Northwest of the county seat lay a place called Huangni Fan.
Many years ago, it had been a reeducation-through-labor farm. "Going to Huangni Fan" had essentially been synonymous with "serving a sentence." But now, after generations of labor reform personnel... and, of course, mainly government development, Huangni Fan had shed its desolate former appearance and become a thriving large farm. No more labor reform prisoners worked there; it had become the vegetable garden of Shilipu's villagers, supplying Fengcheng with fresh produce.
Few people knew that within the former labor reform farm stood a three-story villa, beneath which lay a special basement.
This was the special prison, built specifically to hold the most unusual suspects.
Its security measures surpassed everything else.
An ordinary car drove into the villa. Number 88, Chang Ye, the director, and the Deputy Director got out at the same time.
After entering the villa and descending into the basement, they saw the suspect. With his back to them, he lay quietly on the small bed.
Chang Ye's expression suddenly shifted slightly. "Something's wrong!"
Number 88 was startled as well. "Open it!"
The room was opened. The two stepped inside at once, and their expressions changed simultaneously. Blood was flowing from the suspect's nostrils. He was unquestionably dead.
The director's face changed. "What happened?"
A guard's expression also changed drastically. "He was fine when we came in. We kept watch outside the whole time. Absolutely no one came near him. How could he have poisoned himself?"
"It wasn't poison," Chang Ye said. "The chip in his brain exploded. He had a chip implanted in his brain!"
Number 88's face darkened. "Didn't I tell you to block all remote signals?"
A brain chip also required signals to be controlled. Blocking remote signals could cut off its transmissions and, in theory, prevent the chip from being remotely triggered to self-destruct.
"Most likely, hackers infiltrated the system and altered the shielding program..." Chang Ye said. "Where's the control room?"
Everyone entered the control room. Chang Ye flicked his fingers lightly, accessed a program, and tapped a few keys. The answer emerged: half an hour earlier, hackers had infiltrated the system and silently lifted the signal block. At that exact moment, the chip had activated and killed the suspect.
The director, the Deputy Director, and three seasoned, highly trained police officers stared at one another, all pale-faced.
Having a chip implanted in the brain was already unbelievable enough.
Yet the other side's methods were even more astonishing. The police had blocked the signals in advance, but the other side had actually hacked in and removed the block.
Even the veteran computer experts in the control room had no idea how the block had been lifted.
The enemy's methods truly left no opening uncovered.
That one remote exchange alone was enough to show just how terrifying they were.
These methods were not something a county-level agency could possibly contend with.
Chang Ye and Number 88 knew this was not their fault. They headed shoulder to shoulder straight for the roof, while the director and Deputy Director followed behind them like children who had made a mistake, barely daring to breathe.
"You said the person who solved the case for you today was an ordinary villager named Lin Xiaosu?" Chang Ye let out a soft breath.
"Yes!" Deputy Director Li Li stepped forward two paces.
"From more than ten miles away, across four city blocks, he could accurately track down the suspect based on nothing more than a trace of the suspect's scent?"
"Yes!"
Chang Ye's eyes glinted faintly in the night. "Arrange for a policewoman to carry out a task with me tomorrow. Don't tell her who I am."
"Yes!"
"Have her come to Room 302 of the Fengcheng Hotel tomorrow morning to find me!"
"Yes!"
"You may leave now. No need to concern yourselves with us."
"Sir, the car is still downstairs. Let us take you both to the hotel..."
"No need. We have a way of getting back over such a short distance," Chang Ye said.
The director and Deputy Director exchanged a glance, then went downstairs together.
The rooftop was pitch-black. From this angle, the county seat seemed somewhat distant.
Number 88 let out a soft breath. "You're interested in that Lin Xiaosu?"
"Yes. There are quite a few people in the group with scent-related genes, but even Number 101, known as the 'Divine Hound Who Guards the Nation,' couldn't have found the suspect so quickly under those circumstances, could he?"
Number 88 nodded. "I'll check whether he has any Gene Modification records."
He raised a hand and put on a pair of glasses. They looked like ordinary gold-rimmed spectacles, but once he wore them, he somehow gained a touch of refinement.
"No need to check. I already did," Chang Ye said. "There are no Gene Modification records for him, which perfectly matches his family background. His family is just an ordinary village household. They could never come up with the tens or hundreds of millions needed for Gene Modification surgery."
"If there are no Gene Modification records, then if he underwent a genetic mutation, there are only two possibilities. First, his bloodline naturally carried genetic mutation factors. Given that his parents and older brother are all ordinary people, that possibility can basically be ruled out. That leaves only the second possibility!"
"An unconscious injection of some external gene," Chang Ye said. "That would be unlikely elsewhere, but on Tashan, it's possible..."
An unconscious injection of external genes...
What did that mean?
Perhaps some insect had bitten him, or some insect had crawled into his body and caused a genetic mutation.
Such cases basically did not exist elsewhere. If a simple bite could cause mutation, then with tens or hundreds of billions of people around the world getting bitten by all kinds of insects every day, wouldn't genetic mutations be everywhere?
But Tashan was anything but ordinary. Its biodiversity was incomparably rich, and it had long since drawn Hidden Dragon's attention.
Hidden Dragon researchers had even conducted research here for many years.
A major incident had happened only three days ago...
"Chang Ye, I know you hope to recruit talent for Hidden Dragon to resolve the current, most complex strategic situation. But you must also understand that our position is extremely delicate. Sometimes, the flap of a butterfly's wings can stir up a tornado on the western coast of the Pacific," Number 88 said.
"That's why I had them arrange for someone to accompany me in a test tomorrow," Chang Ye said.
"How do you intend to test him?"
"I want to see whether his unique investigative methods can solve the unsolved case at Qingyuan Temple from three days ago."
Number 88 was greatly surprised. "You still think 2198's death was a case?"
"Within the group, 2198 was merely a numerical code name. But to me, he was half a father and half a teacher. I can never forget how, when I was staring at the sky in the orphanage, he came before me and held an umbrella over me in the cold autumn rain. Nor can I forget what he told me the night before I sent him to Fengcheng... He said genes were a double-edged sword. The blade's extended killing power was limitless. All he could do was thicken the sword's spine, so it could protect the billion people of Great Xia. With his ambitions still unfulfilled, he would never die!"
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