The chill, musty odor of the abandoned subway had barely dissipated when it was violently ripped apart by the harsh morning wind of the wilderness. Under a leaden sky, Lu Cheneng and Wen Shifei arrived at the military outpost, completely forgotten by the city. It resembled the skeleton of a giant beast lurking at the edge of a steel jungle, its rusted barbed wire like broken ribs, its shattered barrack windows like empty eye sockets. The only remaining sign of life was the nearly faded white military flag, which whistled in the howling wind, emitting a deathly, whining cry, stubbornly commemorating a long-vanished era of iron and blood.
The gravel and rubble beneath his feet groaned harshly in the silence, each step crushing the dust of history. Lu Chensheng's fingertips brushed against a wall pockmarked with bullet holes and weathered slogans. The cold touch seemed to pierce through time, bringing back the echoes of smoke and shouts. "A fortress built with iron and blood will ultimately be reduced to rubble." His voice was low, carrying a hint of the desolation of a world gone by, but his gaze was sharp as a hawk, scanning every corner for potential danger. His awakened senses were amplified; he could hear the whimper of wind across the broken walls, the restless stirring of jackdaws on distant dead branches, even the dripping of leaking pipes deep underground. This place was definitely not safe.
Wen Shifei's movements, however, were quick and lively, a sight that seemed out of place among the ruins. She quickly chose a corner of the barracks that was sheltered from the wind and had a relatively wide field of vision, and untied her heavy tactical backpack. The moisture-proof mat was silently rolled out, and the portable water purifier, high-energy compressed rations, first aid kit, and the portable analyzer that flashed with a cold blue light—her "weapon"—were neatly arranged. Hearing Lu Chenentang's sigh, she looked up, the morning light just outlining the contours of her face, her short flaxen hair stained with dust, but it couldn't hide the flames dancing in her clear eyes. "Ruins are the graves of the old world, but they may also be the cradle of the new world." She patted the mat beside her, motioning him to sit down, "Just like you, Lu Chenentang, who broke free from the shackles of the chip and transformed from a cold heir into... a living person."
Lu Chenheng sat down as he was told, close enough to smell the faint scent of her hair, a mixture of sweat and some kind of air freshener. It strangely soothed the restless energy surging within him from his heightened alertness. He tilted his head to look at her, the morning light casting fine shadows on her long eyelashes. "It was you who lit that fire, Wen Shifei." His voice was low and sincere, with a tenderness he himself hadn't noticed. "When I thought I was just a precision machine, you made me feel my 'heartbeat.'"
Wen Shifei's heart skipped a beat. She avoided his overly intense gaze, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the metal casing of the analyzer. The cool touch made her feel a little calmer. "That's a power you already have. I just... pushed it a little." She took a deep breath and forced the conversation back on track, but her ears flushed slightly. "The most urgent thing is to figure out the bargaining chips we have. What can that chip tell us?"
Lu Cheneng didn't miss her momentary panic; a faint smile flickered across his eyes. He collected his thoughts and pulled a vacuum-sealed lead box from his pocket. He opened the lid, revealing a fingernail-sized piece of metal with charred edges. It was the fragment of the gene chip he had risked his life to retrieve from the core meltdown of Pandora Labs—a kindred spirit of the "demon" within him, and perhaps the key to unlocking all mysteries. The cold metal shone eerily in the morning light.
"Its core might contain the original code for Project Zero." Lu Cheneng carefully placed the fragment in Wen Shifei's open palm. Her fingertips felt slightly cool against the icy heat of the chip, yet it felt as if a subtle current ran through their intertwined skin. Wen Shifei held her breath. She could sense the terrifying energy contained within this tiny fragment, and... an indescribable call.
"Leave it to me." Wen Shifei's eyes instantly became sharp and focused, like the most sophisticated scanner. She quickly secured the analyzer onto its folding stand and powered it on. The cold blue light turned to a soft warm white. A thin yet extremely concentrated beam of light shot out from the tiny emission port at the top of the analyzer, precisely enveloping the chip fragment. A humming sound began, no longer a low hum, but a rhythmic, low-frequency vibration, like the start of an ancient engine.
Countless tiny streams of data, shimmering in a faint golden glow, emerged from thin air, like spirits controlled by invisible hands, rapidly spinning, interweaving, and reorganizing around the chip fragments. They were no longer dull characters, but instead transformed into dynamic, dizzyingly complex three-dimensional holographic images—distorted DNA double helices, exploding synaptic networks, and nested geometric combination locks... They were filled with primal vitality and a cold sense of technology.
Lu Cheneng involuntarily moved closer, his breath brushing Wen Shifei's temples. The two were enveloped in this fantastical and profound data nebula, as if they were at the singularity of the universe. Wen Shifei's fingers darted across the virtual keyboard, leaving a trail of afterimages. His eyes shone with startling brightness, and he spoke rapidly and clearly, analyzing: "The core architecture... is incredibly stable, far exceeding the level of modern quantum encryption... The underlying protocol... Oh my god, is this using a variation of ancient cuneiform combined with a quantum chaos algorithm? No... more than that! There's also bio-neural pulse coding! This is simply... a strange patchwork of prehistoric civilization and future technology! The person who designed it is a genius, but also a madman!"
Her fingertip suddenly touched a rapidly spinning hexagram composed of countless tiny points of light. The pattern suddenly enlarged, but a corner in the center was strangely missing, forming the prototype of... a heptagon?! "Look here! A non-standard, deliberately hidden 'backdoor' protocol cluster! The structure is extremely unstable, and the energy fluctuation pattern..." She suddenly looked up at Lu Chenen, her eyes gleaming with disbelief, "...and the energy burst waveform of your chip that I monitored the night you awakened... the match is over 99.7%!"
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