Chapter 57: Additional Mission
Wen En asked RV if he had a problem with his cat, “Do you have a color discrimination against animal fur? You tortoiseshell cat hater.”
“Is it possible that this is not a real cat?” RV said with dissatisfaction. “If this were a real animal, my face would have already swollen up like a pig’s head.”
“Hey, hey, listen to me,” Della came over to mediate. “RV is right. This is indeed not a real cat, okay? Wen En, let me show you.”
Della picked up the small cat. The small cat was dissatisfied with her interrupting its grooming and kicked Della’s arm with its hind legs like a spring.
“See? You still dare to say this is not a real cat?” Wen En almost jumped up in anger. As a veteran cat owner, he was all too familiar with this action.
But soon, Wen En’s expression changed from anger to shock.
Della gently pulled the collar on the small cat’s neck. The small cat, as if a switch had been touched, stopped kicking her arm. Its pupils were like inlaid black marbles, without a trace of spirit. Then, a sound came from its abdomen.
Wen En was stunned. The small cat’s abdomen opened like a machine’s cabin door, and a crystal-clear gem appeared in its mechanical abdominal cavity.
“Is this… Vulcan?” Romeo was a little uncertain at first. It was not until he reached into the cat’s abdomen, picked up the gem, and examined it for a moment that he confirmed, “That’s right, this is Vulcan. I didn’t expect this thing to be hidden in such a place.”
Romeo thought for a moment and asked with confusion, “Speaking of which, is this considered animal abuse?”
Claire smiled, “I told you, this is a bionic feline robot, not a real cat.”
Romeo: “Oh.”
“Alright, gentlemen, ladies, can we move on from this cat?” RV cleared his throat and said, “Now, let’s report on our work. Wen En, you go first.”
Wen En had Romeo put the gem back into the cat’s belly. The simulation small cat, having regained its energy, regained its vitality and walked on the table with a cat-like gait, its tail brushing against the back of Wen En’s hand.
Wen En and his group had been taken to see a doctor as soon as they returned to the headquarters. They only had time to make a work report now. Wen En briefly recounted their encounter at the port.
“Understood,” RV nodded and said, “Della, you briefly tell Wen En about this cat.”
“Yes,” Della briefly explained how they had found Charles Brown’s body and this cat.
“So, now that we have Vulcan, does this mean our mission is over?” Wen En scratched the tabby robot cat’s chin and said after a moment of thought.
“This mission cannot be over, because the contact person at Joseph Hall Biotechnology has blocked us,” RV said. “Not to mention that they’re playing us for fools, they still owe us a large deposit. I knew they must be hiding some secret. So, while you were missing, Della and I secretly monitored the movements of Joseph Hall Biotechnology. Guess what we found?”
RV stood up from his seat. He walked to the projector, tapped the computer next to it a few times, and an image appeared on the screen.
Everyone in the conference room gasped. Wen En’s and Romeo’s eyes showed shock in unison.
The image was of a highly decomposed, swollen corpse. The limbs and bones had been separated into different pieces and reassembled by professional staff. The face of the corpse was unrecognizable, possibly due to being soaked in water.
“This is a corpse we salvaged from a private sea area that Joseph Hall Biotechnology had bought. It was placed in a half-person-tall suitcase, and its limbs were wrapped in plastic,” Della said. “The cause of death is somewhat similar to Charles Brown’s, but not exactly the same.”
“According to the forensic examination, there was a cut on the person’s neck. This cut severed the deceased’s artery, leading to death by excessive blood loss. And the deceased’s gland on the back of the neck was in an active state before death, which means that this deceased was killed during heat.”
“Oh,” Claire said. “By the way, this person was dismembered after death.”
From just a few sentences, Wen En could feel how cruel the murderer’s methods were. Peter’s face immediately appeared in his mind, the face with the black metal mask. The methods were cruel, but it was indeed something Peter could do.
But when did Peter get involved with Joseph Hall Biotechnology?
“The forensic pathologist collected the deceased’s DNA and sent it for identification. The results showed that this deceased was the assistant secretary to the chairman of Joseph Hall Biotechnology. Oh, at least on the surface, his job was assistant secretary,” RV said, clicking to the next page.
