Enforcer Manual
Chapter 446: From a Stranger_1

Chapter 446: Chapter 446: From a Stranger_1

Before Song Lan could hesitate over whether to come clean for leniency, an anonymous stranger helped him out of the predicament.

However, the method of extrication was up for debate.

The stranger had the bionic waiter at the restaurant hand over a few photos to the two of them, which immediately caused a physiological repulsion in Song Lan, nearly making him retch the contents of his stomach, while Lu Xiang was unaffected. She simply placed the photos beside her bowl and continued to savor her coconut milk bread with relish.

The background of the photos was a morgue, featuring a corpse that had been burnt to a crisp state. Through the cracked flesh of the corpse, one could faintly make out the prostheses that had been implanted in the body.

Song Lan glanced roughly at the photos, the contents of both were almost identical.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

He managed to calm down a bit and asked.

Could it be that his and Lu Xiang’s encounter in the compartment had been exposed, and her backup team had sent two threatening photos?

"It probably isn’t."

Lu Xiang shook her head, "Do you see this symbol? This is the Autopsy Office under the jurisdiction of the Unusual Cases Investigation Bureau. No one would sneak in there to take pictures for a prank. If caught by the Autopsy Office staff, one could very likely end up being treated as a spy and taken in for questioning."

As far as she knew, the people sent to the Unusual Cases Investigation Bureau, if they didn’t die, would have their skin peeled, and even if they were released alive, many of them ended up with mental disorders.

She felt the photographer had intentionally included the Investigation Bureau’s symbol in the shots.

Nothing was written on the two photos, but some clues could be discerned through the details in the pictures.

"The person in the photos, that should be the director of the new department at Starfish Technology."

"How do you know?"

Song Lan was startled by the conclusion Lu Xiang had reached; he thought that Lu Xiang, with her extensive experience in criminal investigation, seemed more like a Holmes.

Could it be that there was some detail on the charred corpse that gave away his identity?

"Not all corpses get sent to the Unusual Cases Investigation Bureau. As far as I know, this is the only case of a burnt corpse they have been focusing on recently." It seemed to prevent Song Lan from misunderstanding, Lu Xiang added, "The Unusual Cases Investigation Bureau is different from Military Intelligence Section Seven. They do not deliberately keep their cases secret from the public. As long as you pay attention to them, you can roughly infer the cases they are handling."

"Why would they send us two photos?"

"Because the second photo is very strange." After a careful comparison, Lu Xiang said, "In the second photo, someone had burnt the corpse again."

This was not the traditional process of cremating a corpse. For corpses with prosthesis modifications, they would first remove all the prostheses from the deceased, then cremate and send the remains to a cemetery designated for ash and relics.

But this second photo, it looked more like someone had set the body on fire and then quickly extinguished it.

However, she also didn’t know why the Unusual Cases Investigation sent the two photos. She could only speculate that perhaps the Investigation Bureau didn’t understand why the body caught fire again, and given that the whole affair couldn’t be disconnected from Void, they sent the photos to probe her attitude.

Lu Xiang put the photos into her bag, deciding not to waste brain cells on this matter.

What did it have to do with her?

That was her attitude towards the whole thing.

Returning to the academy brought back many memories, among them the rejection from the Abnormal Case Investigation Bureau. At first, to secure a position at the Bureau, she had meticulously prepared all her personal information and written a letter over ten thousand words long, expressing her longing for the job and her determination to work for the Bureau.

Her application was on the verge of acceptance, with the Bureau giving off an air of assured recruitment. However, they suddenly changed their tune, leaving her stranded at the school until most companies and departments had finished hiring. What awaited her were almost exclusively "indenture contracts."

If she wanted to work for a company, she first had to take out an enormous loan for comprehensive Prosthesis Modification, and then ninety percent of her salary would go toward paying back the cost of the modification.

It was impossible for her not to harbor a grudge against the Abnormal Case Investigation Bureau.

These two photos also proved one thing: personnel from the Abnormal Case Investigation Bureau were currently somewhere on campus, and they had been searching for them all along.

The two stayed in the restaurant until the evening when the majority of students had left for their nocturnal activities; that’s when they finally managed to leave through the restaurant’s door after a series of polite refusals with the bionic service personnel.

"The bionic people nowadays are just too smart."

Song Lan was holding a wallet, and Lu Xiang accidentally dropped a student card for scanning, but their attempts to pay were all thwarted. The bionic service personnel even tangled with Song Lan to refuse the payment; to an uninformed observer, they might have seemed like Mongolian wrestlers.

This reminded him of scenes where diners would take out their wallets after a meal and say, "Let me pay," a sight that would hardly occur in 2166.

Ultimately, the bionic service personnel won, escorting them out of the place with a combination of tugging and dragging.

Along with the gentle evening breeze, Lu Xiang suggested taking Song Lan for a stroll around the campus. She chose some relatively secluded spots to avoid disturbing their twosome.

But they quickly realized they might have been overly cautious. Since leaving the restaurant, they hadn’t encountered another student in the vast campus. Instead, they had come across several groups of bionic security guards patrolling with mechanical dogs.

"Has your school always taken security this seriously?"

Song Lan felt that the situation was a bit excessive, almost no different from a curfew.

"This is a curfew,"

Lu Xiang said, "It must be an emergency notification."

Emergency notifications were sent instantly to student-registered electronic devices to ensure that everyone could receive the notice as soon as possible. Upon receiving the notification, students had to return to their dormitories immediately. Those who were in class had to stay there until the curfew was lifted.

Having been at the academy for many years, she had only received three emergency notifications in total.

Seeing that Lu Xiang was somewhat disconcerted, Song Lan said, "I’ll ask around."

Fortunately, the patrolling guards were almost all bionic, so he managed to stop a patrol and asked, "What happened?"

As per the school’s regulations, the guards would never disclose any information to outsiders, but when they saw that it was Song Lan asking, they hesitated for a moment. Noticing no one around, they temporarily disconnected the guard’s communication device. After letting their companions and the mechanical dog move on, they said, "A professor has died. The case is currently under investigation."

Song Lan shuddered, a foreboding feeling creeping into his heart.

"Which professor?"

"Professor Miles,"

the bionic security guard said, "The professor’s assistant found his body in the room."