier Evolvers.
The mitigating agents they distributed were priced between one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars a vial—a level that Evolvers could barely scrape together by gritting their teeth, but upon purchasing it, they would immediately have to resume working relentlessly to save up cash. It was designed to thoroughly bleed dry all the latent potential of these Evolvers. Simultaneously, they rolled out lucrative compensation packages for Evolver “clinical trials,” forcing these Evolvers to become their experimental subjects. While they claimed it was “voluntary” on the surface, in reality, they had completely sealed off all avenues of retreat; one had no choice but to be voluntary.
Several pharmaceutical giants had rolled out their respective mitigating agents, even hiring “superheroes” to film commercials, and went so far as to thoughtfully label them with different fruit flavors.
It could be described as an absolute picture of booming prosperity.
Consequently, before such wonderful days could even last a single month, Huaxia stepped forward to announce that they were listing the mitigating agent as an export drug, while setting the price at a mere three thousand dollars.
In fact, if purchased in bulk, the price could even drop as low as two thousand dollars.
Because of this medication, the Central Research Institute could be said to have captured a massive amount of spotlight and wealth; even the Network News Broadcast had dedicated a full three-minute segment to introducing the relevant situation.
As for exactly how much profit they had raked in, that wasn’t something low-level workers like them could ever know.
When Pullman spoke of it, he couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. “Your Huaxia really teems with talent. While your pharmaceutical research capabilities might lag behind foreign nations, your reverse-engineering capabilities are in a league of their own. Especially Wen Zhiyi—the bounty on his head within our circles has shot up yet again.”
Bai Hewei had inquired a bit further, only then learning that among these top-tier Evolvers existed a private underground website that required an invite code to access. Inside, one could pick up various lucrative bounty contracts. Many nations would post bounties targeting certain treasonous or highly hazardous Evolvers.
Wen Zhiyi, as one of the rare ordinary humans to be targeted by a bounty, firmly occupied a spot within the top three.
“He’s targeted by bounties from several research institutes. Years ago, he leveraged the power of transformation-type Evolvers to alter his appearance and blend into those labs. Nowadays, many spies are simply copying his old playbook. Furthermore, due to his stellar capabilities, he was rapidly promoted. As you know, research labs adore this brand of youthful genius the most and granted him top-tier treatment packages—only for him to copy all their core data lock, stock, and barrel.” Pullman shrugged. “So naturally, after he was eventually exposed later on, a bounty was slapped on his head.”
Moreover, as Wen Zhiyi produced more and more research breakthroughs, the bounty amount pinned to his head grew progressively astronomical.
The titans funding those research labs behind the scenes were furious to the point of spitting blood. Their years of painstaking blood and sweat had served as a stepping stone for someone else, and the culprit was still bouncing around out in the open every single day—who on earth could stomach that?
After listening, Bai Hewei silently added a parenthetical note next to Wen Zhiyi’s contact name: (The scientist you absolutely cannot afford to cross).
Next time he interacted with the man, he had to be even more polite; he couldn’t keep staring fixedly at his face anymore.
Returning to the main topic—once those Huaxia-made replica medications entered the American market, they erupted with terrifying speed.
Some Evolvers purchased them out of skepticism, only to discover that they were virtually identical to those hundred-thousand-dollar mitigating agents—they were fully effective.
At this point, those Evolvers practically went wild.
Nobody’s money fell from the sky. Given the choice between a two-thousand-dollar medication and a hundred-thousand-dollar one, who would buy the latter?
They weren’t suffering from a brain deficiency.
Even someone with the poorest math skills could calculate the staggering discrepancy between the two.
A frenzied buying spree commenced.
By the time the pharmaceutical giants realized something was amiss, it was already entirely too late; Huaxia’s replica medications were everywhere, and their distribution lines were even more expansive than their own channels!
As a result, the pharmaceutical giants’ meticulously laid sales channels—which they had spent over half a year cultivating—went completely down the drain. Whether it was clinics or hospitals, all of their official medications faced an absolute standstill in sales.
