Chapter 143 Silence

Before arriving at the Ziye Building, Lin Guantang had already received various receipts from other people.

Several explosions had already occurred in the Ziye Building before they arrived, which made it easier to seal off the building without having to worry about how to evacuate the people.

But that also means that the suspicious members have already run away.

By the time their personnel were fully in place, they had captured quite a few suspects and related evidence that had not yet been transferred, but there were also many more important figures who had already been arranged to escape.

In a room on the thirteenth floor underground, waiting for Lin Guantang was Ge Xihe who was sleeping in the experience cabin.

After Lin Guantang arrived at the Ziye Building, he walked through the chaotic corridors and finally arrived at the room where the experience cabin was placed.

Standing next to the experience cabin, you can see Ge Xi and the sleeping body by lowering your eyes.

There was no doubt that this was the gift Violet had given him.

There were two or three people watching over him. When they saw Lin Guantang come in, they took the initiative to tell him about the current situation.

There's nothing much to tell.

After a thorough search, they saw Ge Xihe lying in the experience cabin. They confirmed his identity as a military academy student, checked that no dangerous devices were connected, and activated the emergency cabin opening button.

But after the experience cabin was opened, Ge Xihe showed no signs of waking up.

This is an abnormal phenomenon.

When no matter how loudly you shout, shake your head slightly, pinch your mouth and nose... and other superficial methods fail to wake the person up, you will no longer act rashly, but report it to the higher authorities.

Originally, Huo Shizhen should have been the person in charge, but he gave the overall authority of the task to Lin Guantang - also the legendary Lingchen in the military academy.

That scared almost all the cadets.

Although there have been many rumors before that Ling Chen and Lin Guantang actually have a close relationship, most of them speculated that they were related by blood or something like that, and no one thought that they were the same person.

But Huo Shizhen didn't say a word during the whole process, and all the orders were issued by Lin Guantang one by one, which made people have to believe this matter.

Having said that, if we were not in Fugan District and the system permissions were not cut off, the military academy forum would probably have crashed directly.

However, on the other hand, even if everyone does not fully trust Councillor Kobayashi's command ability, Ling Chen's strength is obvious to all and they are quite convinced, not to mention the trust of the big devil Huo Shizhen.

Therefore, even if he had some dissatisfaction with the handing over of the commanding authority to Lin Guantang before, he now completely obeyed.

Even if there are still people who are dissatisfied and do not intend to obey the orders of an omega, it doesn’t matter. Lin Guantang has already memorized the rules and regulations of the military academy, and has a general understanding of the various laws and regulations of the empire derived from them.

If you are a little willful about unimportant tasks, Lin Guantang might have the patience to reason with you.

However, it is no exaggeration to say that such a large-scale and long-term joint mission is the most important mission in the history of the Empire. In such a mission, if one still throws a tantrum and engages in passive resistance, the Empire and the Military Academy have very comprehensive and strict punishment regulations.

Correspondingly, the rewards for successfully completing the mission are also very generous, and there are plenty of reserve personnel, with many people waiting to take over.

When someone questioned the fact that the commander-in-chief was an omega, or vented negative emotions for other unnecessary reasons, or even slacked off at work, Lin Guantang directly explained all the corresponding punishments for such behavior and replaced the personnel on the spot.

He was in no mood, nor did he have the time, to play games to soothe the children at a time like this.

Killing a chicken to scare the monkeys has always been a quick and effective way to establish authority. After dealing with a few people in this way, no one will make trouble for no reason anymore.

After discovering what happened to Ge Xihe, it was natural to report it to him.

However, Lin Guantang was not happy about the reunion under such circumstances.

Would you be so kind?

It was so easy to send Ge Xihe back.

Lin Guantang sat on a chair nearby, handling various matters sent to him while pondering the other party's intentions.

How should I put it, Ge Xihe's obviously abnormal condition doesn't really mean he has good intentions.

