Chapter 4399 — Secret Investigation
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
This was purely hearsay, and vague at that, with no telling whether it was true or false. If it proved true afterward, well and good. But if it proved false, then matters today would be grave indeed—and should she fly into a rage and truly hand him over for human experimentation, there would be nowhere to go to weep.
"Exactly what happened? Tell me clearly," the woman said, her brow indeed furrowing. She gave a cold snort. "From whom did you hear this? Who is this martial artist, what is his strength, and what technique did he use that could be powerful enough to blast open a dungeon reinforced with a protective formation?"
The defensive measures of that dungeon had been taken into account from the very outset. Since it was meant to hold Golden Core experts in concentrated custody, its protective formation was powerful enough to withstand experts one tier higher, at the Nascent Soul stage. So long as no Xuan Ascension giant was locked inside, in theory it was utterly foolproof. Who could ever have imagined that such a thing would come to pass?
"This... this is what the people we captured and brought back said..." Wang Dayuan stammered, cold sweat streaming down.
The truth of the matter was that he had indeed handled this poorly. Had he truly set his mind to investigating, everything would long since have come to light. But the past few days he had been away from Moleng City, busy contending with other branches over the supply of common goods, each scheming against the others—how could he spare a thought for affairs back home, much less anticipate that his own house would suddenly catch fire?
He was the branch shopkeeper, and running the branch well was not only a mark of achievement but also an opportunity to skim a little for himself and turn a tidy profit on the side. By comparison, the dungeon holding all those Golden Core samples, though technically within his purview as well, offered nothing to be gained, and so he had never paid it much mind.
But now that such a calamity had struck, Wang Dayuan was filled with regret too late. True, there was no profit to be had from the dungeon, but it was a project the entire organization held in the highest regard. Nothing going wrong was merely his duty; but once something did go wrong and could not be remedied in time, heads would truly roll.
Just as at present—having made such a mess and being unable to clean it up, his life and death now rested entirely in the woman's hands. Whether he lived or died lay in a single thought of hers.
"And the man? Bring him here," the woman said with a frown. She could see that Wang Dayuan did not know the inside story, and rather than keep questioning this muddled creature, she might as well interrogate the man herself.
"Ah?" Wang Dayuan gave a start and, his face twisted with misery, did not dare raise his head. "That man... that man has already been sent for human experimentation..."
When the dungeon had been blown open, the experts left on guard had rushed from every direction to seize the fugitives at the first moment. But there were too few of them, and too many had escaped from the dungeon, every one of them a Golden Core expert. When such men fought for their lives, their speed in flight was nothing to sneeze at—and they had scattered as they fled. In the end, the number actually recaptured was in truth very limited.
And in the spirit of minimizing the affair, the matter had not been reported at once. After all, for men like Wang Dayuan, once those above learned of it, a severe demerit was inevitable. But if, before the higher-ups received word, they could hurry and catch more Golden Core experts to replenish the test samples, then merit could offset fault.