Enforcer Manual
Chapter 618: Another Tribe_1

Chapter 618: Chapter 618: Another Tribe_1

Song Lan’s soul questioning was answered that very night.

After a day of research, Medea made a startling discovery. She summoned all the Bug Swarm’s higher-ups to the junkyard and informed them of the shocking news—they were dealing with an unprecedented new creature whose essence was the Worm, surviving by parasitizing human bodies.

They didn’t always need to kill their hosts. The hosts parasitized by the Worms were influenced by them, secretly laying new bug eggs under the guise of marriage, thereby spawning more Worms.

According to Medea’s conjecture, the Worms that turned into bank robbers might only represent a small fraction of their race. Their role was somewhat similar to that of Worker Bees, amassing a large amount of wealth through criminal means, which likely ended up in the hands of their tribal leaders. This also explained why all the wealth transferred out seemingly vanished without a trace.

It was highly likely that the Worms had already infiltrated corporations, large families, and there might even be their spies within the Review Meeting.

"I initially deduced that they have three ways to become human,"

said Medea, "The first one is direct parasitism within the host’s body, guiding their behavior through thought control; the second method devours the host’s nutrients completely after parasitism, extracts their genetic sequences, and the host dies after the Worm leaves the body, leaving nothing but an empty shell; the third is through incomplete cellular and genetic sequencing for disguise. It seems they only need a single hair to perfectly mimic someone else, but this method of transformation has an obvious flaw—they cannot completely emulate the disguised person’s behavioral style."

Medea placed all the original Worms into transparent containers and set them on the table in the rest room; as long as they couldn’t contact human tissue, they could only maintain the appearance of Worms.

Song Lan picked up one of the containers and started to examine it closely.

The Worm inside was extremely hostile, baring its teeth and grimacing at him, and even occasionally banging its head against the edges of the container.

"They are very feeble in their worm state, trapped in containers they can’t escape from."

"Why did they disguise themselves as me?"

"I guess this has to do with the trip to the Third Neutral Country."

Dr. Bai Zhu continued.

While Medea was busy researching the Worms, she hadn’t been idle either. She arranged the 23 bank robberies in chronological order, and 16 of the robberies happened before the mass recruitment, "This indicates that this Bug Tribe had already infiltrated human society, and only in the recent robbery at the Southeast Bank in District 17 did an image similar to yours appear. It’s very likely that the higher-ups of this tribe took notice of you and sought to tarnish your reputation or even eliminate you directly."

However, for the entire Worm Tribe, eliminating Song Lan was just a minor episode in their growth process.

Their real purpose was to infiltrate the human inner circle through imperceptible methods like parasitism.

This was deeply chilling to contemplate.

"Since the first type of parasitism is difficult to detect, we don’t know how many high-ranking officials of the United Government have been parasitized."

Bai Zhu even suspected that the increasingly fierce factional struggles were the result of these Worms’ behind-the-scenes manipulation. They were very clever in their tactics, never directly confronting humanity, but using human power against itself.

The Worms only needed to occupy the body of a key figure and could rapidly extend the range of infection through a social event.

"The real enemies are not a few bank robbers, but the entire tribe behind them."

What was worse, the leaders of this Bug Tribe had most likely become key figures within the United Government, capable of introducing a series of policies detrimental to District 17 at any moment.

This was far more troublesome than organizing a few criminals to disrupt public order in the city. After all, a border city like District 17 was of little significance in the eyes of the Review Meeting; no politician from this city had ever made it into the Review Meeting.

"Aside from checking wounds, is there any way to identify the parasitized population?"

Lu Xiang asked.

"No, there isn’t," Medea shook her head, giving Song Lan’s bandaged palm a pitiful glance, "And actually, this method is useless, because the self-healing process is actively controlled by the worms. What surprises me more is why you would think this approach could work? Those parasitized government officials could even entirely use this method to clear themselves of suspicion."

"I report, it was Old Sa who first came up with this!"

Song Lan didn’t hesitate to throw Old Sa under the bus.

It was obvious that many people shared this idea, and Engle was one of them.

When we met today, he insisted that I make a cut on my palm with a knife, or he wouldn’t let me in.

Samuel was initially startled, but when he saw that it was Song Lan who had pointed out his name, he cleared his throat and very cooperatively started a three-minute self-critique.

"Actually, I’ve made a discovery."

When the discussion had reached a deadlock, Ge Fu, who’d been silent until then, raised his hand and started off with a disclaimer, "But I cannot guarantee that my theory is completely correct."

"Go ahead and talk about it."

"I feel that these worms seem to dislike those with a high degree of prosthetic implantation. I later studied the list organized by Bai Zhu and found that there are almost no individuals who have had military-grade prosthetic implants among those suspected of being parasitized."

That is also the main reason why their individual combat capability isn’t considered strong.

"Are you sure?"

"Uh... I conducted some experiments on them privately. The results tentatively confirm my conjecture. You could understand it as, the higher the degree of the host’s prosthetic implantation, the more difficult their parasitism becomes. And I can confidently say, they definitely can’t parasitize a cyborg’s body."

"No wonder Engle had been parasitized before, but the worms in his body were quickly removed."

"It’s a bit premature to jump to conclusions now."

Medea said, "Even if Ge Fu is right, we still need to understand the reasons behind it."

...

The meeting’s discussion continued into the night, but as subsequent content touched on political matters, Song Lan stopped listening closely; he had to deal with the barrage of texts from Guan Lili.

That he had met with Engle privately was found out by the company, and Guan Lili, in her texts, furiously lashed out at Engle, badmouthing him all over again, making him out to be good for nothing.

After her tirade against Engle, she also started inquiring about the progress of the Southeast Bank robbery case.

The filming crew considered this a golden opportunity; solving a widely followed major robbery case would be much more effective than defeating the leader of the Flying Car Gang.

After calming down, she briefly outlined the company’s upcoming arrangements.

Following the outbreak of the Southeast Bank robbery, the company contacted a real big shot, and they’re currently trying to connect with that person. If the two sides could reach a partnership, it would greatly promote the future development of "War Hero."

After Song Lan skillfully probed and assured her that he would cut off contact with Engle, Guan Lili finally shared some inside information with him.

Soon, a Six Stars rescuer might head to District Seventeen.

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