Conversely, Huaxia’s mitigating agents were flying off the shelves in a frenzy. Colossal orders from other nations flew in like free money, causing the stock prices of multiple innovative drug companies to hit their daily limits for several consecutive days, prompting countless veteran retail investors who had been trapped in pharmaceutical stocks to weep tears of joy, crying, “I finally waited it out, thank goodness I didn’t give up.”
The American pharmaceutical giants immediately aligned with local governments to launch an anti-dumping investigation, attempting to choke off the Huaxia-sourced medications right at the source and bar them from being sold again.
Yet where demand existed, smuggling naturally followed.
On the black market, even if the Huaxia-made medication spiked to five thousand dollars a vial, it was still fully worth it.
Besides, back when it initially retailed for three thousand dollars, quite a few Evolvers had already stockpiled dozens of vials. A single vial could sustain a user for up to three months, meaning they had absolutely no need for a hundred-thousand-dollar version anytime soon.
Faced with this reality, a few pharmaceutical companies simply couldn’t hold out any longer. Their costs couldn’t be recouped, and their early-stage R&D expenses were colossal, forcing them to slash their prices.
Once one company cut prices, the rest had no choice but to follow suit.
By now, even within American clinics, a single vial of mitigating agent retailed for a mere ten thousand dollars. At this price point, who knew how long it would take for them to ever break even on their R&D costs?
After all, their orders from other nations had been completely choked off, with everyone turning around to grab Huaxia’s replica medications instead.
Their domestic top-tier Evolvers were controlled by this medication, and any final harm dealt would merely impact their own interests. Now that Huaxia had taken the lead to produce a replica medication, they would be fools not to buy it; causing a bit of friction for America worked perfectly fine too.
Of course, it would be even better if they could crack the drug formula themselves and start selling this mitigating agent to turn a profit.
As for patents? Out of courtesy—Evolver laws were entirely different from ordinary laws, particularly overseas, so they could just take their sweet time fighting it out in court. By the time the lawsuits concluded, the medication would pretty much be done selling anyway.
They brought international pressure to bear on Huaxia, but Huaxia’s diplomacy wasn’t one to back down either, claiming it was standard market behavior and so forth, leading to an absolute deadlock of bickering.
Consequently, these foreign factions decided to go all out, beginning to smuggle Evolver serums to Huaxia Evolvers.
While mitigating agents had already become widespread, Evolver serums remained highly scarce.
Many Evolvers witnessed their own nation successfully reverse-engineering the mitigating agent, which meant the side effects of the Evolver serum had already been reduced to the absolute minimum. They were bound to feel a bit tempted; who wouldn’t want to elevate their own superpower rank?
Inevitably, avenues for this line of business emerged within the black market.
Bai Hewei hadn’t expected that a simple Evolver serum could drag out such a vast web of complications, with a clear trend of escalating further.
He finished the ice jelly in his bowl, settled the bill, and slowly strolled into the alleyway.
He wanted to see what these few individuals planned to do first; anyway, he had time to kill.
Catching a thief required securing the stolen goods. Once he snapped a photo and sent it over to An Tingyu and the others, he could count as stepping back in absolute triumph.
He didn’t know if a bonus was attached to this line of work, but regardless of whether there was one, he might as well take a shot at it first.
Ultimately, Zhiqiang successfully swayed his companions.
The companions resolved to accompany Zhiqiang to establish contact with that X-ray vision Evolver first, to see exactly how much the contents of the small box were worth.
On the other end, personnel from the Discipline Inspection Commission delivered a deposition record to the Special Operations Department.
“This retired official turns out to be a fake?” Huo Ling looked over the personal information detailed in the confession, unable to hold back his remark. “This guy managed to blend in for so many years and even smoothly reached retirement?”
The confession revealed that the captured retired senior official wasn’t the actual individual at all, but rather a transformation-type Evolver.
A spy.
Because he had been apprehended, various testing instruments detected anomalies—an ordinary human body displaying values for evolutionary factors. Consequently, the Discipline Inspection Commission rapidly contacted the Research Institute, forcing the suspect to drop his transformation and reveal his original appearance.
