He had to get out of here, before the chip consumed him completely and drove him to do something irreparable.

He exhausted all his remaining willpower, forcibly suppressing the excruciating pain that threatened to tear his head apart and the cold commands in his mind. He staggered to his feet and, like a wounded beast, stumbled but determined to run deeper into the forgotten iron ruins. Every step he took felt like treading on the edge of a knife, and every step was a desperate struggle with the awakened monster within him.

In the heart of the lower city, a temporary command center converted from an abandoned underground air-raid shelter is now filled with an intense and vibrant bustle.

The air was a tangled mess of the sweet, cloying smell of reheated, low-quality nutritional paste, engine oil, sweat, and the characteristic damp, musty odor of underground spaces. Thick cables, like coiling snakes, stretched tangled overhead and along the walls, connecting rows of terminals with blinking, multicolored indicators, their shells mottled and sometimes even punctured with bullet marks. A massive holographic projection screen hovered in the center, flashing the nascent "Firefly" network node diagram. Countless tiny points of light flickered on and off like real fireflies, outlining the new lifeline of the downtown area.

Wen Shifei stood in a relatively quiet corner, where storage devices of various models, salvaged from the ruins, were piled high. Her signature red coat was stained with dust and oil, and her face was covered in fatigue. However, her eyes were surprisingly bright as she stared intently at the stream of data scrolling across the screen of an old portable terminal before her.

On the screen, lines of complex code cascaded down like a waterfall. Wen Shifei's slender fingers leaped and tapped across the virtual keyboard, so fast that they left afterimages. Her eyes were as sharp as an eagle's, not missing a single subtle abnormality.

"Sister Shi Fei!" A little girl with two pigtails and a childish face ran over holding a dusty server array module. Her voice was crisp, "Old Li and his men found another old warehouse in the West Third District! There are a lot of antiques like this in it!" She held up the module in her hand as if presenting a treasure, her eyes sparkling.

Wen Shifei's gaze shifted from the screen to the girl's face. The corners of his tired mouth curved upwards with effort. He reached out and ruffled the girl's hair: "The little bell is great! Put it over there. Be careful, some of them may be unstable."

"Yeah!" Xiao Lingling nodded vigorously, carefully placing the module on the pile of "electronic waste" next to her. She then curiously leaned over to look at Wen Shifei's screen, "Sister Shifei, are you still looking for Brother Wen Yuan's data?"

Wen Shifei's fingers paused imperceptibly as she tapped the keyboard. A trace of deep pain flashed through her eyes, then was replaced by a stronger obsession. She murmured softly, her voice a little hoarse. "The Alliance's systems have been severely damaged. A lot of key data has been scattered or deliberately encrypted and destroyed... But any data that existed will always leave a trace, even if it's just a tiny fragment..."

Little Bell nodded, not quite understanding, and whispered, "Brother Wen Yuan will definitely come back! Just like a firefly, it can shine even in the darkest place!"

The child's innocent words were like a stone dropped into the lake of her heart, sending a bitter yet warm ripple through Wen Shifei's heart. She said nothing more, only hammering harder at the keyboard, as if trying to forcibly dig that glimmer of hope out of the cold digital abyss.

Time slipped silently amidst the rush of data. Inside the makeshift command center, people excitedly discussed the newly established communication nodes, sharing news from different areas—where clean water sources had been found, where available medical supplies had been found, where a small group of stubborn chaebol remnants had been dispersed by the "Firefly" Self-Defense Forces... The joy of new life and the bustle of reconstruction filled this underground space.

Wen Shifei blocked out the surrounding noise, completely absorbed in the vast sea of ​​data fragments. She invoked the highest-level data sniffing program she had written. Like the most sophisticated detector, it repeatedly scanned, filtered, and reassembled countless data areas marked as "damaged," "encrypted," and "unknown."

Sudden!

In the lower right corner of the screen, a tiny, extremely hidden file cluster, marked with double encryption and even disguised as invalid, redundant data, was suddenly locked onto by her sniffer program! The program issued a sharp, short beeping alarm, and a red exclamation point flashed wildly on the screen!

Wen Shifei's heart suddenly stopped beating!

She held her breath, her fingers trembling slightly from exerting excessive force. She carefully mobilized all remaining system power and began a brute-force crack of the heavily disguised encrypted file cluster. The cracking progress bar crawled forward painstakingly on the screen, each tiny step tugging at her tense nerves.

5%…10%…25%…50%…

Sweat trickled down her temples and dripped onto the dusty operating table. She stared intently at the slowly moving cursor, not daring to blink.

75%…90%…99%…

"drop!"

A crisp unlock prompt sound rang out!

The disguised shell peeled away like rotting wall paint, revealing the carefully protected core within. A simple file directory tree instantly popped up on the screen. The name of one of the folders exploded like thunder on Wen Shifei's retina, and also hit her heart hard -

【Wen Yuan - Dynamic Consciousness Backup】

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

All the blood in Wen Shifei's body seemed to rush to her brain, only to be drained away the next second, leaving her with a dizzying chill. She could even clearly hear her heart pounding frantically in her chest, boom, boom, boom... so heavy it felt like it was about to burst. She stretched out her trembling fingers, her fingertips cold, and carefully, almost reverently, opened the folder.

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