40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 488 6. Buying clothes and killing people

According to what Horst said, Tujia left the church and started walking eastward along the road. He still had his collar turned up and was walking very fast, but at this moment, the second area presented a completely different scene.

Vendors hawked items such as cheap cigarettes or unbranded energy bars as they followed the workers on their way. There were many vehicles coming and going in the middle of the road, and almost no police cars.

Smoke and dust filled the sky, and factories that had stayed up all night roared on the far side of the horizon. New smoke slowly rose from their chimneys and floated into the sky of Litatra that was not completely polluted.

It's an unusual sight, and to say it's vibrant would be an exaggeration, but it's not lifeless either. This sight made Tujia feel a little trance, and this sight brought back some memories for him.

He quickly snuffed out the memory, like an experienced smoker stubbing out a cigarette with his fingers. He doesn't smoke, but he often snuffs out memories.

He continued walking down the road, his steps starting to get faster. It didn't take long for him to find the store. The pure white signboard says 'clothes sales, cutting, and mending' in black fonts. It's not a cursive font, but a very simple printing font.

Tujia stared at it for a while, then opened the door and walked in. The store was huge, at least beyond his expectations.

For a clothing store without window displays, the space here is surprisingly large. Not only that, there are even two guards here. They wear lightweight, form-fitting ballistic armor and carry heavy pistols on their belts.

They came towards him and began to search him. Tujia didn't stop, and as always, they failed to find his gun on him.

"What's going on?" a guard asked.

"Buying clothes." Tujia replied cautiously. It took a lot of effort for him to keep his green eyes from meeting the guard under his hat. His occupational disease was getting worse.

"Come in, sir." The other guard nodded to him and raised his right hand. "Ms. Anaïs is inside."

"Thank you." Tujia said.

He walked inside, deliberately slowing down and looking around the store. This shop must be old, the green paint on the walls has even faded, and the floor is covered with thick dark gray carpet.

Jackets, overalls or boots of all kinds are crowded at both ends of the store. District 2 is not a very high-end community. Most of the residents here are workers. Considering this, this store may be doing very well.

But what happened to those two guards?

With this doubt in mind, Tujia walked to the depths of the store expressionlessly. Through a long white desk, he saw a blond lady. She was thin, with sunken cheeks, and her gray eyes stared unceremoniously at Tujia.

"Are you the Mr. Investigator who caused us a lot of trouble here most of the night?"

here we go again.

"You are really well informed," Tujia said. "Yes, I am."

"So, are you here to buy clothes, or are you here to conduct research?" the blond woman continued to ask.

"Just buying clothes."

"What kind of clothes?"

Tujia didn't answer, just turned his gaze to the other end. He left the spot, took a heavy dark blue long jacket, and placed it on the desk.

"How much?" he asked.

The blonde woman didn't answer, but slowly stood up from behind the desk. She wore a silver-white long dress with some glittering sequins embellished along the waistline, outlining her graceful figure.

She walked out of the desk calmly, but her right hand remained pressed on her jacket. She stared at Tujia coldly, still remaining silent. They fell into an awkward stalemate and had no choice but to speak again and make concessions in advance.

"How much do you want?" he asked again.

The woman narrowed her eyes.

"It's not about money." She shook her head. "I can't sell you anything, it'll get me into trouble. You walked into my store in front of everyone on the street, do you understand?"

"No one follows me, I've made sure many times."

"How do you know there's no one?"

"Because I'm an investigator." Tujia replied calmly.

The woman sneered: "Come on, an investigator who made his existence known to everyone as soon as he got off the ship? I can't trust you, and I can't sell you clothes."

Tujia was silent for a few seconds and slowly spoke out a name: "Pastor Horst asked me to come here."

The woman's expression changed instantly. It's not that she started to smile immediately, but it was just a little gentler than the initial coldness. But she still didn't let down her guard, her hands still pressed on the jacket.

Tujea knew his strategy was paying off, and he began expertly obscuring the facts to give himself an advantage in the standoff.

"I stayed in church all night," he continued, tugging at his coat so that she could see the bandage wrapped around his abdomen. They had been changed and were wrapping his blood-stained shirt.

The woman sighed helplessly and let go of her right hand.

"Five imperial coins." She spit out a number.

Tujia nodded and immediately took out a banknote and paid without any hesitation.

Everything that happened next was very logical, and the woman took him to the back door of the store. She looked a little surprised when she saw him take out a handful of candies from his coat. However, when she saw the gun, her face quickly darkened.

"It's not your shop boy's problem, ma'am," Tujia said. "Also, can you keep this dress for me for a while?"

"What do you mean?" the woman stared at him and asked.

"I'll come back and get it."

The woman snorted softly: "You will be considered successful if you can survive today."

Tujia said nothing, but put the gun in the deep pocket of his jacket. He had not carried the gun in other clothes for many years. In this way, he left the store through the alley.

Compared to the streets, the world in the alleys is much more depressing. Although the buildings in the second area are relatively low, sunlight hardly reaches them.

The homeless people smelled sour and lay in the shadows with dull eyes. There was either nothing or a few needles scattered around. Tujia walked calmly, looking straight ahead and not making eye contact with anyone.

