Information Network

The morning sunlight slanted across the floor. Bitter steam rose from the dark brown medicine in the bowl, searing Xiang Yi's taut nerves. He sat before his desk, his gaze passing over the untouched bowl and pinning itself to the cold interface deep within his consciousness—

[Mental Power: 38/150 (Crawling Like a Turtle)]

[Energy Points: 0/300]

The glaring "zero" stabbed into his eyes like an ice pick! The household barrier still stood, but The Hand's venomous fangs lurked in the shadows, while S.H.I.E.L.D.'s gaze prickled against his back... He needed eyes! Ears! An invisible web!

"Sir," Xiang Yi said in a low voice, steel tempered into its hoarseness, "I need 'eyes.'"

Before his words had faded, the shadow in the corner of the room twisted soundlessly! Guiguzi's stooped figure emerged like the moon reflected in an ancient pool. The old man raised a withered hand, and the pale golden Xuan Weizi around him abruptly began to circulate faster, as if they had absorbed their master's anxiety. "I understand Your Lordship's intent." His gaze pierced the walls and fell upon the waking city. "Xuan Weizi are the spiritual mechanisms of heaven and earth... Yet to weave this web, Your Lordship must use a thread of mental power as a guide, enlighten the spiritual mechanisms, and grant them the ability to 'hear' and 'return.'"

Xiang Yi abruptly shut his eyes! His will sank into his sea of consciousness—that dried-up "sea" now resembled boiling asphalt! Forcibly stripping away a thread of mental power was like pulling a red-hot iron wire from molten steel! The agony instantly blackened his vision! A metallic sweetness surged into his throat, his body tensed like a drawn bow, and the chair legs scraped against the floor with a piercing shriek! He clenched his teeth until his gums bled, forcibly squeezing that strand of "golden thread," marked with his soul's imprint, from the lava of his soul and extending it toward Guiguzi's gaunt palm!

The instant the golden thread touched his finger—

Bzzzz—!

A thunderous soul resonance exploded! The Xuan Weizi around Guiguzi erupted all at once, transforming into countless blazing golden meteors that shot outward!

A silent, magnificent eruption! Countless streams of incomparably fine golden light burst forth like a breached river of stars, instantly piercing through glass, walls, and ceilings... racing wildly in every direction! Papers rustled and flew around the room, while the lamp filament flashed violently for an instant!

Xiang Yi's consciousness was infinitely magnified by that "fuse" and hurled into the torrent! An ocean of information, like high-pressure water cannons laden with steel needles, grit, and hailstones, brutally poured into his crack-riddled sea of consciousness! His vision shattered into countless fragments, his hearing became the scrape of high-frequency metal, and his sense of smell felt as though he had inhaled poisonous fumes of concentrated sulfuric acid mixed with rotting corpses!

Visual fragments: a tabby cat licking the fur on its paw, fried dough sticks rolling in a wok of oil, droplets falling as a woman watered flowers, a red light blinking at an intersection...

A storm of sound: clattering bowls and dishes, the swish of brooms, a baby's piercing cries, vendors' hoarse shouts, roaring engines, muffled broadcasts...

A torrent of scents: the fragrance of fermented bean paste, car exhaust, the sour stench of garbage, the cold raw scent of vegetation, cheap perfume, the bitterness of Chinese medicine...

Information overload! Blood began streaming from his nose without warning, splattering across the open math workbook and spreading into glaring bloodstains amid cold sweat! The hand holding his pencil convulsed, and the pencil snapped free with a smack! The pain at his temples escalated into torture, his stomach churned violently, and black and red alternated before his eyes!

"Your Lordship! Guard your heart as one! Do not be deceived by appearances!" Guiguzi's voice, still as an ancient well, pierced through the storm like a pillar that steadied the sea! "All things flow and change. Take the vein, discard the dross! Where the mind points, Xuan Weizi shall return!"

'Take the vein!' Xiang Yi frantically gathered his will, like grasping at a straw in a hurricane! 'Threats! The Xiang family! The plan!' The thoughts had barely formed before they were scattered by a tidal wave of a baby's cries and car horns! He roared soundlessly, digging his nails into his palm and using the pain to force himself awake...

Find the anomalies! Find the connections! Find the points that threatened the Xiang family and his plan!

The invisible command fell into the sea like a stone. The billions of wildly dancing golden streams abruptly changed direction:

Community nodes: they slipped into gaps between parcels at the courier station, clung to delivery workers' uniforms; seeped into the smoke of internet cafés, attached themselves to greasy keyboards and the corners of screens; projected onto supermarket surveillance cameras and stuck to shopping bag handles...

Campus nodes: they surged toward the middle school! They clung to dust on classroom windowsills, rust on the horizontal bars of the playground, gaps in teachers' exercise books, grease stains on cafeteria trays... Especially around the foundation of the giant signal tower under construction, which was tightly wrapped in a thin yet abnormally active golden halo!

Target nodes: several concentrated rays of golden light pierced through layer after layer of walls! They attached themselves to the peachwood doorknob of Zhang Hao's study, the armrest of a leather executive chair, and the SIM card chip in a trusted bodyguard's phone...

