394: Chapter 394 The Traitor's Fangs

Chen Mo let out a cold laugh.

"The Priest said this was the beginning of a cleansing. It seems the ten million dollar bounty on my head was just a stone cast to test the waters."

"Their true goal is to turn all of Jiang City into a slaughterhouse where they can display their 'miracles'."

Su Qingxue's hand on the steering wheel suddenly tightened, her knuckles turning white.

"If such a massive organization is lurking in Jiang City, why hasn't the Municipal Bureau's internal network or intelligence system caught wind of anything?"

Just then.

The encrypted communication terminal in Chen Mo's pocket suddenly vibrated.

Li Ke's name flashed on the screen.

Chen Mo pressed the answer button and turned on the speakerphone.

"Bro... Brother Mo..."

On the other end of the communicator, Li Ke's voice was filled with a ghost-Li Ke, extreme terror; even his teeth were chattering.

"Did you find it?" Chen Mo's tone remained flat.

"I found it... but... but this is impossible!"

The sound of Li Ke frantically tapping on his keyboard came through the microphone. "You asked me to trace the source IP of the ten million dollar bounty posted on the Dark Web."

"The employer was extremely cunning, using over thirty layers of zombie nodes for springboard encryption, eventually even disguising it as a deep web server in Iceland."

"Get to the point," Chen Mo interrupted his technical report.

"Using the reverse profiling logic you taught me, I caught a tiny data overflow vulnerability the opponent left while setting up their firewall."

Li Ke took a deep breath, as if gathering the courage to speak the truth.

"I peeled back the last layer of the onion skin and got the original physical MAC address and broadband access point."

"Where is it?" Chen Mo's gaze instantly became as sharp as a blade.

"That IP address... didn't go through any overseas proxies..."

Li Ke swallowed hard, his voice trembling so much he sounded Li Ke he was about to cry.

"It's a local Jiang City IP, and it's using an independent frequency band on the police public security private line!"

The air inside the car cabin completely froze at that moment!

Su Qingxue slammed on the brakes. The off-road vehicle's tires let out a piercing screech on the waterlogged road, coming to a sudden halt in the emergency lane of the overpass!

She whipped her head around, staring at the communication terminal in disbelief.

A public security private line?!

"Specific location." Chen Mo's voice was still cold as ice, but a bloodthirsty flame had ignited in his eyes.

"The Jiang City Municipal Bureau main building."

Li Ke's voice carried a deep sense of despair. "Basement level two, an old internal network computer in the Forensic Science Department's archive room."

The employer who offered a ten million dollar bounty to recruit the world's top assassins to hunt down a specially appointed police expert...

...was right in the basement of the Jiang City Municipal Bureau building.

Using the police's private network, they had issued a kill order against the police!

"The Forensic Science Department Archive Room..."

Su Qingxue muttered to herself, her face pale. "That's one of the places with the tightest security and the most blind spots in the entire Municipal Bureau... How is this possible?"

Chen Mo leaned back in his seat.

In the darkness of the car, the cold smirk on his lips gradually widened.

"It seems our ranks are rotting faster than I imagined."

Chen Mo opened his eyes, his gaze seemingly piercing through the layers of night, aimed straight at the Municipal Bureau building.

"Turn around. Back to the Municipal Bureau."

He coldly issued the command.

"I want to see exactly what kind of face this 'White Pigeon' lurking in the morgue has!"

...

The black police off-road vehicle was Li Ke a frenzied beast, roaring as it tore through the midnight rain of Jiang City.

The water on the overpass was sliced open by the wheels, splashing up a wall of water over two meters high.

Inside the car, the atmosphere was so oppressive it felt Li Ke water could be wrung out of it.

"Li Ke, continue tracking."

Leaning back in the rear seat, Chen Mo's cold voice echoed through the communication channel.

"I want to know exactly what the surveillance footage from basement level two captured."

"Bro... Brother Mo, something's not right!"

On the other end of the headset, the sound of Li Ke's typing was as dense as a rainstorm.

"The Municipal Bureau's internal security protocols have been tampered with! The seven cameras in the Forensic Science Department corridor on basement level two have been stuck in a dead loop since 11:00 PM last night!"

Su Qingxue slammed down on the accelerator, gritting her teeth. "A dead loop? What does that mean?"

"It's the oldest but most lethal hacking trick in Hollywood movies!"

Li Ke's voice carried a profound sense of helplessness.

"Someone replaced the real-time surveillance source files with a three-minute loop of empty footage! Everything looks normal on the duty room's big screen, but in reality... even if a gunfight were happening there right now, the surveillance would show nothing but silence!"

"To be able to mess with the Municipal Bureau's internal network..."

Su Qingxue's nails almost dug into the leather of the steering wheel. "The mole's rank must not be low."

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes slightly, the chill in his gaze deepening.

"It's not a matter of how high their rank is."

Chen Mo's fingers lightly rubbed the cuff of his trench coat. "The Forensic Science Department Archive Room stores the original autopsy reports, evidence fragments, and frozen tissues without extracted DNA for all unsolved homicides in Jiang City from the past twenty years. It's a library of the dead."

"To choose such a place to post a ten million dollar Dark Web bounty..."

Chen Mo sneered. "This is him showing me his 'aesthetic.' In his eyes, killing me is nothing more than adding another file of unidentified remains to that archive room."

Arrogance.

Extreme arrogance!

Fifteen minutes ago, 'The Priest' was arrested.

Chen Mo glanced at his watch. "If that employer has been sitting in front of a computer monitoring the Dark Web's order status, he must know by now that the assassin squad has been wiped out."

"Will he run?" Su Qingxue asked urgently.

"For this kind of severely narcissistic, religious-type criminal who believes in 'Chaotic Order,' running away would be a profanation of his faith."

Chen Mo's gaze pierced through the boundless darkness outside the car window.

"He will stay. Or, he'll leave behind a 'divine oracle' he prepared long ago to welcome our arrival."

...

3:45 AM.

The off-road vehicle didn't take the main entrance, instead silently sliding into the abandoned equipment warehouse passage behind the Municipal Bureau building.

The entire main building was in a deep sleep, with only a few windows on scattered floors emitting a faint, yellow light.

Chen Mo pushed open the car door, and the rain instantly soaked his black hair.

"Nightingale, move forward."

Chen Mo made a hand gesture.

The girl in black in the passenger seat blended into the night Li Ke a ghost, without making a single sound as her feet stepped into the puddles.

Su Qingxue drew the sidearm from her waist, racked the slide, gripped it with both hands, and followed closely by Chen Mo's side.

"Don't take the elevator."

Chen Mo glanced at the flickering elevator indicator light. "Take the emergency stairs."

The stairwell was filled with a musty smell from years of being hidden from the sun.

The further down they went, the lower the air temperature dropped.

When they arrived at the fire door on basement level two...

...a strong, nauseating mixture of formalin and preservatives seeped through the gap in the door and into their nostrils.

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