Chapter 945: Chapter 945

"Minister of Internal Affairs?"

He Ao was stunned upon hearing the name.

That guy dared to come back?

Then he quickly realized that the Minister of Internal Affairs must have boarded a plane to return the moment he received the news of his "safe return" last night.

At that time, He Ao was likely still resting and recuperating from his injuries and had not yet interrogated Levis.

By the time He Ao made the decision to dismiss cabinet members, this guy was probably already on the plane back. Even if he learned about it upon landing, it was too late to flee.

Moreover, since he was willing to come back, there was probably pressure from the consortium above. His return flight might also have been arranged by the consortium; otherwise, he wouldn’t have come back so quickly.

After all, with "Linen" still alive, the Minister, being Linen’s staunch supporter and loyal friend, still held significant value.

Plus, the Minister did indeed have a very good impression in Linen’s memory, which he could use to pursue certain things.

Thinking this, He Ao sighed softly and asked, "What is he doing now?"

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, "He directly contacted the city patrol officers near the airport in the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Mayor’s Mansion and had them clear the way with their patrol cars. He is currently being escorted back to the Mayor’s Mansion and should be arriving soon."

"Do we need to intercept him?"

The chief of staff asked in a low voice.

"No need, send a message over, tell him to get off the patrol car and take a taxi himself,"

He Ao shook his head slightly and gently massaged his temples, "If he wants to come to the Mayor’s Mansion, let him come by himself."

The chief of staff nodded lightly and hung up the phone.

He Ao then turned his head back to look at the documents on the table.

It was confirmed that the Minister of Internal Affairs was involved in bribery, but this information was something he knew from Levis and didn’t have solid evidence.

In fact, that was why he hadn’t immediately taken drastic measures against certain ministers in the cabinet who were clearly involved in criminal activities.

He knew they were guilty, but he didn’t have legally certified evidence. However, he had already set Tucker on the task of searching for evidence based on these leads.

With clear involvement information and details of the incidents, finding evidence was equivalent to following a map—still fairly straightforward.

Of course, even straightforward tasks require some time.

That’s why he had only temporarily dismissed these ministers, kicking them directly out of the core circle of power, then stabilized them under the guise of handing over their duties.

However, the case of the Minister of Internal Affairs might be slightly special. Known as Lin En’s "confidant" and an outright "loyalist" on the surface, and then fleeing on the night of the assassination, the labels on him were numerous.

With his return, there must be many eyes on him by now, many awaiting to see how He Ao would deal with him.

Moreover, the guy was not straightforward and possessed strong oratorical skills, often making trouble in the name of the White Jasmine Palace and "Linen," so it couldn’t be dragged out for too long as it was bound to cause trouble.

The consortium sending this guy back was probably also hoping to complicate things for He Ao.

However, compared to the current myriad of major issues, the Minister’s special circumstances were almost negligible.

In this contemplation, He Ao suddenly paused.

He felt a marker that had been released was now being recalled automatically.

It seemed Levis did not heed his advice.

Levis was kept in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and He Ao had been busy till now and had not had time to worry about whether he had been bailed out.

It appeared he had indeed been bailed out.

And then silenced by the consortium.

However, if that was the case, given his character—

In the midst of He Ao’s thoughts, a faint vibration erupted from his wristband.

He Ao lowered his head to open the wristband, which displayed an email from an anonymous mailbox containing the username and secret key for an unregistered encrypted cloud storage.

The email was sent on the dot, likely scheduled to be sent.

He Ao quickly logged into this cloud storage and then looked at the dense files, photos, and even signed documents in the cloud, sighing softly.

Levis’s contracts were only valid for the living. If he were alive, he indeed couldn’t speak out about these things, but he could organize everything during his lifetime and send it out after his death.

It seemed the consortium’s sent men didn’t give him time to defend himself, directly skipping the interrogation phase to silence him.

However, He Ao thought he would pass these documents to someone else, or somehow make them public anonymously after his death; he hadn’t quite expected him to send them to him.

