Room Thirteen, Baal's Blood Inn, Street Number Nine, Residential Sector Eighteen, District Nine.
The streetlights dimmed, signaling that night had arrived.
The broad streets stretched like satin between the hive city's towering buildings, dotted with countless little stalls.
Many Upper Hive residents had not gone home after nightfall, instead strolling sporadically through the streets.
Some walked alone, some with lovers, while married couples held their children's hands.
From time to time, they bought food, trinkets, or small handicrafts from the roadside.
More people headed into the churches, praying devoutly to The Emperor and thanking him for protecting them through another day.
Zhou Yun stood by the window of Room Thirteen, watching a sight that could never be seen in the Lower Hive.
Recently, numbers had been tormenting him a little.
When choosing a room, he had deliberately picked Room Thirteen.
Thirteen. What a wonderful number.
The Emperor—no, the Great Horned Rat's sacred number.
Daemon crap! Die, die, die!
Tzeentch crap! We're screwed!
Great Horned Rat! Yes! Yes!
Zhou Yun prayed devoutly to the Great Horned Rat.
The Great Horned Rat's power would punish Tzeentch! Rat bastard, yes! Yes!
"What kind of bizarre faith is that? Wait, why is The Emperor the Great Horned Rat?"
As Zhou Yun prayed devoutly, the noisy Warp heretic creature within the white light denied the truth that the Great Horned Rat and The Emperor were one and the same.
"No, I can tell you with certainty that there is no god called the Great Horned Rat in this galaxy," the winged figure in the white light quipped.
"Isn't he sitting on the Golden Throne?" Zhou Yun answered with a laugh.
Just then, he spotted Lena outside the window.
Lena seemed to be holding something. Gasping for breath, she jogged into the inn.
Curious, Zhou Yun walked to the door and opened the one bearing the number thirteen.
Lena rushed in from the corridor, flushed red and with lively light shining in her eyes. She nearly crashed into Zhou Yun.
Zhou Yun stared at Lena and saw delight, happiness, and joy in her eyes.
"Guess what I found?" Lena let out a heavy breath, her voice made pleasant by her excitement.
The aura of joy around Lena seemed to have diluted her usual airheadedness.
To be honest, she looked a little alluring right then.
Holy crap, has this big idiot Lena been corrupted? That was Zhou Yun's first thought.
His fingers quietly settled on the Pocket Tornado.
"Go on, guess!" Lena widened her eyes and looked at Zhou Yun.
Zhou Yun could even smell the faint fragrance on her and see the strands of hair dampened with sweat.
It was Slaanesh! Slaanesh's vile influence was trying to corrupt him, a healthy and upstanding Imperial youth.
Killing intent flashed through Zhou Yun's eyes.
"Wait, wait, wait!"
The killing intent in Zhou Yun's eyes startled Lena. She hurriedly backed away several steps and pulled something from her clothes.
A model?
A model of a starship?
Zhou Yun froze as he looked at the crudely painted plastic starship model in Lena's hands.
"If you don't want to guess, then don't! Why were you trying to hit me?" Lena said, still shaken.
Zhou Yun carefully examined the plastic starship model, crudely painted like a child's craft project.
It was a golden starship, slender and beautiful in form, with a massive crimson eye-stone at its prow and golden wings decorating both sides.
"What is this?" Zhou Yun asked blankly.
"The Crimson Tear!" Lena said.
"The Crimson Tear!" the winged figure in the white light said.
Zhou Yun blinked in confusion.
"It is the Archangel's flagship, the glorious Gloriana-class Battleship Crimson Tear!"
Holding the starship model high, Lena said excitedly:
"My mother and I made this together when I was little!"
"I buried it beneath a steel plate in District Nine. I didn't expect it to still be there!"
Oh, so it was a model of Sanguinius's Gloriana-class Battleship, the Crimson Tear.
Seeing that Lena's not-too-bright aura had returned, Zhou Yun quietly let out a breath of relief.
It seemed this idiot had not been corrupted.
"Did you find anything while following Madam Narma Carl today?"
"Madam Narma Carl was the same as yesterday. Everything was normal."
Lena shook her head and said:
"Oh, but I confirmed her routine."
"Tomorrow, the factory where she works is putting in overtime to ship a batch of weapons. She is responsible for the accounting, and there will be no one at her home tomorrow night."
"You're planning to act tomorrow?"
Zhou Yun frowned and handed over the file he had gotten from Augustus Flax.
"Look at this."
Lena blinked and took the file folder from Zhou Yun.
When she opened it, she could not help but gasp in surprise.
"Madam Narma's records? They're so detailed. Where did you get these?"
"I have my own channels. Read them carefully," Zhou Yun said to Lena.
Then he turned to look at the wall.
A calendar hung there.
It showed not only Ashford's local calendar, but Terra's calendar as well.
That was because some Imperial holidays were determined according to the Imperial Calendar.
For example, Sanguinius Day was a holiday in the twelfth month of the Imperial Calendar.
Zhou Yun was very familiar with this Imperial Calendar. It was the Gregorian calendar from long ages ago.
According to the Imperial Calendar, tomorrow was October 9th.
It had a nine in it. But it was not as extreme as September 9th.
If it really were September 9th, Zhou Yun would probably recite Remembering Battle Brothers on September Ninth and absolutely refuse to act tomorrow.
But October 9th... It seemed more likely that Zhou Yun's nerves were simply too tense.
For easier calculation, the calendar also marked what day of the year tomorrow was according to the Imperial Calendar.
"October 9th, the 282nd day of the year."
"Doesn't seem strange either."
Zhou Yun stroked his chin.
There was only one nine among those numbers, and 282 was not a multiple of nine.
387, 420, 489, 6,561 Blood Coins, 153 prayers over four years, October 9th, 282 days.
Those strings of numbers intertwined and echoed endlessly through Zhou Yun's mind.
Yet no matter what he did, Zhou Yun could not find a pattern among them.
Some of the numbers were multiples of nine, some contained a nine, and some had absolutely nothing to do with nine.
Nine was Tzeentch's sacred number.
If he truly used mathematics to spread corruption, then he ought to use nine.
After all, other numbers might point toward other Chaos gods instead, creating interference.
Zhou Yun was even considering whether he should cover himself in sevens representing Nurgle, just to counter Tzeentch.
"Hmm, I don't think there's anything wrong with these records." Lena pointed at the file in her hand.
"I see a woman devout enough to donate most of her savings, a wife whose husband died for the Empire, and a kind lady."
"She does have a particular interest in mathematics, but that alone isn't enough to suspect her of corruption, is it?"
Zhou Yun listened to Lena and fell silent for a long while.
There was no way this big idiot Lena could be corrupted by Tzeentch. Her intelligence was not up to standard. She was probably telling the truth.
Could Zhou Yun really have been too sensitive?
Zhou Yun glanced at the winged figure in the white light at the corner of his eye. "What do you think?"
"I have not found any signs of corruption, at least not yet."
The winged figure in the white light said quietly:
"But corruption is always gradual and concealed."
"Before the Great Heresy began, who could have imagined that so many Primarchs and Astartes would be corrupted?"
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