Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 1195: Section 730: Fellow Daoist (1)_2

Chapter 1195: Section 730: Fellow Daoist (1)_2

"I ask you, what are you looking for him for?" Malin pointed at the yellow-haired man sitting upside down on the chair behind him.

"Who are you?" the burly man asked insensitively.

Then a half-human behind him pushed him aside, struggling with a broken leg to kneel in front of Malin’s face and started kissing Malin’s leather shoes.

Malin kicked him away, and the half-human jumped up, accepted Malin’s healing, and with his regenerated leg, he tried to hold Malin’s hand to kiss the ring on Malin’s hand.

"If you kiss me again, I’ll twist your head off your body." Malin, tired of the nonsense, began to use verbal threats—if this half-human didn’t understand what a threat meant, then Malin would have to turn threats into reality.

But it seemed the half-human understood the meaning of hollow threats and deadly warnings, as he slapped himself twice as he stood up: "Your Highness Malin, we received a job today to collect debt from this family. I had Bald Strong lead the team here, thinking it was just threatening a half-blood to repay money, but it turned out this guy is a Transcendent, we were no match, so we had to run."

Hmm, not lying, Malin’s expression softened a bit, simultaneously nodding to Worthy Sage.

Clearly, Worthy Sage understood these things better than Malin, and he took over the conversation: "Since someone hired you, you should have a signed contract from him, so where’s the contract?"

"The contract is here, but the writing disappeared!" The half-human said this and took out the contract.

Malin nodded again—still not lying.

Worthy Sage took the contract, switching through several visual plugins to inspect it: "Are you sure it’s his signature?"

"Yes, because he said once the money is recovered, we’d split it half, so once signed, I put it in my chest pocket immediately."

The half-human spoke very confidently, showing no signs of lying, so Worthy Sage took the contract under the lamp: "Indeed, there are traces of a signature, but the writing has disappeared, could it be ink that fades quickly?"

"Possible, but I think it’s more likely he was deceived by a spell formation, don’t worry, I’ll check it for you." Malin said and stuck his hand on the half-human’s head.

Recent memories of the half-human were indeed fragmented, which showed signs of interference. Malin nodded, finally ruling out their involvement—these guys were merely deceived tools, and they hadn’t managed to kill anyone, so the real behind-the-scenes murderer had to take action himself.

Looking at this, it was truly astounding, Malin had them taken away—since they were beaten, scared, and there were no compensations to offer, these guys actually didn’t dare ask for any compensation, considering being able to come out intact from the detectives of New Hangzhou was quite remarkable.

"Seems the murderer is an expert, knowing how to best destroy the backtracking spell, making it impossible to trace him." Worthy Sage said this while frowning: "Quite a troublemaker, as far as I know, such experts, only a handful exist within several major unions, but it’s impossible to catch them, for none have registered as ’Grey Mist Walker’ in the official Transcendent Sequence."

Grey Mist Walker? This was Thainan’s term for Ashbringers.

Malin thought of this while frowning: "Then again, since they are a debt collection union, they should know if this guy truly owes money, right?"

"Yes, indeed, indeed this kid owed a lot of money. According to the intel, he recently spent quite a sum to promote to Sequence Six, but he succeeded, so none really paid these debt issues much mind, after all, becoming Sequence Six means he has decent combat power as a Transcendent, with such power he could easily earn enough to repay those debts, so that guy told the debt collection union that he owed altogether about three hundred thousand Union Currency Thainan."

"Three hundred thousand, half my estate is worth that, truly people die for wealth, such lies can be believed." Old Master Li commented cynically.

Old Madam Meng shook her head: "Old Li, not every child in Western District understands the meaning of the saying ’birds die for food’."

Malin thought for a moment: "Are there many people with the Grey Mist Walker Sequence?"

"Very few, it’s actually an aberrant sequence, only achievable through sequence mutation, and it’s not inheritable." Worthy Sage quickly answered.

Well, it seems this is quite a trouble.

Driven by inertia, Malin checked this man once more and found he had considerable chaotic energy contamination.

Three possibilities, one, this man is a believer, currently receiving the so-called True God blessing, at the critical stage of either ascending demonhood or transforming to chaos spawn.

Two, the man who killed him was a chaotic believer, having already received True God’s blessing, and considering he still had Transcendent abilities, this blessing was very successful, not turning into a chaos spawn, nor losing sanity, though this possibility is very slim.

Three, the last possibility—that this man was contaminated from the bed.

This guy hasn’t died long, should we search a bit further?

Thinking it over, considering the victim is male, Malin eventually looked to the person in charge: "Sir, I still don’t know your name."

"I am Chaimen, Chaimen Gorō." At this point, seeming to notice Malin’s curiosity, the person in charge smiled and explained: "Father’s last name is Chai, a Thanan, mother is from Four Islands, last name Nagato, so they gave me a compound surname."

Oh, like those compound surnames Eastern Ximen, Southern Gong, Northern Hall, Malin nodded: "Your father seems quite intriguing."

"Indeed, his father was a renowned legendary adventurer back in his day, this kid was born post-retirement." Worthy Sage introduced with a smile.

With that, Malin felt more at ease, this is one of our own: "Mr. Chaimen, I have a task for you. I will try my best to backtrack his recent memories, could you help me confirm who he was closely associated with? After all, you are a resident of New Hangzhou, even if you don’t know them, you could better assist an artist to draw the portraits."

"No problem! Your Highness! Leave it to me!" Chaimen patted his chest, indicating complete confidence.

With his assurance, Malin motioned him to sit aside, beginning to search for this yellow-haired man’s residual soul, this kid met a tragic end, and his soul couldn’t disperse quickly after death, so Malin soon found the residual soul, then after the backtracking spell was in place, Malin adjusted the residual soul’s memory and linked it with Mr. Chaimen.

"Although Malin is young, his strength in spell formation is truly impressive, worthy of a prince, your family is truly lucky, my kids envy it greatly." Old Master Li sighed sourly in front of Old Madam Meng.

Old Madam Meng laughed: "Oh, Mulai was just lucky, our Meng family merely basked in her glory."

Ah, couldn’t these two old people just stop being so snarky.

Malin sighed internally, noticing a detective approaching with a report in hand. He saw the person in charge lying on another chair, first starting with a moment of hesitation, then saw Worthy Sage, and knowing his superior was undergoing a spell investigation of the deceased’s memory, he solemnly handed the report to Worthy Sage: "Sage sir, this is the deceased’s social relationships and all known details, please have a look."

"Thank you, your effort is well noted, keep up with the good work." Worthy Sage praised the young man, then accepted the report.

He opened the report, checked for a moment, then turned a page.

Malin noticed Mr. Chaimen seemed somewhat resistant, seemingly seeing some unpleasant memories.

Strange, why would this be?

Malin was pondering this when he heard Worthy Sage calling him.

So Malin walked to his side, took over the report, and in his direction, looked at the personal information of the yellow-haired man.

Hmm, surname Tang, name Mack, height, weight were not what Malin paid attention to.

Because Malin noticed the content below.

Interests... Extensive?

Malin looked up at Mr. Chaimen, who was already tearful, muttering about his dirtied dreams.

"Even like this, yet not awakened, Your Highness, your spell seems very successful."

Worthy Sage put a hand on Malin’s shoulder, speaking gravely.

Malin also closed the report with a heavy heart.

The saying ’sacrifice the friend for self-preservation’ seems to embody such reasoning.

Mr. Chaimen, your sacrifice for science and the truth, we all remember it dearly.