Gunfire, Punk and Necromancer

Black Mike was sitting in the cab of the white beast, holding a large tea bottle in one hand and compressed biscuits in the other. He was very careful not to let biscuit crumbs fall into the car, because Zhuang Xuteng paid great attention to these details and would always find them and ask him to clean them up.

"Hey, the boss is here." When Mike saw Zhuang Xuteng walking towards the car, he immediately wrapped the biscuits and stuffed them back into the glove box, then started the car. Zhuang Xuteng does not need others to open the door for him, especially if he wastes the driver's time to do something that is within his own power and very convenient, it is actually reducing safety.

"Go to this address: Jisi Funeral Home, right next to the crematorium in the hub area - do you know that place?" Zhuang Xuteng asked as soon as he got in the car.

"I know, I've been there." Mike put down the handbrake, put the car into gear, and drove the white beast out.

"Part of those codes have been cracked and several addresses have been obtained. Let's take a look at the ones in Peicheng first."

"So fast?! It's amazing! There are so many talents among middlemen and mercenaries." Mike held the steering wheel tightly, calmly turned a sharp corner, and drove onto the main road before asking: "I was just thinking: What can we find in the funeral parlor? clue?"

"I don't know. Let's take a look at that place." Zhuang Xuteng closed his eyes and recalled the addresses on the note, but he couldn't find any connection between them. "Perhaps, this is not a clue at all, but just a joke to get money."

As the seller of this piece of information, Mike couldn't accept this sentence at all, so he could only respond with silence, pretending that he didn't hear it. He drove the car very fast. Although the white beast was relatively large, the road conditions in Peicheng were very good, especially since there were few traffic jams recently, and it felt like flying when driving.

In a little more than half an hour, they passed through one-third of the city and arrived at their destination. There were no cars at the entrance of the funeral home, and it was very quiet inside. There was no mourning music played, and there were no cries. It seemed that there was no farewell ceremony for the body today, and all the staff could take a break. But this is not conducive to action, especially since it is impossible to disguise oneself as a mourner and sneak in. Zhuang Xuteng thought for a moment at the door and said, "Go to the funeral home and ask what the current charges are for holding a funeral. Give me more than forty minutes. I'll go in from the back."

"Okay." As soon as Mike opened the car door, Zhuang Xuteng stopped him and said, "Be careful and pay attention to your posture in case there is the company's surveillance equipment here."

Mike nodded. After getting out of the car, he adjusted his collar in the rearview mirror, stamped his right foot vigorously, deliberately raised his right gluteal muscle, changed his walking posture, and then walked towards the main entrance of the funeral home. He glanced back midway, and sure enough, Zhuang Xuteng was nowhere to be found.

The accurate address compiled by Lucy was the crematorium, not the funeral parlor next door. Zhuang Xuteng asked Mike to go there just to distract him temporarily. This crematorium was the place where he worked before, and he practiced the "Control the Undead" spell here, which laid a solid foundation for his ability to accurately control undead spirits such as tentacles, servants, and banshees.

"What clues can there be in the crematorium?" Zhuang Xuteng unfolded the Wraith Jelly to scan the site. Everything here was the same as in the past. The work here has always been very leisurely. When the staff need to deal with the corpses, they increase their firepower and concentrate on the work. It only takes two hours to complete the whole day's work. The rest of the time is their daily rest and playing cards.

Today, the place is basically the same. There is no newly installed equipment, no furnishings have been changed, and even the sound of cards being dropped on the table in the lounge is exactly the same as before. The only difference is that there is an additional execution puppet, and that guy is throwing the garbage from the courtyard into the classification trash can. Apparently, with this guy taking over chores like sanitation, it makes it easier for the rest of the staff, making every day feel like a holiday.

The sensory tentacles swept across the crematorium's office building, scanning all the rooms, even the corners of the storage room, warehouse and basement. Zhuang Xuteng found no abnormality, and also found no traces of the company's presence here, let alone anything related to public work points.

A feeling of disappointment hit his heart, and Zhuang Xuteng was ready to leave. But at this moment, he noticed a financial report on the desk of the crematorium manager. In the summary column in the lower right corner, the net profit of the crematorium last quarter was actually 780,000 euros - this number immediately attracted attention. Zhuang Xuteng's attention.

