The meal ended with both the host and the guest thoroughly enjoying themselves. As they parted, both expressed their reluctance to leave. Dr. Dian packed everything in his home that he had added since the Girl in the painting arrived and gifted it to her. In return, the Girl in the painting gave him a notebook filled with contact details for matchmaking, job applications, and socializing. Facing each other, it seemed they could both see the excitement in each other’s eyes.

"I will come to see you again," the Girl in the painting solemnly promised.

"It’s best if you don’t," Dr. Dian replied, smiling as he closed the door.

"If you really can’t bear to leave, you can stay a bit longer," Xu Huo said to the Girl in the painting, who was standing at the door, hesitating to leave.

Without hesitation, the Girl in the painting turned around.

"What are we going to do next?" she asked as they left Dr. Dian’s residence.

"We’re going to kill someone," Xu Huo said.

The Girl in the painting showed great interest, suggesting she could help.

Not wanting to create too much of a stir, Xu Huo declined her offer, mentioning that he might leave Zone 008 at any time, and that she would be no help, but rather needed to turn into paper and hide in his clothes in advance.

Clearly not pleased with this idea, the Girl in the painting proposed finding a place to have fun and meeting up with Xu Huo after he finished his business.

"Then buy your own tickets to get back," Xu Huo offered another solution.

"Fine," the Girl in the painting could only agree.

The Tian Family’s enterprises spanned numerous cities, but the main residences of the family members were mainly in two locations. One was the previous station city, with tight security and a substantial number of Advanced Players lingering there regularly. The other was their birthplace and hometown, where family members would return on scheduled days.

Recently, many members of the Tian Family had to cooperate with an investigation and couldn’t easily leave the station city. However, these individuals were merely those who managed the family’s businesses publicly. The true decision-makers hadn’t shown themselves. According to information obtained through certain channels, the main members of the Tian Family had successively returned to their hometown, possibly to handle the investigation incident, or perhaps for some collective activity.

No more information could be obtained, so Xu Huo made a special trip.

Given the gathering of many Tian Family members, Rank-A Players were certainly there for protection, and among them, those seasoned in combat and well-equipped were not lacking.

Therefore, Xu Huo made another trip to the neighboring city and blew up a secret laboratory owned by the Tian Family, then left immediately. He then found the Tian Family’s cemetery in their hometown and conveniently sent their ancestors to heaven. Afterward, he headed to the Tian Family’s old mansion.

The lab and the ancestral grave being bombed diverted some Advanced Players, though not many. The Tian Family wasn’t foolish; they would surely guard against someone rounding them all up. As a result, they immediately closed the gates of the old mansion. To avoid any unexpected incidents, several core members promptly used transmission channels to escape to other places.

Xu Huo waited outside the Tian Family’s old mansion. He also had a list, aside from those involved in Fairy Tale City’s annihilation, including people who dealt with affairs the family couldn’t publicly acknowledge. These people weren’t the real decision-makers of the family but were merely arms. While the decision-makers could flee quickly, these individuals couldn’t all escape.

Of course, there were multiple Defensive Barriers set up outside the Tian Family’s residence, preventing direct observation of the inside from the outside. But it didn’t matter; Xu Huo had time.

In fact, the Tian Family had returned to their hometown this time for a birthday banquet of a relatively important elder, which explained the gathering of talent. Unexpectedly, just after dinner, as everyone was chatting together, the lab was bombed first, and then the ancestral grave. The Tian Family was both enraged and shocked, immediately dispatching more personnel to the old mansion and arranging others to investigate.

The investigation was unlikely to yield results; all electronic eyes had been destroyed, leaving no records. While the losses were certain, what angered the Tian Family more was that their cemetery had been bombed — an act so devoid of morality that bombing someone’s ancestor’s tomb served no purpose other than to provoke. Thus, while angered, the Tian Family also found it inconceivable, suspecting the assailant had resorted to bombing the cemetery out of desperation.

Despite being under strict protection, the Tian Family couldn’t rest easy that night because the last attack on multiple Tian Family locations hadn’t happened long ago, and it seemed like the player was determined to go down with them. Since there’s no enduring protection against thieves, the Tian Family immediately contacted the District Government, negotiating a benefit exchange to have them identify the player targeting them.

Unfortunately, the District Government’s stance was less than favorable. To them, the attacks on the Tian Family were trivial skirmishes. Moreover, they hadn’t pursued the damages caused by the Tian Family’s troublemaking; why would they help them settle the matter? Not even for money.

The District Government’s indifference angered the Tian Family, but they were powerless to act. They couldn’t stay in one place forever. Once dispersed, who could know who’d be attacked next?

"Is this person really that hard to find?" the Tian Family members were puzzled. Anyone entering Zone 008 would leave traces. For instance, when Xu Huo attacked Kesi Biology, even though he later used Props to hide his identity, it was not difficult to trace his activities in Zone 008 through the Transmission Channel and recorder. Hence, the Tian Family placed bounties in other zones to prevent this person from troubling them again.

So far, they’ve lost quite a few B-Level Psychic Evolvers on the train. Although some were merely "suspected" B-Level Psychic Evolvers, they unexpectedly missed the real culprit, resulting in their current predicament.

"The local government is willing to help, but only to locate people, not provide manpower."

This wasn’t good news for the Tian Family. The attacker was a B-Level Psychic Evolver, and no matter how many Advanced Players the Tian Family had, they couldn’t guard every single one. Additionally, considering whether the opponent might have Super Props was necessary.

After a restless night, the Tian Family decided to take the initiative. They arranged for three groups to leave the old mansion, each containing individuals who had once worked at Kesi Biology or on that ship.

The opponent had come for revenge, and they voluntarily exposed themselves as targets.

Xu Huo didn’t follow, as these individuals, while on his list, weren’t worth the extra effort. Just as the Tian Family could issue bounties, so could he. He leaked information about one group to a player with a grudge against the Tian Family, then offered two million White Notes as a bounty for the others, providing the route and main arrangements of the Tian Family. He sincerely informed that it was a secret operation by the Tian Family and offered an extra five million per additional head killed, assuring that they could take whatever the Tian Family was transporting, with the promise of not revealing it to more people.

After settling that matter, he issued two more bounties at five million White Notes each, targeting two significant figures of the Tian Family.