"Shimmer?"
Vi recognized it at a glance and spoke in surprise.
There were five vials of Shimmer in the sewer. Two of them had shattered, and the Shimmer inside had flowed off somewhere unknown.
The other three looked perfectly intact, flickering with purple light under their gazes.
"Clearly, this is what we missed."
Caitlyn's gaze sharpened. She felt as if the fog had suddenly lifted. The part that she had not been able to explain earlier now made sense.
The two of them immediately retrieved the three vials of Shimmer from the sewer.
"Judging from how new or old the bag is, someone was trying to transport these vials of Shimmer somewhere within the past few days."
Caitlyn analyzed the situation calmly.
Vi raised her head from her thoughts and said, "There have indeed been some bold idiots taking risks lately and secretly selling Shimmer. Although Silco's factory was destroyed, these drugs don't seem to have left the market."
After the Shimmer factory was destroyed and Shimmer was listed as a banned drug, the purple substance had indeed mostly disappeared.
But it still quietly appeared on the market, as if there were no way to completely cut off its source.
Caitlyn asked, "What's the price like?"
"Several times higher than before. Even this little vial of Shimmer can sell for a lot of money."
Vi picked up one of the vials and stared at it for a few seconds.
"Logically speaking, something this valuable shouldn't have been thrown away in the sewer like this."
Caitlyn lowered her head slightly again and continued analyzing. "Judging from the fact that we found it, the person who discarded it doesn't seem to have any intention of coming back for it..."
"You mean?"
Vi also realized something at that moment, and her expression turned cold. "I'll go find Miranda and ask her exactly what's going on."
There was only one possibility now. Someone had smuggled Shimmer through this alley.
Either Miranda, or someone else.
And it had happened within these two days!
Zaunites valued profit above all. If someone had accidentally lost such an important piece of property, they would definitely come back to look for it instead of leaving it there.
Clearly, there was something going on here.
As for what exactly was going on, they only needed to bring Miranda over and ask.
With the evidence in hand, Miranda had no room to argue.
Very soon, Miranda was called over. Vi did not stand on ceremony and directly took out the Shimmer, questioning her coldly. "You should recognize this, right?"
"Shimmer?"
Naturally, there was no way Miranda would not recognize it. She was still somewhat confused and did not know what was happening.
"Good. Now answer one question for me." Vi slowly stepped forward, closing in on her, an aura spreading from her whole body. "Are your people privately selling these vials of Shimmer?"
As soon as she heard this, Miranda's expression changed drastically. She immediately shook her head and denied it. "How is that possible? Shimmer is a banned drug now. My gang doesn't make money off this kind of thing. Why would I take that kind of risk over just a few vials of Shimmer? Someone must be trying to frame me."
She felt as though everything had been going wrong lately. Not only had two lackeys died on her turf, but now Shimmer had been found there too.
After carefully observing her expression, Vi confirmed that Miranda was not lying.
First, the logic itself made sense.
The Gray Nails did not make their money by smuggling contraband, and Miranda truly had no reason to take that kind of risk for a mere few vials of Shimmer.
In other words, unless the Gray Nails' lackeys had acted recklessly on their own, this meant there was someone else privately selling banned drugs.
"Putting aside the first possibility, the only lead we can count on right now is the second one."
After thinking it through, Caitlyn said, "This is also the only lead we can investigate for now. We need to figure out where these vials of Shimmer came from, and we need to be fast. I suspect that on the night the two victims were killed, there was a third person present. Only, she wasn't killed and managed to escape."
"All right. Wait for me." Vi nodded with a grave expression, then turned and left.
She knew she could not rely solely on Caitlyn. As the person in charge of the undercity, she had to do her part too.
The only thing they had to do right now was find out where these vials of Shimmer had come from.
Miranda was especially furious at the moment as well, and she also wanted to catch the bastard who had dared to privately sell banned drugs on her turf.
So she immediately went to give orders to her subordinates and began investigating too.
At this moment, Vi's anger was far from small. She went straight to the black market and smashed the place up.
The black market was where goods that usually could not be seen on the open market were sold, and there had always been rules here that everyone tacitly recognized and followed.
Vi had not placed too many restrictions on this place.
Because that would be no different from cutting off the livelihood of many Zaunites. Zaun was different from a normal city. In a sense, it was a city that had been "abandoned."
