But he still didn’t make any special moves and simply followed the thug to a small room in the basement of the mall.

The thug stopped at the door and said to Chen Ming, "The boss is waiting for you inside. I won’t go in, you take your time."

Chen Ming glanced at the thug and stood at the door until the thug’s expression gradually became tense, then he pushed the door open and went inside.

The thug outside immediately closed the door and promptly dropped to the ground.

A muffled, intense explosion sounded from inside the small room.

"Haha! Fool..."

The thug was just getting up from the ground, but didn’t finish his sentence.

An arm wrapped in nanorobots directly shattered the fragile wall after the explosion, and accurately grabbed his neck, cutting off the rest of his words.

While choking the thug, Chen Ming directly broke through the wall and walked out of the small room, with no injuries except for some explosion smoke.

Chen Ming casually flung the man into the air, where metal liquid seeped from deeper underground to instantly trap the thug, whose face had just been full of reckless glee.

And this scene unfolded throughout the entire mall simultaneously.

If it wasn’t because the metal liquid hadn’t fully permeated the entire mall, Chen Ming hadn’t fully confirmed the situation inside, he wouldn’t have bothered wasting time playing with these thugs.

Otherwise, if there was some special arrangement somewhere, and he acted prematurely causing someone to react desperately, it wouldn’t be good.

So Chen Ming preferred to endure for a while, delaying time so the metal liquid could completely seep through.

Now the situation was different.

Chen Ming had already assessed the entire situation inside the mall.

Almost everyone in the mall was being carried out wrapped in metal liquid, handcuffed and ankle-cuffed and then thrown on the ground outside.

Except for one person.

Chen Ming walked out from the small room in the basement corner, checked the direction, and then headed back to the previous staircase, making his way to the third floor of the abandoned mall.

Here was an office that originally belonged to mall staff, now transformed into a livable space.

And inside this room, there was another person.

The Vice Admiral’s illegitimate son.

He was tightly trapped in the chair by metal liquid.

He could only helplessly watch Chen Ming push the door open and casually rummage through his desk contents.

Chen Ming quickly found a terminal in a hidden compartment of a drawer and easily cracked the password, naturally revealing the communication messages between him and Zuo Jing to his eyes.

The situation was simple.

The illegitimate son, with a strained relationship with his biological father, was discovered by Zuo Jing, successfully indoctrinated into believing in Zuo Jing, assisting them in such deeds.

Though his relationship with his father was poor, it didn’t mean his father completely disregarded him.

The illegitimate son was at least still the Vice Admiral’s son, given enough to live decently well, and some authority he shouldn’t have had.

A few days ago, he followed Zuo Jing’s instructions and successfully stole those materials.

Completely unaware that these materials would greatly affect his future.

Once his father utterly fell from grace, how much better could an illegitimate son get?

Chen Ming shook his head, placed the terminal on the table, and said to the struggling illegitimate son, "Alright, you can talk about the rest with the others."

Chen Ming released him from the metal liquid restraints, but the son suddenly reached into his pocket and pressed a button on a remote control.

Yet nothing happened.

"What’s wrong? Is the device broken?"

Chen Ming sneered.

On his way here, he had gathered all the explosives with metal liquid and dismantled their triggering devices.

Even if he hadn’t dismantled them, Chen Ming had noticed the items on the Vice Admiral’s son when he controlled him, not even giving a chance for him to trigger an explosion.

However, he didn’t respond to Chen Ming, just kept desperately pressing the remote control buttons in his pocket.

"That’s enough."

Chen Ming couldn’t be bothered to watch him anymore, directly grabbed his neck and threw him out of the window to Bai Quan and the others who had just arrived.

Of course, Chen Ming didn’t go as far as to cause fatal harm, still catching him with metal liquid.

Standing in the shattered window, Chen Ming gave Bai Quan a thumbs up, signaling he would leave the rest to him.

Then he returned inside the room, continuing to check the contents on the terminal.

Looking to see more detailed indoctrination attempts of Zuo Jing on a wealthy young man living presumably quite comfortably.

But Chen Ming didn’t see the content he wanted, as the illegitimate son seemed to have a habit of regularly deleting messages.

Any messages from over a month ago were no longer there.

Yet, in one chat log, Chen Ming discovered a clue.

This chat log seemed to expose the location of a Zuo Jing-related base in nearby star systems, and it was a bona fide stronghold.

The people there were all Zuo Jing members.

It was an ecological observation station, located in orbit of a habitable planet.

Chen Ming, at first glance, almost mistook it for the place where he was previously ambushed by Zuo Jing Psychics, but on close inspection, realized it wasn’t.

This observation station was built on another similarly unexplored habitable planet.

This relatively isolated location was eventually infiltrated by Zuo Jing.

Chen Ming pondered for a moment and directly deleted this record.