The Spoon's Warning and the Malfunctioning Surveillance

"...Get out."

Ling Ye's cold, impatient final word struck the hearts of the security guards outside the door like an invisible heavy hammer, and it also hit Su Wanqing's nerves fiercely.

The wooden ice cream spoon, deeply embedded in the door panel, still trembled slightly at its tip, like a cold, irrefutable warning signal. The trace of vanilla cream left on the spoon seemed particularly absurd and jarring in the grim atmosphere.

Outside the door, there was deathly silence.

Through the peephole, Su Wanqing could see the expressions on the security guards' faces shift from uneasy surprise to utter shock and bewilderment. They stared intently at the spoon stuck in the door, then at each other, as if confirming they weren't collectively hallucinating. Using an ice cream spoon as a weapon? And it pierced through such a thick solid wood door?! This was beyond their comprehension!

The captain of the guards opened his mouth, making a "huk huk" sound in his throat, but no words came out. Finally, he swallowed hard, and offered a smile to the door (or rather, to the spoon) that was uglier than a cry, filled with extreme fear. He nodded repeatedly, then, as if he had seen a ghost, frantically gestured to his subordinates.

Retreat!

Retreat immediately!

The men scrambled and tumbled, practically using their hands and feet to flee the entrance area. They didn't even bother to pick up the door-breaking tools they dropped, and instantly disappeared from Su Wanqing's sight.

Su Wanqing leaned against the cold door panel, her legs weak, and slowly slid to the floor. She gasped for air, her back already soaked with cold sweat. In that moment, she truly thought the entire door would explode the next second, and the people outside would turn into scattered ashes.

Fortunately… it was just a spoon as a warning.

Still shaken, she turned her head to look at the spoon nailed to the door. The wooden spoon had almost completely sunk into the hard oak, leaving only a shallow indentation and its tip visible. What terrifying strength and control would that require?! She couldn't imagine.

In the living room, Ling Ye seemed unconcerned by the outcome outside. Having dealt with the source of the noise, his attention returned to the box of "special" ice cream, and he continued to scoop and eat it slowly, as if the spoon that had just terrified ordinary people wasn't thrown by him.

However, Su Wanqing hadn't fully relaxed yet—

Her ears twitched almost imperceptibly.

Her ears, enhanced by Chaos Origin Qi, had picked up an extremely faint, mechanical whirring sound that wasn't from outside the door, but from… a corner of the villa's outer wall?!

And… a feeling of being watched?!

Although extremely faint, almost blending into the wind and ambient noise, she, with her heightened nerves at that moment, had keenly detected it!

Someone was still monitoring them?! Not the obvious security guards, but someone more hidden!

Her heart leaped into her throat again! She instinctively looked at Ling Ye.

Ling Ye's ice cream-eating motion didn't pause at all, nor did he even lift an eyelid.

But his free left hand, resting on the armrest of the sofa, casually… flicked its fingers.

There was no light, no sound, not even an energy fluctuation.

It was like flicking away an invisible speck of dust.

However, within a tiny crevice of a drainpipe on the villa's outer wall, a micro high-precision camera, no bigger than a fingernail and disguised in cement color, had its internal sophisticated photosensitive element and circuit board overloaded and melted in 0.01 seconds, turning into a small pile of scorched waste! Along with it, a similarly hidden micro transmitter used for data transmission was silently rendered useless.

In the distance, inside a camouflaged reconnaissance vehicle hidden in the woods, a screen instantly went black and emitted a faint wisp of smoke. The operator jumped, cursing under his breath as he checked the equipment, "Damn it! Why did the #3 periscope suddenly burn out?! The signal's gone too!"

Almost simultaneously.

On the villa's rooftop, under the shadow of a solar panel, another micro sensor array responsible for thermal imaging and life sign monitoring also, without any warning… collectively shut down, its internal structure completely shattered into powder by an invisible force.

Inside another command vehicle, the corresponding monitoring screen instantly filled with static.

"Report! The 'Thermal Eye' array on the roof has failed! Cause unknown! It's like… like internal structural resonance shattering?!"

"The underground sonic sensor network is offline! All nodes lost signal simultaneously!"

"The laser microphone array… burned out?! We haven't even aimed it at the windows yet!"

Within seconds, the most hidden and advanced surveillance and detection equipment deployed around the villa, as if marked by an invisible grim reaper, one after another, without warning, completely failed!

There were no signs of attack, no energy bursts, just simple… breakage! Completely irreparable!

Three kilometers away from Yunqi Mountain, in the main command vehicle, the atmosphere couldn't be described as just heavy, but rather… a desperate, dead silence.

Lei Bao's face turned ashen as he looked at the large number of black monitoring windows on the main screen in front of him, and listened to the technicians' tearful reports.

Destroying equipment… remotely?!

And such precise, unannounced, and undefendable destruction?!

This was no longer a gap in technical capability, this was a crushing defeat at the… rules level! The other party couldn't even be bothered to explain, merely casually "cleaned up" the unsightly "dust"!

"All units!" Lei Bao's voice was hoarse, filled with a deep sense of powerlessness, "Recall all remaining monitoring probes! Immediately! Now! Maintain minimal long-distance optical observation! Repeat, any form of electronic, sonic, or energy detection is absolutely forbidden! Violators will be dealt with by military law!"

He had no doubt that if they tried to spy again, the next thing to break wouldn't be the equipment, but the people operating it!

Inside the villa.

