The incandescent lights of the intelligence station were particularly dazzling late at night.
When Mou Xuan pushed open the glass door, the metal door handle still retained the warmth from the day.
Yu Mingcheng looked up from the pile of paper documents, and the dark circles behind his lenses looked bluish-gray under the light.
"The third batch intercepted three hours ago." Yu Mingcheng pushed the brown paper bag across the metal countertop. The friction of the paper was mixed with the hum of the air conditioner.
When Mou Xuan pulled out the document, he smelled a strange smell of ink mixed with gunpowder smoke. The seven pieces of intelligence were stamped with wax seals of different forces. The "Blood Wolf" logo on two of them was obviously forged recently - the raised gold powder particles on the edge were too uniform.
When Chen Yao came in, she saw Mou Xuan using a tactical dagger to pick up the sealing wax.
Her leather boots tapped lightly on the tiled floor. She casually placed two cans of iced cola on the analysis table. The condensation on the cans formed two overlapping circles on the table.
"There's something wrong with the humidity data at the East District granary." Chen Yao suddenly pressed on one of the satellite cloud images, her fingertips touching the red number marked 65%. "I led a team to the scene during last week's rainstorm, and the degree of rust on the ventilation ducts shows that the actual humidity is at least 75%." She pulled out a pen and drew a function curve on the note paper, her hair brushing across the back of Mou Xuan's hand holding the dagger.
When Envoy Qi pushed the door open, three thumbtacks fell from the vibrating intelligence board.
The young man, who was in his early twenties, had a blood-oozing bandage wrapped around his left arm, and his breath smelled strongly of gasoline. "An encrypted frequency is coming from the northwest outpost," he said as he slapped the military tablet on the table. The crack on the screen just happened to cut the electronic map that was being loaded. "An infrared signal of an unknown convoy was detected fifteen minutes ago."
Mou Xuan's pupils suddenly contracted when he heard "the convoy is equipped with tracked armor."
He reached for the laser pointer on his tactical belt, and the red light swept across the map on the wall and suddenly stopped at a certain coordinate point - there were red and blue magnetic nails marking the patrol team that disappeared three days ago and the gas station that exploded last week.
"Let Lao Ren go meet the businessman who sells second-hand diesel." Mou Xuan suddenly turned around and said to Ming Cheng, the metal chair legs scraping against the ground with a short sharp sound.
The sound of crows flapping their wings could be heard outside the intelligence station. The moonlight cast the shadow of the security window on his profile, cutting out angles of light and dark.
Mou Xuan's finger drew a silver light on the tactical map. Ren Shirong looked at the cold light that stopped at the diesel merchant's coordinate point, and his Adam's apple slid heavily.
His left hand, hidden in his jacket, was tightly gripping the bottle of quick-acting heart pills, and the plastic shell left a crescent-shaped red mark on his palm.
"Two o'clock in the morning, north gate of the scrapyard." Mou Xuan slapped a micro locator on the table. The vibration of the metal table made Ren Shirong's knees weak.
He knew the tattooed diesel dealer - when agent Xiao Zhang was found in the gutter last week, his fingernails were filled with gear oil residue.
Heavy rain splashed all over Ren Shirong's face when he stepped out of the safe house.
He followed the instructions on the locator and turned into the seventh alley. The rotten drainage system caused the water to reach his ankles.
Thirty meters away, the diesel dealer's old truck was turning on its dim fog lights in the rain, with a rusty iron sign that read "Second-hand agricultural machinery" hanging on the rear of the truck.
Mou Xuan's pupils rippled with light golden light in the darkness, and the micro communicator in Ren Shirong's left ear suddenly emitted a crackling sound of electricity.
This was a sign that the time reversal had been activated - when Mou Xuan saw the reflection of the infrared sight flash across the truck chassis, he had already turned back time by twelve seconds.
"Go to the distribution box on the west side." Mou Xuan's voice made Ren Shirong stop suddenly at the fourth alley.
The rain flowed down the back of his neck into his collar, and his right foot, which was about to step into the aperture, suddenly turned in another direction.
Twenty seconds later, two dark figures armed with silenced pistols emerged from their preset ambush point and stared at each other in the empty alley.
The third time travel occurred when Ren Shirong took the diesel sample.
Mou Xuan looked at the miniature bomb disguised as a barometer in the holographic projection, and in the real timeline, he preemptively sent a warning to Ren Shirong's eardrum: "Check the second oil pipeline."
When Ren Shirong returned to the safe house with the oil-stained encryption chip, the mud on his military boots left winding trails on the floor.
Mou Xuan leaned against the monitoring screen and sipped his black coffee. Seventeen moving red dots on the holographic map were gathering towards the wrong coordinates in the heavy rain.
The pleasure of having the enemy at your fingertips is more thrilling than caffeine.
It was at this moment that Chen Yao crashed into his arms.
The damp combat uniform wrapped around her hot skin, and the scent of gun oil and violets entangled in her breath.
When Mou Xuan's hand clasped her lower back, the bayonet on the tactical belt made both of them groan at the same time.
They kissed in the shadow of the piled-up ammunition boxes, and the moment Chen Yao's teeth bit his lower lip, the rusty taste of blood exploded on his tongue.
"East District Cold Storage..." Chen Yao panted and tore open Mou Xuan's collar, her nails scratching bloody marks on his collarbone, "The third emergency door... has what you want..." Her voice was suddenly swallowed up by Mou Xuan's Adam's apple, and the alarm lights of the safe house suddenly lit up at this moment.
The noise of Ren Shirong breaking open the door startled the crows perched outside the window.
The encryption chip in his hand was still dripping with blood-mixed rainwater, and twenty kilometers away in a scrapyard, a sniper who had just been teased by time was furiously attacking an empty container in the heavy rain.
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