Chapter 840: Chapter 840

The study room, at some point, had fallen into silence.

In the corner, the exquisite Bo Shan Burner had no more wisps of smoke rising from its mouth.

The last lingering notes of ambergris had completely dissipated into the air.

The sunlight slanted through the window, falling right on the piece of Xuan paper still unfurled on the desk.

The golden glint made the hidden character "藏" increasingly conspicuous.

Shi Chengyi did not speak; he just stood at the window with his hands behind his back, quietly gazing at the courtyard.

His face revealed no expression, but Wei Zheng sitting on the sofa could feel an invisible aura emanating from his teacher, as solid as a mountain.

"The Guangwu Gate shooting..."

Shi Chengyi silently recited in his heart, beneath a calm surface, a torrent already surged.

To ordinary people, these six words might just be a segment of lead type in a history textbook, a significant event that changed the country’s course.

But to him, it was an unfathomable morass, one of the rare setbacks in his career.

Back then, the Military Government was in a deadlock in its power struggle with new and old forces, with undercurrents in the political and business circles.

The gunfire at the Guangwu Gate erupted like a spark thrown into a keg of powder, igniting long-standing social tensions.

Public sentiment surged, and the media stormed.

President Feng, denounced as a "public enemy" by the papers, bypassed the uncontrolled military police system and directly sought out the Special Search Team dedicated to special affairs, issuing an ultimatum.

At all costs, thoroughly investigate the truth behind the shooting.

At the prime of his life, Shi Chengyi was then the head of the Special Search Team’s Operation Department.

He accepted the mission in distress, personally leading the entire department’s elite forces into the investigation of this earth-shattering case.

However, as the investigation deepened, the results chilled him to the bone.

The shells and traces on site were meticulously cleaned, as if by a professional team post-purge.

All surrounding surveillance cameras weirdly malfunctioned collectively one hour before the incident.

Several key witnesses who had glimpsed the gunman’s track mysteriously died from various "accidents" before they could be reached.

The first one died in a gas leak explosion at home, leaving no remains.

The second one, while driving, lost control of the vehicle and plummeted off a bridge, dying instantly.

The third one, slipped and broke his neck in the bathroom while bathing.

The fourth one, amidst watching eyes, seemingly went mad and leaped from his thirty-floor apartment balcony...

All deaths were classified as accidents or suicides, with no traces of murder by outsiders found at the scenes.

As if a plot from some horror movie played out in reality.

But Shi Chengyi knew clearly, there aren’t that many coincidences in this world.

His first reaction was that there was a mole in the team who had leaked the witnesses’ information.

To verify his conjecture, he set up a trap. Newest update provıded by novel⚑fire.net

He personally chose two absolutely reliable team members, disguised them as new witnesses, and deliberately reported false hideout locations to the team.

Meanwhile, he and the deputy minister led elite squads each, deploying an all-encompassing net around the two members’ actual safe houses beforehand.

This was a double trap, whether the mole conveyed false information or had some means to ascertain the truth, they would inevitably fall into the snare.

However, the result left him in an icy pit.

The feigned attack squad went empty-handed.

The elite squad he led personally lost contact with the bait members at the decided time and broke in, only to see two still warm corpses.

One hung himself in the rental apartment, the other, in a hotel room, died of sudden myocardial infarction, next to the phone.

The ambushed team around never spotted any suspicious person approaching from start to finish.

At that moment, Shi Chengyi completely overturned the mole hypothesis.

This wasn’t something humanly possible, no intelligence network could perform such precise and swift "targeted elimination."

The haze thickened, clues were all severed.

It felt like an invisible hand was silently erasing all traces, mocking their incompetence.

In his despair, a forensic department’s autopsy report pointed him towards a direction.

The report was targeted at the last two sacrificed team members.

The forensic expert detected a particularly bizarre physiological phenomenon on their bodies.

Both their brainstem and heart areas showed traces of non-pathological cell necrosis.

An experienced old forensic expert wrote a highly subjective note at the end of the report:

[This doesn’t seem like suicide, it feels more like... a curse]

Ordinary detectives would dismiss this report as nonsense, but seeing the word "curse" made Shi Chengyi’s pupil contract sharply.

This sentence was like a lightning bolt, cleaving through the fog in his mind.

He immediately ordered the team’s Exotic Energy Science experts to re-examine the body samples.

A few hours later, the conclusion emerged.

The necrotic cell tissue harbored faint residual negative energy filled with deathly silence and resentment.

This energy has a codename in the Special Search Team’s internal files, designated as "Curse."

Moreover, one capable of killing from afar, creating accidents, even silently entrapping steadfast Special Search Team members — a formidable Spiritual Ability User.

The investigative direction abruptly sprang open.

The Special Search Team no longer sought the gunman everywhere but instead hunted for those power users lurking in society’s shadows.