This morning, when Qin Xuezhong woke up, her eyelids twitched a few times.
She had never believed in physical omens of misfortune, thinking it was just that she had slept in an awkward position and pressed on some nerve. So, while washing her face, she rubbed her eyes a bit more.
Today was still a beautiful day.
It was rare for Xigu City not to be raining. Thick, gray clouds usually hung in the sky, but today, a few narrow cracks appeared.
Golden sunlight streamed through, as if heralding some good fortune.
The workers in the city-state were quite superstitious; rare phenomena generally indicated good luck. They playfully jostled each other, eager to have the sunlight shine upon them.
Even the breakfast stall, now illuminated by sunlight, saw an increase in business today.
Qin Xuezhong felt she was becoming more familiar with life here.
Every morning, after leaving her apartment, she would nod to her neighbors and chat a bit with the breakfast stall owner she knew well.
Even the area outside the 19th subway car, where she usually waited, now had a few familiar faces.
There was a strong man who always adjusted his ocular implant while waiting in line; a young girl, decked out with a sparkling full-metal arm, capable of knocking out anyone in line with a single punch; and a tall, slender guy who kept glancing at her.
Every time she turned to look, he would blush and look away.
Qin Xuezhong wasn't sure if she was being overly sensitive, so she made a bet with herself about how long it would take before he came over to talk to her.
The subway platform was a mix of the smell of overused rubber, mechanical scents from air exchangers, the oil and alcohol scent from people, the dampness from yesterday, and the delicious aroma of breakfast.
Qin Xuezhong burped.
Suddenly, she felt like she was really starting to integrate into this world.
Maybe most worlds weren't so different, just the same daily routines repeated over and over…
Ding!
She received a message.
It was from the undercover team's meeting space.
She sighed.
While many people might lead lives without much difference, she had to worry about some more troublesome matters.
She glanced at the time for the next train: five minutes away.
Still early.
So, she switched her brain interface to x-ray mode, allowing her to check the online space while barely keeping an eye on the real world.
It was a private message sent just for her.
It was marked in red and flashing, indicating that it was urgent and needed immediate attention.
**[Team Leader, there is an emergency! If you are at the subway station's 19th car door in the south city-state, please be cautious. The entire platform area and the 19th car have been rigged with high-energy explosives, likely a targeted assassination attempt against you.]**
**[Please remain calm and avoid drawing attention, as it is likely a remote detonation. The assassins may be waiting for the perfect moment—when you board—otherwise, it could lead to premature detonation.]**
**[We currently lack effective methods and are doing our best to identify the controller. If you have any way to help, please let us know ASAP!]**
Qin Xuezhong's heart skipped a beat.
Explosives?!
Right beside her?!
With so many people around?
Then, two more messages arrived, conveying similar information.
The senders were Xue Zhishi, the head of the analysis department, and the blond youth, Xie Kedu, with whom she hadn't exchanged many words.
In the distance, the headlights of the subway train illuminated the dark tunnel.
The train she took every morning was about to arrive, and the bustling crowd began to stir.
At that moment, she received another message, this time from the anti-intrusion team:
**[Agent Qin Xuezhong, please do not panic. Our special operations team has entered the subway station and is working to identify the explosive and its controller. If you have any way to assist, please let us know ASAP.]**
Qin Xuezhong clenched her fists tightly, forcing herself to calm down—her hands began to tremble lightly from the adrenaline surge.
As death approached, perhaps due to overwhelming anxiety, she found herself momentarily distracted.
She wondered why the undercover team members knew who she was. Why did both the security department and the undercover team know someone was trying to assassinate her? And why were they all warning her?
Ten hours ago.
Xie Kedu was at home playing games.
Qin Xuezhong had been at the analysis department for a few days, and aside from a greeting the next day, they hadn't communicated further.
Most of the time, Xie Kedu wore a headset, silently engrossed in his games.
His home setup and equipment were clearly much more complex than those in the office. Two walls of his room were covered with various electronic screens and holographic projections, while underneath were neatly arranged servers.
—This was Xie Kedu's hobby; he enjoyed monitoring various data on the internet.
Amidst the chaotic information, there were many hidden useful secrets that could lead to significant profits, could simply be entertaining, or could be part of a conspiracy that didn't want to be discovered.
That evening, he noticed that several long-silent network beacons suddenly had an influx of data.
Due to the high encryption level, he couldn't decipher it.
So, he uploaded this data to a secret forum he was part of, hoping some expert could crack it.
Soon, someone compared the address codes and pinpointed the term "city-state area," indicating that this data might be related to that region.
This update caught Zhang Yuan's attention.
As a tech cop, he enjoyed lurking in these secret forums, not only to gather intel but also to learn a few solid tech skills from various experts.
The keyword "city-state area" instantly grabbed his attention.
When he recognized Qin Xuezhong in the morgue, he couldn't resist checking her registration info at the Bay Flow Bureau, discovering that she lived in the city-state area.
