Chapter 963: Chapter 963

The sunrise glow spilled onto the old windowpanes, and the blazing incinerator burned fiercely.

"Is this guy that Transcendent monster?"

Standing outside the thick glass window, a young soldier looked toward the incinerator area, where a lean cadaver was being hoisted by robots.

"Boy, do you think you have too many lives?"

The soldier next to him, a man of older age, reached out and pulled the young soldier’s shoulder, directly dragging him over, "Those associated with high-ranking Transcendents, even though they’re dead, still carry strong Extraordinary Power. If you’re not careful, you could get contaminated with Extraordinary Power, and when that time comes, you won’t even know how you died."

The young soldier, having been pulled back, turned his head and looked at the older soldier beside him with some confusion, "Didn’t the higher-ups say that they had already dealt with the Extraordinary Power in this guy’s cadaver?"

"Do you know if it’s been completely dealt with?"

The soldier known as the class leader glanced at the young soldier, stretched out his hand, and pressed a button on the control panel.

Accompanied by a slight sound, the robot slowly lifted the lean cadaver in front of it, opened the lid of the incinerator, and fed it into the roaring flames.

Only after confirming that the cadaver was completely sent into the incinerator and seeing the robot close the incinerator, did the class leader finally breathe a sigh of relief.

He lit a cigarette and looked at the soldier beside him, "In the future, when you come across people involved with Transcendents, you have to be extremely careful. Once you get tangled up with the weird stuff inside, you’re not far from death."

The young soldier nodded empathetically.

"All of this batch is finally burned, we’ve stayed up all night, let’s go have breakfast. The next batch is their problem."

The class leader stretched lazily, waved his hand, and turned to lead the young soldier toward the iron door nearby.

The young soldier immediately ran over, pulled open the iron door, and the two left the room together.

Not long after they left, the tightly closed iron door was slowly pushed open, and a figure walked into the room.

He looked up at the surveillance camera overhead, and then toward the incinerator area behind the thick glass, pulling a small card from his pocket and glanced at it.

Immediately afterward, he extended his hand and opened the safety door next to the glass, which had a warning sign "Dangerous Area, Do Not Enter While the Incinerator Is Operational," and entered the incinerator area.

Holding the card in his hand, he bypassed the robot parked next to the incinerator and approached the roaring incinerator.

The tightly shut incinerator door suddenly opened, and the surging flames spewed out in an instant.

As the figure stood amidst the gushing flames, he picked up the card in his hand and looked down at the contents.

The background of the card displayed a magenta seal, the emblem of the Federation Social Security Group. Above this emblem was a string of nine digits, and below it, there was a line of script written with [Virrus Andec].

This was a Federation social security card.

The figure lifted his gaze, looking at the lean silhouette in the incinerator, which was already burning fiercely, then gently raised the social security card in hand and tossed it into the surging flames.

The radiance of dawn shone through the low-rise buildings, casting light across the streets, while sporadic gunfire had gradually subsided in the distance.

"I used to live here."

The elderly man in a military uniform threw the box in his hand into a nearby trash can and looked up at the dilapidated low-rise buildings around him, "Back then, this place wasn’t as rundown, at least some buildings still had windows,"

Then he turned his head back to He Ao, "I heard this land belongs to the city government?"

"This area used to be a residential development zone owned by the government, and the land was purchased by the city government,"

He Ao took off his white lab coat and carefully put it aside, "At that time, the Mayor had created an industrial development zone nearby, wanting to build a batch of government apartments here, to be rented out at relatively low prices to alleviate the burden on workers in the vicinity."

"What happened after that?"

Corvey turned back and looked at He Ao.

"The real estate and financial consortium felt that the city government’s actions were disrupting the market and launched a protest through the parliament to the White Jasmine Palace,"

He Ao shrugged, "During that time, the then City Cabinet was constantly engulfed in scandals, and the media opinion was all against the Mayor, with a large number of gang members causing trouble and disturbing the construction site during the project’s construction period.

"Later, the project dragged on for three years, and as soon as it was roughly finished, the Mayor stepped down in disgrace. After he stepped down, he suffered a heart attack and died suddenly in the hospital, and the project consequently became an unfinished building, left neglected here.

"In the meantime, some consortiums tried to take over the project at a low price, but as the Southern District became increasingly chaotic, fewer and fewer consortiums were willing to take over, and later, as the buildings aged, a large number of homeless people moved in, so no consortium dared to take over the place anymore.

"During this period, the city government gradually lost control of the Southern District, and its ability to manage this low-rise district had almost completely collapsed."

