Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 594 Positioning

Autumn break was just a few days away. So, aside from a few students who didn't want to go home or whose families weren't well off, there weren't many people left at the police academy. Even though break wasn't until a few days, most of the students had already left.

As a police academy, security was undoubtedly paramount. After all, no fool would cause trouble there. Also, because so many students had already gone home, the teachers and instructors at the academy had also gone on holiday early. Currently, security at the academy was practically non-existent; even the guards at the main gate were nowhere to be found.

This made things easier for Han Zu; he didn't even need a camouflage module and swaggered into the dormitory building. The entire police academy didn't have many students, only about a thousand in total, with only about four hundred living in the dormitories. Currently, only about thirty people remained in the dormitories, most of whom were resting. The university student who had a connection with the officer who had seen the scientist entering and leaving the high-end apartment building was one of them.

The Police Academy dormitory building wasn't complex, and within two or three minutes, Han Zu had arrived outside the student's dorm. He wasn't in a rush to enter, but rather pondered how best to approach the officer. His best option, at the moment, was to pretend to be the officer's older brother, with whom he rarely spoke. Many of his connections knew he had a brother, but few had seen what he looked like. Judging by the length of their interaction, the student likely didn't know what the officer's brother looked like.

After using the camouflage module to change into the other person's appearance, Han Zu was about to knock on the door, but he saw the college student who was studying hard. He put down the book in his hand and picked up his mobile phone.

Through his ability of perspective, Han Zu was able to see that he opened the photo album on his phone and looked at some photos. Among these photos, three or four showed the scientist's profile or even his front face.

"What do these photos mean..."

This brief sentence provided crucial information. The university student had no idea why the police were following the scientist, but he possessed more information. Based on his relationship with the police, it was likely that the police had given him some of their belongings.

After using the contractor's equipment to obtain all the information on the college student's phone, Han Zu no longer needed to talk to him, so he immediately left the police academy, found a secluded place, and began to piece together clues based on the information he found.

Han Zu was currently inside a subway station. It was well past the last train, so naturally, there were few people here. Furthermore, the station had been around for quite some time, having only undergone several tunnel reinforcements and no new surveillance equipment. The station was deserted, even with the lights off, with only the occasional soft hum of electricity flowing through the tracks. It was very quiet.

Using the contractor's equipment to eliminate a large amount of irrelevant information, Han Zu quickly found clues related to the scientist. Dozens of photos, several memos, and several videos with poor angles, most of which captured the same person from hidden perspectives. The police officer was indeed secretly tracking the scientist.

Dozens of photos, shot in a candid manner, were blurry, clearly taken from a distance, with varying backgrounds. Yet, the scientist's face was always visible. Her clothing was different each time, but she often wore thin-framed glasses, looking like an ordinary member of the elite class, a fact that was certainly plentiful in this city. Yet, the composition of each photo perfectly captured her movements, some even zooming in on the corner of her handbag—clearly, the stalker's target had never shifted.

These photos were mostly taken from behind the scientist in the frame, or from the side or above, in blind spots. While the backgrounds varied, the contractor's equipment was able to map the scientist's movements within the city from these dozens of photos—at least the route the police initially followed. This route was extensive, spanning the entire city, passing through numerous landmark buildings and streets. After determining the scientist's movement range, Han Zu used the contractor's equipment to carefully search every building in the area, attempting to uncover any clues that would allow him to further pursue the scientist. At the same time, he began to review the memos.

These memos, once belonging to the officers, mostly contained routine work details, such as "Inspect fire protection facilities in the office building in the jurisdiction on Wednesday" and "Organize case files on Friday." However, starting two weeks before the officer's death in the bank robbery, the content suddenly became brief and unusual. Most of the entries were no more than a few words, and most were addresses within the city. Furthermore, the last memo contained only an abbreviation, not the full address. Below the address was a very crude hand-drawn map of what looked like an intersection in the business district. Han Zu had apparently passed this location while flying from the apartment building to the subway station. He remembered it so clearly because it appeared to have been the scene of a car accident. Using the contractor's equipment, Han Zu located the exact location and continued searching, shifting his attention from the memos to the videos.

Most of the videos were shaky, clearly shot from a pocket or backpack. In the first, the scientist was standing at an intersection, talking on her cell phone, seemingly arguing with someone. The audio was indistinct, and she could only occasionally raise her hands to gesture, her expression serious and somewhat angry. The second video was taken in the underground parking lot of the same apartment building, and the camera focused on the taillights of her car until it disappeared down the exit ramp.

After eliminating most of the videos that were of little value, Han Zu found two very suspicious video clips. These two videos were completely different from the others. They were shot very clearly. Not only that, these two videos were complete and clearly recorded the voices of the scientists.

The first video was shot in a morgue, but based on the surroundings, the contractor determined that this wasn't a hospital in the city, but rather the forensic laboratory of the police station where the officer worked. Previous videos had even blurred the outlines of the scientist's face, but this one was so clear that the wear and tear on the scientist's eyes could be seen, and even the tiny scratches on the stretcher where the body was laid were remarkably clear.