After all, although Levis feared him, he also genuinely wanted to kill him.

Even without activating Super Memory or Listen to his thoughts, He Ao could vaguely sense his hatred towards him from the contact of the markers.

If he didn’t die, he would definitely try every means to kill He Ao, destroying all of He Ao’s policies.

But He Ao could also understand his thinking.

Although he hated He Ao, upon his death, the only one capable, with a chance to harm the consortium and avenge him, was He Ao, already in irreconcilable conflict with the consortium.

Even if he made these documents public, they would be suppressed directly due to the many people he would offend.

So sending them to He Ao was actually the best choice; the only small issue was his trust in He Ao, slightly more than He Ao had anticipated previously.

But from this email, it seemed Levis might have heeded some of his words, having a certain premonition about his fate.

The area where Levis was likely shielded by signal interference devices by now; they were clear on his contract abilities, so they wouldn’t give him a chance to send messages after his death.

Therefore, this email wasn’t tied to his heartbeat but was instead a timed inquiry mechanism.

There should be some online software continuously asking him if he was alive, and once there was no response, it would automatically send the email.

For Levis, this was quite a risky move, as his contract didn’t allow him to divulge these pieces of information while he was alive; it was practically dancing on the edge of violating his contract terms, and a slight misstep could have killed him.

Unless there was a strong premonition, he wouldn’t be prepared for this.

Accompanied by his thoughts, He Ao’s wristband lit up again; a call from Tucker was coming through.

He Ao reached out to answer the call,

"Mr. Lin En, something happened to Levis; he’s dead in the Nevus District,"

As soon as the call connected, Tucker immediately said,

"According to the positioning and information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it seems he was picked up by his own lawyer and then taken to the Nevus District. At some point in a certain area, he completely lost his positioning.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to contact him and found he seemed to be in a no-signal area; the phone couldn’t get through. They are now asking us to help by having the closest patrolling officers check the situation,"

After a slight pause, Tucker sighed softly,

"But in such a chaotic place as Nevus, this guy is probably more dead than alive this time. It’s very likely he was deceived by his own people to silence him.

"It’s a shame he was so tight-lipped, unwilling to say anything, ending up . He knew too much and was exposed to us, posing a risk of leaking information. It’s reasonable for the consortiums to do this,

"They won’t care about old ties or how much he had done before, they’ll just use the simplest and most brutal method to nip any potential danger in the bud.

"It’s just a pity for all that intelligence he had, knowing so much.

"According to the usual practice of those gangs, they probably first lowered his guard, lured him over, and then quickly silenced him, giving him no chance to escape or leak any information,"

Tucker then thoughtfully added, "However, if he was ruthless enough, he might have prepared some damning intelligence to be released through an automatic program or a trustworthy friend after his death,

"Some company’s high-level employees like to do this, biting even in death,

"Of course, the friends who are trusted to receive that intelligence often sell it for a good price.

"Even if Levis’s intelligence were made public, it’d likely be quickly detected by the big consortium’s data monitoring and then suppressed before it could emerge, disappearing without a trace,

"Perhaps we could look for it, maybe there’s a chance to gather these things before the consortium suppresses the evidence."

At this point, Tucker seemed to realize something, "Wait, so this is why they blocked Levis’s communication signals? To prevent him from sending out something he shouldn’t before dying?

"That means they’ve probably already scanned and monitored Levis’s wristband and network information and have destroyed the files before they were sent.

"It seems we won’t be able to find these documents."

He Ao, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke softly, "He just sent them to me."

"He sent them to you? Ah, then indeed no need to look."

Tucker responded, then paused abruptly, his voice coming through with a tinge of bewilderment and shock, "He sent them to you?!"

He Ao nodded slightly, copied the file from the cloud storage, and shared it with Tucker.

Strictly speaking, while He Ao could have collected most of the evidence by following the leads he knew, it would have taken much more time.

