Jiang Baimian was speechless and could only point forward:
“Let’s continue.”
She drove the rented car to the end of the alley and then found someone else there for Shang Jianyao to question.
After confirmation, the man wearing sunglasses had been appearing in this alley for the past few days, always turning right at the end.
Once Shang Jianyao returned to the car, Jiang Baimian turned the steering wheel to the right.
However, after the vehicle entered another street, she didn't rush to chase after him. Instead, she slowed down until she found a place to park.
After waiting for a while, Jiang Baimian picked up the walkie-talkie:
“Any unusual activity from the two people who were questioned earlier?”
“No,” Long Yuehong’s voice came through the walkie-talkie. “They are all normal, doing their own things. None of them are trying to transmit information.”
“Very good,” Jiang Baimian praised. “Don't we have some surveillance cameras? Find a place to install them to monitor these two targets in place of you.”
After putting down the walkie-talkie, she restarted the car and continued tracking down the street.
Along the way, Shang Jianyao got out of the car to ask people multiple times. Although most of the time it was in vain, they still managed to lock onto the black-sunglassed man’s trail by relying on the few useful 'witnesses'.
On the other side, the small team consisting of Long Yuehong, Bai Chen, and Genaeva was secretly observing the people in this area, including, but not limited to, those who had been questioned by Shang Jianyao, and those who could hear the conversations and see the scenes around them.
About an hour later, the 'Old Task Force's' rented car stopped near a six-story old building.
Sitting in the driver's seat, Jiang Baimian looked at the building, recalling whether she had misjudged the direction along the way.
After confirming that it was correct, she pointed at the dilapidated building common in the Green Olive District and said:
“Based on the current intelligence, the target lives here.
“The exact floor and room still need further investigation.”
Shang Jianyao pondered for a while and said:
“You definitely didn't get lost.”
Jiang Baimian wanted to refute, but couldn't find sufficiently strong words.
Shang Jianyao turned his gaze to the side window and offered his suggestion:
“I’ll ask someone when they come out.”
Jiang Baimian didn't answer immediately, and only said after a while:
“Don't be in such a hurry.”
She turned her head to look at Shang Jianyao:
“Don't you think we found him too easily?”
Before the operation today, she always thought that this time she would only gain something, find some clues, but who knew that she would directly lock onto the target's place of residence.
The honest Shang Jianyao smiled and said:
“Maybe he doesn’t know that O’Dick is repeating the scene he saw in the nightmare even when he’s mad, and he doesn't know that Lao Ge can directly discover that his eyes are different sizes 'through' the sunglasses.
“Without these two premises, even if he appeared directly in front of us, we wouldn't think there was anything wrong with him.
“Under such circumstances, who would bother doing so many unnecessary things to cover up their tracks?”
I would… Jiang Baimian replied in her heart, and said helplessly:
“Basic anti-tracking still needs to be done.”
“You have to say that to him,” Shang Jianyao spread his hands.
Jiang Baimian glanced at this guy:
“In short, we can't go up there so recklessly.
“Um… let’s do some observation on the periphery for a while first.”
She picked up the walkie-talkie again:
“Lao Ge, install the remaining surveillance cameras around the target building to monitor the situation here.
“Little Red and Little White, find a rental house more than three hundred meters away, within signal receiving range.
“This monitoring is initially set for three days.”
After giving the order, Jiang Baimian looked at Shang Jianyao again:
“Why aren’t you objecting?”
Shang Jianyao raised his hand and stroked his chin, smiling as he said:
“This is the most reasonable and cautious process, why should I object?
“The one who proposed that just now has been subdued by the other me.”
The reckless one was controlled? Jiang Baimian was both gratified and amazed by the way Shang Jianyao and the others got along.
After Genaeva and the others' hidden efforts, the 'Old Task Force' used high-tech products to set up surveillance of the target building.
They then retreated to a rental house 900 meters away in a straight line.
—Within this range, Genaeva can act as a temporary base station, using wireless transmission to access the surveillance footage at any time.
“How is it now?” After settling down, Jiang Baimian asked Genaeva.
Genaeva replied like a machine:
“The signal transmission is normal. Currently, no noteworthy images have been found.”
“It's just a bit power-consuming,” the honest Shang Jianyao helped add.
“Yes,” Genaeva placed the previously used high-performance battery into the charger.
While watching him do this, Long Yuehong hesitated and said:
“Monitor for a full three days?
“Isn't this too much, too cautious?”
Jiang Baimian shook her head and smiled:
“When facing the 'Nightmare', no amount of caution is too much.”
She then looked around and restrained her smile:
“Do you guys still remember the two questions I asked Laurie when we went to O’Dick’s house?”
“Asked if that was her and O’Dick’s home, and asked if O’Dick went mad there…” Bai Chen said, then suddenly fell silent, as if she had thought of something.
