Chapter 198: Black fission (part one)
The rain seemed to come pouring down in an instant. Before the daytime warmth could gradually subside, it was swallowed by a curtain of rain filled with cold, damp mist.
Pedestrians hurried along the streets, bicycles swept through the blocks, and passing cars sent up swishing sprays as their tires struck puddles. Occasionally, a piercing squeal of brakes made people turn. Through the street-facing windows of KFC, young people and office workers just off work could be seen buying orange juice or coffee to warm their hands. Watching the sudden downpour, they felt something catch in their chests, as though some unknown element were slowly brewing within the storm.
Through the rain, Meiluo Building was one of the few prominent landmarks still visible amid the blurred Gothic outline of the city beneath the torrential downpour. Its red beacon flickered scarlet, and occasional lightning etched the sharp edges of its main structure, as though it were silently resisting the dark storm overhead.
Qiao Shuxin had once said that here in Meiluo Building, even brewing tea or coffee and watching the seasons pass outside the window would never feel like wasting time.
Indeed, the building housed numerous Fortune 500 companies, including ExxonMobil, Microsoft's technical support center, and Cummins. Every day, information exchanged by senior executives around the world and instructions dispatched to regional branches passed through this brain or connecting hub, affecting countless lives and changes in the economic environment every moment. Someone had even joked that if Meiluo Building suffered a collision modeled on America's 9/11, the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets might fall ten percent overnight.
Late that night, several black Mercedes glided up beneath Meiluo Building like ghosts in the darkness, then entered the parking garage.
The seventeenth and eighteenth floors both belonged