"Ugh... the web... is complete..." Xiang Yi forced out the words through clenched teeth, soaked through as if he had drowned and trembling uncontrollably. Yet an excited light burned in his bloodshot eyes! Countless mundane fragments were stripped away, while streams of information marked "abnormal" or "related" flowed steadily and clearly into his perception!

Poisoned fragments of intelligence surfaced:

1. Ghosts at the courier station:

A delivery worker and a man in a baseball cap quickly exchanged a flat, hard object in the shadow of some parcels.

"...Boss Zhang's breathing down our necks. If something goes wrong with this batch of 'goods' again, the Ghost Ward matter..."

"Relax. We're taking East Sea Seven. The snakehead has already made the arrangements." (The parcel felt heavy in his hand and had an odd shape. It was definitely nothing good!)

2. A secret message at the internet café:

The blond-haired punk's fingers flew across an encrypted chatroom:

"...Boss, the new tower at the school is almost finished. Brother Qiang said the interference blew up during testing, so Little Bees need to go dark for those days..."

"Got it. Tell Brother Qiang to watch them closely. That 'Little Sick Cat,' Boss Zhang, has his eye on them."

('Little Sick Cat'? Heh... Zhang family, you'll soon find out who the sick cat is, and who is the man-eating tiger!)

3. The signal tower's noose:

The Xuan Weizi covering the tower foundation "sensed" electromagnetic energy, surging inside like an invisible storm, gathering within! Guiguzi's voice was grave as iron:

"If this tower is completed, its radiation will descend like a heavenly net! Should Xuan Weizi enter the campus, they will be as if trapped in a mire, their spirituality utterly lost! Even with full strength, they could not exert one-tenth of it. Perception would become distorted and sluggish, no different from blindness!"

(The signal tower... the campus... my vital weakness! Zhang family, how vicious! This tower must be destroyed!)

4. A poisonous scheme in the study:

A suppressed roar came from behind the door:

"Trash! You couldn't even put down a twelve-year-old brat?! Are those Japanese dogs from The Hand eating shit?!"

"Please calm your anger, Master," the butler said, his voice sinister as a snake. "The Hand says the wrist of the man they sent to test him was crippled strangely, as if... he ran into a real hard case. The Ghost Ward was robbed, and the hold on East Sea Seven was emptied... They suspect... another force is stabbing both us and The Hand in the dark."

(The butler's voice turned even more venomous:) "...And, Master, that boy from the Xiang family has recently... been as quiet as a coffin. On the night The Hand lost men, he just happened to be home with a 'high fever'... It's too fucking convenient."

"Investigate!" Zhang Tiankui's murderous aura soared. "Whoever it is, anyone who dares block the Zhang family's path will be torn to pieces! Tell The Hand we'll pay more! Send people who can actually fight!"

(Then his voice sharpened with venom:) "Butler, send Hao a message! At school, make sure he 'takes good care' of that 'good friend' of his! I want to know whether every fart that little brat lets out smells sweet or foul!"

Core poison: Zhang Tiankui was deeply colluding with The Hand through smuggling. He had already become alert to a third party, Xiang Yi, and was assembling the butcher's blade! The signal tower would lock down campus intelligence! Zhang Hao's threat at school had escalated into a death warrant!

Cold reality pierced the fog of pain like a poison-tempered dagger! Xiang Yi dug his fingertips deeply into his palm! The enemy was vicious and vigilant, the tower had locked down his throat, and vicious dogs bared their fangs within the school!

Cough...! A muffled cough escaped him, and dark red bloody froth splattered across the geometric diagrams in his workbook, glaring and shocking! His vision repeatedly darkened as the intelligence fragments began to blur and jump!

"Your Lordship! Your mind is about to collapse! Stop!" Guiguzi's voice cut like a blade! He swept his sleeve sharply, as though cutting through tangled chaos!

Bzzzz!

The Xuan Weizi scattered everywhere instantly went dormant. That omniscient sensation of controlling everything was abruptly torn away, leaving behind only dead silence and weakness that seemed to have hollowed out his marrow!

Xiang Yi's body went completely limp. His forehead struck the cold desk with a heavy thud, barely keeping him from sliding down. Cold sweat and blood smeared his entire face. Only his heavy, difficult breathing remained in the room. The bustle of the city drifted in faintly from outside the window, sunlight blazed harshly, and the bowl of medicine had long gone cold.

Panting, he used every ounce of strength to raise his heavy head. His gaze swept over the glaring pool of blood and grime on the desk before falling upon the open workbook. Beside that complicated geometry proof were several chaotic marks he had unconsciously scratched out.

His trembling fingers fumbled for the pencil that had rolled away. The shaft was wet and sticky, mixed with sweat and blood. He used all his strength, clamping down on it with all five fingers like an iron vise, as though it were not a pencil but a sharp blade meant to pierce fate itself!

The pencil tip plowed viciously into the paper! It made a harsh scratch, scratch sound, like scraping bone and carving flesh! Wood shavings curled up, the graphite marks sank through the page, and the tip even punctured several sheets beneath it!

Two words, cold as iron and resolute as a blade, were viciously branded beside the blood and sweat stains:

Breakthrough.

Outside the window, sunlight blazed, and the faint laughter of children drifted through the air. Together with the still-wet bloodstain on his desk and those two words carved into the bones of the paper, it formed a cruel, resolute vision of apocalypse.