Seeking a Pro

Others had thought of this too.

"Do we have data on everyone who entered the hardware store from when the first customer walked in yesterday morning to when the victims were discovered?" asked a capable-looking female pioneer in the queue.

"Yes," the guard nodded, pulling up a dozen or so photos in succession. "There were twenty-three people. We've been tracking them, but eleven have already gone off the radar."

"That many?"

Tu Ran followed the sound of the soft exclamation.

She wanted to see who had voiced her own thoughts.

Oh, it was a boy with delicate features, like a college student.

Sensing her gaze, the boy lowered his head awkwardly, his fingers fidgeting uneasily against his gun.

Definitely a young guy, getting embarrassed that easily.

Tu Ran had forgotten that her own body was that of a nineteen-year-old girl.

Before shifting her gaze away, she glanced at the name tag on his shoulder: Ding Naiqing.

The guard continued to zoom into other red-circled marks, each one a gruesome sight too painful to look at directly.

The victims' conditions were not uniform.

Some aliens preferred to feast on internal organs; the bodies they possessed would become uneven and hollow. Others liked to gnaw on bones, leaving their hosts as piles of mush. Still others had a taste for bodily fluids—blood, tissue fluid—and the corpses they inhabited would turn as brittle as dried sponges.

Some of the guards watching couldn't handle the intense visual shock and turned away, a few female officers even gagging.

Compared to them, the Pioneers remained as steady as old dogs.

Tu Ran felt a moment of relief. In her five years of university, she had seen plenty of anatomical specimens, many already dissected beyond recognition by seniors, not so different from the scenes before her.

Thanks to that pre-established psychological defense, she stood there as composed as the rest of the Pioneers.

This naturally earned the guards' respect for the legendary Pioneers.

"Given the current situation, tracking these aliens one by one won't be easy," the capable female pioneer spoke again.

She was subtly emerging as the temporary leader of the group.

Tu Ran didn't care who led. She just wanted to do her job, lie low, and stay alive.

She glanced at the name tag: Yao Bei.

Yao Bei's fingers moved swiftly across the light screen, pulling up a partial map.

Based on her earlier impression of the full map, Tu Ran judged this section to be in the southwest corner of Regaken State.

Yao Bei said, "This is the area our fourth group is responsible for. There are five locations where aliens have appeared. We need to conduct field investigations first. The five sites are scattered, and since we have ten people, we'll split into pairs, making five groups. Each group will take ten guards and pick one site to gather clues."

After laying out the plan, she looked at everyone. "Any other objections?"

"No."

"No."

Everyone shook their heads.

"Then pair up freely," Yao Bei said.

Tu Ran's eyes lit up. She wanted to be with Yao Bei.

One look was enough to tell that Yao Bei was an outstanding figure.

She needed to team up with a pro.

She had only taken two steps when an arm grabbed her.