Enforcer Manual
Chapter 340: Sleepless Night_1

Chapter 340: Chapter 340: Sleepless Night_1

Lu Xiang investigated everything about the Gold Diggers’ Bar, including all persons such as Ophir and Ivan. In fact, as the Seventeenth District’s most renowned intelligence hub, the Law Enforcers’ department had long collected extensive information about them.

But the biggest problem was this: it wasn’t that they couldn’t unearth these individuals’ dark histories. Instead, everyone who had ever worked at Gold Diggers’ Bar had their own dark past. Judging from their timelines and experiences, each had had the opportunity to work for Military Intelligence Section Seven.

What surprised Song Lan most was that even Ivan, who seemed harmless and treated all customers with immense warmth, had fled to the Seventeenth District after committing a crime.

His past profession was that of a wedding planner, a rather rare job in 2166.

In those days, people hardly placed any importance on marriage, with most simply registering their union on a relevant website. There were even many who skipped that step altogether, and only those who still cherished the ceremonial aspect of marriage would hire a professional wedding planner to strategize for their ceremony.

Such people usually belonged to the upper-middle class, and during one wedding event, Ivan, intoxicated, had smashed a wine bottle on the groom’s head.

The groom, a corporate executive, had afterwards bribed the prison guards to release Ivan and employed local gang members on Ivan’s inevitable route home, vowing to take his life.

In that street brawl, Ivan had miraculously survived but had no choice but to leave his familiar city and escape to the Seventeenth District, this border city.

Once again, the investigation stagnated.

"Let’s sleep for now,"

Lu Xiang turned off the bedroom light and pulled the covers over.

For some reason, she felt exceptionally tired today; her eyelids had been fighting a battle while she was going through the records.

One mustn’t rush when dealing with Military Intelligence Section Seven.

...

The long night stretched on.

It was the same for everyone in the Seventeenth District, Law Enforcers, and Gold Diggers’ Bar.

A gulp of Water of Life got "Mouse" through most of the night, and when he woke up, he was lying in the rest room behind the bar. He sat up on the sofa, took a while to recover, and then remembered why he had passed out.

Gold Diggers’ Bar was filled with dangers, and even the bartenders couldn’t be taken for granted.

He rubbed his forehead, swollen from the hangover, took out his cell phone, and glanced at the time: 3:30 am. Back in the days before he became an officer in the Rebel Army, this was the peak business time for their establishment.

A parched feeling surged, prompting his desire for a cold glass of water.

Staggering through the corridor, he came to the empty bar alone. Too lazy to search, he grabbed a glass and filled it straight from the tap, downing the water in one go.

His thirst was efficiently quenched, and the double vision in front of him returned to normal.

Every time "Mouse" thought about how much longer he had to stay in this city full of lurking dangers, his heart grew heavy—in "outside" maneuvers with the Esinvig Army, at least his personal safety had some assurances.

He steadied himself.

But just seconds later, he regretted it.

Because through the dim light filtering in from outside the window, he vaguely saw a person behind the bar, sitting quietly on the ground, head bowed, with liquid seeping across the floor.

The smell didn’t resemble wine; it was more like the scent of blood.

As he hesitated, the roar of a hovercar sounded from outside the bar. "Rat" spared no time for doubts and sprinted for the back door. Given his current situation, dealing with the Law Enforcers was certainly not a wise choice; he might even get wrongly accused of attacking the bartender.

At 3:30 in the morning, a special operations team assembled overnight and hurried to the Gold Diggers’ Bar.

Lu Xiang had only slept for less than three hours when her bad premonition came true—the report was from the Horn Bug squad responsible for tracking "Rat". They reported that Ophir and the bartender had been attacked inside the bar, and were in critical condition. The most perplexing part for her was that the Horn Bug squad couldn’t identify the attacker, claiming the assailants were a bottle of wine and a knife.

Ophir and Ivan were immediately rushed to the hospital, and because Lu Xiang had used an emergency spray on their wounds the moment she arrived at the scene, and with timely medical care, their lives were not in danger and they soon regained consciousness.

From Ophir’s description, Lu Xiang finally understood the full process of the attack.

The attacker was indeed a knife.

At that time, she was in her booth and heard noises from the bar and the sound of shattering bottles. She went out to check, never expecting to be stabbed directly in the abdomen by a knife that was floating in mid-air.

As for Ivan, he didn’t see at all how he was attacked. He was watching a recording of an underground boxing match on his phone at the bar when suddenly he felt a pain in the back of his head and lost consciousness.

Psychic.

That was Lu Xiang’s first thought, but the problem was that the two’s descriptions were too vague, and the attack had happened so quickly that she couldn’t deduce the attacker’s abilities from the scant information available.

Telekinesis, manipulating objects to attack—there were too many Psychics capable of such feats.

But regardless, the attacker’s goal had been achieved. Because of the attack on Ophir and Ivan, "Rat" was once again forced to flee the Gold Diggers’ Bar, left to fend for himself, which also meant that his whereabouts had been exposed to Military Intelligence Section Seven.

"Who is he actually hiding from?"

Only when the others left the hospital room, leaving just the two of them, did Ophir finally voice her doubts. "I originally thought they were trying to hide from you by sending him to me."

But after this attack, she realized others were also looking for "Rat".

"The person who came to talk to Selbot the other day, do you remember his features?"

"...Review Meeting."

Ophir had an epiphany; she too had seen the wanted poster for "Rat", and the "must be captured alive" part was indeed suspicious. "Of course, I remember him, and the next day I found out everything about him—an ordinary corporate employee with no special background, a disposable tool used once and thrown away."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Ophir had no doubt, "Because he died the next day in a gang fight. I even personally inspected the body. By the way, that ’accident’ wasn’t my doing; he was dead before I could act."

"Someone controlled him."

"But I got some unexpected information from the Prosthetic Doctor. He said that the corporate employee’s brain was fried during the gang fight, and the gunshot wounds were just to ensure his death."

Sometimes, controlling a person’s actions doesn’t necessarily require Psychic powers; technological advancements can achieve the same.

"I had people looking for a long time before I found out about this technology... I’ve heard that some companies install a certain type of chip in their employees’ brains to make them serve the company better, and apart from controlling the employees’ actions, the chip’s most significant ability is to precisely delete specific segments of memory from their minds."