“Young master, please be extremely careful. Safety first.” The supervisor’s voice came through the earpiece.
Zhan Pingchuan knew his parents weren’t speaking because they were afraid of losing emotional control and affecting his mission.
But at this moment, they must be embracing each other deeply as a loving couple, silently praying for their only son.
The supervisor said calmly: “The guild master has arrived at the capital city. Mr. Chu is coordinating the overall situation from the rear, preparing for rebellion.”
Zhan Pingchuan: “…Big brother, can’t you show some emotion when saying such things? Rebellion!”
So his parents weren’t embracing each other deeply at all—they were even in different locations.
Supervisor: “I can’t. Rest assured, Ghost Eye Guild will always be your solid backing.”
“…” Zhan Pingchuan felt slightly pressured.
This venture really put the lives of his entire family on the line.
Zhan Pingchuan took a deep breath and leaped out of his room.
The night was as lonely and silent as always. He skillfully avoided surveillance and quickly reached that familiar secluded corner of the Blue Pivot building.
According to the complete terrain scan, this wasn’t actually the closest entrance to the underground third-floor archives, but Zhan Pingchuan didn’t want to risk exploring a new route. At least he had crawled back and forth through this path many times.
Zhan Pingchuan held a flashlight in his mouth. This time he didn’t dare use his ability, relying purely on arm strength to crawl forward.
He quickly reached the first downward duct. From here down, everything would be rare lead ore.
Zhan Pingchuan swallowed and steadied himself before bending down into the narrow duct.
Under gravity’s influence, he quickly touched the bottom, but the head-down position made him extremely uncomfortable. He bent his arms, tensed his abdomen, and carefully squeezed into the next section of duct. The narrow, stuffy passage made his heartbeat clearly audible, his blood vessels taut as if about to burst. Finally, after curling his body to the limit, he successfully entered the next section of duct.
As machinery operated, strange odors occasionally blew through the duct. When the wind was stronger, he had to bury his head in his arm crook to avoid it.
Zhan Pingchuan crawled and stopped like this until he finally reached the underground third floor.
His teeth were already numb with no sensation, sweat continuously flowing down through his pores. He strained to lift his eyes, straightened his aching neck, and concentrated on staring at the humming fan in front of him.
Behind the fan was the third-floor archives—that place sealed with unspeakable secrets.
Burning his boats, he had only one chance.
Zhan Pingchuan reached into his chest and took out the surveillance footage covering virus.
He pressed a button, and the small electronic device emitted infrared signals at specific frequencies, remotely controlling the surveillance camera. He then transmitted the virus through the wireless network, interfering with the camera’s original imaging system and fixing the image at this moment.
Confirming successful virus implantation, Zhan Pingchuan quickly activated the infrared jammer, then unhesitatingly thrust his flashlight into the fan.
Clank clank clank!
A tremendous grinding sound erupted as the metal flashlight was ground until sparks flew, but the fan had to stop.
Zhan Pingchuan grabbed a fan blade with one hand and yanked backward forcefully. With a “crack,” he directly dismantled the ventilation fan.
He could see the full view of the underground third-floor archives.
This was a square space with densely packed tall gray-white iron cabinets arranged side by side. The air carried the scent of old paper and the smell of electrical current passing through air as server hardware operated.
Besides this, between the iron cabinets, crisscrossing infrared beams filled the space. Any contact would immediately trigger a facility-wide alert.
Zhan Pingchuan’s scalp tingled.
How long would it take to find anything here?
Such a large space, so many iron cabinets—it was almost as big as an entire floor of Star University’s museum. Even if he studied here for four years, he might not finish reading everything!
But Zhan Pingchuan had no time to worry. He held his breath, gripped the ventilation duct with both hands, nimbly sent himself out of the exhaust outlet, then leaped with all his might—
Bang!
He landed on the all-steel anti-static floor.
Deep night with few stars, the first dewdrop of dawn gradually condensing on the soil surface, temperature dropping to the day’s lowest point.
Lance pulled his jacket zipper to the top and slipped into the elevator.
Duma’s voice suddenly came through the earpiece: “Lance, Blue Pivot’s central control system seems to be infected with a virus.”
It was a different virus, coming from somewhere he didn’t control, spreading across the entire central control system on a large scale.
Lance frowned: “Will it interfere with us?”
Infected?
Too coincidental—they were acting today, and the central control system just happened to be infected.
He never believed in coincidences. Almost instantly, he remembered that night’s slight sounds from underground.
There must be someone else stirring up trouble in this violent institution called the Federation’s Spear.
Duma pouted, rarely showing expression on his face: “No, but that virus is very domineering. It has its own images it wants to display, but I want to display mine too.”
Lance commanded: “Drive it away, but don’t kill it.”
This way, even if Blue Pivot later saw through their performance and began investigating surveillance issues, they could push this virus out as a target to misdirect Blue Pivot’s investigation.
Duma: “Okay.”
His consciousness invaded the central control system again, meeting the other virus head-on.
Duma remained expressionless, swinging his fists: “Go away, go away, go away.”
Virus: “???”
The two viruses intimidated each other, causing poor signal contact on the monitoring room’s display screens.
The originally drowsy duty team member gradually lifted his eyelids, staring at the flickering surveillance footage.
