Chapter 26

Wu Peng saw the number displayed on the radiation detector suddenly soar to 500.

He started to sweat slightly on his forehead. He could only hope that the law enforcer’s anti-radiation gear was of good enough quality. Otherwise, he would either be killed or handicapped if he was exposed to such a high level of radiation.

He turned around and headed to Ye Wei’s side. Ye Wei was still trying to find fingerprints that were left behind with her magnifying glass.

Wu Peng patted her shoulder and pointed toward the hidden compartment in the wall.

Ye Wei arrived in front of the hidden compartment and looked at the silvery-white powder inside. “You have good observation skills. To think that you would notice the hidden compartment. Stay by my side and be my assistant in the future.”

Wu Peng felt that the situation was funny but did not dare to speak. He could only nod as hard as possible.

Ye Wei observed it for a moment and reached out to touch the powder. Wu Peng quickly hugged her tightly from behind.

“What are you doing?!” Ye Wei was both shocked and furious. When did such a brazen person enter the law enforcement unit?

Wu Peng could not care about hiding his identity any longer and scolded with a deep voice, “Do you not want your life anymore? That’s a highly radioactive substance, radium!”

Ye Wei was startled when she heard that the silvery-white powder was radium.

She immediately recognized Wu Peng’s voice. “Wu Peng? How did you get in here?”

“Now’s not the time to talk about that. Let’s head out quickly. The radioactive properties of radium are too powerful. We need specialized equipment to store it,” Wu Peng explained quickly.

Ye Wei also knew how serious the situation was and got everyone to retreat out of the shelter immediately.

“Why would there be radium in a personal shelter? Could that be the reason why they were killed?” Ye Wei started to analyze the case as she stood outside the shelter.

She had a law enforcer notify the chemical defense team to deal with the radium in the shelter.

The radioactive index in the shelter dropped considerably after the chemical defense team transported the radium away.

They searched the shelter for a little while longer and confirmed that they had not missed any clues and moved the three corpses onto a vehicle and returned to the base of the law enforcers.

The autopsy report was produced quickly. Judging from their ages, they must have been a family of three.

Ye Wei managed to identify them after their fingerprints were uploaded into the network.

“Victim Ma Ming, age 55, was a chemistry professor in a university. The government had once invited him to enter the official shelter but he was unwilling to be separated from his family and chose to build a personal shelter. The other two victims were his wife and son.” Ye Wei explained the societal relations of the three victims clearly. She concluded that the enemy might have been eying the radium that Ma Ming was hiding.

That substance was valuable even before the apocalypse. One gram of radium could easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Its value would be even greater in a post-apocalyptic world where resources were scarce.

“I think that this is a murder for the radium.” Wu Peng knitted his brows after he heard Ye Wei’s analysis. He kept feeling that something was off.

If the other party’s goal was to steal the radium, they would not kill Ma Ming and his family before they got the radium.

At the very least, the culprit would have kidnapped Ma Ming’s son and used him as a hostage. Even though radium was extremely valuable, Ma Ming clearly valued his family more since he gave up a spot in an official shelter for his family. He would have been capable of exchanging the radium for his son’s life.

However, judging from the situation, the other party chose to silence Ma Ming and his family. It did not look like the culprit had gone there for the radium.

An entire family silenced, to steal radium? Elsa’s face suddenly flashed past Wu Peng’s mind.

“Could this be Viper’s doing? If the other party had not gone for the radium, then their target must be something more important. It was definitely the crystallized meteorite!” Wu Peng felt more and more certain about his guess. Both the modus operandi and how merciless the culprit had been fit Viper’s description.

Wu Peng headed over to Ye Wei’s office after he finished analyzing the case. “Captain Ye, I want to ask you about something.”

This was the first time Ye Wei had seen Wu Peng this polite. She subconsciously nodded.

“Are there any official findings regarding the meteorite that fell on Jiang City?” Wu Peng asked.

“The findings are top secret. Even I don’t have the authority to ask about that. I only know that the government had specially sent a few law enforcers to guard the meteorite,” Ye Wei said.

“What you mean is that the people guarding the meteorite are not law enforcers from Jiang City but a special batch of people?” Wu Peng asked, intrigued by her response and his mind began to churn manically.

“That’s right.” Ye Wei confirmed his suspicion.

It seemed like the meteorite had special value. The government was afraid that news about the meteorite would leak out and did not mobilize Ye Wei’s men.

Seeing that Wu Peng had slipped into deep thought, Ye Wei asked curiously, “Why do you have a sudden interest in the meteorite?”

Wu Peng did not answer her directly, “Do you know that the meteor had split into many fragments when it fell initially?”

“Of course. The government ordered the law enforcers to search for these fragments. The people who managed to find the fragments and hand it over to them would receive a reward,” Ye Wei said.

“Then what if I said that Viper is also searching for these meteorite fragments?” Wu Peng asked.

Ye Wei immediately stood up when she heard that. There was a sharp gaze in her eyes, “What do you know? Say it, quick!”

“It’s nothing special. I was walking around two days ago when I saw a bunch of people dressed like Viper stealing a meteorite fragment from a nearby resident.” Wu Peng hid half the truth. He deliberately left Elsa out of the story.

Ye Wei slapped the table with force after she heard what Wu Peng said. “Why did you not tell me such an important piece of information earlier?!”

Wu Peng quickly gave an apologetic smile and said, “Tell me, why would the culprit kill the chemistry professor before he got what he wanted? Could there be any other motive?”

With Ye Wei’s intellect, she quickly understood what Wu Peng meant. She immediately got the people who examined the corpses to do the autopsy again. She specifically requested for the bullet wounds to be examined against the guns used by Viper.

Ye Wei awaited the results while Wu Peng returned to his shelter.

If everything was as he expected, then Ma Ming and his family must have been killed by Viper.

What he did not understand was why Viper wanted the crystallized meteorite.

Unfortunately, Wu Peng would not be able to understand the situation even if he thought about it alone for a year. He needed to capture a member of Viper alive.

Since Viper was eying the meteorite fragments, he would be able to track the other party’s movements if he continued to monitor the location where the meteorite had landed.

Wu Peng immediately proceeded with his plan and sent the Bird out to monitor the location where the meteorite had landed.

Elsa saw that Wu Peng was gone for the entire day and had become busy the moment he returned.

She quickly prepared a spread of food and did not dare speak to him while he was busy, and only called out to him when it was time to eat. “Brother Peng, dinner is ready!”

Wu Peng put down his phone after he heard Elsa. He had been concentrating on steering the Bird and was starving.

He could not help but praise her when he saw the fragrant dishes on the table, “It’s nice to have a woman at home.”

Elsa immediately let out a radiant smile after she got praised, “It’s good that you like it, Brother Peng.”

The two of them chatted over dinner. Wu Peng felt comforted when he saw that Elsa had stepped out of her grief.

…

Wu Peng monitored the area for a few consecutive days with the Bird but, unfortunately, he did not obtain any useful information.

Instead, the system rewarded him with 1000 points for saving Ye Wei and the law enforcers from the radiation.