But even if Ge Xihe is in a coma, it would be best to take him away just to prevent Hermes from betraying us when he recalls his original memories, isn't it?

Before Violet met him, she never expected that the person coming here would be him, Lin Guantang.

So this is a trap set for Huo Shizhen.

Or you could say it was a frame-up.

If Ge Xihe gets into trouble at the hands of Huo Shizhen, even if Sikong Tan regains his memory, reconciliation will be impossible because Ge Xihe's life is at stake.

Lin Guantang thought about all the special situations in the real-dimensional world. "When the door of the experience cabin is opened, the experiencer will be automatically and forcibly awakened" is the basic operating rule.

If an abnormal situation occurs, that is, the experience hatch is opened but the experiencer has not woken up, it is most likely because the experience world changes too frequently and the experiencer is stuck in the gap between the changes - in layman's terms, the system is stuck because the experiencer has died too many times and has not reacted. In this case, the system will rescue the person's consciousness as soon as possible.

But this situation is the result of unintentional behavior. What if we are actively thrown into the cracks of the world?

If it is impossible to find the exiled consciousness in your lifetime, what is the difference between that and death.

Oh, there are still some.

The certainty of death is only a temporary grief. Even if the grief lasts, as long as we know whether a person is dead or alive, we can always find the best resting place for him.

Even if you are in a vegetative state and have no consciousness, you can still hope that a miracle will happen one day.

But in this case——

Infinitely approaching death but not equivalent to death;

We know where our consciousness resides, but we don’t know where to go to rescue it;

I want to hope for a miracle to happen, but I also know clearly that if the soul consciousness is not found, a miracle will never happen...

This kind of situation will make people's soul suffer from despair and torture throughout their lives, won't it?

No one came to disturb him for the time being. Lin Guantang lowered his eyes and pondered, already understanding the bad side of Violet and Eden.

He wanted to enter the real-dimensional world again and try to retrieve Ge Xihe's consciousness - but there were so many worlds, who knew which gap he had fallen into? Besides, the system was hostile to him, so how could it help him?

The most crucial point is——

The Y system belonging to the empire, if his estimated time is correct, has now replaced the X system that covers and supports the true dimension world.

Huo Shizhen replaced him and went to the Sea Tower to carry out this task, and the completion speed would be faster than expected.

He couldn't stop it.

Just when he thought of this and still wanted to try to contact Huo Shizhen——

Countless continuous notification sounds of varying pitches entered Lin Guantang's ears:

[System information has been successfully fully covered and has completely taken over the X system. Except for important running devices, please restart the terminal and other devices to switch to the original system.]

[System Amra has successfully covered and taken over [Fugan District]. All public facilities are operating normally. Please do not panic. Restart the terminal or other system control equipment to resume normal operation.]

…

In reality and on the Internet, there is a carnival of new life everywhere.

Countless people praised Hexi's powerful ability, and countless people admired the stable operation of the imperial system. Then there were various comments:

"Always going against the Imperial Capital, only to end up causing chaos and having the Empire to clean up the mess" ...

Such jokes about surviving a disaster.

As for the real-dimensional world, it can be re-entered, but no one will care about the souls lost in the cracks.

Even if there were, they would be like everyone else, going to attack the officials of the True Dimension World. It was impossible to force a newly arrived Imperial System to take over even such private enterprise entertainment projects.

In short, the atmosphere was filled with joy everywhere, but it could not reach Lin Guantang's heart.

Even if someone came to him specifically to congratulate him, he would just pull up the corners of his mouth and make a smile, and after the person left, he would stop smiling.

The system itself has been completely covered. How can we enter the real-dimensional world and find the souls lost in unknown cracks?

How should I explain this to Senior Sikong?

The sound of sighs lingered in the empty room.

When Lin Guantang was silent for a long time, Shao Qingbai sent him a call request.

After the call was connected, the sounds of rolling waves and blowing sea breeze came through.

