Chapter 195 : Chapter 195
Chapter 195: I Did Not Kill Them
Zhou Yunhe raised his eyes and looked at Li Mu. A trace of hope rose in them again.
Suddenly, his eyes lit up.
Wait...After he had been escorted over just now, the Death Row Minister seemed to have been extremely respectful toward this young man!
That man seemed to be a Mid Tiger Marquis, right?
Zhou Yunhe had stayed in the death row camp for so long that he had long since heard the old hands around him gossip and had figured out the system within the Abyss-Suppression Army.
It was said that the Death Row Minister held an extremely high position in the Abyss-Suppression Army.
He was only half a rank below a Deputy Commander-in-Chief.
However, because he had to intimidate the death row prisoners, the position was generally filled by someone with high cultivation and a high military rank serving in a lower-listed post.
In principle, he only needed to salute a Tiger Marquis Deputy Commander-in-Chief and the Commander-in-Chief who was a Junior Dragon General.
Among officers of the same rank, there were basically none whose military post was higher than his.
Within the small domain of the Death Row Base, Yu Shaoheng was an absolute local emperor.
One word from him could decide life or death!
After hesitating for only a moment, Zhou Yunhe swallowed hard.
“I... I did not kill them!”
As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Yunhe dropped to his knees with a thud.
“My parents, my two elder sisters, and both of my sisters’ families! They are all in their hands!”
“In whose hands?” Li Mu asked.
“In the hands of the Law Enforcement Bureau’s people.”
“Are they being held under control?”
“More or less. They are being monitored. Trackers were installed on them. Once anything unusual is discovered, they will all die.”
Zhou Yunhe spoke.
Lu Chenfeng asked in confusion:
“Trackers? Why be afraid of that kind of thing? Could you not find a high-ranking official and file a complaint?”
Zhou Yunhe looked at him with incomprehension.
Wang Yinhuan and Sun Yujie both fell silent.
Li Mu laughed and scolded:
“Keep your mouth shut for a bit!”
Trackers, monitored by the Law Enforcement Bureau. It sounded as though they still had some freedom, and finding a solution should not have been difficult.
But the difficult part was, would he dare?
He could not even leave Linyuan City, and the officials from the largest law enforcement institution in Linyuan City wanted to deal with him.
Whom could he report it to?
Could he meet an official higher than them? Would others listen to him?
Even if he could meet them, could he guarantee that they were not in collusion?
“How do you know the Commissioner of the Law Enforcement Bureau was the one who arrested you as a scapegoat?”
“Were those girls’ disappearances all his doing?”
Li Mu asked again.
Zhou Yunhe gritted his teeth and said:
“I cannot be completely certain, but it was definitely him!”
“Because not long after I arrived at the Death Row Base, someone inside nearly assassinated me! If I had not killed him instead, I would already have been silenced!”
“Besides, if this matter had not attracted media attention, I might have died on the spot when they arrested me to take the blame.”
“Because of public pressure, they used my family to force me to repeat the entire crime process they had taught me!”
“Other than the Commissioner of the Law Enforcement Bureau himself, I cannot think of anyone else with that kind of power!”
Sun Yujie also added:
“That is true. After this incident happened, all levels of branches were mobilized to investigate.”
“But it was the Law Enforcement Bureau Headquarters that caught the suspect first, and then they dealt with it directly.”
“The Law Enforcement Bureau Headquarters is usually responsible for overseeing the branches beneath it. It almost never participates in criminal investigations.”
Li Mu nodded.
“No matter who is behind this, we must first find a way to rescue the people.”
If those thirty female university students were not dead, then they were definitely somewhere.
He could not directly go to the Commissioner of the Law Enforcement Bureau based solely on Zhou Yunhe’s unsupported words.
If he did that, whether the Commissioner was the culprit or not, he would alert the enemy.
Those thirty female university students might be silenced in an instant, and Zhou Yunhe’s entire family probably could not be saved either.
Wang Yinhuan said:
“I have a way. Among these missing female university students, several are from our school.”
“One of them lived in the dormitory next to ours!”
“I can go back and find one of her clothes, then let Xiaohua and Xiaobai try!”
“Xiaohua and Xiaobai are both Ninth Grade now. Their tracking ability is very strong.”
Li Mu nodded.
“That works.”
“Zhou Yunhe, since someone inside tried to assassinate you, there is very likely an informant of the person behind this inside.”
“So today, I will have to wrong you a little. You will need to go back covered in injuries.”
“After we take control of the missing female students and your family, and deal with the person behind the scenes, only then can we return your freedom.”
Instead, a hopeful light flickered in Zhou Yunhe’s eyes.
He nodded heavily.
“I understand! Thank you! Thank you!”
As he spoke, Zhou Yunhe kowtowed heavily twice toward Li Mu.