Ling Ye finally finished the last bite of ice cream, licked the spoon (not the one on the door panel) with satisfaction, and casually tossed the empty box onto the floor, joining the previous broken box.

He leaned back comfortably on the sofa, squinted his eyes, seemingly preparing to continue his lazy lounging, enjoying the hard-won (and self-created) peace.

However, fate (or rather, the author) seemed determined not to let him rest.

An extremely faint, yet exceptionally sharp and rapid "beep beep" sound suddenly emanated from Su Wanqing's phone on the coffee table!

This was no ordinary call or message notification sound! It was the highest-level security alert triggered by a specific monitoring software!

Su Wanqing jumped at the sudden alarm, snatching up her phone.

On the phone screen, a bright red exclamation mark flashed frantically! Below it was a glaring warning text:

[Warning! Detected abnormal trigger of the third layer dynamic password lock on the Su Mansion underground vault! Illegal intrusion attempt! Please handle immediately!]

Su Mansion?!

That was her father's old home! It was an hour's drive from here! In the underground vault of the old mansion were stored some of the Su Family's most confidential documents and... a "heirloom" whose origins she wasn't entirely clear about, but her father had repeatedly instructed her to protect it before his death!

How could it have been triggered suddenly?! The third lock?! That required her iris and a specific voiceprint preset by her father to unlock, the ultimate defense!

Su Wanqing's face instantly turned as pale as paper! Forgetting her fear of Ling Ye, she cried out in alarm, "No! Something's happened at the old mansion! The vault!"

Her voice, sharp with extreme panic, was particularly jarring in the villa that had just regained its quiet.

Ling Ye, who had been lounging on the sofa with his eyes half-closed, suddenly snapped them open again!

This time, his eyes held no trace of laziness or impatience. Instead, a flicker of... a truly cold rage, as subtle as a disturbed dragon's scale, flashed within them!

Again and again!

Endlessly!

He was woken from his sleep, his ice cream interrupted, and now someone was trying to snatch this woman's damn box?!

Did these mortals really think he had no temper?!

He abruptly sat up on the sofa, the languid, "couch potato" aura instantly vanishing, replaced by a heart-stopping, terrifyingly oppressive presence, like a primordial beast awakening!

He didn't look at Su Wanqing, nor did he ask any questions.

Instead, he directly extended his right hand, fingers spread, towards the empty air in the center of the living room!

Then, with extreme impatience... he fiercely grabbed forward!

"Riiip--!"

A sickening, tearing sound, like fabric being violently ripped apart, exploded in the air before him!

Space... was torn open by his bare hands!

This wasn't a metaphor! It was a genuine, physical tearing of space!

A black rift, its edges shimmering with chaotic colors and terrifying energy turbulence, appeared out of nowhere in the center of the villa's living room like a hideous scar! Inside the rift was an abyss of nothingness, exuding a terrifying aura that devoured everything!

Su Wanqing's scream cut off abruptly. She stared dumbfoundedly at the spatial rift that had suddenly appeared, her brain completely frozen!

Ling Ye didn't even glance at the spatial rift, which would have driven any scientist mad. His gaze seemed to pierce through the rift, directly locking onto a coordinate in the underground vault of the Su Mansion, miles away.

Then, with utter casualness, he... reached his hand, which had torn space, into the dark, chaotic rift!

It was as natural as... reaching into a dark storage bag to find something!

The next second, he yanked his hand back out of the rift!

And in his hand... was a living, breathing person, clad in a black stealth suit and a high-tech helmet, struggling desperately, emitting terrified whimpers from his throat!

The intruder clearly hadn't understood what had happened. One moment he was trying to crack the vault's final voiceprint lock, the next his vision went black, his throat was seized by an irresistible hand, and he was forcibly pulled from the vault... across tens of kilometers of space... and grabbed!

Ling Ye, holding the thoroughly terrified intruder like a disobedient chick, casually brought him close, his cold gaze sweeping over a specific insignia on the intruder's helmet, his brow arching almost imperceptibly.

"Shadow?" he repeated the word in a low voice, seemingly recalling a similar aura from the "insects" who had been spying earlier.

"Heh," he let out a cold chuckle devoid of any humor, "They really are... persistent."

Before his voice faded, the fingers gripping the intruder's throat tightened slightly.

"Crack."

A crisp, scalp-tingling sound of a breaking neck echoed sharply in the deathly quiet living room.

The intruder's struggles instantly ceased, his head lolled limply to the side, utterly lifeless.

Ling Ye tossed the limp corpse onto the carpet as if it were trash, making a dull thud.

Then, he reached his hand into the spatial rift, which had yet to close, and felt around, seemingly confirming there were no other "insects" in the vault, before slowly withdrawing his hand.

As his hand retracted, the hideous spatial rift rapidly sealed and vanished, like a healing wound. The living room returned to its original state, as if nothing had happened.

All that remained was the cooling corpse on the floor, the lingering, soul-chilling ripples of terrifying energy from the torn spatial rift, and... Su Wanqing, completely petrified, having forgotten even to be afraid.

Ling Ye shook his hand as if he had touched something dirty, a look of undisguised disgust on his face.

He finally raised his eyes, his gaze falling on Su Wanqing, who stood there dumbfounded, as if her soul had left her body. He frowned, a look of impatience, as if asking "Why are you still here?", pointing at the corpse on the floor, and said in a flat tone:

"Clean up this trash."

Then, as if he had resolved a trivial matter, he sank back onto the sofa, closed his eyes, and yawned.

"I'm sleepy."