And Shao Qingbai yelled:

"Haitang, the senior has gone crazy!"

Lin Guantang's ears were almost deafened by his shouting, and the sad atmosphere in the room was completely dispelled.

But who's crazy?

The words "Misfortunes never come alone" suddenly popped up in Lin Guantang's mind.

A good friend of mine is still in a coma and there is no way to regain consciousness and wake him up. How could something happen to someone else?

——Being called senior by Shao Qingbai, and even coming to tell him specifically, the answer was self-evident.

But Huo Shizhen was so emotionally stable that he killed people without even taking a breath, so how could he go crazy?

Lin Guantang subconsciously denied Shao Qingbai's statement.

However, he couldn't suppress his increasingly panicked heart.

Lin Guantang thought about it again and again, denied it again and again, but still couldn't help but ask again clearly:

"Who are you calling crazy? Name it."

Shao Qingbai didn't quite understand why he asked one more question:

"Of course it's your dear husband, Young Master Huo. Who else could it be? If anyone else is crazy, why would I tell you first?"

Lin Guantang: ...

Sometimes, it’s not surprising that Wen Tiange and Jian Yinglai came to mess with him.

That's the truth, and Lin Guantang didn't refute what Shao Qingbai said, but it was too straightforward and rough.

Who of them is the rich young master and who is the rough boy from District 35?

Lin Guantang was not only flustered, but also dizzy. He pressed his brows with his hand and said patiently:

"What exactly is going on? Turn on the video and let me see his current condition."

"Oh, I can't explain it clearly in one sentence. If you want to see it—damn, I'm the big brother of the friendly army, don't kill me!"

Shao Qingbai suddenly screamed, and then ran breathlessly. He had no time to turn on the video, and even no time to hang up the phone.

So Lin Guantang listened to his frantic running and begging for mercy, as well as the sound of him being hit by something.

It sounded like sand, bottles, or railings, but Shao Qingbai didn't make any painful sounds of being hit, which made Lin Guantang feel a little relieved.

But when Shao Qingbai finally stopped running, Lin Guantang still asked him what was going on and whether he was hit.

"I'm fine, haha, it seems that crazy people are not accurate at all."

Shao Qingbai was optimistic and laughed foolishly twice, then quickly continued the previous topic and said:

"Anyway, the senior pulled something out of his gland and stopped the system from exploding. Although it didn't stop it, we managed to jump into the sea."

Lin Guantang: ...Where exactly is the success, and what does it mean to extract something from the gland?

He was confused and patiently held back from asking, listening to Shao Qingbai continue:

"I thought I had escaped death, but after I crawled out of the sea, my senior went crazy. Pheromones were everywhere. I could hardly breathe after crawling out of the sea. I was almost killed by my senior if I didn't drown."

"And he's got a gun in one hand and an iron rod in the other. Damn, why on earth would he carry a folding iron rod around with him? He doesn't even feel tired swimming in the sea. Anyway, he's completely turned into a violent demon now, and anyone who gets close to him will die!"

Lin Guantang found it difficult to imagine that scene...

But he couldn't tell which scene was harder to imagine. Every word Shao Qingbai said was beyond his comprehension, but from his tone it sounded like he was really scared.

Lin Guantang felt that it would be better for him to go there in person to see it.

One of the reasons why Shao Qingbai came to talk to him about this matter was also for this reason - if the alpha's susceptibility period had arrived and caused the rage, then the conventional practice would naturally be to call the omega that matched it over to comfort it.

It's really scary that the senior student, during this susceptible period, launched an indiscriminate attack.

Although other alphas may become more aggressive and have higher strength during their susceptible period, they are not so aggressive that they directly transform into destructive weapons.

I don’t know if calling Lin Guantang over will hurt him instead.

Another question is -

Shao Qingbai probably reached a safe area, his tone became servile, and he asked cautiously and tentatively:

"By the way, have you guys done that? If so, maybe coming here can help comfort him. If not, it would be dangerous for you to come here."