The elevator stopped on the seventh floor. Lance confirmed the corridor was empty, then quickly walked toward the confinement room holding Oliver. He took out the replicated key and, without saying a word, cleanly inserted it into the keyhole. With a crisp sound, the thorny door slowly opened.
Thorns had a suppressive effect on Awakened ones’ abilities—the higher the level, the more severe the suppression. So Lance, touching the thorns, was actually affected the least.
“I…”
Oliver heard the sound and saw the door open before his eyes, but despite several attempts, he still couldn’t get up from the bed.
Today he had used two abilities, consuming too much of his body’s energy. He couldn’t muster any strength now.
The bag of nutritional fluid mixed with apple juice still sat by his bedside, untouched.
Though he had thanked the aide for the final mercy shown to him, he couldn’t forgive the coercion and force of past years, so he hadn’t accepted this charity.
Oliver felt somewhat embarrassed and anxious. He didn’t want to appear as a useless person who needed complete help from the Black Lantern Society.
But Lance didn’t mind his weakness at all.
Lance stepped into the confinement room, supported Oliver who was about to fall off the bed, and took out a box of ointment from his chest.
“Bone Flower, eat it.”
Oliver didn’t doubt him. He lowered his eyelashes and obediently bit the sticky green ointment into his mouth, mouthful by mouthful.
Eating was really too difficult for him, especially strange things with no texture.
But he still struggled to swallow, getting all the ointment down his throat.
He instinctively wanted to vomit, so he immediately covered his mouth tightly. He was afraid of wasting the Black Lantern Society’s medicine, afraid of disappointing Lance’s intentions.
Soon, Oliver felt the power of the ointment Fata had made.
It was as if a burning fire blazed in his lungs—an energy source continuously injecting power into all his organs, every cell.
His breathing became lighter, his bones harder, his emerald eyes regained their luster, and his golden curly hair became thick and lustrous.
His physique seemed to return to its peak university years. He had never felt his body so healthy, his spirit so clear.
This level was something even recovery system Awakened ones couldn’t achieve.
“Go!” Seeing that Bone Flower had taken effect, Lance immediately grabbed Oliver’s wrist and led him out of this cage where he had lived for fourteen years.
The thorny door closed and locked behind them again.
Oliver’s heart beat violently from nervousness and excitement. He could clearly hear the strong, rapid heartbeats in his chest.
Like a dream, he had left this place. He could barely remember the outside world, barely remember normal life.
He ran wildly with Lance, taking the elevator to the first floor, stepping across the cold marble ground, then striding out the door into the vast world, the cool dawn.
Wind lifted the soft hair at his temples, brushed past the fine lines at his eyes. Plants breathed fresh and real, dewdrops condensing on their bodies and rolling off.
Just four meters away in direct distance from them, Zhan Pingchuan forcefully pulled open the door of the third iron cabinet.
Under the infrared jammer’s effect, those intersecting red lines automatically disappeared around him, as if he were surrounded by an invisible, strange barrier.
His flashlight illuminated a row of black file folders directly opposite.
《Dawn Year 1 Archive: Radiation Leak Footage》
《Dawn Year 1 Archive: Global Evolution Related Press Media》
《Dawn Year 1 Archive: Awakened One Outbreak Original Footage》
《Pre-Dawn Three Years Archive: Infection and Assassination Plan Signing Footage》
…
After searching through, Zhan Pingchuan confirmed this entire cabinet contained historical materials from Dawn Year 1 and earlier.
Though he was curious, he really didn’t have time to satisfy himself.
Zhan Pingchuan began to think.
He couldn’t search cabinet by cabinet aimlessly—that would be leaving his fate to luck.
Since the Federation government even arranged archives in chronological order, there was no reason the cabinets wouldn’t follow a pattern.
He backed out of the gap and re-examined these heavy iron cabinets over two meters tall. After carefully searching around with his flashlight, Zhan Pingchuan finally found raised markings on the sides of these cabinets.
He reached out to touch these markings and found they were similar to library call numbers, composed of three types of identifiers: classification number, book number, and prefix number.
But these three identifiers were completely incomprehensible to him—after all, he had never spent time in libraries since childhood.
Zhan Pingchuan couldn’t help thinking that if little red fox were here, he’d definitely understand the markings at a glance.
Sigh, a person can’t be without a wife.
Fortunately, though Zhan Pingchuan couldn’t understand them, he could spot differences. He observed several cabinets he’d looked at and found they only differed in the last identifier. Combined with the archive contents, he guessed the last identifier represented the era.
Si Hongmei died eighteen years ago, in Dawn Year 86. The numbers 8 and 6 had no overlap with the years on these cabinets, so Zhan Pingchuan excluded all cabinets with such markings.
Using elimination, he discovered the materials were managed by sections: footage and press area, publications area, classified materials area, personnel area, etc.
Si Hongmei’s autopsy report should belong to the classified materials area.
Zhan Pingchuan’s adrenaline surged, his heartbeat gradually quickening.
This way, there weren’t many iron cabinets left before him.
His hand moved toward the cabinet closest to him. The cold iron pressed against his palm, suppressing his gradually boiling blood.
Zhan Pingchuan’s fingers exerted force and yanked outward!
Beep—beep—beep!
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
FINALLY FINALLY OMG IM SO EXCITED MY HEART FEELS LIKE ITS BEATING OUTTA MY CHEST😭🙏
OMG!!! I AM SO NERVOUS!!!😭😭😭😭
https://t.me/dragon_money_mani/22