Chapter 486 - 5: Resentment Detection and the Essence of Divine Techniques

"You’re overthinking it," retorted Yara, who had taken the form of a hat on Su Zhou’s head. "Do you think humans are the kind of beings who would easily change for someone else? Just think about yourself. Does being hated by people make you change the way you do things?"

"Besides, are you sure the ones with the upper hand wouldn’t just double down and instigate conflict even earlier, once they could see the resentment?"

"Good point."

At that moment, amidst a sea of green light, Su Zhou found the first ’suspect’ completely shrouded in deep red resentment.

Of course, having resentment didn’t necessarily make someone a criminal—but Su Zhou had already set his screening criteria.

First, he ignored ordinary people with low strength who hadn’t surpassed the Awakening Tier. After all, with such a low level of Cultivation, if they had truly committed a crime, the Patrol would have already caught them using the surveillance network. These individuals were most likely in specialized jobs or were just strict factory managers.

Second, individuals who were staying in one place and seemed to be sleeping were also excluded. This meant that, at the very least, they weren’t out and about preparing to commit a crime today, so Su Zhou wouldn’t bother with them for the time being.

After applying these two filters, the number of flashing lights in the massive city of Hongcheng, with its population of several million, became few and far between. After all, it was past two in the morning. Even an ordinary Patrol officer, not to mention Su Zhou, would stop and question anyone who was at the Awakening Tier, shrouded in resentment, and wandering around instead of sleeping.

’Forty-two people? Looks like Dad wasn’t kidding when he said the number of criminals has surged recently!’

Su Zhou rubbed his eyes. Even with his strength, scanning the entire city with his Divine Techniques was a bit draining, requiring ten-odd seconds of rest. After that short break, he had memorized the locations of all forty-two people. He then immediately descended, heading to their respective areas to observe each one up close.

Soon, he arrived in the area of the first ’abnormal individual’.

Unfortunately, there was no need to approach for questioning or observation. Su Zhou could see directly that this Ability User was in the middle of a theft.

It was a middle-aged man, around thirty or forty years old, who looked a bit nervous. His face was wrapped in black cloth, but in Su Zhou’s eyes, it was as if it wasn’t there at all.

He seemed to possess some kind of Optical Invisibility ability. He’d skillfully bypassed the security cameras, already opened the back door of an electronics store, and was about to sneak inside. Clearly, this wasn’t his first offense; the resentment clinging to him came mostly from the owners of the shops he had previously robbed, stemming from their financial losses.

As the saying goes, robbing someone of their livelihood is like killing their parents. This one-sided Curse was, in fact, a terrifyingly potent form of resentment. You have to understand, when people find their things have been stolen, many can’t help but think about killing the thief. Through the power of Spiritual Qi, these thoughts materialized into something clearly visible to Su Zhou.

The thief was carrying a small bag, obviously not planning to steal any large items, just a few valuable small products... and then, he passed out.

Su Zhou didn’t even get close. From a distance, he simply manipulated Gale, sending a blast that was neither too strong nor too weak, just enough to give the man a concussion.

Immediately after, he directly notified the local Hongcheng Patrol to come and make the arrest.

—Don’t forget, this wasn’t the Otherworld, and Su Zhou wasn’t some vigilante. He was the captain of the Zhengguo Security Bureau’s special operations team, an official with the authority to enforce the law!

After doing all this, Su Zhou moved closer, took a picture of the thief’s face, and saved it to the database. This way, unless the man got a new face, he would never have the chance to commit crimes again. Even after finishing his sentence in a labor camp, the blemish of his crime would remain in the database.

’Sigh, Earth today is basically a fortress of iron. Without some kind of Superpower, an ordinary person couldn’t even succeed at committing a crime.’

As he took off towards the next area to continue arresting suspects, Su Zhou, doing his good deed for the day, was struck by a thought: ’If things keep going like this, completely eradicating crime might not be impossible!’

The tight surveillance network was, for ordinary people who never committed crimes and had no intention of doing so, a good thing. While Su Zhou certainly found it a bit troublesome, he also felt that the pros outweighed the cons.

「Late at night, the operation continued.」

Su Zhou’s efficiency was, naturally, far beyond anyone’s imagination.

"Little Li, is this a joke, or is the system broken?" a Patrol officer asked, bewildered. He was staring at his police terminal, which was being flooded with a constant stream of notifications, as if it had been hit by a virus. "It feels like we’ve been infected!"

"It’s not broken. Someone is really out there arresting people like crazy... But at this speed, did the higher-ups send an entire mobile division?" The technician in glasses double- and triple-checked before nodding in astonishment. "This is way too efficient! You couldn’t even round up piglets this fast!"

The Hongcheng Patrol was receiving a continuous stream of alerts from the official system, each requesting a dispatch to arrest a criminal. At first, they thought the system was malfunctioning. However, the programmer on duty insisted that everything was fine. On top of that, every alert even came with a photo of the criminal—something that was impossible to fake.

Basically, an alert would go off in the system every five minutes on average. Each alert meant that a criminal who had been using their abilities to operate covertly had been apprehended. There were no witnesses, but the physical evidence was all there. It might not be enough to jail them, but it was definitely enough for detention and questioning.