cilman Ding spent about three minutes outside, speaking in a low voice with his secretary, before ing ba with a slightly annoyed look.

  “Everything okay? cilman?” Captain Ko scratched his jaw.

  “Nothing really, just some tiny annoyance.” cilman Ding sighed, sat ba his expensive looking chair with an unfortable grunt: “You know, e to think of it, it has something to do with your prect. That mass burial site your detectives discovered? A LOT OF unpleasant stuff. I am not going into a bunch of details, but let me tell you what I could: it’s not good. It’s not and it’s a whole mess.”

  “What do you mean?” Captain Ko leaned in a little.

  “Well, for starters - they’ve found some fresh bodies, aside from those age-old ohat almost crumble with the wind.” The cilman shook his head, but his eyes were sharp and keep even under his smile: “Looks like some other people have been using that burial site for some other unsavory deeds. And then there’s also this thing - the inal owner of that piece of nd was o be found. Even when we have some of our best iigators looking into it, we still ’t be sure where to find them.”

  “That’s very curious. So it was actively maintained?” Captain Ko sounded surprised: “What else could you share with us. Or, maybe we help with the iigation in some way?”

  “Nonono, it’s fihis is a greatly ing case, and it needs a ton of experiend discretion, which I’m not sure is the right workload for your prect.” cilman Ding chuckled, his eyes still fixed on Marcus and Shrevas: “So, if you don’t mind me asking who you wanna share intel with, should you get more loosely checked or even unchecked access and liberty to share the information?”

  “The unity collective, or I should say, their liaison.” Captain Ko nodded. And the cilman nodded, as if he was already expeg this answer.

  “That’s not unheard of. With everything going on, the city has put a tremendous amount of effort int to build a better retionship with our less fortunate districts and area.” cilman Ding leaned back slightly: “Which means, intelligence sharing and cooperatioween our w enfort agencies would be oop of the list. I believe you are already w with a liaison from the unity collective, am I correct? And he’ll be the one you share intelligeh right?”

  “So - so you agree? ” Shrevas couldn’t help himself but ask.

  “Agree in general and in theory to your se? Yes. But - in terms of setting up the kind of pipeline and protocol you’re looking for I do need a little bit more details regarding - regarding what kind of cases you’re looking into. Maybe if you have a case number you have in mind, or some kind of details about the case - ”

  “That’s very prudent. Of course.” Captain Ko gave both Shrevas and Marcus a “let me talk” look and proceeded to expin: “There’s this one case - I’m sure you have heard of it. A retively wealthy family, good social circles, and unfortunately murdered with quite extreme measures in their home.” This earned brief strange looks at him from Shrevas and Marcus, but her of them said anything.

  “Yeah, yeah. I think I’ve heard of this case - the Lings, right?” cilman Ding urned his head and started gazing at a painting in a light e wooden frame: “Yeah, believe it or not, I am actually acquainted with them. But never had any deep es or retionships. It’s really sad, what happeo them. Nice family, I heard. I wish I could spend more time with them… ”

  “Yes. That’s what we found. Some of us are looking into whether they have any potential enemies who would want to hurt them like this. And some of us are looking in some les, one of the most pusible theories is there being a group of unhinged copycats trying to reenae urban legends.”

  “... I see that.” cilman Ding sighed while pying with his tie and cufflinks: “And it is definitely a case that’s worth setting up this protocol for…”

  “So, what do you say, esteemed cilman?” Captain Ko leaned in with an ear look on his face: “To be ho, this route is probably the best angle we have so far. Because - because whoever did this was really professional, or lucky. I’m not oo whine about how unfortunate and out of resource we are, but the perps did not leave useful leads behind. It was as if they got there, itted the horrendous ad then vanished out of thin air. ”

  cilman Ding appeared to be slightly unfortable with this description. After about a few seds, he turo Captain Ko with a slightly ed look on his face: “Okay, I think I uand what you ell you what - I’ll chat with other ittee members about giving you more access and more room for sharing intel with the unity collective. And right now, I think it’d be best if you share with me at least a few potential case numbers, so I alert the ittee ahem know you’re looking into it.”

  “Oh, yeah. The first one I’ll be looking at is number 1148 - or 1149.” Captain Ko nodded, with a relieved smile on his face.