Then he paused in his tone and chuckled, "However, there are still one or two consortiums who want to buy this place."

"Yiwis Space System and Kopace Mining?"

Corvey also caught on.

He Ao nodded slightly, gazing at the sunrise in the sky with a sigh, "They’ve been operating nearby for many years, and most of the gangs here accept their commands. They’ve bribed the Minister of Internal Affairs and are ready to take over this place at the lowest price.

"In fact, there had been several times when consortiums from outside the area tried to buy this place at higher prices, but they thwarted those attempts."

These were details He Ao had come across while reviewing the criminal records of the Minister of Internal Affairs, and it was one of the corruption projects that the minister was still pushing forward.

If it hadn’t been for a showdown between Lin En and the consortium which escalated to an assassination attempt, this deal might have already progressed to the contract signing stage.

"By controlling the Low-rise District, these two large consortiums can make a profit from the rent and also complete the last piece of the puzzle to control the Southern District."

Corvey looked towards the distant sunrise and also sighed lightly, then turned back to He Ao, "So, will this place be sold?"

Upon hearing this question, He Ao lowered his head to look at the elder next to him and calmly and composedly replied, "No."

Hearing He Ao’s response, Corvey slightly lifted his eyebrows and finally curled up the corners of his mouth into a slight smile, sighing, "That’s good."

At this time, Sena, dressed in a suit, ran over, pointed to a black off-road vehicle not far away, and looked at He Ao, "The car is ready, we can leave immediately."

He Ao nodded lightly, then turned to Corvey and said softly, "Kewis is staying here, the medical outreach will last until it gets dark, but I have to go back now."

"I’ll stay here a little longer,"

Corvey looked back at the crowd still queuing not far away and said, "The follow-up siege intelligence will be summarized and forwarded to your mailbox on a regular basis."

Then he paused, raised his head to the sky, and said slowly, "The sunrise here is quite beautiful; I hope one day we can sit here leisurely, pour a drink, and watch the sunrise amidst the clouds."

He Ao picked up the brass cane beside him, glanced at the morning sun in the sky, paused for a moment, and answered softly, "I hope there comes a day."

Then he turned and walked towards the off-road vehicle.

Corvey shifted his gaze, watching the tall figure of the elderly man, watching as he got into the off-road vehicle and drove towards the setting sun.

From a distance, a middle-aged military officer dressed in uniform approached quickly and looked at Corvey,

"General, the advance is going smoothly. There were one or two C-level Transcendents at some positions, but they were all held up and dealt with by the tactical squad. Currently, we have largely taken control over the entire Southern District. We have seized a large amount of military equipment in the warehouses of the Prisoners’ Gang, and we are now clearing up the remnants of their forces."

"Don’t be complacent,"

Corvey withdrew his gaze and shook his head gently, "After securing control of the positions, advance step by step. Remember not to act rashly."

The middle-aged officer nodded emphatically.

Then Corvey lowered his head and picked up the used medical kits from the ground, one by one, throwing them into the temporary trash bin nearby.

The middle-aged officer immediately ran over to help with the clean-up, "Let me do that."

"I’ve only got this little chore left. Mr. Lin En has finished his tasks, so this old man running errands must also finish his own. He hardly rested all night, and my task is much lighter than his."

Corvey waved his hand, rejecting the middle-aged officer’s help.

The officer hesitated, and in the end, he did not dare to continue.

But the elderly man was quick, and in a short time, he had collected all the boxes. Then he clapped his hands, looked towards a large building in the sunset, and asked in a slow voice, "Is that the factory of Yiwis Space System?"

The middle-aged officer immediately followed his gaze and nodded, "Yes."

"I remember my father’s brother, my uncle, used to work in that factory,"

The elderly man lit a cigarette and said slowly while looking at the factory building, "Back then, the factory was also rumbling . At that time, Yiwis Space System paid a higher salary than it does now. Whenever my uncle visited our home, he would often buy me candy, until I was ten years old."

"Did something happen after you turned ten?"

The middle-aged officer looked puzzled and turned to Corvey to ask.

"Just the usual occurrences in the Southern District,"

Corvey took a puff of his cigarette, the hazy smoke filling the space between the buildings, "Occupational poisoning led to organ failure, he lost the ability to work, was laid off by the factory, and his wife also left him,"

The elderly man lowered his head, picked up his pace, and walked slowly down an alleyway, "After that, I saw him very rarely, only occasionally did my father take me to visit him. Later, I heard he went to Yiwis Space System to ask for compensation but was beaten up by a gang and had his legs broken. When I was fifteen, he jumped from a building and committed suicide.

