Embers Ad Infinitum

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Two days later, the owner of an appliance repair shop arrived at Wolf’s Den in the morning.

He was relatively familiar with Ogre. Usually, they would hire him if there were any wiring malfunctions. As long as it wasn’t complicated and was an urgent matter, they would hire him.

“Is the camera broken?” The middle-aged man looked up at the equipment by the door. Like most Red River people, he looked older than his age. His skin looked like it had been ground by sand.

Although Ogre was no longer hypnotized and lost his memory about the repair, he still nodded. “Yes, it’s down. Thus, I got you to take a look. If it really doesn’t work out, I’ll get a new one. It’s been used for years anyway.”

The electronics repair shop owner smiled. “Sure, I have a few second-hand ones. Their quality ain’t too bad.”

“Ricky, are you sure it’s second-hand, not third or fourth-hand?” Ogre joked and called for the other Black Shirts members to bring over a simple ladder for the appliance shop owner.

Ricky did the checks one after another. When he dealt with the camera that aimed deep into the Wolf’s Den, his expression suddenly froze.

He took out a memory card from his tool bag and switched the one inside the camera. After a simple inspection and confirming that there were no items like trackers, Ricky stuffed the surveillance camera-equipped electronic product into his pocket.

He quickly ‘repaired’ the camera, collected Ogre’s money, and left Wolf’s Den. After returning to the shop, he found an envelope with an address and recipient written at some point in time.

At this moment, a man and a woman in sunglasses entered his shop.

“Can this be repaired?” The woman with a ponytail took out a small black speaker with a blue bottom.

Ricky could only put down the envelope and memory card in his hand. He took the speaker, connected it to his N-handed computer, and checked for problems.

The tall man quickly picked up the envelope and chuckled. “Love letter?”

“No.” Ricky reflexively snatched the envelope back; he didn’t want the other party to see the address.

The man didn’t insist and waited for Ricky to repair the speaker.

“Hey, I really miss you[1]…” Music soon sounded.

“There’s no problem with it?” Ricky said in confusion.

The man in the sunglasses opened his mouth. “You’re amazing; you fixed it just by touching it!”

“…” Ricky didn’t know how to respond.

The woman with the ponytail immediately asked, “How much?”

“1-1 Drace.” Ricky didn’t plan on accepting money, but he didn’t want to give up the opportunity to earn money since the other party had already said so.

The woman with the ponytail took out a Drace coin and pushed it to him.

After watching the two of them leave with the small speaker, Ricky checked the envelope and confirmed that there were no trackers inside. Then, he quickly inserted the memory card into the envelope and sealed it.

When it was almost noon, he closed his store’s shutters and threw the letter into the only mailbox in the block.

In the afternoon, a postman in a green uniform riding an old bicycle took away the letter and stuffed it into his satchel, along with the other letters. He then followed a fixed route and passed by different mailboxes.

When he approached an apartment in the Red Wolf Zone, the postman’s expression suddenly turned blank.

He took out Ricky’s letter. The address on the letter wasn’t at the spot he was in—the two were in completely opposite directions.

After mistakenly throwing the letter into the apartment’s mailbox, the postman left.

Time quickly passed as night gradually descended.

A man who lived in this apartment finished his day of work and returned. When he passed by the mailboxes, he opened his and took out the letter inside.

Upon seeing the address in the letter that was completely wrong, the short man’s expression changed slightly. He climbed the stairs to the fifth floor and walked along the aisle to his residence.

As he passed by a neighbor, he suddenly bent down and tied his shoelaces. During this process, he quietly stuffed the letter in his hand under the neighbor’s door.

In the dimly lit room which had the curtains drawn, a slightly pale hand picked up the letter. The hand then opened the letter and took out the memory card inside.

The hand’s owner did a simple inspection and confirmed that there were no additional electronic products attached to the envelope and the memory card’s surface.

He discovered a dead bug in the envelope and believed that it had flown in before the letter was sealed.

The owner of the hand switched on his portable computer and inserted the memory card into the attached card reader. Just as he opened the newly appeared drive, the computer suddenly slowed down.

Right on the heels of that, the computer was unmuted, and the volume was raised to its maximum.