Receiving the information, Tucker seemed a bit stunned, falling into silence.

However, He Ao’s words did not cease, but continued, "Go ahead with the cases of the former Cabinet members immediately, and send someone to check the residences of Levis that were marked inside. Those residences should be catching fire about now."

The Tucker on the other end of the phone jolted and immediately replied, "I’ll arrange it right away."

"Captain, what’s going on?"

Sena, who had just ran out of the Mayor’s Mansion, looked bewilderedly at Tucker standing before him.

"Our manpower has been saved."

Tucker looked Sena up and down, who had already changed into his police uniform, patted him on the shoulder, and smiled.

The appointment of Tucker as the Chief of the City Police Station had come through after the Cabinet meeting, and the first thing Tucker did as Chief was to transfer Sena and a few other guards who had performed well during the assassination attempt on the Mayor to the City Police Station.

Seeing the puzzled look in Sena’s eyes, Tucker stepped forward and relayed the conversation he just had with He Ao to Sena.

Sena, still feeling a bit dizzy, looked at Tucker with confusion. "Does this guy really trust Mr. Lin En so much? From his attitude, I always feel like he harbors deep resentment against Mr. Lin En. Moreover, when I contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier,

The Investigator there told me that Levis, when he was detained, firmly believed Mr. Lin En would fail and called him a madman. It seems he should really hate Mr. Lin En. He only had contact with Mr. Lin En this morning, and it didn’t seem like they had much interaction before,

Does he really believe Mr. Lin En will help him take revenge? To go against the Consortium? I naturally believe it... but wasn’t he always shouting that he didn’t trust Mr. Lin En?"

"The name of a person, the shadow of a tree."

Tucker smiled and patted the shoulder of the young man beside him. He didn’t directly answer the question but instead asked, "How do you think Levis managed to send out the email without a communication signal?"

Sena shook his head blankly.

"He probably used a method of frequent inquiries,"

Tucker explained slowly, "He set up a software to frequently check if he was still alive at set intervals. If he didn’t respond, the email would be sent out. Even if his signal was blocked by someone, this would still work, and he wouldn’t voluntarily leave an area with a signal.

Given the time interval from his disappearance to when the email was sent, he must have set the timing very short and the frequency very high,

The advantage is that it prevents a long period after death before an inquiry is made, so the murderer can’t decipher the software; the downside is that it requires constant confirmation; it’s a very troublesome method."

He looked at Sena and asked, "Would you choose such a way to confirm without any life-threatening danger?"

Sena shook his head, then realized something. "Are you saying he had already anticipated that he might be killed?"

"To be precise, he was reminded,"

Tucker shook his head, smilingly asking, "Do you remember what Mr. Lin En said to Levis this morning when he left, about the bail?"

"Mr. Lin En told Levis not to post bail?"

Sena seemed to recall for a moment. "Then he went ahead and posted bail, and now he’s dead. He didn’t trust Mr. Lin En."

"He didn’t exactly distrust him, he just didn’t want to admit it,"

Tucker sighed softly. "He actually did believe Mr. Lin En’s warning, but his identity and experience made him not want to believe,

The one who killed him knew him very well, prepared very thoroughly—first deceived him through someone close, then struck quickly and blocked the signals. If it weren’t for Mr. Lin En’s warning, he wouldn’t have been able to send that email at all."

"Isn’t he Mr. Lin En’s enemy? He even wanted to have Mr. Lin En killed."

Sena was slightly puzzled.

"That’s the charm of Mr. Lin En, isn’t it?"

Tucker gently patted Sena’s shoulder. "Even a scoundrel, when he seeks justice, firmly believes Mr. Lin En will grant it to him, despite his intense hatred for Mr. Lin En.

"And towering power is essentially built on such accumulated trust."

He glanced back at the White Jasmine Flower and the white palace behind the scattered flower sea, then turned back to Sena, "By the way, someone is coming soon—there’s a task for you."