Prometheus?

"Decryption complete."

At the operator's report, the contents of record WB-256 appeared on the large screen.

Liu Zhen let out a long breath. Those three minutes and twenty seconds of waiting had been torture.

He raised his cup to take a sip, only to catch sight of a passage on the screen. The cup slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor with a crash.

"Wait!"

"Suspend all subsequent decryption tasks. Lock onto record WB-256."

The operator immediately carried out his orders.

Liu Zhen stared at the screen, stunned.

Only after five minutes did he speak.

"Seal the original ciphertext, the recovered session key, and the decryption log separately."

"Write this record directly into the isolated intelligence database. Disable all external read and write interfaces for it."

"Yes, sir."

Finally, Liu Zhen looked at the people in the control room and said gravely,

"Nothing in this document leaves this room. Once you walk out that door, none of you ever saw it."

The people in the control room exchanged glances and nodded.

"Understood."

After everything had disappeared from the screen, Liu Zhen checked the identification numbers of the three sealed records, then left the control room.

He walked down the corridor to the dedicated communications room.

Only when the door lock's indicator changed from green to red did he pick up the secure terminal's handset and place a call.

"Hello, Minister Shen?"

The following morning.

The leader sat in his office, studying a report more than a dozen pages long.

Shen Zhiyuan, the minister of state security, stood quietly beside him.

Ten minutes passed before the leader put down the report, his brow furrowing.

"Has this been verified?"

Shen Zhiyuan nodded.

"We intercepted this intelligence more than six months ago."

"At the time, an electronic reconnaissance station in