Damn!
Lin Qi cursed inwardly.
This was bad. He knew too much!
That kid was crazy. As a target chosen by the Si Clan to be its heir's scapegoat, he was blabbing about such secrets everywhere.
What was he trying to do? Drag someone else down with him?
Lin Qi put on a confused expression, as if he had no idea what Si Ying was talking about.
He was just an A-level researcher. He knew nothing about the heirs of major corporations, and he didn't want to know.
"You're the only Liu Group employee who arrived in Greenland City alive, and you came out of Car One. Your bodyguard lives next door."
"You're not an ordinary person. We can work together. Like I said, I don't want to die."
Si Ying didn't care in the slightest about Lin Qi's act. He was certain Lin Qi held a high position in the Liu Group.
But had it never occurred to him that if Lin Qi really had been someone important in the Liu Group, Si Ying wouldn't have been the one coming to see him?
Lin Qi understood now. Si Ying was just a discarded pawn who refused to become a scapegoat.
His status was barely any different from that of the two people in Car One.
Lin Qi kept up the act, wanting nothing to do with Si Ying.
"I don't understand what you mean."
The smile vanished from Si Ying's face. "That's fine. You'll understand soon enough."
He turned and left, not showing a trace of politeness.
Lin Qi shut the door, his expression darkening.
Was this guy crazy?
He heard a strong note of menace in Si Ying's parting words.
"What's wrong with him? He comes to an A-level researcher like me and acts crazy? If he's got the guts, why not go after Liu Li? Can't find her? Then what about Liu Yue or Liu Heng?"
Lin Qi felt a little irritated.
He was tempted to give Si Ying a combo meal of cardiac arrest and stroke, but he had already used his ability on the train. He couldn't risk exposing it again.
"He's convinced I must be an important member of the Liu Group. That means his information channels are extremely limited."
"Anyone with a little sense wouldn't come looking for me. But he's crazy, and I can't just sit here and wait. Even if he doesn't have much standing in the Si Clan, Greenland City is still their home turf."
"But in one respect, the lunatic guessed right. The Liu Group won't stand by and let anything happen to me. Since he wants to make something happen to me, he can't blame me for what I do next."
Without hesitation, Lin Qi went straight to report him.
He wrote up everything, word for word, exactly as it had happened, and sent it to Liu Xuan.
At the end of the email, Lin Qi added one more line.
[I think he wants to kill me]
Lin Qi was telling Liu Xuan that this was serious—a matter of life and death. He was asking for help!
As always, Liu Xuan replied quickly: "The company will handle it."
Her reply meant the matter had already been reported to the Liu Group.
At the very least, the Train Conductor who was assigned to protect Liu Xuan and Liu Li must have been informed.
Would the Liu Group just sit back and do nothing?
No. They would definitely take action.
Lin Qi had no way of knowing for now what form that action would take, or whether it would lead to even more entanglements with the Si Clan.
He sat back in his chair and used the equipment in his room to access the internet.
He typed "Si Ying" into the search bar.
A flood of information appeared. Si Ying was fairly well-known in Greenland City.
[Si Pharmaceutical heir, youngest inventor of an S-rank military stimulant]
[Having lost his younger sister, can the youngest genius emerge from the shadow of grief?]
[Si Pharmaceutical heir Si Ying announces with great fanfare that he is activating the Iron Curtain System to capture the assassin at all costs]
What a high-profile heir.
Unlike the Liu Group, the Si Clan had openly declared at almost every turn that Si Ying was its heir.
But according to Si Ying himself, he was just a scapegoat.
Almost everything Lin Qi found online bore traces of having been deliberately spread by the Si Clan. He had no way to piece together a fuller picture of Si Ying's personality.
"For now, I can only hope the company handles it."
"Tonight, I'll try asking Arthur. He's trapped in Greenland City, so he should have plenty of information."
For now, Lin Qi didn't understand what Si Ying really wanted or what he was planning.
If all he wanted was to survive, that would be manageable.
The real worry was that this was only a test, and he had other plans waiting in the wings.
"Whatever he's testing, I can't be the real target."
"The Liu Group and the Si Clan's heir are at the heart of this maelstrom."
"Being a scapegoat, being a target—that says enough. In this whole affair, I'm just a minor character who got caught up in it by accident."
"But I do have plenty of secrets. What I need to do now is keep them hidden and play the role the Liu Group assigned me. Then this deadly storm won't come down on me."
His identity as a Wizard was a ticking bomb. Lin Qi had a vague feeling that the trouble facing the Liu Group and the Si Clan had a lot to do with the Extraordinary Profession known as Wizard.
He turned off the display and lay down on the bed.
It was only midafternoon. The Highest Level Security Meeting wouldn't begin until much later that evening.
After putting his thoughts in order, Lin Qi decided to go out.
Even if trouble was coming, it wouldn't arrive this quickly.
He planned to explore Greenland City and, while he was at it, check whether the Iron Curtain System had any real vulnerabilities for Arthur.
Next door, the bodyguard had just been about to rest when the device installed outside Lin Qi's door sounded an alarm.
Lin Qi had gone out!
What was wrong with him?
Did this workaholic never get tired?
The bodyguard hurried to his feet and discreetly followed him to provide protection.
That was what a bodyguard did. That was professionalism!
Based on the rail transit map he had seen when he arrived at the employee dormitory, Lin Qi chose a route toward the outskirts of Greenland City.
The terminus was only a few hundred meters from the edge of the Iron Curtain.
In Lin Qi's experience, places like this were usually home to underground Cybernetic Clinics, gangs, and the like.
His stated destination was a Cybernetic Clinic.
He had originally planned to use Arthur to gather a batch of micro-nuclear power reactors.
But now Lin Qi had the Liu Group's backing in Greenland City, and internet monitoring there was much less stringent than in Red Fruit City.
He could go out and buy them himself.
Even if the purchase left a record in Greenland City, with the "backing" he had now, it wouldn't cause him much trouble.
Killing two birds with one stone put Lin Qi somewhat at ease.
Still, he kept Psychic Vision active the whole way, just in case that lunatic Si Ying really did cause him trouble.
He encountered no trouble at all before reaching his destination. What he did see the entire way was a bodyguard wearing an expression of intense suffering.
First, he visited the Cybernetic Clinic and picked through the secondhand cybernetics. Then he left, looking deeply dissatisfied.
After wandering around for a long time, he eventually reached the spot closest to the Iron Curtain.
"I didn't notice it while riding the train, but the Iron Curtain is absurdly thick."
"Could the materials really support a structure this massive?"
"There's probably a hollow space inside the Iron Curtain."
"Found it. There really is one—and it's not just a hollow space. There's a lit passage, too."
"If I can find where the hollow space can be entered and exited, I might find a hidden security passage in the Iron Curtain System."
When the Iron Curtain System was first built, the Si Clan must have taken into account the possibility of losing network access.
For its own safety, the Si Clan would certainly have left a purely mechanical security passage, a hidden route that could be used if danger arose inside.
That was what Lin Qi's Psychic Vision could do. It was the main reason he had been able to become the Mercenary Group's intelligence specialist.
Before you continue