Similar beginnings

Lin Zhouze didn't react at first and was a little dazed: "What...do you mean?" Ever since he was attacked and injured in the laboratory in Area 3, his memory seemed to have been affected. Now it was not so easy for him to quickly recall some details.

When Shi Youchen saw the girl with her head down and covering her face in front of the tombstone, he asked, "Why haven't their other relatives come to pay their respects?" Lin Zhouze's attention was immediately diverted.

"They are the orphans of the supernatural incident...or rather, most of the non-supernatural workers in the association are like them."

"The records in their information center's files show that after a certain supernatural event in the year 151 of the new calendar, the association was responsible for providing financial support until they reached adulthood. After reaching adulthood, they could choose whether to work for the association based on their own wishes." When Lin Zhouze said this, Li Nuo, who was not far away, seemed to have sorted out his emotions and turned to walk towards the two of them.

"So the work number you just mentioned..." Lin Zhouze wanted to ask, but Shi Youchen interrupted the topic, "Let's talk about it when we get back."

...

In the northeast of City A, inside the psychic training base.

The metal ruins scattered across the ground made it impossible to tell what the original building looked like. A man surrounded by a crowd calmly directed his actions, and those rushing around him all obeyed his instructions.

Li Ming, covered in dust, walked up to the man and said respectfully, "Uncle Lu, the underlying data has been exported. We can begin the reconstruction work."

The person who came was Lu Ming. He was on his way back to District 8 when the news came. Although he was indeed anxious, as the head of the Lu family, he couldn't show it in front of others, so he kept it to himself the whole way.

It was not until he arrived in City A and headed straight for the border of the detected unknown area that he saw the mark in the middle of the electronic map representing the training base. A trace of panic finally appeared on his face.

Lu Ming arrived late at night. Before he came back, the association had tried to break it up from the outside, but when they tried to send higher-level psychics, they were repeatedly rejected. The reason was that they did not want to get involved in the events related to these companies.

So by the time Lu Ming arrived, the situation in the domain was no longer optimistic.

"Go ahead and make the arrangements. You've worked hard all night, go back and get some rest." Lu Ming was actually a bit uneasy about encountering the two younger members of the Li and Mo families here. After all, Li Ming and Molier had rather special identities and had never set foot inside the training base. However, he didn't need to ask, because after destroying the original domain, his own domain, which covered the entire base, would transmit all information to him.

After handing the matter over to his assistant, Lu Ming left the scene and returned to his house. As soon as he entered the house, his face quickly darkened.

The old butler had worked at the Lu family for over twenty years and had rarely seen Lu Ming behave like this. He ordered the cleaning servants to leave first, to avoid any potential mishaps. He himself bowed his head and respectfully stepped forward to help Lu Ming take off his coat and tie.

Lu Ming said gloomily, "Tell Lu Zhiqi to come find me in the basement." He unbuttoned his cuffs and walked toward the bookshelf in the living room. The old housekeeper replied, "Yes," and then turned and left the living room.

...

It was nearly half an hour later when Lu Zhiqi returned home. The joints of his fingers gripping the door handle were so tense that they turned white. After taking several deep breaths, he was able to slow down his breathing.

It wasn't because he was in a hurry to get home, but because he was very nervous.

"Young Master." The old butler came over with tea and bowed to Lu Zhiqi, "The master is waiting for you." After saying that, he handed the tray forward. Lu Zhiqi swallowed his saliva and took it resignedly, following the old butler to the back of the bookshelf and the rosewood door.

The old butler stared at the tip of his shoes, lowered his head and opened the door for Lu Zhiqi, then carefully closed it after hearing his footsteps gradually fade away.

Lu Zhiqi nervously walked down the dark spiral staircase carrying the tea tray and met his long-awaited father in the basement.

"Father." He placed the tray on the low table and walked over to Lu Ming, who had his back to him and was looking up at something. "You called me here, is there something?"

Lu Ming didn't turn around. "Where were you last night?" His elegant, deep voice echoed in the empty underground space, and Lu Zhiqi felt a cold sweat crawl down his back. "I was in City B...participating in a mission," he thought, answering calmly.

Lu Ming finally had enough of the painting and turned to look at his heir, whom he hadn't seen in months. "You know about the training base, right?" Lu Ming looked up and down at his son, who looked quite elite and bore a 60% resemblance to him.

Lu Zhiqi nodded: "Yes." He nervously let Lu Ming examine him, not daring to look back or dodge.

Lu Ming walked to the table with a satisfied look on his face. He bent down and poured two cups of tea. He said, "The bombing method is highly similar to the incident at the Z City Port last year. The residue and energy detection results are the same." He picked up a cup and blew lightly, his tone light and airy. "The feedback my domain has received is that at least three or more level 7 psychics have invaded."

"Guess what their purpose was in invading the training base jointly established by us and the association?" Lu Ming asked a very difficult question, then calmly walked to the wall and turned on the ceiling light in the basement.