“They merely occupied a marginal department. Coupled with the fact that before his retirement, this official had already been reassigned to a non-leadership post—where he just needed to punch in for work every day before heading home, completely detached from the decision-making process of vital matters—naturally no one discovered anything,” An Tingyu remarked after reviewing the deposition, finding the situation thoroughly absurd.
Right under their very noses, a spy had actually managed to manifest?
“After all, key posts and vital departments feature detection devices right at their entrances, which transformation-type Evolvers have no way of bypassing. But marginal departments are left completely unmonitored.” Huo Ling hadn’t expected the opposing faction to be this cunning, deliberately squeezing into the blind spots they overlooked.
“Spies operate exactly like this. Furthermore, he has already given up quite a few colleagues and leaders who accepted his bribes,” An Tingyu said, pursing her lips. Even if a transformation-type Evolver could alter their appearance and voice perfectly, their individual personality and behavioral style couldn’t be rewritten. If there truly existed a transformation-type Evolver capable of playing a role flawlessly, they would only be deployed to pivotal posts—how could they be left inside a marginal department?
Therefore, to conceal his identity, this spy was bound to distribute money to quite a few individuals.
Those who accepted the cash wouldn’t dare speak up even if they noticed something amiss.
If it hadn’t been for that thief breaking into an empty house, this whole affair would likely never have blown open.
“What exactly was stolen from him? Has it still not been extracted through interrogation?” Huo Ling flipped through the entirety of the deposition records.
“A restriction was placed on this Evolver’s body, and the Research Institute is currently brainstorming a method to lift the restriction superpower affecting him. Before it’s lifted, our only option is to find a way to locate that small box first; who knows if there’s something lethal stashed inside,” An Tingyu said in a deep voice. “Director, should we deploy the captains to search for it?”
“Let’s dispatch a couple of captains to look for it first. We can’t afford to commit all our human and material resources to a matter we aren’t entirely certain about either. In the event this small box is a red herring and we leave ourselves open to being exploited by someone else, it’ll become troublesome,” Huo Ling said after a brief hesitation.
“Understood.”
An Tingyu immediately voiced her assent.
Huo Ling rubbed his temples, feeling a trace of helplessness.
Lately, incidents had truly been piling up. Furthermore, with the emergence of the Evolver serum and the mitigating agent, the hazard ratings of certain Evolvers had ticked upward yet again, making things thoroughly vexing.
Meanwhile, Bai Hewei tailed this group of small-time thugs back to their base. He watched as the Evolver named Zhiqiang pulled a small box out from the shoe cabinet belonging to his upstairs neighbor.
Never mind Bai Hewei—even Zhiqiang’s companions were thoroughly stunned.
“You actually stashed this small box at your neighbor’s doorstep?” the companions asked in shock. “No wonder the Boss completely turned your place upside down yet couldn’t track down this small box anywhere.”
“My upstairs neighbor has been away on a business trip these past few days; there’s absolutely no one home,” Zhiqiang said, raising an eyebrow slightly. “I mapped out the timeline perfectly long ago. You guys still have a lot to learn from me; in the future, once my Evolver rank rises, I’ll be the one suited to act as the boss.”
“Tch, you just got lucky, that’s all.”
“How come this small box is so incredibly tough?”
“What exactly is hidden inside? What a pain.”
The crowd took turns examining the small box from every angle, discovering it couldn’t be pried open at all, and they remained completely unable to discern what lay inside.
Bai Hewei stood a full apartment building away from them, but with his level of strength, monitoring them wasn’t the slightest bit difficult.
As for the item resting inside the small box, Bai Hewei could actually see it with absolute clarity.
Inside sat a tiny toy building block?
Huh?
Bai Hewei rubbed his eyes, nearly assuming his vision was playing tricks on him.
He looked closer once more, and it truly was just a standard building block piece.
No, this guy must be out of his mind.
Who on earth hides this kind of item this deeply, even locking it inside a box that can’t be pried open?
Bai Hewei fell silent for a moment before firing off a message to An Tingyu.
