Fortunately, before Guan Xia and her team reached Wu Xingxian's company, they first caught sight of the real Wu Yingze.
Guan Xia opened the surveillance footage capturing the front entrance of the bar, continuously scrolling through the timeline. Though the scene appeared chaotic to Pang Le and the others—filled with masked figures fleeing in all directions—Guan Xia, aided by her system's cheat-like abilities, effortlessly picked out one figure from the crowd.
She decisively hit pause, exhaled in relief, and pointed at a tall, slightly hunched figure sprinting toward the exit. "That's him—Wu Yingze. He disguised himself and slipped away in the chaos right after the fire started."
Glancing at the timestamp in the top-left corner of the footage, then checking her watch, Guan Xia's expression grew tense. "It's already been an hour and a half since he left the bar. By the time we get there, he might have already fled Shangshuang City. His timing is impeccable—he escaped just before the police set up checkpoints."
Everyone except Lu Tingfeng, who was driving, craned their necks to peer at the laptop screen. After studying the figure Guan Xia had identified, they reacted with disbelief. "Are you sure it's him? Aside from his height, nothing else matches his usual appearance or build."
To Pang Le and the others, Guan Xia's claim seemed far-fetched.
Even Guan Xia hadn’t expected Wu Yingze to go to such extremes. A tall, somewhat slouching man, he had disguised himself as a woman for his escape—wearing a dress, high heels, and a black wig. Even while hunched over in his rush to flee, the distinctly feminine silhouette was unmistakable.
At first, Guan Xia had hesitated too, but her system’s intuitive prompt left no room for doubt.
"It’s him," she reaffirmed. "My instincts aren’t wrong. Judging by his direction, he was heading toward the nearest parking lot. Who has the surveillance footage for that?"
Zhong Xiaoyu, seated beside Guan Xia, raised her hand. "I do. Now that I think about it, I remember seeing this figure earlier because of how tall she—well, he—was, especially in those heels. I vaguely recall him getting into a black car."
Zhong Xiaoyu swiftly rewound the footage. Two or three minutes later, she tapped the keyboard decisively and angled the screen toward Guan Xia, excitement in her voice. "Found it! Just as I remembered—he got into a black car and drove off. He took the driver’s seat, meaning he was alone. The car headed south on Guigang Middle Road."
Guan Xia glanced at the screen, confirming it was indeed Wu Yingze, then called Xu Nian. She concisely described Wu Yingze’s current disguise and provided the license plate number of the fleeing vehicle.
Finally having a lead on Wu Yingze’s whereabouts, the team felt a mix of relief and urgency.
From the passenger seat, Ji An turned to look at Guan Xia. "Thank goodness you’re here. Without you, we’d have no idea Wu Yingze had escaped. At this rate, Wu Xingxian might have slipped away too."
Guan Xia closed the laptop and asked Ji An, "Have the colleagues surveilling Wu Xingxian reported anything? Has there been any chaos at his location, like the fire at the bar?"
Ji An shook her head. "I called them about ten minutes ago—everything’s normal. Wu Xingxian is still working late at the office. Our people are stationed at every exit of his building. Unless there’s a disturbance like at the bar, even with a disguise, he couldn’t leave unnoticed."
Guan Xia mulled it over, but some pieces still didn’t fit. After a few minutes of fruitless thinking, she gave up, hoping the answers would come once they apprehended Wu Yingze.
It was late at night, so traffic was light. Despite the bar being far from Wu Xingxian’s company, they arrived in just over twenty minutes.
Parking by the roadside, Ji An pointed at a brightly lit skyscraper across the street. "That’s Wu Xingxian’s company building. Their headquarters isn’t huge—about three hundred employees occupying the top three floors. See that window? The fifth one from the bottom—the floor-to-ceiling one—that’s Wu Xingxian’s office."
Following Ji An’s direction, Guan Xia easily spotted the office. Coincidentally, a figure stood by the window, gazing down at the street below.
"That’s Wu Xingxian," Ji An added. "He has a habit of looking out the window every two hours while working, so the task force finds him easy to track."
Guan Xia squinted, trying to make out the figure’s features, but the distance was too great. All she could discern was a vague masculine silhouette.
Just as she was about to ask Ji An for binoculars, a sudden realization struck her.