He has not worked here long, but he knows what this place is like: they have no enthusiasm for work, but their ability to spend all government funds and donor funds in the name of various work is very good. Adequate. Every month, they spend their budget allocations to keep net profits in single digits, or at most double digits. Zhuang Xuteng had attended the dinner party they held at the end of the month. With Zhuang Xuteng's vision and consumption level at the time, he felt that the dinner party was a bit luxurious.

Where does the net profit come from? No, the question should be why the net profit was not spent? Zhuang Xuteng approached, turned over the report with the Wraith Spirit Tentacle, and observed with the Sensing Tentacle. He noticed three anomalies, one in, one out, and one flat. The anomaly in the entry comes from a huge "contract payment", the anomaly in the payment comes from the electricity bill that is less than half of the usual amount, and the anomaly in the flat item comes from the fuel cost.

He knew what he had missed, so he immediately turned on the infrared detection function of the Eye of Kaho and looked at the room where the corpse was stored. There are four such cold storages, and now only one shows low temperature. The room temperature of the other three is normal temperature, indicating that the freezers inside have not been started.

"Where have the backlog of corpses gone? The fuel cost has not increased, which means that the quantity burned has not changed. It seems that the problem lies in this strange input." Zhuang Xuteng went into the cold storage room, avoiding the sight of the staff and execution puppets, and secretly opened it Several cold storage doors. This thing was sealed very well, and there was no gap for the sensing tentacles to get through, so I didn't look inside. When I opened it now, I found that it was indeed empty, and it looked like it had been vacant for a long time.

"I should pay attention to the touch of the sensory tentacles. If these cabinets are not cold to the touch, I should be alert. Vision is easy to be deceived, and touch is very important." Zhuang Xuteng remembered the lessons learned this time and randomly checked a few more Refrigerators, it is certain that three-quarters of them have been shut down for a while, and the only one still running has only a quarter of the load.

"They must have done something to allow the corpses that were brought in to be disposed of as quickly as possible, so that they could reduce the occupancy rate of the freezers. But..." Zhuang Xuteng extended his sensing tentacles to the funeral parlor next door, searched for and found the "ceremony appointment sheet". Except for the seven farewell ceremonies on Thursday, there are only one or two farewell ceremonies every day on other days recently, and today there is not one at all. It is almost boring.

As a necromancer, Zhuang Xuteng was suddenly startled: he thought of what corpses could be used for!

"The execution puppet... must be used as an execution puppet!" Zhuang Xuteng slapped his head and said regretfully: "I just want to think about how there are so many work chairs in public work places in society, and how to complete the workload of these work chairs. How many assembly lines and how to lay out in advance. Isn’t the execution of puppets more questionable? Why didn’t I think of it..."

After thinking about it carefully, the answer is actually very simple: Zhuang Xuteng does not need to execute the puppet, and neither do the people around him. In addition, he now lives in the Morgana family's manor and is taken care of by servants. The undead-like execution puppet cannot enter the mansion of the descendant of the church at all. Recently, he has been busy studying the network of work chairs in public work stations. All his attention has been on the chairs, and he has ignored the issue of executing the puppets.

"There is also the shadow clone technology. The number of shadow slave items on the market has greatly increased, so I have paid less attention to execution puppets. Well... using corpses in the cold storage to create execution puppets is definitely not something that can be publicized. But these corpses have been occupying the freezers and have been left unattended for several years or even more than ten years. Now that there is a way to dispose of them, it is not without benefit."

"Besides, the company paid..."

Using "idle corpses" as execution puppets is obviously not a good thing but certainly not a bad thing. Zhuang Xuteng can even understand why the company wants to keep it secret. Not everyone can understand that the execution puppet servants who walk around the house and work are made from corpses. There must also be many people who doubt whether the corpses of their parents and relatives who did not pay for cremation were made into execution puppets. , still can't find peace. There are a lot of ethical and living habits issues here, and they will all affect the execution of the puppet project and the company's profits.

Zhuang Xuteng withdrew his thoughts, focused on manipulating the tentacles of the resentful spirit, and began to rummage through the crematorium's office. He tries to find out from the files where the bodies were transported, or to find the "partner" who paid for the crematorium, but before he can find the answer, the loser in the card game returns to the office and interrupts his search.

