However, though still alive, only half of the body remained. The explosion happened so close and so suddenly that the power of modern technology truly showed its formidable effect.

Basically, the two who survived were no longer much of a threat. William Carter walked over slowly, having already sized up the situation. Ignoring the two groaning men lying on the ground, William Carter first searched around the equipment pod for those shattered corpses.

The equipment pod, along with the variously sized stones William Carter had picked up along the way, was practically the densest possible shrapnel high-explosive mine. At least, William Carter was quite satisfied with the effect of the explosion.

The weapons of the group had all turned into various kinds of junk, now useless. From the body parts, only a few things that were not easily damaged could be found. Strangely, among the seven corpses, five of them had a very unique black metal tag on them.

The metal tag wasn’t large, about the same size as the military tag around William Carter’s neck, but much thicker—almost half a finger thick. The overall appearance was more like a modern jade pendant. The front had very intricate patterns, with two twisted characters in the middle. William Carter looked at them several times but couldn’t recognize what these complex, twisted traditional characters were.

The back was also engraved with a few characters—some with two, some with three—each metal tag was different. This time, William Carter recognized one of them: a simple two-character name, John Bennett. The others William Carter couldn’t identify.

Holding the five black metal tags, William Carter weighed them in his hand as he slowly walked toward the most seriously injured survivor. The other guy had a broken lower leg and an arm, and was still able to lean against a tree and groan, not dying immediately. But this one, with half his body gone, might die at any moment if William Carter didn’t hurry to question him.

“Go ahead, tell me—who are you people?” William Carter squatted in front of the man who was barely hanging on, and asked unhurriedly, “I believe you didn’t know me before, and I don’t know you. We have no grudges. You must have been sent by someone to track me. Of course, it doesn’t matter if you don’t say anything—you’re going to die anyway. Your employer must have given you a huge reward to make you keep your mouth shut even at death’s door.”

Extracting a confession is an art, involving all sorts of physiology and psychology. It’s not just about inflicting pain to make someone give in. For those with faith and conviction, pain isn’t very effective; psychological torment is much harder to bear.

William Carter’s words hit the man’s psychological weak spot. He was just a hired hand, doing it for money, not out of loyalty to his employer. The employer hadn’t saved his life or anything, so why should he protect him with his own? So he decisively betrayed his employer. Why should he die while the employer gets to live comfortably?

“Didn’t expect a few of them to be in the same line of work.” With a bitter laugh, the half-bodied man motioned for William Carter to help him sit up against a tree, and also signaled for William Carter to take a metal tag from his chest, identical to the previous five: “We’re all colleagues from Wuyou City. Didn’t expect we’d all fall here.”

When the man mentioned Wuyou City, William Carter immediately recognized the two characters on the front of the metal tag. They were “无忧” (Wuyou). This metal tag must be the symbol of each person’s affiliation with Wuyou City, and the characters on the back were probably their names.

William Carter knew nothing about what kind of place Wuyou City was or what it did. But he could guess—it was probably an organization that took money to do jobs for others, most likely dirty work. Judging by how many people were hired, these must be the ones who handled the dirty business.

“I was hired by the Song family’s third elder to investigate the cause of death of young master Dai Jiahuan.” The half-bodied man looked at William Carter, then gave another bitter laugh: “They say you killed him, so we followed you. Not surprised, are you?”

William Carter nodded. He really wasn’t surprised at all. This third elder must have learned from George Brooks that he killed Grace Dawson, so he sent people to investigate. What was strange was that for such a secret matter, instead of using his own trusted men, he hired someone from Wuyou City.

No need to ask—the other dead men from Wuyou City must also have been commissioned by various parties to investigate him. The Song family would investigate him, the Dai family surely would too, and even James Brooks and the others, including Prosperity Hall, might have sent people to investigate him. None of this was surprising.

No wonder these guys had nothing on them but weapons and some food and water—no money or valuables. Professionals who do dirty work for others don’t need such burdens.

The two without tags were probably some Song family members from this side who didn’t like him and wanted to teach him a lesson or even kill him outside the city, but ended up getting blown up by the equipment pod.

“Song family’s third elder, I’ll remember that.” William Carter nodded. This man was very cooperative, which was good. William Carter drew his knife across his throat, giving him a quick death.

Standing up, William Carter turned to the man leaning against the tree, whose injuries were not yet fatal.

As soon as William Carter got within five meters of the man, a sudden change occurred.

Chapter 10: The Businessman

The only remaining survivor was in another direction. As William Carter walked over unhurriedly, the man already looked as if he was on the verge of death.