The next page was a picture of the deceased’s identity information and ID photo. He was a good-looking Omega male. It could be said that the more tragic his appearance after death, the more beautiful he was in life.
RV turned to the next page, and Wen En understood what RV meant by “on the surface.”
The next page was some gossip news photos of Philip Donaldson, the chairman of Joseph Hall Biotechnology, taken by the media. Many of them showed Donaldson with this Omega assistant, acting intimately… oh no, it could be said that he was groping him. Even an Alpha like Romeo, who had no moral bottom line, frowned and felt nauseous.
“This action is really disgusting,” Claire commented. “He actually put his hand on this Omega’s ass in front of the media!”
“So he was killed because he was too close to Donaldson?” Wen En said.
“I thought so at first, until I made a new discovery,” RV clicked the keyboard, and two more photos appeared on the projection screen. The one on the left was of Donaldson walking on the street, with an old acquaintance of Wen En and Romeo following behind him, Qiuyue.
“It’s him?” Wen En was surprised to see Qiuyue here.
Suddenly, a dull thud came from under the conference table. “Sorry,” Claire said, “My knee just accidentally hit the table leg.”
Della said, “We couldn’t find this person’s information in the Interstellar Skynet’s population system, which means this person is an unregistered resident.”
“Many residents of the lower district are not registered in the population system,” Claire suddenly interjected. “You know, it’s a historical problem.”
“You seem to know him very well,” Della said. “Miss Claire, please continue with your opinion.”
“Oh, no, I don’t have any opinion. You’ve misunderstood,” Claire waved her hand and said, “Please continue.”
RV opened the next photo. This was a full-body photo of Donaldson. “This is a photo of him taken by a high-definition camera yesterday.” RV took another full-body photo with an entertainment media watermark and said, “This is a full-body photo of him taken by the media when he attended an event two years ago.”
“Do you see anything wrong?”
“…”
Wen En and Della both shook their heads, meaning they didn’t see anything. Claire scratched the bridge of her nose, leaned back in her chair, and did not intend to express any opinion.
But Romeo stood up, walked to the screen, and after careful observation for a moment, said with a determined tone, “The Donaldson from two years ago and the current Donaldson are not the same person.”
“Congratulations, you’re right,” RV said.
“The body proportions of the people in these two pictures are different. The Donaldson from two years ago had shorter limbs and a longer waist, while Donaldson’s recent photos show that his limbs have become longer and his shoulders broader. As a middle-aged person who has already stopped growing, it’s impossible for Donaldson to have such a change.”
“We suspect that Donaldson has been ‘swapped’,” RV said. “The higher-ups are now very concerned about this issue. They hope we can find out the truth.”
“Could it be an angle problem?” Wen En said.
Della said, “It shouldn’t be, because these two pictures have been restored in high definition. However, I can also show the original of the second picture for your reference.”
With that, a picture that was so blurry it was like a pile of dog shit, and it was impossible to distinguish the person, appeared on the screen.
No, this is too blurry. Is this really something taken by a camera produced by the technology of the future world?!
“…Forget I said anything,” Wen En told Della to quickly switch the picture back.
“Is it possible that he has some kind of disease that caused his body shape to change?” Wen En said.
“But he walks as fast as the wind, and his movements to avoid the camera are very agile. He doesn’t look like he has a disease that can change his body shape,” RV said.
“Even if it’s that kind of disease, it would only make a person’s body proportions uglier, not taller, with longer limbs and broader shoulders, and also build muscle, right?” Romeo said.
Although it was a bit harsh, it made sense.
“But these evidences are too few. There’s a lack of key evidence. These fragmented evidences do not form a rigorous logical chain. If you want to accuse Peter or Qiuyue of murdering Donaldson and his assistant, this is not very useful,” Wen En said.
“The probability of winning a lawsuit against them for not paying their debts is probably even greater.”
“Then, we’ll take the initiative to find the evidence,” RV said. “The higher-ups are very concerned about this matter. After all, it involves the stock price of a large interstellar company. If there’s an accident and it triggers a chain reaction and an economic crisis, it would be bad.”
“Alright,” Wen En shrugged. He felt that the bonus for this additional mission was very high. For the bonus, he would endure it.
