Chapter 475: Chapter 174: Cat and Mouse, the Embarrassed Mu Shuang! (Part 2)

"Then you’ll find out soon enough."

"So confident?"

"If you were dead set on just running, I wouldn’t be sure I could get you. But you just have to go stick your head out and play face-to-face with Inspector Cheng..."

The two of them chatted on and off.

Suddenly, Jiang Chuan turned the binoculars, the lens locking firmly onto a transport truck driving in from the distance. "He’s here. Get yourself ready."

"He’s here?" Mu Shuang immediately stood up and went to the gap in the curtains to look outside.

A military-green transport truck stopped in the open space at the community gate, and Cheng Ye opened the door and climbed down.

"Alright, just sit back and watch my performance from here on."

...

"Sir, Prey No. 5 went upstairs and hasn’t appeared again since."

Cheng Ye had just parked the transport truck at the street corner when Long hurried over, speaking in a low voice as he reported.

"What floor is she on?"

"No idea. She used to live on the fifth floor of Building 3, Unit 2. Today she went to Building 7, Unit 1, and hasn’t gone back."

Following the direction of Long’s finger, Cheng Ye raised his head and looked at the cluster of residential buildings not far away, his brows lightly furrowing.

"To avoid alerting her, the brothers only dared to lie in wait at the community entrance. We saw her go into Building 7, but which apartment she went up to, we haven’t figured out yet."

Long continued explaining.

Cheng Ye nodded slightly, his gaze sweeping across the entire community.

This was the C11 area, close to the South Suburb, exactly five and a half blocks from B7.

Unlike the tube-shaped dorm buildings at the electronics factory, this community was clearly a newer development built after the millennium.

Inside, it was no longer made up of single rooms, but layouts like one-bedroom apartments, two-bedroom apartments, and so on.

A dozen or so residential buildings were crammed together, some standing right along the street, fitted with separate iron doors mottled with rust.

Some were hidden deeper inside the compound, with two unit blocks joined back-to-back, the wall paint peeling and exposing the red bricks beneath.

"How many people live here?"

"At least over four thousand," Long answered. "It’s one of the largest communities in the Buffer Zone. Inside there are not only residents, but also quite a few small workshops and grocery shops. A lot of them are old-timers from the early days of Happiness City. The stairwells are piled with clutter, twists and turns everywhere. She chose this place for a reason—because it’s hard to be found."

"But although the terrain here is messy, internally it’s also formed its own community management. The constraints aren’t that strict, but during the last infection tide, this was likewise one of the first areas to organize a militia."

Hearing Long say this, Cheng Ye immediately had a clear idea in his mind.

This place absolutely couldn’t be taken by force.

Even if most people were at work right now, there were still plenty of elderly, children, and housewives in the community. If they rushed in to grab someone, it would definitely cause chaos.

If the other side were driven into a corner and started shooting wildly in such a densely populated residential area, the consequences would be unimaginable.

"Long, this place is too complicated. No forced entry. We have to think of a way to force her out."

After watching for a few minutes, Cheng Ye quickly formed a plan in his head.

He wasn’t a professional criminal investigator, but he’d seen plenty of arrest scenes in movies. It all boiled down to exploiting information gaps and playing psychological games.

Either you lock down and isolate, lay in ambush and wait for the rabbit, or you go door to door probing until you pinpoint the target.

Or else you deliberately leak certain information to lure the other side into taking the bait.

When dealing with the previous four, these were the same "clumsy" methods he’d used, and they had worked remarkably well.

Only with Wang Qing did things almost backfire—she caught on early and slipped away. But that woman wasn’t familiar with the Buffer Zone’s terrain, and in the end Long still easily took her down in the shantytown.

"Force her out?" Long nodded repeatedly. "Same as last time, going door to door ’delivering warmth’?"

"Mm..."

Cheng Ye shook his head lightly, then asked, "No. 5 is a woman?"

"Yeah! We’ve tailed her for days. Even if she deliberately lets her hair down as a disguise, from her build she’s definitely female."

"What about age?"

"No idea, never seen her face."

"Alright, then we’ll change tactics."

Cheng Ye smiled, a hint of slyness flashing in his eyes. "Go to a grocery store and buy thirty washbasins and a hundred towels, plus some other household items. Get more. I’m going to run a charity event in this community."

"Mm, as for the money..." Cheng Ye made a show of reaching for his wallet.

But Long quickly waved his hands. "Sir, the money we found on those four is still untouched. That’s more than enough to buy this stuff!"

"Good. If it’s not enough, come back to me."

Cheng Ye nodded.

In the few minutes he’d been standing outside the community, he hadn’t felt any line of sight from No. 5.

Either she was completely off guard and hadn’t realized he was here, or... she’d already made her preparations!

But that didn’t matter. What he wanted was to startle the snake, make her panic first.

Once the snake started moving, the flaws would show themselves, and grabbing her would be much easier then.

The thousand Happiness Coins confiscated from the four were finally put to use. Long quickly led people back with four big sacks of daily necessities.

"Lay everything out and sort it, and have people maintain order."

Cheng Ye ordered, "Find a few loud voices to go around the community shouting: ’Checkpoint doing charity, handing out supplies to women who stay behind. Bring your ID badge to collect. First come, first served. When it’s over, it’s over.’"

After he spoke, he added, "Send people up to the rooftop of the neighboring building, to stop her from slipping away via the roofs. Post people at the entrance of her unit building, and keep them sharp. Anyone who comes downstairs, ask her the market price of those daily items. Anyone who can’t answer..."

"Got it!"

Long moved at once, spreading out the washbasins, towels, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, skincare oil, and other items on the open ground, then found four militia members with booming voices to walk the community shouting the message on a loop.

During working hours, most of those left in the community were elderly people, children, and housewives. When they heard about free supplies, quite a few immediately stuck their heads out the windows, and when they saw the items laid out on the ground, they were all the more delighted.