Its resources had dried up, and there was the City of Progress sitting above its head. Yet even in this environment, the people of Zaun still supported themselves and lived better and better.
And the black market was where many people profited. By now, the black market also had no small amount of influence.
But right now, Vi, who was especially pissed off, chose to flip the table outright.
The people of the black market clearly did not see her as an authority figure. Since that was the case, what was there to talk about?
Whatever needed to be said, she would punch first and ask afterward!
In truth, even the black market was afraid of a pair of unreasonable iron fists.
And those with good instincts could indeed tell that Vi was truly angry this time.
At a time like this, whoever dared to get on her bad side could only consider themselves unlucky.
Vi's instincts proved correct. This batch of Shimmer had indeed come from the black market. Although there was no way to know where it had been produced, it was still possible to find out whose hands it had flowed into.
So very quickly, following the lead, Vi found Doral hiding in the slums of the undercity.
Doral was an independent operator and did not belong to any gang.
When Vi found him, he was lying on his bed and sleeping soundly. After being startled awake, he was scared stupid on the spot.
"Doral, I know you. A famous junkie around these parts. You sure made me do a lot of looking."
Wearing a pair of Hextech gauntlets, Vi walked toward Doral with a cold expression.
"W-what did I do?"
Doral was so frightened that he scrambled and crawled backward. Perhaps because he knew why Vi had come, his forehead was already covered in cold sweat. He leaned against the wall, trembling.
Vi, however, was not polite. She lifted one gauntlet and pressed it down on Doral's arm. As she began to apply force, Doral immediately sucked in a breath from the pain, cold sweat pouring down his head.
"You should be able to tell that I'm in a really bad mood right now, so cut the crap."
Vi applied more force bit by bit, even hearing the creak of bone. She asked, "I'll give you a hint. Those vials of Shimmer. Tell me something I'm interested in."
Doral was in so much pain he was about to scream. He was already a pale-faced junkie to begin with, and now his face turned waxen white, making him look no different from a corpse.
"I'll talk, I'll talk! Please, let go first! It hurts so much I'm going to die!"
Tears streamed from the pain. He did not hold out for even a moment before deciding to confess everything.
Vi released her hand and said nothing, waiting for Doral to confess on his own.
"I really only got greedy for a moment..."
Doral still wanted to defend himself with a few words, but when he saw Vi's expression turn cold, he quickly shrank into the corner. "A girl! That girl!"
Vi's eyes flickered slightly. "Explain properly. What girl?"
"I bought those vials of Shimmer from the black market at a low price. If I resold them, I could make a good profit. But I didn't dare sell them directly, so I found a girl from the civilian district whose mother was sick. I told her that as long as she delivered the Shimmer to the designated location, she'd get a sum of money."
"But I didn't expect something like that to happen."
"The next day, people died, and the whole thing caused such a big commotion. I was scared, so I've been hiding here this whole time."
Doral practically poured everything out in one breath. Judging from his expression, he truly was afraid.
After all, this was smuggling banned drugs. If he was caught, he would be sent straight to prison.
He had not even dared to look for that girl, let alone the whereabouts of those vials of Shimmer.
"That really sounds like something a junkie would do, finding some clueless girl to handle this kind of thing."
The contempt and disdain on Vi's face were almost overflowing. She looked down on people like Doral the most.
Usually, she would have beaten him half to death already, but now she suspected this guy would not be able to survive a beating from her.
He was still useful right now, so Vi raised her hand and grabbed Doral as if she were picking up a chick. "Take me to find that girl."
"O-okay..."
Doral did not dare refuse at all.
Before going to find that girl, Vi first went to Caitlyn and called her along.
From Doral's description, it could already be confirmed that there had indeed been a third person that night, and that person was the girl.
She must have seen something.
With Doral leading the way, they headed to the civilian district.
Zaun's civilian district was not small. After all, most of Zaun's people lived there. There was also a gap between rich and poor in this area, but it was also a place full of dreams.
Many of Zaun's current wealthy big shots had come from the civilian district.
When Doral brought Vi and the others to find the girl, she was hanging freshly washed clothes on a rack.
When she saw them, she froze at once.
After coming back to her senses, the girl immediately lowered her head. "Please let me off this time. I didn't know there were banned drugs in that bag. I just had no other choice at the time..."
"Relax. We're not here to arrest you."
Seeing the girl's dejected mood, Vi spoke in a gentle tone.
