She looked at Li Zhou. "Although he's not fully awake yet, his cerebral cortex has begun to recover."
Li Zhou nodded, his fingers unconsciously stroking the Night Owl badge in his pocket.
The coolness of the metal came through the cloth, and the patterns on the owl's wings poked his palm, as if reminding him of the explosion that almost swallowed everything, and the clue that the man in front of him had exchanged his life for.
"The smell of cigarettes..."
A faint voice suddenly came from the intercom, with a distorted electronic signal. Li Zhou looked up suddenly and saw Gu Yuxiao's lips moving again, his Adam's apple rolling with difficulty.
"What did he say?" Ah Cheng immediately moved closer to the intercom.
"Smoke... smell..." Gu Yuxiao's voice became even lower, as if it came from far away. "It's not... Black Stone..."
Li Zhou's heart skipped a beat. Black Stone was the brand of cigarette butt Ah Cheng had found at the explosion site.
Gu Yuxiao was still muttering this while he was unconscious, which meant that he had indeed captured the key smell clue before the explosion.
"It's... sandalwood... mixed with... cedar..." Gu Yuxiao opened his eyes a crack again, his gaze distracted but persistent as he looked out the window, "Like... the wax on old furniture..."
Before he finished speaking, his eyelids slowly closed again, and his breathing became even and weak. The beeping of the monitor returned to its previous rhythm, like a lullaby of survival.
Li Zhou stood there, and it seemed as if all the blood in his body was rushing to his brain at this moment.
The scent of sandalwood mixed with cedar, and old furniture wax - this description instantly reminded him of a detail mentioned in his father Li Zhengyang's investigation notes.
Three years ago, when my father was tracking down a sum of illicit money flowing into Vilnius, he locked onto a local residence in Jiangcheng. It was an old villa with an underground wine cellar. The owner liked to use special cedar scented wax to maintain antique furniture.
"Ah Cheng," Li Zhou's voice trembled slightly with excitement, "Investigate the current owner of that old house in the west of the city, especially anyone related to the Shen family's side branch!"
Ah Cheng immediately pulled out his phone, his fingers swiping across the screen. "Got it! Also, the technical team just sent a message saying the 'VK-7' mark on the remote control fragments found at the explosion site has been preliminarily confirmed to be a retired encrypted frequency band receiver from an Eastern European special forces unit."
The Night Owl's tentacles had unexpectedly reached the military supply chain. Li Zhou leaned against the wall, feeling a chill run down his spine.
Every word Gu Yuxiao uttered in his coma was like a key, opening a door to deeper darkness.
Inside the ward, Gu Yuxiao's fingers moved again, this time with his palm facing upward, as if searching for something. Li Zhou also slowly reached out his hand through the glass, pressing his palm against the cold barrier.
He knew that the game with Night Owl was far from over, and Gu Yuxiao's awakening was both a glimmer of hope and a possible more dangerous trap.
The sky outside the window gradually turned pale, and the first ray of morning light penetrated the clouds, shining on the glass of the ICU, reflecting a soft golden light.
Li Zhou looked at the figure on the hospital bed whose breathing was gradually becoming steady, and felt that the icy lake in his chest, frozen by despair, had finally cracked open a gap, and a glimmer of light seeped in, illuminating the long and dangerous road ahead.
He took out his cell phone, unlocked it, and looked at the high school photo. Gu Yuxiao in the photo was smiling brightly, as if he had never been invaded by darkness.
Li Zhou gently traced the boy's face on the screen with his fingertips and whispered, "I'm glad you're awake. From now on, it's my turn to watch over you."
The beeping sound of the monitor echoed in the silent corridor, like the drumbeat of life and also like the horn of war.
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