3:00 a.m.: Internal security's oversight

On the eastern watchtower, A Qiang felt as if his eyelids were filled with lead.

He blinked hard and shook his head, trying to shake off the sticky drowsiness that had been lingering in his mind, but to little avail.

The second half of the night shift is the hardest, especially the period from 3 to 4 a. m. When your body's biological clock seems to die, every cell in your body is screaming for you to lie down.

The night wind on the watchtower was quite strong, carrying the dampness and coolness of the mountain forest in the dead of night, which gave him goosebumps, but the wind could not dispel the drowsiness that seeped from his bones.

He let out a long yawn, tears welling up in his eyes. He wiped them away, cursing under his breath. "This damn job! I can't sleep well during the day, and I have to stay up all night. I shouldn't have volunteered to guard this crappy tower for a few hundred more bucks. "Brother Bo

He adjusted his posture, shrugging the old Type 56 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder; the butt of the rifle was digging painfully into his shoulder. Then he picked up the night vision goggles hanging around his neck, brought them to his eyes, and routinely scanned the dark park below.

The scene before him was monotonous, tinged with green. The concrete road was grayish-green, the low-rise building silhouettes were dark green, and the distant walls and barbed wire were an even darker green. Everything was quiet, just as he had seen in the previous hours, lifeless. Occasionally, he could see the beams of a patrol's flashlights slowly passing by, but the light was somewhat blinding in his night vision goggles, and he quickly looked away.

"Damn it, what could possibly be wrong..." A Qiang muttered, his night vision goggles scanning the "finance building." The light was still on in that special room on the second floor, and the window was drawn with blinds, letting in strips of light.

He knew that the guy surnamed K was the "god of wealth" inside, always glued to his computer. The general's precious darling, he kept a close eye on him. He curled his lip, feeling a bit disapproving, and a little jealous. They were both on night watch, but the other guy was enjoying air conditioning inside, while he was left to suffer the cold wind on the tower.

He then turned the night vision goggles toward the "office area." It was still brightly lit there, with a faint, muffled humming sound coming from it, like a hive that never tires. That was the park's "production workshop," operating 24 hours a day. A Qiang had no interest in that place; it was just a bunch of penned "pigs."

His gaze wandered aimlessly, sweeping over the sleeping dormitory areas, the dark kitchens and warehouses, and finally settling back on an area near his watchtower.

There were several old outbuildings and a corner of the wall, a place rarely visited and filled with miscellaneous items. In the green field of vision of his night vision goggles, he saw a figure carrying a toolbox, slowly walking towards a gray-green, square metal box by the wall—the electrical distribution box for this area.

A Qiang recognized him; it was the new electrician from the maintenance team, I think his name was A Mu. This guy had come to fix a faulty light bulb under the stairs of their watchtower during the day. He wasn't much of a talker, but he was quite efficient. What was he doing at the distribution box so late?

A flicker of doubt crossed A Qiang's mind, but it was quickly suppressed by his stronger drowsiness and the thought that "it's better to avoid trouble."

He figured it was another circuit breaker tripping somewhere. This run-down industrial park had really old wiring; it was constantly breaking down. He saw "A Mu" squat down in front of the distribution box, open the door, and stick his head and upper body inside to start inspecting. His movements were slow and methodical, just like when he was working during the day.

"Tch, keep fixing it, better if it lasts until dawn, so I don't get bored all by myself." A Qiang muttered under his breath, completely losing interest. He put down the heavy night vision goggles, his neck aching terribly.

Anyway, the electrician was brought there by security personnel, so nothing could go wrong. Thinking this, he unconsciously leaned against the cold watchtower railing, finding a slightly more comfortable position.

He pulled out his old cell phone from his pocket; the screen was cracked, but it still lit up. He unlocked it, but there was no signal, though he had already downloaded several novels.

He opened a pirated online novel whose title sounded quite exciting. The screen's light shone a small patch on the dark watchtower, illuminating his drowsy face. He started reading, occasionally grinning silently at the plot. He casually leaned his rifle against the railing.

He no longer cared what the electrician "A Mu" was doing in front of the distribution box or whether he would cause any problems.