“Woo!”

“Woo!”

The sound of a fire engine sounded ear-piercing, echoing throughout the room and coming from the tightly shut windows.

A male voice shouted at the top of his lungs: “I’m a priest from the Anti-intellectualism Church. Come and capture me!

“I’m a priest from the Anti-intellectualism Church. Come and capture me!”

The hand’s owner suddenly stood up and ran to the door without attempting to stop the out-of-control computer.

When he pulled open the door, the voice coming from the computer speaker changed again.

He heard a male voice that sounded a little resentful. “Hey, I really miss you…”

The hand’s owner slowed down before quickly returning to normal. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and directly turned into the corridor. He rushed into one of the families that were making dinner by the door and jumped into the alley behind the apartment through their windows.

Bang!

A stone flew right in front of the hand owner’s feet, and a bullet almost hit him.

This didn’t seem like a sniper failing to score a hit. It appeared deliberate instead, almost equivalent to a warning.

The hand’s owner was stunned for a moment before slowly raising his hands. He stopped trying to escape because the next shot might hit him.

The sniper was dozens of meters away, way beyond his range of influence.

First City didn’t restrict weapons, and the back alley was relatively quiet. After the gunshot created a brief moment of tension, the pedestrians on the street outside quickly forgot about it. Only a small number of enthusiastic citizens tried to find the sheriff and got him to send his subordinates down the alley to see what was happening.

The hand’s owner waited for a while before a figure appeared in front of him.

The person who came was Shang Jianyao in a long-sleeved, black T-shirt. He closed his eyes and smiled warmly. “I’m not the one who fired.”

He meant that the person in charge of sniping was still around and that it was best he didn’t pull off any tricks.

The hand’s owner remained silent and didn’t respond as thoughts raced through his mind. The best solution he came up with was to restrain the person in front of him and use him as a hostage to resist the distant sniper.

Shang Jianyao opened his eyes and saw a brown-haired, brown-eyed man—who was about 1.7 meters tall. He had a relatively haggard expression, and he didn’t seem to be in the right state of mind.

“A fake Father.” He sighed and shook his head.

This pursuit utilized Jiang Baimian’s ability to sense bioelectric signals and the virus written by Genava.

They had originally followed the electronics repair shop owner—Ricky—but they realized that he was only a tool. Therefore, they used the excuse of repairing the small speaker as an excuse to get a bug in before he finished sealing the envelope.

In the eyes of people who didn’t know the corresponding abilities, this was an insignificant matter that wasn’t worth noticing. The other letters on the mailman often didn’t have such things.

This was equivalent to having a biological locator in the letter.

Considering that the bug in the letter might not live long enough, Genava had infected the memory card with a virus in advance. It could allow the infected computer to turn on its speaker and play the content that the virus scheduled.

With it, the Old Task Force—which had narrowed down the scope—could use the sound to lock onto the target and ambush the other party’s fleeing path.

Through the synergy of these two means, Jiang Baimian and Shang Jianyao—who were in charge of the back alley—successfully intercepted the fleeing enemy.

Unfortunately, their target was only a fake Father.

“Fake Father…” The man—who had planned on hypnotizing Shang Jianyao when their eyes met—was stunned. His expression changed several times before he blurted out, “Why did you say that I’m the fake Father?”

Shang Jianyao didn’t answer him immediately and threw him a black cloth. “Blindfold yourself.”

As he spoke, he closed his eyes again.

The fake Father hesitated for a few seconds. Upon seeing that there was no opportunity to take advantage and that the sniper in the distance was watching him, he could only blindfold himself with the black cloth obediently.

After receiving Jiang Baimian’s confirmation message through the walkie-talkie, Shang Jianyao opened his eyes and smiled at the fake Father. “Because the real Father is 1.75 to 1.8 meters tall, has relatively dark eye circles, and looks very tired…”

As he listened, the fake Father suddenly held his head and revealed a pained expression.

Shang Jianyao asked, “After obtaining the memory card and reading the contents, who will you pass the information you gathered to?”

At this moment, music sounded from an upstairs room. “Hey, I really miss you…”

[1] From Karen Mok’s “Without You.”