“Willing force?” The other party was clearly a bit stunned. “What is that? How am I supposed to pay it?”

“In your terms, you could also think of it as mental energy, or faith.” William Green smiled slightly. “Look, you’re quite worried about finding him, right? So this matter will also incur a mental cost. Once we find Mr. Dean, your worries will dissipate like smoke—so that’s equivalent to having paid it. So you really don’t need to worry about this; it won’t have any real impact on the contract.”

Or rather, it is the contract itself.

As for the next line, the “five hundred seril” reward is just an extra.

Judy blinked, and after a while finally said, “I didn’t expect you to be quite... humorous.”

William Green shrugged, neither confirming nor denying. He hadn’t deceived the other party, just slightly twisted the meaning, and this twist was actually beneficial to both sides.

Of course, the key point was that no one would fuss over a contract when they were in urgent need.

Sure enough, Judy didn’t care much. She picked up the pen and signed her name.

“I can give you five hundred silver coins, but you must find out the whereabouts of Courtney Dean!” she said firmly.

“Of course,” William Green reached out his hand to her. “Your need is my mission.”

……

Elsewhere, somewhere on Earth.

In a hall filled with screens, Michael Bolton was participating in an important meeting. As a member of Interpol, they had been tracking a criminal named Wayne Johnson for a long time. This person was suspected of multiple serious crimes, including transnational smuggling, arms trafficking, and dealing in illegal compounds, and had long been targeted by security agencies in several countries. However, what made things tricky was that Wayne Johnson also held an ambassadorial identity—even if it was bought with donations, and even if it was just for an obscure small country in Africa, it was still inconvenient to arrest him directly without solid evidence.

“According to recent intelligence, this person boarded the Heart of the Ocean cruise ship and held secret meetings with several people, using the alias Joe James.” The one speaking at the head of the table was Michael Bolton’s superior and head of the Asia division, Robert Harris. “We’ve also checked out the people he met with. The information you have in your hands is about them.”

“Russians, Japanese, and... Chinese.” Michael Bolton paused as he turned to that page. He had to admit, this was a rather rare combination. “I guess he just happened to be thrown in with the group?”

“The investigation department really didn’t find much on him.” Robert Harris nodded. “The key point is that they all participated in a game during the meeting. That’s what we need to focus on.”

“A game?” a woman asked curiously. “What kind of game?”

Michael Bolton couldn’t help but smile. The woman was Edward Cooper from South Korea, whose biggest hobby was video games—and she was quite skilled at them.

“No idea. The emails we intercepted only mentioned that the game’s organizer called themselves Paradise, but gave no details about the game itself.” Robert Harris shook his head. “Nowadays, crimes using internet technology are all too common, and we have to be highly vigilant about this. If they use the game as a meeting place and agree on secret codes, they could contact each other anywhere in the world next time, and it would be extremely hard to crack.”

“That’s not easy to investigate,” Michael Bolton said bluntly. “The cruise ship belongs to a Caribbean company and is fully legal and compliant. It’s hard enough for us to get the surveillance footage. Not to mention, there might not even be cameras in private rooms...”

“Unless we can get into the game ourselves,” Edward Cooper licked her lips.

“Don’t even think about it.” He dismissed the idea. “It’s obvious this is an exclusive gathering for the rich. Someone must have vetted the participants in advance before sending out invitations. Do you think we’d qualify?”

“All right,” Edward Cooper shrugged. “Then we’ll just keep watching—”

Suddenly, a shrill ringing interrupted the conversation.

Robert Harris picked up the phone. “Speak.”

His expression changed. “Are you sure? Okay, patch the feed through.”

After hanging up, the nearly fifty-year-old director’s face grew extremely grave. “That was a call from the cyber intelligence division. They said our internal mailbox just received an email—from Paradise.”

Chapter 8: Cyber Demon

The atmosphere in the hall changed instantly. No wonder even the experienced old director would act out of character—after all, the target of their investigation had actually sent a message directly to their dedicated mailbox? Didn’t this mean the other side not only knew they were being investigated, but also knew exactly who the investigators were?

“Is this... a provocation?” someone whispered.

“Let’s take a look first.” Robert Harris tapped the table, signaling everyone to be quiet.

The signal was quickly connected to the central screen, and the intelligence division opened the seemingly ordinary email for all to see. After a simple flat animation, a red-and-black double-colored door appeared in the center of the screen, with the words “Click here to enter” on it. Below the door was more information, which Michael Bolton, sharp-eyed, read aloud.

“A new round of the game is about to begin.”

“To enter Paradise, you can choose one of the following two tickets: one million US dollars, or outstanding investigative and detection skills.”