Fu Zongchen’s flesh had congealed into a meatball, but without any support, it was hard to maintain its round shape and had already started to collapse.
Li Ming looked on, seemingly taking a long time to react. He tugged at the corner of his mouth, as if he was about to smile, but then he quickly sighed mournfully and through clenched teeth said, "How can someone be so brazen!"
"To actually assassinate a candidate member in such a grand manner, it’s utterly lawless!"
His voice wasn’t quiet and attracted several glances. Everyone seemed speechless and shook their heads in silence.
He’s still just a kid, too naïve, almost laughing out there.
They didn’t feel anything unusual, though. With Wu Yanqing and Fu Zongchen being enemies, as Wu Yanqing’s student, feeling joy at Fu Zongchen’s death was normal.
Even many knew about "Fierce Dragon" and "Ashes," so they found it even more understandable.
Many officials present also felt a secret joy but didn’t show it.
"Alright, keep it down," Luo Chuan reminded, then signaled with his eyes and wrote a few words on the screen—"I just said you’re weak from an old ailment, Genetic Augmentation Syndrome."
Li Ming glanced at it and nodded imperceptibly. Luo Chuan then erased the words.
Though Luo Chuan didn’t know why Li Ming had suddenly become so weak, it was best not to attract attention at the moment of Fu Zongchen’s assassination.
Zhu Yunshen glanced over but didn’t care; Ren Cangsong was still scolding his subordinates and even walked up to the analysis equipment to carry out ballistic simulations.
"You just went to the bathroom and missed it, what a pity," Qi Xing came over and whispered, "One second he’s talking up a storm, the next second his head explodes, died a brutal death."
Roth frowned slightly and in a low voice reprimanded, "Qi Xing, be mindful of the impact."
"Who could it be, so skilled that even the Energy Barrier on Fu Zongchen didn’t activate?" Qi Xing clicked his tongue in amazement.
"Who knows, he had so many enemies," Li Ming replied casually, still feeling his body periodically grow weak as his eyelids fought each other.
"... How could it be me!?" Zhu Yunshen exclaimed in disbelief, pointing at the screen, "It couldn’t be me!"
A low murmur rose around them as people whispered to each other. Li Ming listened for a while and roughly grasped what was happening.
It turned out that according to the analysis of the bullet hole on Fu Zongchen’s forehead from the surveillance footage and the ballistic trajectory, combined with the distribution of people on the scene, the person closest to the bullet’s trajectory was Zhu Yunshen.
This revelation made the eyes of many officials present grow profound as the same thought emerged in their minds—"It’s a case of a thief crying ’catch the thief.’"
Of course, this conjecture was quickly dismissed, the possibility too small.
"If the bullet was indeed shot from within this room, the most suspicious would be Minister Zhu," said one of Ren Cangsong’s subordinates reluctantly.
"The surveillance captures everything clearly, I didn’t make any move, how could the bullet have been fired by me?" Zhu Yunshen immediately countered.
"I know," Ren Cangsong wouldn’t jump to conclusions so easily.
"General," his subordinate whispered, "the surveillance cameras in this villa are ’Cloud-Turret-3’ models, only capable of simple recording and multi-angle 3D imaging."
"Such detailed data as ballistic trajectories are not very precise, they must be supplemented by artificial intelligence later, and the margin of error is significant."
Zhu Yunshen then suggested, "General Ren, perhaps we should lockdown the information first. If this matter leaks, it could create quite the stir."
"There’s no conclusion yet, better to try and find some clues first."
"Collect all the smart terminals," Ren Cangsong nodded grandly, all personnel present had to hand in their smart terminals.
"Additionally, everyone present, from left to right, come and speak with me privately," Ren Cangsong dropped the order, "Zhu Yunshen, hand me the security surveillance."
Many looked troubled, for their smart terminals held many secrets.
But faced with Ren Cangsong’s stern expression, they dared not say much and handed over their smart terminals.
Li Ming’s expression shifted slightly as he looked around, estimating when his turn would come, then quickly activated his smart terminal and tapped a few times.
"Hopefully, several people left their remote transmission modes on," he muttered to himself and handed in his smart terminal too.
Actually, Zhu Yunshen had activated signal jamming devices early on, so the news had not yet leaked.
"If the bullet really was fired from somewhere in this room, the heavy weapon should still be here," Ren Cangsong surveyed the entire villa.
The data reports from his subordinates showed that the sniper rifles capable of firing such bullets were expensive and sizable, not easily hidden.
Ren Cangsong waved his hand, and all city guards, as well as his men, began to search, scouring both upstairs and downstairs.
Fu Zongchen’s personal butler timidly led the way, with villa staff already being watched.
Ren Cangsong then went up to the second floor, entering Fu Zongchen’s office, waiting for people to come up for the talks one by one.
For a moment, the crowd looked at each other in dismay.
"This General Ren suspects the murderer is among us?" Qi Xing couldn’t help saying, "How could that be."
"There’s nothing impossible about it, we have to eliminate all possibilities step by step," Roth responded calmly.
Luo Chuan too was calm, while Li Ming was being checked over by someone from Ren Cangsong’s team.
"Severe depletion, nothing serious, a couple sips of nutrient solution will do," he said, handing over two tubes of nutrient solution.
His cells were starving, as if to devour even himself; Li Ming unscrewed the cap and gulped down the liquid, feeling much relieved.