The girl raised her head, her eyes filled with confusion. She had indeed thought these people had come to arrest her because of what had happened that night.
"I hope you can calmly describe what you saw that night."
Vi looked at the girl and said, "There's something you don't know. Four people died that night, and four more died the next day. We're currently tracking down the killer."
"Ah..."
The girl was startled. When she thought of eight lives disappearing just like that, the werewolf's face and her own experience that night quickly flashed through her mind.
When she heard that they wanted to catch the werewolf who had saved her, her instinct was not to tell them.
"I didn't see anything."
The girl's eyes darted away. Clearly, she did not know how to lie, or perhaps her nervousness had betrayed her.
The more she acted like this, the more convinced Vi and Caitlyn became that she had definitely seen the killer.
"Listen, we don't mean any harm. But this involves eight lives. Whether the killer is good or bad, we need to understand him. If he's a psychopathic killer, then sooner or later, more innocent people will die because of him."
Vi spoke to the girl with a serious expression.
The girl blurted out in denial, "He won't."
Vi immediately pressed her. "What won't he do?"
The girl knew she could not hide it, so she lowered her head and said, "I think he won't hurt innocent people. Otherwise, I would have died that night too."
Caitlyn's eyes flashed. She asked, "You mean the killer? What exactly happened that night?"
"That night, I walked into the alley..."
The girl skipped over the details of meeting Doral and started directly from when she entered the alley.
She explained that she had soon run into the blond man and the black-haired man, and that the two had forced her into a corner.
When she reached this part, the girl's mood clearly sank further. Her lips trembled, and her eyes grew wet. She said with a faint sob, "They... wanted... wanted to..."
"All right. It's okay. We understand."
Caitlyn stepped forward and gently hugged the girl, comforting her.
She and Vi could naturally already tell what the girl had gone through that night.
A young girl in the prime of her youth had nearly been brutally violated by two gang thugs.
At this moment, a vicious coldness flashed through Vi's eyes as well. This was the kind of thing she hated the most.
Right now, anger continuously surged inside Vi's chest.
After the girl's emotions were soothed, she continued, "Then he appeared."
"He?"
"Mm. He had a pair of red eyes. At first glance, he was very frightening. He suddenly appeared out of the gray haze, and once he revealed himself, they were scared too."
The girl skipped over the experience she did not want to recall, then continued describing a scene she would never forget.
"He was very tall, and his body was covered in fur. His face looked like a wolf's, but he could stand like a human. On his back and body, there were some... chemical pumps and tubes..."
The girl slowly described him according to her impression.
Caitlyn and Vi quickly pieced together an image in their minds. They exchanged a glance.
Vi asked, somewhat uncertain, "You're saying he was a werewolf?"
Caitlyn had played Werewolf before, and had also seen the werewolves His Highness described. They were almost exactly the same as what the girl was describing.
And a werewolf was easy to imagine. It looked like a wolf on the outside but acted like a human.
A creature like that had appeared in Zaun?
This made it somewhat impossible for the two of them to believe the girl's words. They felt the girl was very likely protecting the killer.
After all, if not for him, she would have fallen victim to the black-haired man and the blond man.
When the girl looked up and saw the faint suspicion in their eyes, she wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. "I know you think I'm lying, but that really is what I saw."
No matter what, they would listen to the end before drawing a conclusion.
Caitlyn asked, "And after that?"
"After that, the black-haired man got scared and fired three shots at him. He didn't dodge or avoid them, but he seemed to be angered. He let out a howl, scaring them so much that they turned and ran. The black-haired man pushed me down, and then he slowly walked toward me..."
When the girl reached this part, she was not afraid anymore.
As the two listened to her description, anger inevitably rose in their hearts. At a time like that, the black-haired man's sinister intent was obvious without needing to guess.
"I was so scared at the time that I didn't dare move, and then I closed my eyes. But after waiting for a while, I opened my eyes and saw him standing not far away, watching me. It was as if he was checking whether I was all right."
"After seeing that I was fine, he spoke. He told me to leave quickly, then chased after those two without looking back."
"I don't know what happened after that. I ran all the way home."
The girl recalled the details of that night, remembering the human look in the werewolf's eyes when they parted for the last time.
A touch of warmth still stirred in her heart.
Because she knew that although the werewolf looked frightening, he had not meant to hurt her.
So he was definitely not the kind of person Vi and Caitlyn had described, some psychopath or someone who liked killing innocents indiscriminately.
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