The UV lamp in the forensic laboratory suddenly exploded, and Su Chen found two nano-scale trackers in the glass fragments. The system automatically called up the surveillance footage, which showed that three hours ago a courier had delivered a package disguised as "Compendium of Materia Medica" - a container of evaporating liquid nitrogen was hidden in the cover.
"This... this is a directional EMP bomb." Qin Feng used tweezers to pick up the deformed crystal, "It only... only destroys the quantity sensor of the electro-optical microscope."
Tang Ren squatted at the air-conditioning outlet and took out a handful of wolfberries: "The murderer must have a weak kidney! Drinking health tea in this kind of weather..." Suddenly, he was choked, and micro-capsules rolled out of the wolfberries. The neurotoxins released after they burst made the white mice in the laboratory do a mechanical dance.
Su Chen's scalpel suddenly buzzed, and the blade reflected the Morse code of the mouse's retina. When he inserted the tip of the knife into the gap of the laboratory table, the fire sprinkler system of the entire floor suddenly started, and a 3D projection of Boss Lin emerged in the water curtain.
"Officer Qin, this brain neural revolution needs witnesses." The projected folding fan swept across the water surface, and each water droplet reflected the live broadcast room screen. "For every server node you destroy, ten test subjects will die."
Kuntai kicked the door open and stepped on the slippery floor, and his gun was thrown into the centrifuge: "Old Italian stuff!" The high-speed rotating barrel suddenly fired bullets, shattering the laser emitter in the projection equipment. In the mist, the brain tissue slices of the deceased "Cyber Li Bai" were strangely suspended in the shape of DNA chains.
"Ding! Electromagnetic fluid control detected." Arcs burst out from the cuffs of Su Chen's white coat, and the system forcibly took over the laboratory circuit. When 놛 threw Tang Ren's copper hexagram plate into the charged water curtain, the suspended brain tissue suddenly formed a QR code pattern - the scan result was the floor plan of the third underground floor of the Jinyu Building.
When the commandos broke into the Jinyu Building, Qin Feng used a sonic detector to discover a vacuum pipe in the wall. Tang Ren took out his ancestral compass and spun it around, but the pointer pointed firmly to the Buddha Jumps Over the Wall casserole in the kitchen - when he lifted the lid of the casserole, a running quantum computer was revealed, and twelve beast-head USB flash drives were floating in the bottom of the soup.
"This... This is a liquid cooling system that uses soup ingredients to cool down." The abalone that Qin Feng picked up with his tactical dagger was engraved with circuit patterns, "Every... every piece of food is a heat sink."
Su Chen inserted the scalpel into the computer, and the system suddenly fell into a flood of data. His retina flashed back to the laboratory explosion ten years ago: the instructor who was supposed to be dead was showing the neural network prototype to Boss Lin, and there were signs of the electromagnetic pulse shield being activated 0.03 seconds before the explosion.
"The teacher is still alive..." Su Chen's gloves were soaked with cold sweat, "The explosion was a cover for a consciousness transmission experiment!"
Tang Ren was suddenly attracted by the advertisement push in the AR glasses: "Housing prices are dropping! Lin Group Metaverse Properties..." When he clicked on the virtual house viewing link, the entire Jinyu Building suddenly shook. The wall cracked to reveal a giant circular screen, showing 100,000 brain-computer users building a digital mausoleum in the virtual world.
"Welcome... Welcome to the Consciousness Boat." Boss Lin's holographic image rose from the cracks in the floor tiles. "These brains that are donated voluntarily will gain eternal life in the Metaverse."
Qin Feng suddenly fired three shots at the load-bearing column, revealing a bio-battery set in the broken plasterboard. Human brain tissue floated in each transparent capsule, and the nerve synapses were connected to the host through a large number of optical fibers. The composition of the soaking liquid showed that this was the plutonium-238 solution that caused the sudden death of the live-streaming celebrity.
When the SWAT team broke through the last firewall, Tang Ren rushed to the console with a peach wood sword: "The sky and the earth are boundless, the universe borrows the law!" The hard disk array poked by the sword tip suddenly overloaded, and the sparks formed the Xiantian 귷 hexagram in the air. The AI defense program actually started playing the "Great Compassion Mantra" under the Taoist talisman special effects.
"You...you are writing a religious filter for the virus!" Qin Feng stared in amazement as the progress bar of the antivirus software turned into a moral value. "Tang Ren, when did you learn programming?"
"This is cyber Maoshan magic!" Tang Ren mixed cinnabar with liquid nitrogen and splashed it on the server. "I bought this SSR spell in Onmyoji with krypton gold!"
Su Chen took the opportunity to stab the scalpel into the core of the mainframe, and the system began to reverse compile the consciousness data stream. When the progress bar reached 100%, the face of instructor Su Chen flashed on all the screens in the laboratory: "Quickly cut off the backup power supply in the northeast corner! That is the anchor point for consciousness feedback!"
Qin Feng rolled to avoid the automatic machine gun fire, and the moment he cut the cable with a tactical dagger, three hundred brain-machine pods instantly popped open. The eyelashes of the unconscious test subjects trembled, and the barcodes on their necks gradually faded and turned into the phoenix logo of the Lin Group.
"놊...놊 is a voluntary donation." Su Chen retrieved the encrypted file from the host, "These are homeless people and international students who were lured here by the escape room game."
When Kuntai was about to withdraw his troops, Tang Ren suddenly pointed at something in the sky and said, "Look! Boss Lin is running away in the clouds!" Everyone looked up and saw a floating projection composed of a group of drones reporting the breaking news - the Lin Group announced its entry into the metaverse funeral industry.
### Chapter 7: Aftermath
Three months later, at the celebration banquet, when Tang Ren ordered food from the holographic menu, the projection of the braised pork suddenly twisted into Boss Lin's face. Su Chen's scalpel flew out like a reflex, smashing the food delivery robot at the next table - it had an unactivated quantum crystal hidden in its body.
"The system... the system has been upgraded." Qin Feng showed off the newly distributed electromagnetic gloves, "It can... can detect 0.1 second of consciousness intrusion."
When the three of them walked out of the restaurant, the neon lights of Chinatown flashed. A line of bloody code suddenly crossed the corner of Su Chen's retina. It was the remnant of laboratory data that should have been deleted. When the system popped up a new prompt, fireworks happened to explode in the night sky, covering the line of words:
【Consciousness backup remaining: 97%】
(To be continued)