Jiang Baimian nodded at her and said:
“O’Dick’s house is in the Red Wolf Zone, and not near the Green Olive District.
“The straight-line distance from there to the rental house where we had the 'Nightmare' before is more than five kilometers.
“What does this mean?
“It means that the 'Nightmare' not only assaulted us, causing the Ugo boss to die, but also affected O’Dick, who was five kilometers away or even further, causing him to go mad.
“This shows that the 'Nightmare's' coverage area is at least five kilometers!”
What a terrifying influence!
Long Yuehong had not thought about this issue at all before. After Jiang Baimian pointed it out, he took a breath and took a dozen seconds to digest the situation.
He said worriedly:
“Does the company really think we can give it a try?”
Shang Jianyao, the strongest member of the team, currently has an influence range of no more than 200 meters!
A smile reappeared on Jiang Baimian's face:
“No, you should think like this:
“Such a terrifying 'Nightmare' actually sent someone to our previously rented place to look for clues, instead of using more covert methods a few kilometers away. This shows that 'it' is likely to be subject to considerable restrictions.”
“That’s true…” Long Yuehong woke up.
This also means that the 'Old Task Force' is more likely to be fighting against the 'Nightmare's' pawns, rather than 'it' itself.
Clap clap clap, Shang Jianyao applauded.
Bai Chen raised another question:
“Since the 'Nightmare' can make O’Dick in the Red Wolf Zone go mad, why do only residents in a few places in the Green Olive District have collective dreams, and not those near here in the Red Wolf Zone?”
Jiang Baimian said in a speculative tone:
“Maybe the 'Dawnstar's' dream defense line is over there?
“This can be confirmed with them later.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Long Yuehong felt that this was indeed the most reasonable explanation.
Jiang Baimian looked at her electronic watch and looked around:
“While we have time now, let’s make some contingency plans.”
“Okay,” Bai Chen and Long Yuehong responded quickly.
This is a regular process for the 'Old Task Force's' daily operations. As long as there is time and they are in time, they will make some contingency plans for various developments.
Of course, limited by energy, manpower, resources, and the contradictions between different contingency plans, they can only choose the most likely ones to prepare for, and cannot be perfect or all-knowing.
Shang Jianyao took out the pen he carried with him and sniffed it like a pipe.
He looked at Jiang Baimian and asked thoughtfully:
“Even if we treat the target's current place of residence as a trap and make a targeted contingency plan, we lack sufficient information to refine it.”
Yes, yes… Long Yuehong agreed in his heart.
Jiang Baimian smiled slightly:
“We’ll discuss this later.
“Let’s first assume that the 'Nightmare's' pawn, the man wearing black sunglasses, is himself a very powerful Awakened, at least at the 'Mind Corridor' level.”
“This doesn’t need to be assumed, I think he is,” Long Yuehong said his point of view.
He believes that since the other party can become the 'Nightmare's' pawn and has appeared in dreams, his level must not be too low.
“The probability exceeds ninety percent,” Genaeva found a mathematical model and gave the calculation result.
Jiang Baimian smiled and asked the question:
“Then, which field will he be in?”
Seeing Bai Chen and the others showing thoughtful expressions, Jiang Baimian shook her head and said:
“It’s difficult to make effective guesses because we have almost no information to support them.
“How about this, everyone work a little harder and use the brute force method to analyze by substituting the other party’s behavior, and choose the most consistent with the current situation or the most likely to threaten us to formulate contingency plans.
“For example, if he is a 'Mind Corridor' level Awakened in the January 'Bodhi' field, how would he handle the task given by the 'Nightmare', how would he find our whereabouts, and where might he show the price?”
Shang Jianyao prodded his chin with a pen and said:
“In similar matters, the choices made by 'Destiny Sight', 'Heavenly Eye Vision', 'Heavenly Ear Hearing' and 'Mind Reading' are different.”
Long Yuehong nodded while agreeing and continued to say:
“If that person has 'Destiny Sight', it is equivalent to an Awakened in the 'Final Man' field who can browse memories. These two situations can be merged and processed.
“If I had similar abilities, when tracking down the whereabouts of certain people, I would definitely not let go of the surrounding residents, and would directly access their memories to find the corresponding 'images'.
“At that time, our disguise was different from now, but JEEP has not been repainted, so it is not ruled out that someone has seen us coming out of JEEP.
“And tracking the memory of this JEEP, um, we didn’t deliberately detour through uninhabited streets along the way, then, then…”
Speaking of this, Long Yuehong paused, and shouted in a slightly frightened and suppressed voice:
“He should be able to find the room we re-rented in the Red Wolf Zone!
“Then follow the vine and persist, and there is a good chance that we can track it here!”
Here!
As soon as Long Yuehong finished speaking, he suddenly felt that the outside of the room was eerily quiet.
The street under the afternoon sun seemed to be deserted.