To her, Wu Xingxian was likely tied to the criminal organization—if not directly connected to Kangjian Medical Center, then still a murderer with countless lives on his hands. If she viewed him through the system’s lens, his soul would undoubtedly be tangled in thick, blood-red threads.
With that in mind, Guan Xia summoned the system in her mind and commanded: Share your vision with me—just for ten seconds.
With over 70,000 points of halo strength safeguarding her, spending a few dozen or hundred points was nothing.
Given how crucial halo value was for the system’s upgrades—important not just to Guan Xia but to the system itself—it complied without hesitation.
The surreal sight she’d experienced hours earlier unfolded before her again. Ignoring the wonder of it, Guan Xia immediately focused on Wu Xingxian’s position. Just as she’d expected, his soul wasn’t just streaked with blood-red—it was drenched in it. At a glance, it resembled the shell around her own soul, standing out starkly among the countless glowing orbs of ordinary souls. Like a single deep-red balloon amidst a sea of white ones, it was impossible to look away.
However, apart from Wu Xingxian, Guan Xia did not overlook several other soul auras that, while less prominent, were equally eye-catching. Using Wu Xingxian as the focal point, she made an effort to memorize the positions of these other glowing auras. As soon as the system's shared vision faded, she turned to Ji An and asked, "Sister Ji, who else was working overtime at Wu Xingxian's company tonight?"
Ji An thought for a moment and replied, "From what Xu Nian and the others investigated earlier, it seems Wu Xingxian's company has been planning to bid on a piece of land recently. They’ve been working overtime these past few nights. Besides Wu Xingxian, there’s also his company’s project team, secretarial group, and several department managers and vice presidents."
That was quite a few people. From such a distance, relying solely on the system’s shared vision, it was hard to determine exactly which of those glowing red soul auras belonged to whom.
Though her plan didn’t pan out, Guan Xia wasn’t discouraged. Once Wu Yingze was captured, they’d have plenty of time to deal with Wu Xingxian. A thorough investigation would ensure none of his criminal accomplices escaped.
The system upgrade was truly a blessing—this cheat ability had become even more absurdly useful.
Watching the figure by the floor-to-ceiling window gradually disappear, Guan Xia finally spoke to Zhong Xiaoyu and the others, "I’ve confirmed it—that was Wu Xingxian himself. It seems Wu Yingze really has abandoned his father."
"That sounds a bit strange," Pang Le frowned. "In the crime dramas I’ve watched, it’s usually the father using the son as a pawn, ready to discard him at any moment. But in the cases we’re handling, it’s the opposite. Still, this makes it clear that within the criminal organization centered around Kangjian Health Examination Center, Wu Yingze, the son in his early thirties, is actually the top leader."
"What’s puzzling now is why he chose to flee," Lu Tingfeng mused, still pondering the question. "Or perhaps there’s something he absolutely had to take with him—something that would become impossible to move if he delayed any longer."
"Evidence of crimes?" Zhong Xiaoyu suggested. "But wouldn’t destroying it be easier than trying to smuggle it out?"
Lu Tingfeng was operating on intuition and couldn’t quite articulate it, so she didn’t answer, merely shaking her head thoughtfully.
Ji An, however, had an idea. "Maybe it’s not evidence. Maybe it’s something that can’t be destroyed—only taken away."
Prompted by Ji An’s words, Guan Xia also seemed to realize something. After a few minutes of deep thought, her eyes lit up, and she spoke in unison with Lu Tingfeng, "Organs."
Pang Le immediately caught on. "If it’s human organs, then it makes sense. The buyer might not be able to wait any longer. The longer this drags on, the worse the situation becomes for Wu Yingze. Plus, we’re watching closely—any rash move would give us an opening. Since Wu Yingze was already planning to flee, he might as well kill two birds with one stone."
Though it was just speculation, Guan Xia found their reasoning highly plausible. Without hesitation, she pulled out her phone and called Xu Nian again. As she was communicating with him, she faintly heard someone sigh, "Let’s just hope Wu Yingze is carrying a person, not just an organ."
Guan Xia couldn’t help but silently echo the sentiment. If it was a person, they might still have a chance to save them. If it was just an organ, all they’d find was a corpse.
Once they confirmed that both Wu Xingxian and Peng Yuanwei were under tight police surveillance, Guan Xia and the others didn’t waste any more time. After reporting to the task force, they set out along Wu Yingze’s known escape route, driving straight out of Shangshuang City.
