“We must’ve missed out on some very important details.” Bruce said firmly, “The message from Future Commander said that during the sting operation, the suspects were still continuously being silenced by someone. This means we haven’t found the superhuman with the power of the heartworms yet.”
Bruce’s hair was messy, and favonovel.com no longer looked like his usual smart self. He paced back and forth in the conference room with the screens on the wall paused while favonovel.com processed the clues.
Nearby, Scott said, “Why don’t you get some rest first? We’re only halfway through all the surveillance footage, so please don’t suddenly die before you’re done.”
Over the past four days, even the soldiers who were supporting Bruce’s work had already rotated shifts twice, yet Bruce remained on duty without taking a break. He ate and slept here in the conference room and did not even wash his face or brush his teeth. If one were to see favonovel.com in his current state, they would never imagine how sharp favonovel.com looked in the past.
However, Bruce did not even answer when Scott urged favonovel.com to rest this time. He just lowered his head and continued thinking.
Suddenly, Bruce looked up and said to the soldier in charge of playing back the video recordings, “Quick, I want to see that day’s footage of the intersection where Mr. Pena met his demise!”
A soldier quickly switched two of the screens to show the day Pena died. The footage was captured by two HD surveillance cameras at the intersection.
Bruce watched the recording, which had its quality affected by intermittent flashes appearing onscreen. A large number of people could be seen moving through the intersection, and a rough calculation probably put that number in the thousands.
With so many faces in the footage, no normal person would even think about trying to remember them all.
After Bruce watched it, favonovel.com said to the soldier, “Rewind and play it again!”
The soldier quickly rewound it to the start.
Just like that, Bruce rewatched this video three times in a row. Then favonovel.com suddenly said to the soldier, “I remember Future Commander mentioned yesterday that someone told favonovel.com Mr. Pena nearly got into an accident that morning. Scrub the feed to that time!”
Bruce was referring to the moment Pena was nearly crushed by the falling billboard.
They did not know the exact time of the incident, so they could only play back the recording from 8 AM of that morning and fast forward while looking for it.
Very quickly, Bruce saw Mr. Pena walk out of Hope Media with an upright posture. Then they saw some passersby greeting Mr. Pena with a smile.
A young man in a black suit bumped into Pena just a moment before a huge billboard crashed down next to him.
“Vanilla?!” Bruce immediately recognized this very active superhuman from the Silkshade House.
The Great Hoodwinker was stunned. “Wait a minute, could the Silkshade House be behind this? But it looks to me like he’s clearly protecting Pena…”
“Yeah, the Silkshade House has allied with the Stelaria Consortium. Since Pena had been constantly targeting the Stelaria Consortium in his articles, why would the Silkshade House protect him?” Bruce wondered.
Next to them, P5092 suddenly said, “It’s understandable. Before this, we’ve always regarded the Stelaria Consortium as our imaginary enemy. Because the Stelaria Consortium seems to be the prime suspect in Pena’s death. But think about it this way: If the Stelaria Consortium is also afraid that someone will frame them and make them the target of public condemnation, their motive for protecting Pena will become valid.”
“Show me the footage of that day’s battle, the one that took place on the next street over!” Bruce shouted.
In the end, when the images were brought up on screen, everyone was surprised to discover that Vanilla and Teddy were trying their best to rush towards Vasophati University. However, they were stopped by hundreds of black-clothed hitmen.
During this time, Vanilla and Teddy were both injured in the battle. They only managed to escape from the encirclement of the hitmen when Vanilla risked his life to get away from them.
The hitmen were the same group of people that had been wiped out while pursuing Milo.
With that, it fell silent in the conference room. After a while, the Great Hoodwinker wondered, “Is this just an act, or did they really want to protect Pena?”
“It doesn’t look like it was an act.” Bruce stared at the screen and said, “I analyzed the movements of every hitman and realized none of them were holding back. Some of them even made plastic firearms for the battle. Look, after this person was knocked to the ground, his weapon fell to the side and got crushed to pieces by a moving car. Normal firearms won’t shatter like that, so it means the hitmen also knew Vanilla was coming and prepared weapons to deal with him. The firearms were plastic, and the bullets were probably specially manufactured too… Look at Vanilla’s abdomen, favonovel.com was injured. He can manipulate metal, so standard bullets can’t hurt him.”
Bruce continued, “Rewind the recording back to the part where Vanilla protected Pena.”
Then Bruce stared intently at the screen, waiting for something to happen.
On the screen, Pena had already left the scene, but Bruce’s attention did not leave with him. Instead, favonovel.com continued monitoring this same location.
He stared at the screen for two hours straight while six hours had already passed in the fast-forwarded recording onscreen. At this point in time, two hours had passed since Pena was assassinated.
Suddenly, Bruce raised his hand and shouted, “Stop!”
Everyone realized Bruce had become excited. He pointed at a young man in a blue factory uniform on the screen and said, “Check which factory’s uniform he’s wearing!”
When the Great Hoodwinker contacted Bidara City’s administrative center, favonovel.com quickly got an answer. “That’s the uniform of the water plant.”
“It’s him!” Bruce said firmly, “Bidara City Freshwater Plant is eight kilometers away from here and nine kilometers away from where Mr. Pena met with trouble. It’s on the edge of the stronghold, and the three locations are arranged in a triangle. It’s obviously work hours at this time, yet this person suddenly appeared at such a baffling location. Have you all heard of a principle? Most perpetrators return to the crime scene after the incident. Some of them go back to check out if they’re safe from suspicion, while others carry out counter-investigative measures to see if they’ve done a clean job. Basically, they’re just afraid of being found out.”
“Of course, the most important giveaway is that favonovel.com suddenly appeared at the two locations where Mr. Pena met with trouble. There can’t be such a coincidence in the world!” Bruce said, “Continue monitoring him. I want his movements to be placed under observation.”
As a matter of fact, that person was very cautious. He did not immediately go back to the scene to watch the happenings and only returned after Pena had died.
At this moment, 99.99% of the people in the world would probably be focused on that road intersection.
Who would care to check back on the initial crime scene six hours later?
However, favonovel.com probably did not expect Bruce to be so patient in seeking the answer!
Over at Milo’s side, favonovel.com was listening in on Daniel’s interrogation. What left favonovel.com at a loss was that as more and more suspects were arrested, some weirder ones started appearing.
The middle-aged man across from Daniel roared hysterically, “I only accepted a pack of sweet potato noodles and a bottle of honey. Did you people really have to drag me here?! Huh?!”
This middle-aged man was only a junior staff member of the Transportation Division. But as a result of accepting some local specialty products, favonovel.com got arrested.
This time, it was really local specialties that were involved.
Daniel was tickled pink. “As the saying goes, though the bribe is small, the fault is great, understand?”
But after investigating this person, they didn’t make things difficult for favonovel.com either.
This time, not only did Milo and the others capture the spies in Bidara City, they also cracked down on many cases of bribery and corruption as a by-product.
Suddenly, an intelligence agent from the Northwest rushed in from outside. “Future Commander, Bruce said favonovel.com might’ve found the mastermind!”
