The Unknown Obstruction

Sakura was filled with suspicion by Gray Serpent's strangeness. She knew from the start that Gray Serpent was hiding something. She had destroyed all the organizations Gray Serpent had established. The insidious nature displayed by this artificial human had left a deep impression on her, but it wasn't enough to make her feel troubled. Before absolute power, schemes were merely pebbles blocking her path.

But now, she had to be cautious. Gray Serpent might touch her only weakness—her loved ones.

Sakura remained silent, staring at the characters on the wall like a statue. The entanglement between emotion and reason made her hesitate. Should she tell Gray Serpent about this situation or not? She clenched her fists, then relaxed them. In the end, she couldn't bring herself to speak to Gray Serpent.

"Lady Sakura has chosen not to report the situation to you." Through the tiny camera hole in the wall, the agent responsible for monitoring Sakura half-removed his earpiece. "Just as you predicted... but is this okay? It's possible Lady Sakura is the key to finding them."

"Heh..." Gray Serpent chuckled softly, his low laughter sending a chill down his subordinate's spine.

"If all of this has nothing to do with her sister, I'd be happy to tell her all the information."

"Besides the Honored Master, she is the only Fusion Warrior I understand best. Lady Sakura usually doesn't succumb to emotions, and her rationality amazes me." Gray Serpent took off the monitoring earpiece and stood up from his main seat, picking up the black umbrella at his feet, which looked like solidified petroleum.

Gray Serpent stared at the agent with interest. "To you, what is Lady Sakura like?"

The agent thought for a long time but couldn't come up with any unique adjectives. "Strong..."

Gray Serpent nodded slightly. "There's no doubt about that."

"I want you to tell me about her inner self..." Looking directly into the agent's deep red eyes made him feel as if he were being coiled around by a venomous snake flicking its tongue.

"...I've never truly seen Lady Sakura."

"Then," Gray Serpent turned around, shifting his unfathomable snake-like eyes elsewhere. "Some hints."

"To understand a person, you must first understand their past," Gray Serpent said slowly, as if gradually dispelling the fog and exposing a person to countless eyes.

"We have no way of knowing the details of Lady Sakura's distant past, or when and where she was doing what. But we can at least know what she was doing after joining Fire Moth."

The agent could answer this point without hesitation: "Responsible for the Poisoned Cocoon that cleanses Honkai-infected individuals."

"This means she carries the blood of countless people on her. This raises the first question for us—is Lady Sakura a cold-blooded butcher?"

The agent shook his head. "No."

"Of course! Ling is a lively and cheerful child. How could a killing machine cultivate a flower? Her pride and attachment to her sister are by no means false. Moreover, I have reason to suspect that such attachment is mutual."

"This..."

"Since Lady Sakura is not a cruel butcher, her routine cleansing operations must bring a great burden to her spirit. Therefore, she needs a reason to kill—"

"—And an outlet for mental pressure," the agent finished Gray Serpent's sentence. After this line of reasoning, the image of Sakura in his mind became clearer.

He nodded with considerable admiration. "I'm glad you've learned to reason."

Gray Serpent continued, "Lady Sakura pours all her love into her loved ones, and the sibling bond will grow alongside her killing. The more innocent people she kills, the more she needs spiritual comfort from her sister."

"If she discovers that we know this matter is related to her sister..."

Gray Serpent's tone shifted. He said to the agent, "You must not imagine Lady Sakura as a madwoman with a trigger switch. She will absolutely not do anything crazy, but we cannot let her personal emotions hinder our investigation, nor can we allow it to obstruct the Honored Master's recognition of me."

Sakura's brow was furrowed. She stared intently at the mysterious string of characters on the wall, trying to make sense of them. Finally, she pushed up her forehead and sighed. The almost non-existent clues made her give up on the idea. She then sent the string of characters on the wall to someone else.

"Eden," Sakura contacted through the communication device on her wrist. "Could you please check what this string of characters means?" The communication device lit up with a blue cursor, indicating that the message had been received.

More than ten minutes later, the communication device flashed red, and Eden's melodious voice came through the earpiece.

"The first 6 digits need to be rearranged with the date in the middle to get the correct sequence before they have meaning. The date in the middle is just the month and day. After combining them, you can get the year, month, day, and even precise units like seconds."

"The final words are also just a simple word expansion game, ultimately leading to an address. Perhaps you can go and take a look."

"Got it." Sakura quickly left the maze-like sewer and arrived at the surface covered by dark clouds. She jumped onto the highest point of a building, leaping like an agile cat on the highest points of the cold steel forest.

Sakura lightly tapped her watch and proactively contacted Gray Serpent. "I found a string of characters and solved the puzzle. This is the result of the puzzle." She forwarded the result Eden had sent.

After hearing a "Received" in her earpiece, Sakura closed the communication.

On the other end, Gray Serpent chuckled, "Cunning."

Under the astonished gaze of onlookers, Sakura forcefully broke down Niazepi's apartment door and barged into his home. What met her eyes was a scene of utter chaos. The sofa was dismantled, leaving only an empty frame, and the cushion had several sharp cuts, with dust-covered cotton everywhere. All the cabinets in the room were pulled open, their contents strewn on the floor. The bed suffered the same fate as the sofa. Even the plaster on the walls had been pried off, revealing the white lime wall.

Only the television, wall clock, and personal terminal remained in their original positions, but they had clearly been moved.

"Wall clock?" Sakura tilted her chin in confusion. She didn't think modern young people would have such an item in their homes. Sakura easily realized this was also a puzzle, and its solution.

She took the wall clock down from the wall and substituted the puzzle result she had obtained onto the clock's hour and minute hands. But unfortunately, the result was not as smooth as she had hoped—nothing happened.

"As expected, it's not that simple," Sakura thought with frustration. She was not good at these kinds of puzzle games. "Then what's the meaning of this date?"

"It should be related to Niazepi?" This date was only 8 days away from today, specifically 8 days, 12 hours, 17 minutes, and 21 seconds.

Sakura contacted Gray Serpent again. "Do you know when Niazepi died?"

Gray Serpent replied, "When Niazepi's body was discovered 6 days ago, he had already been dead for 2-3 days."

Sakura suddenly understood the meaning of the date. It was the time of Niazepi's death. But she began to feel discouraged because nothing would change, and she had no idea where to start. Perhaps the wall clock was just an ordinary wall clock.

She began to ponder again what the characters in the sewer could represent. The 6 digits and a date—could the digits be a password? She opened Niazepi's personal terminal, trying to find any encrypted files. In the end, there was nothing.

Time!

Her subconscious mixed impossible and possible scenarios, converging this chaotic thinking into orderly thought, naming it inspiration, and then transmitting it to her body.

She changed the time on the personal terminal to Niazepi's time of death, and the terminal began downloading something unknown, generating a folder on the desktop. Someone wanted to tell her something.

Sakura opened it with almost excitement.

"Miss Sakura, this is just a ploy to stall for time," Gray Serpent revealed a smile of expectation.