The night was still long, and he could fish for a while while he could. He didn't notice at all that when he was using his night vision goggles to observe, he seemed to have caught a glimpse of another blurry figure flashing quickly in the shadows behind the kitchen at the edge of his field of vision, but he was distracted at the time and didn't pay any attention to it.

Below, beside the wall.

The agent codenamed "Qingsong," whose public identity is electrician "A Mu," is squatting in front of an open distribution box. The box is filled with messy, dusty wires, and there is a faint smell of burnt wires and aging insulation in the air. He is wearing an ordinary headlamp, the light focused on the power strip and circuit breaker in front of him.

His movements looked unhurried, even somewhat clumsy, like an ordinary electrician troubleshooting a problem.

He first poked around with the test pen, making low noises like "Huh?" and "Strange." But if someone were to get closer and look closely, they would notice that his finger movements were unusually steady and precise; every touch and every flick landed on the most crucial spot.

His eyes scanned rapidly under the beam of his headlamp, instantly clarifying the route of the main line, the load distribution, and the switching mechanism of the backup line.

He had a tiny, skin-colored bone conduction earplug in his ear, from which he was hearing a very faint electrical buzzing, indicating that the communication line was working.

He could hear his own steady breathing and heartbeat, and he could also faintly hear the soft sound of A Qiang's boots rubbing against the wooden planks as he occasionally moved his body on the watchtower, as well as the suppressed, soft laughter he made while looking at the screen.

With a blank expression, he took an insulated screwdriver from his toolbox and began to tighten an inconspicuous auxiliary terminal next to the main circuit breaker.

The screw on the terminal was rusted shut; he applied a little force, and it made a soft "creaking" sound. At the same time, his left hand silently reached into the inner compartment of the toolbox and pulled out two black, sheet-like objects, no bigger than a fingernail and as thin as a cicada's wing. They were specially made miniature time-delay short circuit devices and current fluctuation simulators.

With his right hand, he continued to use a screwdriver, seemingly cleaning rust from the terminals, while his left hand deftly attached the two small devices to two specific points on the insulation of the main cable, in concealed positions hidden by other cables.

The miniature indicator light on the device flashed a very faint red light before going out, indicating that it had been activated and started a countdown—the set trigger time was exactly 3:30 AM. At that time, the circuit breaker would release a high-energy pulse in an instant, burning out critical nodes, while the fluctuation simulator would generate abnormal current waveforms similar to those of large-scale equipment starting up or failing simultaneously, further interfering with any potential power monitoring.

After finishing that, he didn't stop. He took out a small piece of special material disguised as ordinary electrical tape and quickly and firmly wrapped it around another nearby cable leading to the backup power supply for the communication base station. This "tape" contained embedded magnetic interference units that could generate a chaotic magnetic field of a specific spectrum when powered on, enough to further degrade the communication quality of the already aging base station equipment.

The entire process took less than two minutes. The movements were clean, discreet, and made no extra noise.

Finally, he retightened the auxiliary terminal (which was actually fine), wiped his hands with a rag, then frowned, shook his head at the distribution box, and sighed, as if he had encountered a tricky but common problem. He slowly packed up his tools, closed the metal door of the distribution box, and pressed it firmly to make sure the latch was engaged.

He stood up, rubbed his lower back, looked up at the sky, and then glanced casually at the watchtower to the east. On the tower, A Qiang was looking down, the light from his phone screen casting a small, blurry halo, and occasionally a very low, whistling sound could be heard, as if he were amused by a scene from a novel.

Qingsong (A Mu) withdrew his gaze, his face still bearing that dull, slightly weary worker's expression. He picked up his toolbox, turned around, and walked towards the maintenance team's warehouse with the same unhurried pace as when he arrived. His figure quickly blended into the darkness beneath the wall and disappeared from sight.

It was as if he had simply been woken up in the middle of the night to deal with a minor wiring issue, and then went back to catch up on his sleep.

On the watchtower, A Qiang turned a page of a novel, chuckling as he read an exciting part. He was completely unaware that the "repairman" had already left, and even less aware that in the tin box not far from his feet, the first and most crucial time bomb of tonight's storm had been planted.

The countdown to the bomb, the program set by someone in the main building in the distance, the time calculated by someone on the floor of the maintenance team's warehouse, and the heartbeat of someone waiting thousands of miles away are all silently synchronized.

3:25 AM.