Those people were having a heated discussion about the card-playing strategy just now, and they probably wouldn't leave for a while. Zhuang Xuteng looked at the time, it was almost the agreed forty minutes, and left the same way. He returned to the car first, and after a while Mike came out of the funeral home.

"I didn't pay attention before. I really didn't know that the fees here were so expensive." Mike saw Zhuang Xuteng in the back car. He closed the door and said, "I feel bad about these people. They don't seem to respect the feelings of the relatives of the deceased. , I only focus on talking about business. Alas, talking about money really hurts my feelings. But having said that, apart from the fact that the people here are not very good, I didn’t find anything unusual."

"The cold storage at the crematorium was basically empty, and there were no corpses in it. I found that they sold all the corpses and made a lot of money, but I haven't had time to find out who they sold them to. If I want to continue tracing, I must Wait until they get off work and go in after dark.”

"Selling corpses? To people who remove implants? Shouldn't organs be harvested from these corpses in cold storage?"

"Use it to make execution puppets." Zhuang Xuteng said: "Your informant said that this place is related to public work points and execution puppet projects. The role that the corpse can play in this is to create execution puppets."

Mike tilted his head and thought for a while, then expressed his different opinions: "At first glance, it sounds very related, but all execution puppets - within the same type - have the same height and weight. It may not be exactly the same, but the error It’s very small, which is very inconsistent with the condition of a corpse, isn’t it?”

Zhuang Xuteng nodded and admitted that what Mike said made sense.

"Male and female, old and young, tall, short, fat, thin, black and white, yellow and red, as well as bald and long hair... there are too many characteristics of the human body. If the corpse is disassembled and inserted into implants to make an execution puppet, the execution puppet will not look like Now it’s a series and there are standards.”

"Mike, there may be other processes here, which may not be as simple as you said: dismantling, stuffing, and sewing." Zhuang Xuteng said: "I don't see the company's equipment and strength here, which means the company does not I think this place is important, but I’m afraid I don’t think what happens here can affect them. If you want to find the company’s pain points, you need to continue digging for clues.”

"Well, you're right." Mike nodded.

"But why should I dig it down? Where the body goes will only embarrass the company and not bring any benefit to me. If the company knows that I have this information, they will kill me instead of doing business with me."

Mike thought about it and had to admit that Zhuang Xuteng was right. "Nike, is this the only clue among a bunch of codes? Is this the only one among them that cannot be used to make money?"

"Haha, that makes sense. Let's go to the next location: the Manson Lighting Factory in the old industrial area. At least there are no corpses in the lighting factory, right? Do you know the road?"

"I know, I've been there, I just joined the PCPD." Mike nodded and started the car.

"From now on, don't talk about joining the PCPD. All content related to your past cannot be mentioned again. In addition, you also need to develop a habit: when someone asks you a question, you only need the simplest answer. Don't say Don’t add unnecessary details to irrelevant things.”

"I understand, I will keep it in mind." Mike solemnly promised.

It was lunch time when they drove to the lighting factory. A dozen workers walked into the breakroom in groups, looking for the lunch boxes they had brought. The company's production line has not stopped, the machines are still roaring, and the execution of the puppets does not require a lunch break. As long as the batteries on their bodies are not empty, they can continue to work.

It can work continuously for 48 hours after charging for three hours. If it can be used and charged at any time, there is no need to leave the workplace. What capitalist would not like such a "worker"? The number of employees in the production positions of the lighting factory has been reduced from the original 3,780 to the current 27. These 27 people either have a full set of engineering skills and maintenance capabilities, or they are process designers who cannot be replaced by execution puppets. position.

Those who were expelled had public work stations to take over them, which was equivalent to a backstop and could protect their lives. In fact, the situation was much better than what Zhuang Xuteng had to face when he was expelled.

The two men investigated the factory from different directions. They opened their eyes wide but could not find any clues. This is a lighting factory. In addition to producing neon lights, spotlights and various lighting fixtures for daily use, its only connection with public work sites is the mass production of advertising light boards. After the application for a public work site is approved, its decoration style needs to be consistent, especially when it comes to exterior decoration, unified logos, lighting atmosphere, advertising and publicity words must be used. The interior decoration style doesn't need to be uniform, as long as it doesn't make it spooky.