His fear and curiosity about Team Leader Qin Xuezhong were akin to a person in love; every slightly related word or number reminded him of her.
He tried to crack this information but found it difficult.
So, he reached out to a few familiar undercover agents in the online space, hoping to leverage their resources and skills to decipher the data.
Eventually, one of the undercover agents, who had extensive contacts in the underground world, managed to find relevant keywords within a sea of communication records.
By the time they identified these keywords, it was already past 7 AM.
He posted the findings in the meeting space, instantly waking up those who had dozed off.
Everyone spent over half an hour reconstructing part of the original text from the secret message Xie Kedu had intercepted:
[Target... at 7:57... appearing at 19... wait for the target to board, travel to the tunnel center, then proceed... if the target detects, can directly detonate the platform...]
For the undercover agents, Xie Kedu, and the tech whizzes on the forum, deciphering such a deep web message was exhilarating.
It wasn't that they didn't want to report it; in Xigu City, such small-scale terrorist attacks happened too frequently.
This message was also incomplete, lacking specific locations, making it ineffective to report.
But for Zhang Yuan, this message was different.
He had quietly investigated Qin Xuezhong and, like those in the company plotting to assassinate her, quickly discovered her routine—entering the subway station around 7:50 AM, boarding the 7:57 train, and getting into the 19th car.
He immediately became alert, realizing that someone might want to assassinate the team leader!
Even though he wasn't sure and might anger the team leader for his private investigation, he made up his mind to send out the warning message at the last moment for her safety.
At the same time, Xie Kedu also saw the decoding on the forum and felt equally excited.
However, the combination of "city-state area" and "explosion" made him uneasy—he felt like he had seen this somewhere before.
What he couldn't recall was that, due to the good atmosphere in the analysis department, Xue Zhishi would show colleagues the profiles of new hires during recruitment. Xie Kedu had seen "city-state area" in Qin Xuezhong's address field.
He searched through his memory for a long time with no results, so he messaged Xue Zhishi:
[Old Xue, do we have any cases in the city-state area?]
Xue Zhishi quickly replied:
[I don't remember any, but it seems that Xiao Qin lives in the city-state area. What's up?]
Xie Kedu immediately responded: [There might be an explosion in the subway there.]
No one dared to report it, fearing it might alert the assassins and trigger a premature explosion.
Only Xue Zhishi, through his connections, contacted the anti-intrusion team, urging them to act secretly and support Qin Xuezhong.
Everyone also hesitated to let Xiao Qin leave first due to the amputee clinic incident, fearing there might truly be a deranged corporate assassin wanting to eliminate her as a warning to others.
Then, Qin Xuezhong received all the urgent alerts from everyone.Having never experienced such a life-and-death crisis, Xiao Qin strangely felt liberated.
She wasn't a superhero or a secret agent who could save the world in a movie's runtime.
So, she began to ponder what she could do right now.
She had two usable skills at her disposal.
One was the anti-tracking techniques learned in the training simulator; the other was the "consciousness void" ability.
However, if she tried to leave now, whether the person tailing her noticed her leaving or discovered her disappearance, it might directly trigger the explosion.
So, her only option was to utilize her unique ability.
Her consciousness void could shield against all data viruses and redundant attacks; if she could create an entry point, perhaps she could reverse-locate the tracker?
With that thought, she quickly sent a message to Zhang Yuan:
[Is there a way to locate the controller? Or any information about the controller?]
Zhang Yuan replied: [Coming right up.]
He swiftly requested the raw data from Xie Kedu on the forum and passed it on to Qin Xuezhong.
Without hesitation, she squeezed closer to the train doors.
Amidst the curious gazes of those around her, she connected to the carriage's data system using her badge and emergency permissions.
In an instant, a massive influx of mixed data flooded her chip.
For an ordinary person, this deluge of data would be overwhelming—containing train operational data, various sensor and camera feeds, and dynamic data collected from thousands of people…
But her consciousness void automatically filtered everything, instantly comparing the raw data sent by Zhang Yuan with the entire subway system and pinpointing the matching points.
There were three high-energy explosives; she could even read the triggering signals from within the bombs.
And there was one person hiding in the sewers, controlling it all.
Qin Xuezhong didn't know what to do, so she tried to use her consciousness to envelop the bomb's signal receiver, hoping to prevent it from detonating.
Just as she took action, the top assassin in the sewers realized he could no longer receive signals from the bombs.
Like a ghostly hacker, someone silently severed his connection to the explosives.
This… was utterly impossible.
His signals were scattered across countless channels; only a mainframe-level processing capability specifically targeting him could potentially discover him.
Panicked, he attempted to quickly gather his things and escape, but at that moment, a flood of nearly endless redundant data surged into his device and brain implant.
After a burst of electrical sparks, he lost consciousness, collapsing to the ground.