Lin Guantang felt a little guilty and his eyes were a little vague.

But Shao Qingbai just called and didn't turn on the video, so his expression couldn't be seen to change - although Shao Qingbai was not good at observing and interpreting micro-expressions.

At least from the sound, Lin Guantang seemed quite steady and confident:

"It's okay. I'll talk to you when I get there now—it'll probably take an hour. I have things to deal with here as well. Feel free to contact me if anything happens over there."

After saying that, he hung up the call.

Without giving him any time to continue feeling depressed, Lin Guantang finally took a closer look at Ge Xihe, told his men to take good care of the place and not to touch any of the equipment here, then he got up and left.

He wanted to rush to the beach as fast as possible, but he couldn't.

The purpose of his coming to the Ziye Building was because he was needed to be present on site to make task adjustments, not to visit Ge Xihe.

So no matter how anxious he was, he could only calmly and calmly assign the tasks one by one and make adjustments based on real-time reports.

It was not until half an hour later that he finished explaining all the important matters as quickly as possible and rushed to the high tower on the sea.

***

As early as several hours ago, the Sea Tower had issued a notice for everyone, including tourists and staff, to evacuate completely.

After the system scan confirmed that no one was staying in the tower, all access control systems were closed and all system functions were turned off. Even the lights were not left on, and only the fluorescent indicator lights emitted a quiet fluorescence.

More than ten minutes later, Shao Qingbai and Tian Ye quietly came out of a utility room and took off the hoods of their cloaks - they were special cloaks that could prevent system scanning.

The towering iron tower stretched as far as the eye could see, especially since there was no one inside the tower except the two of them. In the dark steel giant, it was as if the end of the world had come and everyone else had been transferred to other planets or worlds, leaving only them and the steel waste.

Fortunately, they are not really going to sit here and wait to die.

After scanning and cracking the access control at the fastest speed, Huo Shizhen entered the tower a few hours later.

That also surprised Tian Ye and Shao Qingbai. After all, the original plan was that Lin Guantang would capture the electronic ghost, obtain the secrets, come and meet up with them, and then use the Empire System to directly cover the source of the X system.

I didn't expect that Huo Shizhen would come.

So it’s no wonder that Violet didn’t make this guess, because they really even deceived their own people.

Then we descended the last floor and arrived at the main source control center, with smooth sailing all the way.

Huo Shizhen cracked the system, and Shao Qingbai and Tian Ye were on guard at both sides of the two substations, but there were not many guards, not to mention people, there was not even a mosquito.

The two were in a good mood to chat, and they lamented that they didn't know whether the Fugan District was too arrogant or too careless. Such an important place didn't even have an infrared anti-theft device installed.

But under normal circumstances, it is impossible for people to sneak into this steel giant.

Of course, it is impossible to ask people to take any measures against the main source system.

As expected, Huo Shizhen's cracking process was blocked.

【Warning, this mission is prohibited.】

[Warning, this task process has been detected to be dangerous and has been automatically blocked! ]

【warn……】

A series of warnings and prohibitions did not stop Huo Shizhen from continuing to try and fail one by one.

The task process was blocked before it even started, and was not intercepted until more than 90% of the process was completed, and finally it was successfully cracked.

But before they could be happy, a huge red exclamation mark popped up on the screen:

[The detection system has been completely cracked, all channels are locked, and the self-destruct sequence is activated! ]

[The detection system has been completely replaced, all channels are locked, and the self-destruct sequence is activated! ]

[Please evacuate from Gate Zero within one minute. The self-destruct sequence will be activated one minute later, destroying the entire X system. At the very least, the entire tower will be completely destroyed. Please stay at least 100 meters away from the tower.]

"Damn, why is it connected to the self-destruct program? Are you so confident that the system will never be upgraded in your lifetime?"

Shao Qingbai couldn't help but curse out loud, he was stunned by the message box that popped up. Although Tian Ye didn't say it out loud, he was also quite shocked.