"He had no savings, his income from work was very low, and often he had to take out loans to get by, even his only valuable bracelet was taken by the gang to cover his debts, and even his body was taken away,

"My father scraped together some money, paid off part of the debt, and reclaimed his remains to have him cremated. We couldn’t afford a burial plot, so we scattered his ashes downstairs of our house. This is a very common ’custom’ in the Southern District."

"When I was a child living in the Wick District, we had similar practices, though not as many did so."

The middle-aged officer following behind the elderly man added softly, "In the end, it’s still about not having money."

"The situation in the Southern District is a bit more complicated,"

At this moment, the two had reached a fence. Beyond the fence was a narrow road one car wide, and opposite the road was a secluded alley, where a white van was parked at the entrance.

The Elderly looked up at a secluded alley not far away. In the depths of that alley, untouched by the dawn’s light, lay a corpse, barely visible. A few people dressed in white were moving the body within the alley.

Corvey took a puff of his cigarette and continued,

"There are also some families who can’t even afford the cremation fees. They’ll dump the bodies in a corner, disguising them as accidental deaths. That way, the Scavengers will just pick up the body and throw it into the incinerator and burn it.

"Of course, in such cases, it’s impossible to retrieve the ashes. The Scavengers burn people in batches of ten, and even if you manage to contact the one responsible for dealing with the bodies, the ashes are all mixed together; no one knows whose is whose.

"In the past few decades, there were fewer people who did this since the Yiwis Space System used to give a bit more in wages, allowing families to save some money. But in recent years, as the Yiwis Space System completely took over the Southern Districts, wages have been getting lower and lower.

"So this ’custom’ has gradually evolved."

He turned around, glanced at the densely packed buildings behind him, and slowly walked back towards the route home, "Alive without plan, sick without cure, old without support, dead without peace—this is the Southern District."

The middle-aged military officer following behind him opened his mouth as if he had thought of something but ultimately just sighed lightly, "Over these decades, the situation in Wick District has been getting worse too—soon it might be the same as the Southern District."

He lifted his head and looked towards the end of the road where the white medical tent stood, where the off-road vehicle had disappeared. His tone paused slightly, hesitantly asking, "Can Mr. Lin En really change all this?"

"No one can predict the future,"

Corvey removed the cigarette from his mouth, looking toward the distant volunteer medical area, his gaze settling on a shabby ’City Police Station recruitment booth’ in the corner of the area, where, at that moment, many young people were crowded. "But there will always be people who see what he has done."

Skyscrapers sped past the window as He Ao flipped through the data on his wristband in the back seat of the off-road vehicle.

This was a summary report that Eve had made on the reports and data from the City Defense Army’s suppression operations.

To describe the entire report in one word, it would be, ’irresistible’.

The City Defense Army had almost effortlessly breached nearly all the known strongholds of the Prisoners’ Gang and then found a massive amount of military weapons far exceeding the normal limits of a gang in their storehouses.

During the resistance, the Prisoners’ Gang had tried to counter-attack, but they were quickly defeated, and now the City Defense Army had basically taken complete control of South City.

The core members of the Prisoners’ Gang were captured or killed; those still alive were being concentrated and interrogated.

In theory, this kind of overwhelming victory matched the City Defense Army’s suppression of the gangs, but He Ao felt distinctly uneasy.

The Prisoners’ Gang had demonstrated too little of their high-end combat strength.

According to the information obtained from Black Snake, there were quite a few people like him within the Prisoners’ Gang, not to mention a Great Tutor above Black Snake.

It’s impossible that the Prisoners’ Gang had a powerful B-level leading a bunch of fake C-level puppets in the Low-rise District, while in other Prisoners’ Gang strongholds, there were only one or two C-level newbies.

That’s why He Ao had chosen to stay in the Low-rise District last night; he had to be on guard for the potential appearance of a B-level.

But until this morning, the City Defense Army had completely taken control of the Nevus Southern District, and those ’B-level’ forces that should have appeared hadn’t, and there was no news of the legendary ’Great Tutor’.

So, where had all these guys gone?

He Ao rubbed his brow slightly.

At that moment, his wristband vibrated, a message from the Chief of Staff indicating that the advertising equipment shipped from Dawn City had arrived.

He Ao responded, instructing her to continue with the installation, and then he prepared to close the wristband.

Just then, a popup for a short video appeared,

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