It took him two tera to return to the second district police station in Litatra. He stepped up the steps, opened the door and entered, immediately attracting countless eyes.

The police officer standing behind the dirty reception desk stared at him, as did the two members of the law enforcement team who were escorting the prisoner, and the clerks behind the desks, wrestling with the files, also stared at him.

Even a servo skull temporarily stopped moving and pointed its glowing red eyes at Tujia's face.

Something is wrong.

Tujia clutched his gun in his jacket pocket, ignored the looks, and walked toward the room where he had been.

He knocked on the door and opened the door after getting permission. Just a second before he closed the door, the world outside the door suddenly returned to normal. All kinds of noises came again, and it completely changed back to what a normal police station in charge should look like.

Listening to those voices, Tujia's mood sank little by little.

He closed the door, and silence returned to the extremely soundproof office.

"Mr. Investigator, you are back. Have you made any progress?" the woman behind the desk asked with a smile.

Her chestnut eyes were still very cold.

Tujia didn't speak, but slowly returned to the chair where he once sat. It still made him uncomfortable, and the woman's eyes were glued to his, trying to dig something out of them.

As she wished, Tujia spoke slowly.

"Now, under your desk, there is a Catahan MK3 facing you. Twelve bullets are waiting in the magazine for me to pull the trigger and fire them."

"gentlemen--"

"Shut up and listen to me." Tujia interrupted her coldly and pressed the hammer. The woman's eyes finally tensed up a little, which meant she heard the click of the hammer being cocked.

This is good, just what he wants.

"I'm going to ask you some questions," Tujia said. "The time between when I finish asking and when you answer is best not to exceed five seconds."

"Once it exceeds, I will shoot, and I will completely put twelve bullets into your body, turning you into a bloody anthropomorphic object. At the same time, I ask you to stay calm. If I see anything wrong Act rationally and I will still pull the trigger.”

"You'd better not beat around the bush when answering the question. If I hear the slightest hint of concealment, I will also shoot. Moreover, I will deliberately miss the first few shots so that you will not die so quickly. My first One question is whether the leakage of my whereabouts has anything to do with you."

He slowly leaned back and slowly lowered the brim of his hat with his left hand.

"You can start answering the questions, or start betting on whether what I say is true or false."

The woman stiffly put her hands on the table, acting very sensible. Immediately afterwards, she showed some symptoms of oxygen addiction that were very similar to Tujia's.

She took a deep breath and said, "Yes, sir, it does matter."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because." The woman pursed her lips, showing great hesitation.

This was just the second question, and she showed this look. Tujia narrowed his eyes, already having some guesses in his mind. So, he spoke the second half of the sentence for her in a gentle voice.

"It's because a noble asked you, no, asked you to do this, right? He or she probably also asked you to monitor me. Once I appear, you must immediately send the news back."

The woman looked at him in astonishment.

"Yes, or no?" Tujia asked calmly.

The woman nodded very hard.

"Good, I understand." Tujia said. "So, can you provide me with a name? About this nobleman."

"Molan."

Tujia nodded, took off his hat, and skillfully passed his left hand behind his left ear. In front of the woman, he placed the wide-brimmed hat on his lap, put his hand inside and groped for a moment.

The woman looked at him nervously, but due to the height of the desk, she couldn't see clearly what he was doing. Tujia then crumpled the candy wrapper that he had folded into a long strip little by little, and then gently threw it on the ground.

The office was very quiet at the moment, even the sound of paper balls falling to the ground was extremely noticeable. The woman swallowed her saliva, and before she could ask anything, Tujia put on her hat again.

He slowly stood up and pointed the gun at the woman's head inside his jacket.

"What was just thrown under your desk is a miniature time bomb, provided by the Terran Legal Department Headquarters."

The woman's face began to twitch.

"It can blow you to pieces along with this branch. Your body will be vaporized directly at this distance, leaving no trace. They will declare you died in the line of duty, and there will be no traces in your grave." Drop anything.”

"please."

"Shut up." Tujia smiled calmly, comfortably and slightly amusedly.

"I will leave now, and you'd better keep quiet and don't give any orders. I will wait across the street for ten minutes before leaving. If I see any police officers leaving the Second District precinct during this time , this bomb will be detonated."

"You don't have to do this." The woman started to save her life, which was not a threat at all, with a dry mouth. "Listen sir, you really don't have to do this."

Tujia shook his head.

"No, this is necessary. In addition, because of your words, I may wait longer before leaving. This is the second bet between you and me. You can try to challenge me. patience."

The woman could no longer speak a word. Her pale face was dripping with sweat and her four lips were trembling. Tujia nodded towards her, put away his smile, and walked slowly to the door.

"Now, I'm leaving. Please stay calm, rational and peaceful. If you make a sound or give other people any look, I will kill you first and then detonate the bomb. Do you understand?"

"Also, thanks for having such good soundproofing in your office."

The woman wiped away the cold sweat on her face, nodded reluctantly while trembling, and even forced herself to smile.

Tujia opened the door and left the police station in charge of the second district with steady steps. However, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he turned around and walked into a small alley.

