Chapter 44: Take the item from the bag, the judgment has arrived!

Wei Re rubbed her sore eyes, boredom making her drowsy.
She leaned lazily against the stone lion outside the police station, clutching the tablet computer, its screen split into dozens of monotonous surveillance feeds.

A long-awaited holiday, and yet she’d been dragged around by missions since the afternoon.
First, that creepy abandoned greenhouse mission with Qingya, nearly getting caught by the police and almost taking the fall for those three scumbags.
Then an evening meeting.
Now, a late-night guard duty.
She counted on her fingers—her only bright spot today was sharing an ice cream cone with Qingya and hearing about her sweet little love story with Sister Xiaobai.
Beyond that, no fun at all.
What a pathetic holiday…
Wei Re puffed out her cheeks, letting out a long sigh.

Propping her chin, she yawned tiredly, stretched, and gazed at the dense crowd at the station’s entrance, her thoughts drifting.
Speaking of which, where was Qingya?
Had she received this annoying mandatory mission too?
Ever since she’d left saying she had “family matters,” she hadn’t contacted anyone or popped up in the group chat…
Was she off having a long phone call with her Sister Xiaobai?
Ugh, so jealous…
Wei Re sulked.
Hmph! Next time Qingya transformed into Magical Girl Snow White, she’d definitely ruffle those cat ears and tail to soothe her wounded heart…

She glanced at the time again.
23:52.
Eight minutes until midnight.
With such airtight defenses, how could that mysterious hacker pull off their vigilante justice?
It seemed like an impossible task…
Wei Re started mentally rehearsing how she’d “accidentally” let the hacker slip away if a confrontation happened…

Just then, Ling Lan’s urgent, pitch-shifted voice blared through her earpiece.
“Wei Re, Wei Re! Check the safe room’s surveillance! Those three scumbags are gone!”

What?!
Wei Re jolted, instantly awake, sleepiness banished.
She looked down, her fingers flying across the tablet to pull up the safe room’s feed, zooming it to full screen.
The screen showed only three bewildered officers and Xin Lü, standing quietly in the corner, equally stunned.
The three bullies—Zhang Biao, Li Qiang, and Ma Hua—who were supposed to be under strict guard…
They were really…
Gone, vanished into thin air!

Wei Re couldn’t believe her eyes.
She rubbed them hard, blinked, and scrutinized the screen several times, but the image didn’t change.
This wasn’t an illusion.

“Oh my God…”
She muttered, her voice thick with shock.
“How… how did they do it?”

Meanwhile, outside the safe room in the corridor, Ling Lan and several officers rushed in the moment they got the news.
The scene before them matched the surveillance perfectly.
An empty room, containing only their own people—nothing else.
The three boys had truly disappeared.

“Xin Lü, what happened?” Ling Lan strode to Xin Lü’s side, her voice low and urgent.

Xin Lü’s face still held traces of unshaken shock. She shook her head, her voice shaky.
“I don’t know. It all happened too fast…”
“I didn’t sense anything. The door wasn’t opened, and no one broke in.”
“They just… evaporated, one after another, gone in an instant!”
Recalling the eerie scene, she added, “Zhang Biao disappeared first, then Li Qiang less than two seconds later, and finally Ma Hua… all within five seconds.”

Through the earpiece, Jin Ling listened to Xin Lü’s report with a calm expression.
At the words “vanished into thin air,” a cryptic smile crept onto her sharp-featured face.
She couldn’t help but murmur in approval.
“Not bad at all.”
Now they really couldn’t be blamed for failing.
With defenses this tight, and the targets simply vanishing, what could they do?
Sigh, they tried their best.
This time’s half-hearted effort was the most satisfying mission failure she’d ever experienced.
But for now, it was just these scumbags disappearing.
What would this mysterious hacker do next?
Jin Ling glanced out at the deep night beyond the window, her curiosity growing.
This was getting exciting…

Time ticked by, second by second.
At 23:54, a piercing cry suddenly erupted from the dense crowd surrounding the station.
“Everyone, check your phones! Look at your phones!”
“The livestream! It’s starting!!”

The shout detonated the scene.
The already buzzing crowd exploded into chaos.
Everyone instinctively pulled out their phones, lighting up their screens.
The forced livestream window once again hijacked every device!
The same chilling black background filled the screen.
The blurred white silhouette, formed of pure data noise, hovered silently in the center.
The only difference this time was the three boys—recently vanished from the police station’s safe room—slumped unconscious behind the figure like dead dogs.
Zhang Biao, Li Qiang, and Ma Hua!

The cold, synthesized voice rang clearly through every phone’s speaker, echoing across Gan City’s night sky.

“Hello, everyone. We meet again.”
“As you can see, I’ve brought these ‘young friends’ out of the police station.”
“The station is a place to uphold order. I don’t want their presence wasting precious public resources.”
“So, I’ll handle their education myself.”

The words sent the internet into a frenzy!
The livestream’s comment section erupted with bullet comments flying across the screen!
The crowd at the station’s entrance roared with tsunami-like fervor!

“Holy crap! Badass!!!”
“A god! This is a god descending to earth!”
“Flawless work! Bro, I’m sending you rockets!”

Inside the police command center, everyone was losing it.
“Quick! Contact the platform! Shut down the livestream now!”
“Report! The platform says there’s no data on this livestream in their backend! We can’t track it or shut it down!”

This news sent a chill down every tech officer’s spine.
Earlier, they’d tried using cutting-edge tech to run AI-enhanced restoration on the livestream screenshots, hoping to reconstruct the white silhouette’s appearance.
The results were predictable—every attempt failed.
The moment their tools touched the image, they malfunctioned, and several top-tier devices even crashed and burned out.
Not to mention, they couldn’t fathom how someone could silently abduct three living people from a heavily guarded safe room in mere seconds.
Until now, they were utterly powerless against this mysterious “hacker”!
Initially, they’d thought this was just a highly skilled hacker.
But now, they realized this person—or entity—wielded power far beyond their comprehension.
Some officers were even starting to think in terms of ghosts and gods…

Before they could recover from this overwhelming fear and helplessness, the white silhouette on the screen spoke again.
Its voice remained cold but carried a majestic declaration of final judgment.

“Time’s almost up. I’m sure you’re all getting impatient.”
“Ladies and gentlemen…”
“The trial begins now.”