It's fine for a normal important program to automatically destroy itself after being cracked, but this is the massive system that supports the entire Fugan District, and they can destroy it just like that...

And even if being hacked is abnormal, isn't it normal to be replaced? There was no warning at all that triggered the self-destruct program.

That makes it understandable why there is no preventive measure. They are all locked in the tower and blown up together with the tower, dying together. What is there to prevent?

No preventive measures are better than destroying the entire tower.

But the most important thing now is——

Shao Qingbai looked up at the towering tower. After racking their brains, they could only crack one door.

Good news, they broke through Door Zero.

The bad news is that Gate Zero is nearly a hundred meters away from their current location in a straight line - that's a hundred meters straight up and down.

The elevator was closed, the stairs were blocked, and coming down required hanging upside down by ropes. No matter how hard you tried, it was impossible to go back up in under a minute.

Shao Qingbai said dissatisfiedly:

"One minute?! Am I reading this correctly? Even if we take the elevator, it'll take at least several minutes to get from here to the door. This leaves absolutely no room for survival."

Tian Ye was in a good mood to comfort:

"Actually, there's still time to run as fast as you can. Believe that human potential is unlimited!"

As he spoke, he did not forget to stretch out his arm and clench his fist to cheer.

But it didn't work.

"Don't give me chicken soup at a time like this, okay, Tian Ye-san?"

Shao Qingbai looked at him speechlessly.

"It's a boring trick."

Huo Shizhen turned a deaf ear to the shouting of the two people behind him, and just stared coldly at the countdown numbers in front of him.

After saying this, he sneered, reached out and pressed his hand to the back of his neck. A cold light of the blade flashed between his fingers, and with a little force, his neck was cut with a bloody mark half a finger long.

Blood gushed out, and in just a few seconds, the neck, the lapels, and the scattered silver-white hair were all dyed blood red.

The two people who were arguing turned their eyes and followed his movements. They were immediately startled by the blood that kept oozing out from the back of his neck.

Shao Qingbai shouted:

"Boss, the back of your neck is bleeding!"

Tian Ye nodded repeatedly, then realized that Huo Shizhen had his back to them and could not see his movements, so he quickly said:

"Boss, it's real!"

Huo Shizhen did not respond to their nonsense. He continued to press the crack and squeezed something out of it.

Shao Qingbai's eyes widened to the extreme. He had never seen such an operation before:

"What is that? Did the boss pull out the gland?..."

Tian Ye also felt incredible, but he also knew that now was not the time to shout.

Even if the seniors are not affected by the noise they make, they cannot completely relax and cause more trouble just because they know that the seniors are there and they don't have to worry about being blown to death.

Tian Ye tugged at Shao Qingbai's sleeve and hushed him, telling him not to speak so as not to disturb his senior.

Although it seemed that Huo Shizhen didn't care about them at all.

He just focused on pressing the bleeding back of the neck as if he was not afraid of the pain.

Not long after, a chip the size of a fingernail was pulled out from the bloody back of the neck.

It seemed to be connected by some flesh, blood, tendons or bones.

But his long hair was loose, and it took only a few seconds from pulling it out to tearing it off and then bringing it in front of him, so it was impossible to see clearly what he pulled out from the back of his neck.

Tian Ye and Shao Qingbai looked at each other, took a deep breath at the same time, and tiptoed to the side to take a look.

I only saw Huo Shizhen wiping the chip-like thing clean with something like a wet tissue.

With only half a minute left on the screen, the thing was sent into the system port.

After a few seconds, the countdown froze and a brand new interface appeared on the screen.

[Detecting abnormal system intrusion, prohibiting...]

[The self-destruction program terminates and self-update is started.]

[The system is connected and running normally. It is expected to be connected in one minute.]

Did this successfully prevent self-destruction?

Before the other two could be happy, Huo Shizhen spoke while watching the progress bar in front of them:

"Once the system is successfully overlaid, the nearest door will be opened. Prepare for immediate evacuation."