He stayed in the shadows and began to wait patiently. His green eyes glowed faintly in the darkness, like a hungry monster.

Three tera hours later, when Tujia had eaten the eleventh candy, the door of the police station was opened. Law enforcement teams and police officers scrambled out, got into their vehicles, and drove off. Those without cars ran as fast as they could, fearing they would fall behind.

Judging from their expressions, someone probably promised them something.

It's really interesting, such a big gesture

After staying in the alley for another twenty minutes, Tujia raised his hands and unbuttoned his newly bought jacket bit by bit. He took off his jacket, folded it, and wrapped it around his right hand.

His gun was in his clothes, his index finger resting firmly on the trigger. He left the alley, walked across the street calmly, opened the revolving door again and walked in. A servo skull buzzed and turned its head. After looking at him for a while, the red light in its eye sockets suddenly began to flash rapidly.

Without hesitation, Tujia raised his hand and shot. It fell to the ground with black smoke and electric sparks flickering. Tujia strode across it and began to run towards the office.

He opened the door and happened to see a panicked woman trying to pull a gun from her waistband. There was a piece of gray paper used to wrap candy on her desk, which was quite crumpled.

[Never let the Emperor down, citizen! 】

I probably don’t.

"Hands up," Tujia said slowly.

The woman did as she was told and moved quickly, more than twenty times faster than she could draw the gun.

"Detective Nitaloa, has anyone told you that you are actually not suitable for the job of police chief?"

"No, no," the woman replied with a cold sweat on her face.

Tujia nodded: "Well now that you heard me, stand up, Inspector."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'd like to borrow your police badge," Tujia said. "It's useless pinned to your chest. Why don't you leave it to me to do something really useful."

Yes, a useful thing - at least in Tujia's view, it is a very useful thing to use the chief's authority to enter the entire Litatra police intranet through the cogitator inside the police station.

He stood in the police station's information room, holding a gun to the back of Detective Nitaloa's head, watching her clumsily retrieve information on the cogitator's console.

The wonderful taste of candy still lingered on the tip of his tongue, and the sourness brought by industrial chemicals made him squint his eyes slightly and focus extremely hard.

"They're all here, I swear." The female detective said with difficulty. "All the information on the Moran family is here. Listen, this is just a political transaction. Sir, you should have seen it countless times."

Yes, yes. I've seen too much. He said in his mind.

Of course, the female detective didn't know his mental activities, but she still chattered nervously, trying to get another chance for her life.

"You know what people like me rely on to survive, so there is no need for you to kill me. I promise, I will forget your face. As long as you leave the police station, I will not remember anything."

Tujia did not speak, but printed the words on the meditator's screen in his mind little by little, without missing any word. The investigators of the Ministry of Justice are somewhat talented in this area, and Tujia is naturally one of them.

He wrote them down and recited the key information silently several times before removing the gun muzzle from the back of the female detective's head. She seemed to be relieved, and turned her head to the side with a forced smile, but happened to see Tujia's expressionless face.

"Where do you live?" he asked suddenly.

Nitaloa was stunned until the muzzle of the gun was pressed against her forehead, and the pause ended. She named a place, and Tujia nodded and asked, "How big is it?"

"."

"How big is it, Inspector?"

"It, it has four floors." The female detective said with difficulty. She had realized something and her body was shaking.

"And your salary is obviously not enough to afford such a house." Tujia said, but suddenly nodded towards her and removed the gun.

He said: "I understand that corruption is the normal state of the hive capital's bureaucracy, and I don't hate people like you. Collusion between nobles and bureaucrats is a normal behavior in the empire."

The female detective's dead expression slowly came to life. She looked at Tujia in disbelief, her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

"Thank you! Thank you, sir! Thank you -!" She collapsed and sobbed, as if she had been rescued.

Then she got a slight click.

Tujia pressed the hammer.

"But I don't believe you don't know anything about what happened last night." He said expressionlessly. "You knew exactly what Chupani Moran wanted to do, but you still chose to help him today."

The female detective trembled violently, shook her head repeatedly, and shed tears, but could not say a word.

"You are a person with no bottom line, Detective. I hate this kind of person, but that's not why I decided to kill you."

Tujia pulled the trigger and walked away, without saying why. The dead-eyed female detective raised her head and leaned against the beaten thinker, her expression dull, and overflowing fear and blood gushed out of the back of her beaten head.

The police station returned to silence, but the floor-to-ceiling window on the balcony of the information room was blown open by a breeze from nowhere soon after, and a giant appeared quietly like a ghost.

He stood next to the female detective's body and looked at her for a moment, the gloomy yellow eyepieces reflecting her dilated pupils. After a few seconds, he stretched out a finger and closed the female detective's eyes.

A hissing sound began to sound in the command room.

"He's got the key information."

"Yes, I understand."

"Continue to follow? But also show him some traces?"

The giant sighed: "Okay, my lord, in the name of Shen, I wish you to die gloriously without having to enter the sacred fearlessness and endure the pain."

A dirty curse sounded in his helmet, the giant chuckled, the breeze blew again, and his figure disappeared.