Black Crow Honor Guard secretly tears at cargo seal, Lynn seizes the requisition slip on the spot
The White Light of the flashlight swayed between the frozen meat racks.
The light swept across the frost-covered freezers for live pigs and landed on rows of angle iron pillars.
The hot air blowing in through the door crack condensed upon encountering the cold air, turning into a white mist that swirled in the corridor.
Lynn carried two aluminum boxes in one hand, took a half step back, and disappeared into the angle between the third set of refrigerated shelves and the concrete support column.
Gwen Stacy stood close to him, her right hand gripping the quick-draw holster at her waist, her left index finger slightly bent, a thin, transparent Silk silently extending down the shelf's bottom groove.
The person's footsteps were very light.
The soles of the leather boots were wrapped with non-slip cotton cloth, and there was only a slight scraping sound when stepping on the hard ice.
The person who entered closed the heavy lead-steel door behind them, but did not fasten the iron chain again.
The faint light from the miniature infrared Thermal Imager flickered briefly in the darkness.
The man was wearing a loose-fitting, dark gray cold chain quarantine uniform, a windproof and frost-proof hood, and a gas mask with an activated carbon filter.
He didn't inspect the other shelves, or even look at the ice chips scattered on the ground.
The goal is extremely clear.
He strode through the second aisle and headed straight for the dark green desiccant box on the bottom shelf of the third set of refrigerated shelves.
It took him a full twelve seconds from pushing open the door to stopping in front of the shelf.
This is a route that has been practiced countless times.
The man crouched down, and a flat, small hot air gun and a quenching scraper slid out of his work clothes pocket.
Instead of touching the heavy lead plate underneath the channel steel, he aimed the tip of his scraper at the seal on the rightmost hinge of the military desiccant box.
A soft hissing sound.
A two-inch-long pale blue flame shot out from the hot air gun, precisely heating the anti-mold wax on the edge of the seal.
He wanted to completely melt down the original paper seal with the Department of Technology's serial number, disguising the entire shipment as ordinary scrap meat.
Once the seal is Carbonization by high temperature, the laser anti-counterfeiting code on it becomes unverifiable.
The thermal delay self-destruct device in the hidden compartment is still fading silently.
The fifth square has turned completely white, and the edges of the sixth square are being eroded by gray.
The countdown has one minute and forty seconds left.
Lynn didn't give him a chance to tear off the first seal.
The Obsidian sword scraped against the edge of the concrete pillar, producing a very faint metallic hum.
The quarantine officer, who was squatting on the ground, tensed up instantly. His wrist, which was holding the scraper, suddenly twisted backward, and he pulled out a folding tactical knife from his waist.
His reaction speed was extremely fast; he was far from being an ordinary office worker in Cold Storage.
However, he suddenly lost his footing on the ground.
An invisible, resilient Silk tightly wrapped around his left ankle, pulling him violently backward.
The quarantine officer lost his balance and slammed his back heavily against the steel column behind him, kicking up a cloud of frost and snow.
Before he could even scream, Lynn's boot had already slammed into the bone of his right wrist, where he was holding the knife.
Click.
The sharp crack of the wrist bone being crushed was completely masked by the low hum of the compressor.
The short knife flew out of his hand, half of it embedding itself in the side panel of the frozen meat box covered in frost.
The quarantine officer's eyes flashed with a fierce light. He slammed his left hand on the buckle of his gas mask on the side of his neck, and made rapid swallowing sounds from his throat.
A common tactic used by assassins to silence witnesses.
Lynn's left hand gripped the lower edge of his mask like an iron clamp, his index finger and thumb precisely hooking into the air release valves on both sides of the mask, using the force to tear it off forcefully.
A young face covered in black camouflage paint was revealed.
The other person's lips were tightly pressed together, and the back of their tongue was pushing the wax pellet hidden inside their back molars down their throat.
Lynn's right palm sliced upwards at an angle, precisely striking the man's jaw joint, and his thumb then probed into the groove on the inside of his cheekbone, forcefully pulling it downwards and backwards.
Click.
The mandible dislocates instantly.
The excruciating pain caused the man's pupils to contract violently, and his dislocated mouth gaped open, making it impossible for him to swallow.
Gwen Stacy her fingers together like a knife and gently touched the tracheal cartilage two inches below the other person's throat.
A sudden, intense spasm triggered a reflexive gagging.
A small black pill, sealed with translucent wax, was coughed up along with saliva and landed on the cold ground.
Gwen Stacy flicked her toe, kicking the pill into the inner compartment of an aluminum box beside her.
The entire ambush lasted less than five seconds.
The quarantine officer's hands were twisted behind his back, and his entire body was bound in a tight knot with Silk by Gwen Stacy, his back pressed firmly against the ice surface that emitted a sour, putrid smell.
His chest heaved violently, and he gasped for breath, his eyes fixed on Lynn standing in front of him.
Lynn didn't even look down at his venomous gaze.
Lynn's gaze fell on the thermal paper in the hidden compartment.
The last square only has one-third of its original color remaining.
The copper-nickel alloy wire had begun to emit a faint burnt smell.
Lynn flicked his wrist, Obsidian broken sword sliced diagonally downwards.
The tough alloy wire snapped cleanly before the dull blade, leaving a smooth break without even a spark.
The fading process on the thermal paper suddenly stopped.
The solenoid valve deep inside the Cold Storage, which connects to the strong acid disinfection solution on the sixth underground floor, emitted a muffled sound of closing and then cutting off power.
The self-destruct mechanism was interrupted.
Gwen Stacy knelt on the ground, her tactical-gloved hands quickly searching the man's body.
The inside of the gas mask is stamped with a very small white stamp: WB-04.