Shao Qingbai and Tian Ye looked at each other in confusion, neither of them quite understanding what he meant.

You should run away if you fail, but if you succeed, shouldn’t you celebrate?

Shao Qingbai didn't think much about it and immediately asked the question in his mind:

"Why evacuate?"

Huo Shizhen had already left the operating table.

On the way, he reached out to push back the hair on the back of his neck, and then wiped the bloody back of his neck with the wet tissue that he had just used to wipe the chip.

Then he took out a piece of adhesive tape with hemostatic effect from his pocket, and simply stuck it on the wound and pressed it tightly.

While treating his wound, he turned and walked towards the door, saying without any emotion:

"If you want to die, you can stay here."

Now that the words have been spoken, no matter how confusing it is, the two of them can only follow and do it.

As they followed it towards the nearest door, the sound of the system operating prompts filled the entire space.

[The system has been successfully activated, and the Y system has successfully taken over all smart devices...]

[The *** hatch has been opened. Please pass through quickly. It will automatically close in one minute.]

As the prompt sounded, the corresponding doors opened smoothly layer by layer, and the sea water rushed in.

Huo Shizhen jumped out directly, and the other two also swam out quickly.

Before the door was completely closed, a warning sound suddenly sounded:

[The system has been successfully replaced and the gas in the tower will be automatically cleaned and replaced. The clean gas is not suitable for breathing by living things. Please evacuate quickly!]

[The explosive number xxxx is about to explode and cannot be stopped. Please take explosion-proof measures!]

Before the door closed, only a cloud of water vapor mixed with fire and thick fog rolled out, and was completely trapped in the tower by the completely closed door.

There was not even a countdown for escape before the explosives were detonated.

The two people who had already swam out were stunned.

This is so fucking...

If the gates had not been opened in advance and they had not run away, who would have had time to take explosion-proof measures!

But they were still in the sea, so it was not the right time to talk. Even if they had a lot to say, they had to wait until they swam out to the deep sea.

Fortunately, the process went smoothly and they climbed to the nearest shore in less than half an hour.

As soon as he got on, Shao Qingbai sat on the shore, wet and slumped over. Before he could catch his breath, he couldn't wait to complain:

"Why did it explode even though the self-destruct sequence was stopped? This explosive is unethical!"

Tian Ye also took a few deep breaths, managed to calm down, and then replied:

"The self-destruct sequence activated the automatic explosives trigger. The new system replaced the old one. After successful activation, the default mode was directly activated, including the gas self-cleaning mode."

In short, after System X is compromised, it will self-destruct.

If it is not replaced and suppressed quickly with a higher authority system, the entire system source and the entire tower will be destroyed.

If the replacement is successful within the time, the nearby explosives will be directly detonated at the moment of replacement and the gas cleaning cycle will be started.

Even if you want to find a place to hide temporarily in the tower, you will either be blown to death or poisoned to death.

After Shao Qingbai figured out the key points, he chuckled twice and said:

"In short, we don't let anyone in the tower get out alive."

Moving is death, not moving is also death.

If it weren't for Huo Shizhen, they would have no chance of getting out alive.

But what exactly did the senior pull out from his neck?

Shao Qingbai looked in his direction.

Huo Shizhen was wearing a black combat uniform and standing silently on the beach a few steps away.

The coat was draped over her arm, and her long silver hair was tumbling up and down in the sea breeze.

Compared to someone who just escaped from the sea, he looked more relaxed than a tourist who came to see the sea.

Anyway, no one is as embarrassed as them two.

Shao Qingbai showed admiration and said with a humble attitude:

"Even at this time, he still remembered to act cool. I learned something."

Don't learn everything.

Now it was Tian Ye's turn to look at him speechlessly.

And in a place they didn't notice, there was a cold air that was not born at the edge of the sea, but was quietly spreading to the surroundings.