About ten minutes later, several Patrol Team members dragged the blood-covered Zhou Yunhe back into the Death Row Base.
They threw Zhou Yunhe into the hall, and the Patrol Team Captain shouted loudly:
“Everyone, listen up!”
“From now on, anyone who secretly pockets resources during missions will end up like this!”
“Next time, we may not leave you with even a breath!”
After the Patrol Team Captain finished speaking, he turned and strode away.
In this way, everyone believed that Zhou Yunhe had been dragged out and beaten because he had secretly pocketed resources during a mission. No one suspected that the case was being reopened.
After leaving the Death Row Base, Li Mu arranged for them to split up.
Lu Chenfeng and Sun Yujie would investigate the current situation of Zhou Yunhe’s family.
Li Mu, meanwhile, followed Wang Yinhuan back to her school. With the help of the missing female classmate’s roommate, they found one of the girl’s clothes.
After packing the clothes away, Li Mu and Wang Yinhuan began “walking the dogs” around Linyuan City.
After Xiaohua and Xiaobai reached Ninth Grade, they had undergone two species ascensions compared to when they had first started.
The two dogs now resembled wolves even more!
Their appearances were fiercer, and they had also mastered a method to enlarge and shrink their bodies.
Wang Yinhuan let Xiaobai and Xiaohua smell the female classmate’s clothes.
Although they could identify the scent, they had not reached the point where they could ignore distance.
They still needed to be within a certain range of the female student before they could distinguish it.
Li Mu and Wang Yinhuan began walking the dogs and shopping like an ordinary couple.
With the Law Enforcement Bureau as the center, they expanded their search outward in circles.
While they were walking the dogs, Li Mu was also adapting to his Profound Rank enhancement.
Li Mu did not need to specifically spend time cultivating.
He was pleasantly surprised to discover that Carnival of Life’s doubled cultivation growth speed was actually based on the system’s enhancement!
In other words, Listen Close now cultivated automatically at 500% of his own active cultivation speed.
And the Carnival of Life Talent doubled that foundation, making it a 1,000% cultivation speed!
Ten times the automatic cultivation speed of an ordinary person.
It was equivalent to leveling up through idle cultivation with ten times the experience around the clock...
And as he entered the Profound Rank, Li Mu needed to choose a Profound Transformation target.
Naturally, Profound Transformation could not be applied to the Divine Abilities given by the system.
Therefore, before the two of them went to the school to get the clothes, Li Mu had already gone to the Talent Testing Room in the Wanren Military District and tested the innate talent that had appeared after his Great Heavenly Immortal Art was upgraded.
Li Mu’s current innate talent was SSS: Strength Pierces Heaven and Earth!
【The destructive power of the user’s strength against all defensive methods is increased by 500%.】
【If the opponent’s strength is weaker than the talent holder’s, the attack power they inflict on the talent holder is reduced by 50%.】
【If the opponent’s strength is stronger than the talent holder’s, the attack power they inflict on the talent holder is reduced by 30%.】
【Mutates all cultivation arts learned, causing them to undergo one ascension toward “Strength Pierces Heaven and Earth.”】
【For every 1% decrease in True Qi, the user’s strength and speed increase by 10%.】
The moment Li Mu tested this talent, he was shocked!
Only three words surfaced in his mind.
Forbidden-Character Method!
Especially this final trait. In other words, if his True Qi were exhausted,
then his strength would be enhanced tenfold?
Without True Qi, he could not use Divine Abilities, but his Physical Combat would become absurdly powerful.
Was this not the Forbidden-Character Method?
For an ordinary person, this enhancement would already be terrifying beyond measure.
But he had the enhancement of Mountain-Bearing Art!
There was no need to talk about exhausting his True Qi. Even if he used up half of it, when paired with his Divine Abilities and cultivation arts, his strength would still reach five times its original intensity.
Moreover, under such circumstances, strength-based attacks would gain a fivefold increase in destructive power against all defensive methods.
Defensive methods meant defensive cultivation arts, defensive Spirit Treasures, armor, and all such things.
As for the second and third traits, they weakened the opponent’s damage.
If the opponent’s strength was weaker than his, the damage the opponent dealt to him would be reduced by half.
With the enhancement of Mountain-Bearing Art, Li Mu felt that even an Earth Rank expert like Old Shui might not necessarily be stronger than him in pure strength alone.
So after weighing it carefully, Li Mu decided to develop an extreme playstyle!
First, he decided to apply Profound Transformation to the second trait of his talent: if the opponent’s strength was weaker than his, the damage they dealt to him would be reduced by 50%.
Then Li Mu opened the system and poured all of the 55,000 points remaining after buying the Water-Avoidance Art into Mountain-Bearing Art...