According to the latest update from the task force, after leaving the bar, Wu Yingze hadn’t headed for the airport, train station, or bus terminal. Instead, he’d taken an overpass, suburban highways, provincial roads, and a poorly surveilled two-lane road leading to a small town about 32 kilometers from Shangshuang City. A team of officers had already been dispatched to pursue him.
By the time Guan Xia and the others received this news, their car had already left Shangshuang City.
Everyone, including Guan Xia, was surprised. Based on their earlier deductions, Wu Yingze—carrying something that couldn’t pass security checks and disguised as a woman—would have to flee by car. They’d assumed he’d be racing against time to put as much distance as possible between himself and the police. Instead, he’d barely left the city before stopping in a small town with relatively sparse but still present surveillance.
As everyone fell into thought, Lu Tingfeng was the first to speak. "Given how cautious and cunning Wu Yingze has proven to be, this town might be part of his next move. He could be planning to switch vehicles or use some other diversion tactic to alter his appearance again, making it even harder for the police to track him."
"That makes sense," Guan Xia said, perking up. "Let’s pick up the pace and get there quickly. If he really is changing his disguise again, we’ll need to comb through the town’s surveillance footage to figure out his next direction."
As it turned out, Lu Tingfeng’s prediction was spot-on. When they were still about ten kilometers from the town, Xu Nian called.
The task force had located the car Wu Yingze had used to escape, but only the car—not the man. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a tall woman drive into town and stop at a small convenience store to buy a few things, but no one noticed when or where she left afterward.
The task force was now urgently reviewing the town’s surveillance footage to trace Wu Yingze’s movements, while the forensics team examined the abandoned car.
Hearing this, Zhong Xiaoyu smacked her thigh in frustration. "This Wu Yingze is as slippery as a fox. If Guan Xia hadn’t gone to check and realized he’d pulled a switcheroo, by the time we figured out the person we’d been tailing was a decoy, he’d have vanished without a trace."
Guan Xia couldn’t help feeling a little relieved. Maybe it was the system’s intuition, but she’d had a nagging unease that made her spot the anomaly right away. If she’d been busy helping the task force with missing persons cases and only realized Wu Yingze had been replaced later, even with the system’s cheat-like tracking abilities, catching him would’ve been nearly impossible.
After another half-hour of driving, Guan Xia and the others finally arrived at Wu Yingze’s last known location.
After getting out of the car, Guan Xia circled the abandoned vehicle twice, paying special attention to the trunk.
Before she could spot anything, Xu Nian approached and said, "I checked with the forensics team. They found traces of blood in a corner of the trunk. Based on oxidation and coagulation, it was left there within the last two days."
Guan Xia immediately understood. "So our guess was right. Wu Yingze wasn’t just fleeing—he had someone important to take with him."
Although Guan Xia referred to them as "important people," she knew full well that for Wu Yingze, what truly mattered wasn't the person but the organs inside their body. She wondered just how significant the buyer was—even at such a critical moment, Wu Yingze was still determined to find a way to transport the organs out.
Having learned what she needed, Guan Xia stopped focusing on the vehicle and instead glanced around, surveying the area before looking up to check the positions of nearby surveillance cameras.
Unfortunately, this location had clearly been carefully chosen by Wu Yingze long ago. While it appeared desolate, there were enough structures to provide cover, with narrow alleys formed between buildings for easy movement. Moreover, these buildings had clearly been abandoned due to failing businesses, leaving the area in poor condition with very few functioning surveillance cameras. Guan Xia searched carefully but couldn’t find a single one.
Seeing this, Xu Nian added, "I also asked colleagues from the task force about the surveillance. They contacted the local police station as soon as the vehicle left Shangshuang City. The officers acted immediately, but unfortunately, they only found the vehicle—no people. Some were dispatched to look for witnesses while others went to retrieve surveillance footage. But as we can see, this area was originally meant to become the town’s commercial center. When that plan failed, businesses couldn’t sustain themselves, and one by one, they shut down. A few years ago, even the last remaining mall closed, leaving this place completely abandoned. Over time, most of the surveillance cameras stopped working."
Guan Xia’s expression remained calm, unsurprised by this. After all, Wu Yingze had operated in Shangshuang City for years, backed by a staggering number of peripheral associates. It was no surprise he knew every detail of this area like the back of his hand.
Happy Labor Day, my little angels! Love you all!