“Where the hell was this filmed?”

Besides being exceptionally clear, the angle of the shot was also unusual. Judging from the background and the layout of the police forensic laboratory, as revealed by the contractor's equipment, the only place to capture the same scene was inside a high-rise refrigerated storage compartment. This location was indeed ideal: simply opening a gap and inserting the phone's camera into the gap allowed the shot to be captured. The fact that the camera angle remained constant throughout the entire shot also confirmed the circumstances of the shot. Perhaps the officer had received advance notice and had taken shelter in one of the refrigerated storage compartments within the forensic laboratory.

In this video, there is only the scientist, who is muttering to herself in front of a corpse on the dissection table. The shooting environment was very quiet, and the contractor's equipment repair made the sound very clear.

"The improved stability exceeded expectations, but their controllability became abnormal... We need to find a way to resolve this deviation."

Han Zu frowned, noticing that the camera was always fixed on the corpse on the dissection table and the scientist's profile. This did not conform to the actual shooting situation. The temperature in the cold storage compartment was very low, and even if the police officer was wearing thick clothes at the time, which could explain the temperature problem, the narrow space in the cold storage compartment should not have made it impossible for the other party's arm to hold the phone in a labor-saving and comfortable posture. At the very least, the picture should have shaken a few times, but from beginning to end, the entire shooting screen never moved.

Han Zu also thought that the other party might have just set up the phone in advance and put it in the refrigerated compartment, but Han Zu quickly ruled out this idea because at the very beginning of the video, Han Zu saw the outline of a man in heavy clothes appear on the screen of the phone before reversing the direction of the camera.

But this is not the strangest thing. What is even more bizarre is the second video, and the scenes in this video are even more incredible.

If the clarity of the first video is "unreasonable," then the second defies logic—because, while the filming location remains unchanged, there's an eight-hour gap between the two recordings. Common sense dictates that even with the best physical fitness and the most thorough cold-weather protection, eight hours spent crouching in such a cramped refrigerated room would at least cause some flickering and vibration in the footage due to shifting hands or changing positions. Han Zu, using the contractor's equipment, discovered surveillance footage outside the forensic lab. While the camera outside didn't capture the scientist's face, her clothing and gait confirmed she hadn't left the lab in the eight hours since entering. Since this was covert filming, the officer couldn't have taken a break and was forced to remain in the refrigerated room. No matter how you think about it, a normal person, even a player in Infinite City, couldn't maintain the same position for eight hours in such extreme cold and confined conditions. Even if he had discovered something and raised his phone to film again, the footage would have been subject to physiological tremors due to insufficient blood supply to the torso, caused by maintaining the same posture for so long. However, the footage before him resembled a film shot taken with a tripod, with no deviation at all.

This strange situation made Han Zu doubt the identity of the police officer. If the man hiding in the cold storage compartment was indeed the police officer, then he must be unusual. But if it wasn't him, there were no other clues. So Han Zu could only temporarily put aside his doubts and continue to observe the content of the second video.

The second video, shot from the same position, appears tilted downward, clearly capturing both the scientist and the other corpse. The scientist is bent over the corpse, intently. She appears to have changed her attire, from her business attire to a sterile laboratory suit. She is now using specialized surgical tools to open the corpse's chest.

She used what looked like a scalpel to make a neat incision in the corpse's chest, then used tools to open the corpse's ribs, exposing the lungs and heart underneath. She made a small cut in the corpse's heart and used a fixing tool to block the open incision. Then she took out a small metal cylinder from the surgical kit, which looked like some kind of container.

Han Zu's eyes were fixed on the metal container in the female scientist's hand. As the container was opened, Han Zu saw some light blue smoke floating out of the container. After leaving the container, the smoke was not immediately neutralized and dissipated by the air, but remained above the open container, wriggling slightly, as if it had life, revealing an indescribable weirdness.

Afterward, the scientist carefully tilted the metal container over the cadaver's heart, pouring its contents inside. She then quickly sutured the heart, repositioned the cadaver's ribs, and sealed the long incision in the chest with a quick-acting suture device. Her movements were seamless, a practice she evidently performed frequently. Then, she produced something and tapped it against the cadaver's head. Due to the shadows, Han Zu couldn't clearly see what the scientist was using. Han Zu's attention was fixed on the corpse, knowing something unusual was about to occur.

Sure enough, after a few dozen seconds, the lifeless, disemboweled corpse suddenly moved its fingers slightly. Then, the wound on the corpse's chest healed automatically. After that, the chest began to rise and fall, as if breathing. Han Zu's pupils suddenly contracted, and he was stunned.

The next second, the corpse slowly opened its eyes, rolled its eyeballs a few times, and then struggled to sit up from the operating table. Seeing this, the scientist smiled with satisfaction. She took a step forward and seemed to say something to the resurrected corpse. But for some reason, the audio in the second video clip malfunctioned at this point and was completely inaudible.