Special items for the Fourth Operations Group of the Stability Maintenance Office.
The hem of the work clothes was torn open, revealing not a warm cotton-padded jacket underneath, but a dark black, lightweight, cut-resistant tactical vest that clung tightly to the skin.
On the right shoulder of the vest, a black crow with outstretched wings and swooping down is embroidered in dark red silk thread.
The Black Crow Guard's direct Night Raid Company.
Hela was brought into the Management Committee's elite force.
"The people of Black Crow."
Gwen Stacy sneered and used her fingers to pry open the hidden lining inside her tactical vest.
There were no spare magazines or personal identification tags in the intercom.
There was only one receipt, carefully wrapped in transparent waterproof paper.
Gwen Stacy tore open the parchment paper, revealing the pale yellow cardboard inside.
It was a four-copy copy of a military supplies allocation and requisition form.
The header of the form reads in bold Song typeface, "Emergency Transfer Certificate for War Preparedness Materials of the Third Defense Zone".
The issuing unit was stamped with a bright red oval official seal: Military Police Command of the Third Defense Zone.
There is no signature in the issuer's section; it is only stamped with the personal anti-counterfeiting copper seal of Monk's adjutant.
However, the four key fields—recipient, material name, specifications, and quantity—are all blank.
A blank pass stamped with the highest approval seal of the military police.
By simply filling in the special card core number and the Black Crow Guard's designation, this batch of illegal materials, which had been altered by an offline engraving machine in the Department of Technology's underground computer room, could be legitimately transformed into a routine handover between the Stability Maintenance Office and the defense zone.
The perpetrators were caught red-handed.
No need to even make up an excuse.
Monk was responsible for issuing official documents, Black Crow Guard was responsible for sending people to silence witnesses and relocate them.
"The insignia of the defense zone, the Black Crow's men."
Gwen Stacy folded the blank material requisition form and handed it to Lynn.
"Hela's deputy commander had just established a blockade at the Starport when her direct guards rushed to the Seventh Cold Storage to clean up the mess."
"Monk thought that by having Hela as his backer, he would be completely safe."
He had no idea that the Black Crow Guard never left anyone alive.
The Black Crow Honor Guard, lying on the ground, let out a muffled, cold laugh.
Although his jaw was dislocated and he couldn't close it, his gaze towards Lynn was still full of provocation.
That was the numbness and fearlessness unique to assassins facing trial.
In his view, even if they were caught red-handed, the two armed forces were already in a tacit state of division within the Management Committee, and a mere Director from a logistics background wouldn't dare to do anything to the Black Crow Guard.
Lynn bent down, reached out and pinched the guard's chin, lifting it slightly in the opposite direction.
A click.
The dislocated joint was pushed back into the joint socket.
The guard grunted, spitting out a mouthful of blood, and spoke with a cold smile.
"The Director's Office is overstepping its bounds."
His voice was hoarse and deep, carrying the arrogance unique to the Stability Maintenance Office.
"I am the second sentry officer of the Black Crow Honor Guard, directly under Director Hela."
"We were ordered to carry out Top Secret obstacle clearing mission. By detaining me, you are essentially declaring war on the Stability Maintenance Office."
Lynn ignored his shouting.
Lynn reached out and unbuttoned the tactical buttons on his collar, then groped along the lining.
My fingertips paused near the belt buckle inside the other person's heart.
There, a hard object was hanging from a thin paracord.
Lynn snapped the parachute cord.
An object wrapped in gray cloth fell into Lynn's palm.
Uncover the gray cloth.
It was a vintage, purely mechanical brass pocket watch, about the size of a baby's fist.
The edges of the case are covered with dense wear marks from gear meshing, and the protective glass on the front is already shattered, revealing the yellowed enamel dial inside.
The second hand was ticking at an extremely strange rhythm, pausing for half a second every three ticks.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
Tick-tock.
Gwen Stacy's gaze fell on the watch face, and her brows furrowed instantly.
Lynn flipped the watch over and used his fingernail to pry open the hinged protective cover on the back of the pocket watch.
The extremely complex mechanical escapement mechanism inside was revealed.
In the very center of the brass plate, there is a line of extremely small micro-engraved text.
It has no name, only a complex set of planetary gear parameters and a line of marking code that was hand-carved on:
TVA·Mechanic·09.
At the edge of the balance wheel, the core of the pocket watch, there are a total of thirty-seven extremely fine chamfered teeth.
Each tooth tip has a specific groove in its polished arc.
This number of teeth and the polishing process.
The pocket watch case that Lynn had pried out from between the fingers of the skeleton frozen to death by liquid helium on the sixth basement level half an hour ago.
Completely consistent.
Absolutely perfect.
The moment the Black Crow Honor Guard lying on the ground saw the pocket watch, all the arrogance and numbness on his face vanished.
His pupils dilated suddenly, and he struggled violently, even ignoring the excruciating pain of the Silk digging into his flesh, frantically trying to smash his head against the pocket watch in Lynn's hand.
"This doesn't belong to Black Crow."
Lynn looked down at him and folded the pocket watch back into her palm.
"The Watchmaker gave it to you."
"The task he gave you wasn't to help Monk tear off the seal at all."
"He sent you here to be the final fuse."
Suddenly, the screech of metal brakes echoed from the main freight road outside the gate.
The Heavy Armor's thick tracks crushed the iron fence of the drainage ditch outside the corridor.
Immediately following were dozens of heavy footsteps and the click of rifles being chambered.
The piercing whistling of the loudspeaker seeped into the Cold Storage through the cracks in the half-closed lead door.
"Listen up, everyone inside! The Seventh Defense Zone Military Police Special Service Battalion orders to conduct a riot control search. Lay down your weapons and get out of here immediately!"