In an instant, the semi-enclosed space was completely lit up. Lu Zhiqi squinted his eyes due to the sudden dazzle of light, but he still immediately recognized the work that he had seen since he was a child.

The four walls and ceiling of the basement were covered with a layer of dark blue mist. Beneath the mist, bright stars twinkled intermittently, forming one ancient and mysterious image after another.

Lu Ming stared at one of them with fascination, his eyes blazing with an inexplicable enthusiasm, the same enthusiasm Lu Zhiqi had seen many times before. He then looked at the image with a puzzled look in his eyes.

What does that crow-like pattern represent?

No matter how baffled he was, he didn't dare ignore Lu Ming's question. "Perhaps it's about something in our training base, data, equipment, or...people?" His voice grew softer as he pondered it.

Lu Ming put his hands behind his back and shook his head: "There is no equipment lost, there is no sign of damage to the database, and there is no abnormality with the people... for the time being." He obviously hesitated when talking about people, and Lu Zhiqi heard this.

"Then it can only be regarded as a way to vent anger or...a warning." Lu Zhiqi proposed cautiously.

Lu Ming chuckled after hearing this. "A warning." He stared at the crow to the east for a while, his eyes aching. He turned around, picked up another cup of tea on the low table, walked over to Lu Zhiqi, who hadn't moved a step, and took his hand. He said gently, "Zhiqi, I want you to do something. It may be difficult, but you are the only one who can do it."

Lu Zhiqi's breathing froze for a moment, his eyebrows twitching slightly, and numbness spread from his fingertips. "Okay, father."

...

When Lin Zhouze rushed into the office with the report, Shi Youchen was lost in thought. "Oh my god, this is outrageous." In fact, he could hear Lin Zhouze's hurried footsteps from a distance.

"Guess what happened?" Lin Zhouze exclaimed as he flipped through a written report and sat down next to Shi Youchen. His tone was clearly shaken. "The training base in City A was blown up in the domain!"

"According to the accounts of most of the people trapped in the area at the time, there was quite a bit of commotion coming from the direction of the training base. Fortunately, it was closed at the time and no one was inside, otherwise the cemetery might have had new members added to it."

"And most importantly! The simulated destruction of the A City training base this time is highly similar to the port incident in Z City last year!...But the results are also highly similar." Lin Zhouze clasped his hands together, tossed the large stack of freshly prepared documents onto the coffee table, and sighed deeply, "No one was caught."

Shi Youchen didn't seem too surprised: "Then at least we can confirm that the incident last year was done by the Maintenance Bureau."

Lin Zhouze rolled his eyes and said, "That's true. It seems that they have been prepared for the matter of going against the association." Shi Youchen put the last piece of the corner picture together, and then stuffed the three-dimensional model of District 13, which took him more than an hour to build, into Lin Zhouze's palm.

"The Maintenance Bureau's deployment would have been much earlier, perhaps even earlier than you and I could imagine." He stood up and stretched, then walked to the window to breathe in some fresh air. "Don't mention the incident with Chen Bushen to Li Nuo."

Lin Zhouze was playing with the small and exquisite model. He became unhappy when he heard what Shi Youchen said. "I'm not such a tactless person. I know!" Two hours ago, he had pestered Shi Youchen all the way back, wanting to know the truth about the work badge. Finally, after entering the office, he learned about it and recalled the suspicious points of the second explosion at the Z City Emergency Center last year.

"So Li Luo really feels he owes Chen Bushen something!" Having sorted out the cause and effect, he began to brainstorm again, "If he really is a traitor, then why did he do this again..."

Shi Youchen looked at the clear sky and said calmly: "Maybe it's because of my guilty conscience, or maybe I was hit hard." He selfishly thought that a person who would feel guilty about a colleague who was unreasonably involved and killed, and quietly arrange for the other party's funeral, compared to the initiators of the frequent supernatural events nowadays, still has some humanity.

But at the moment you jumped off the roof of the interrogation building, did you really feel relieved?

Shi Youchen's gaze gradually drifted away, and he seemed to see many familiar faces in the morning light. Chen Bushen, Du Li, Liu Chen, Lu Quezhi, Li Luo... all of them were old friends, and all of them had been killed by supernatural powers, or rather, by the Security Bureau.

He had already determined that his previous inference with Ying Yungui was correct.

Lu Quezhi was just a chess piece of the opponent from the beginning to the end, and Li Luo, who used this chess piece to instigate rebellion, killed those people. Why did they die and for whom did they die? To this day, there has been no explanation.

Is it to get some information from the association, or simply to kill a few people? There doesn't even need to be a purpose.

Shi Youchen didn't want to investigate, nor did he want to think about it.

He had never felt so exhausted before. The buried truths of the past might not be so important to him now.

Was his ridiculous obsession before really to find out the truth for someone, to restore justice and innocence to someone?

Nobody knows.

But in reality, all of these can now be attributed to one place - the Maintenance Bureau.

What does the Maintenance Bureau want to do?