Love, death, and false man

Chapter 12. Hidden Dragon Spy Shadow
9/13—20:00
into the night.

Fang Yan's bedroom.

Insulating tape, radio, antenna.

And... Salvation Army supplies.

[I don't understand, am I going crazy, or what? Future military supplies—aren't they supposed to be weapons like plasma cutters?]

[As you now know, using a gravitational particle accelerator to send things back in time comes at an extremely high cost, usually measured in bytes. Private Fang Yan, please promote yourself to obtain more technical support.]

# # #
Two bundles of cash, totaling 20,000 yuan, were the least noteworthy items in the suitcase.

This shattered all of Fang Yan's leisure and comfort after he left the police station.

Driver's license, passport, national ID cards, police ID, etc., all are included.

The Colt M2000 pistol is highly concealable and can be easily carried, simply by putting it in a school uniform pocket.

The MP5 submachine gun is suitable for medium-range skirmishes, urban warfare, and indoor combat; it can be easily carried in a backpack.

Considering that the [Hunter Channel] will remove the effects in real time, both pieces of equipment can be kept on at all times.

The Barrett anti-materiel sniper rifle needs to be disguised with something like a guitar case, so you don't need to carry it when you go out normally. When you want to snipe a specific person, you need to deploy in advance, plan the route, calculate the time, and then kill the target.

Fang Yan also took out all the bullet boxes and neatly arranged them on the floor that was sealed with tape.

He sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, his lean muscles so muscular they looked almost like they'd been carved with a knife, veins bulging. He held his head in his hands and let out a long breath.

[Soulfire Strength: 756 Joules.]

Peak intensity: 1331 joules.

【Soulfire Trait: █3@█#%^&█】

Having killed Dongni, Fang Yan already knew the function of the Soul Fire: it could not be activated on its own, and when activated, it would always be at its highest value.

He also consulted experts on the nature of Soulfire.

It is a characteristic that allows one to actively convert soul fire into kinetic energy through conscious awareness, but it is not the highest value; rather, it is a constantly fluctuating, real-time intensity.

In short, it is a special ability, which is one or more characteristics generated by a fixed channel connecting the subconscious and conscious mind. When activated, it can only release the kinetic energy of the current soul fire intensity.

When free will actively does work on the processes of the universe, it increases entropy, which in turn causes free will to become chaotic, inducing irreversible damage including epilepsy, dementia, paralysis, confusion, schizophrenia, depersonalization, and so on.

Fang Yan took a deep breath, took out a Colt pistol from his briefcase, gripped it in his palm, loaded the bullets one by one into the magazine, and then closed it. The leader on the fishing boat had brought a gun on board; he had used it to kill the chief engineer, so he knew a little about it. Its metallic feel, weight, and mechanical details were unmistakably genuine.

Free will produces chaos... as if I'm not experiencing chaos myself right now.

Logically, after the soul fire is activated for the first time, it should produce some kind of characteristic. Why is my code a string of gibberish? Does it not have any characteristics yet, or is it unreadable?

In short, even if you have it, you should avoid using it as much as possible. This message also has a lot of biochemical radiation warning symbols, which is pretty creepy.

[Latest instructions received from Lieutenant Sylvia Christie of the 7th Army.]

[A routine investigation task has been assigned to you.]

Information regarding three suspicious targets has been sent to your taskbar.

[You will determine whether any of the three individuals are imposters. If the determination is successful, you must report the intelligence gathered. If the determination is successful, please eliminate them immediately.]

[Your direct superior has added information: Private Fang Yan, considering your wounded state, I have extended your standard seven-day mission period to fourteen days. You may think your pay is meager, but currency is useless to the Salvation Army; they have as much as they want. In the early days of the Seventh Army, a private in the 21st Century received $100,000 per month. Many new recruits often collapsed under psychological pressure, squandered the money, and committed suicide. You are a strong person; you must understand what I'm saying. You don't need this. Perhaps one day we will truly meet. So, please fight for the liberation of all humanity. May your military prowess be assured.]

[Your current merit points are: 200/1000.] [Completing this mission will grant you 200 merit points. If there are any imposters among the targets and they are successfully eliminated, additional merit points will be awarded.]

[By being promoted in rank, you will receive more technical support and better benefits.]

"It's just a minor scratch; it's not enough to kill someone."

Fang Yan looked at the well-stitched wounds on his body. If he was just gathering intelligence, he wouldn't need to rest. With a gun and the [Hunter Channel], he could handle most situations.

Although Fang Yan was unfamiliar with the Salvation Army's discipline and didn't bother to look into it—there were too many clauses, and most were in a gray area due to the current situation, so no actual punishment would be imposed—he knew that deserters would definitely face a military court, and he couldn't escape that identity.

Twenty thousand yuan...

Is this the salary I earned by risking my life in the military? In reality, compared to my monthly living expenses of just over a thousand yuan, twenty thousand yuan is a huge sum of money. Based on my spending habits, this amount of money is enough to last until the college entrance examination.

However, if you go to the Cape No. 1 Ballroom, 20,000 divided by 20 multiplied by 3 means you can book a dancer for 3,000 minutes, or 50 hours, to continuously experience her body for two days and two nights.

No, it cannot be calculated using the standards of regular work.

He possesses social administrator-like privileges, allowing him to read others' real-time thoughts and completely escape legal judgment and moral evaluation from the existing system through the [Hunter Channel].

When other people get to high school, they often have all sorts of "white moonlight" or other teenage angst and trauma literature, and they've definitely had sex with each other.

My high school life was a bit strange.

Despite having no concrete evidence, Fang Yan firmly believed that the root of his mental confusion was the satellite phone call on the oil tanker. He couldn't have dialed a garbled number; he must have asked someone he knew or the maritime authorities for help.

That was the earliest form of mind control.

He was absolutely convinced that he had made that call under the control of a satellite base station, and that the high school girl on the other end of the line might have implanted some kind of idea in him.

Things might be far more complicated than he imagined. He had to keep climbing the ranks to find out the truth, no matter who was controlling him, whether it was a female high school student, an old god, or some damn Soul-Sucking Lord or Savior.

The mind control will last as long as it lasts, and the fighting will continue until complete freedom is achieved.

I took sick leave from school and don't need to go to class this week. But in order to maintain a stable identity, I can use the classroom as an office to sort out and merge intelligence. I only need to attend classes three or four days a week. Any exams or tests are just like mosquitoes to the server database.

I looked at the three objectives in the taskbar.

Name, age, address, occupation, activity range, and network of relationships are all detailed. The photo is generated from pixels transmitted to an electronic target in the eye. It is somewhat blurry, reminiscent of the old internet era, but the specific appearance is still clearly discernible.

Two men and one woman, respectively a senior executive of a listed company, a short video algorithm analyst, and a nightclub bartender.

I hate rich people. I'd prefer that their top executives be hypocrites, and they should be shot.

The bartender's words were something else entirely! She's really beautiful. The photos sent from the Salvation Army server probably weren't filtered, right? I have to read them carefully in real time. It's pretty cool to be in contact with beautiful women on a government mission. Anyway, I have to lose my virginity before I die.

Fang Yan, with the mindset of a high school student, thought to himself, "That's how it is."

But after thinking it over, I wondered if I really had the right to execute others. Before, I was always powerless to do so, but now I was actively hunting down others.

A soldier's duty is to obey orders, nothing more.

Fang Yan didn't think too much about it. He put the Colt pistol on his waist, put on his clothes to cover it, packed up the MP5, Barrett, and all the bullet boxes, and hid them all in the closet. Although his grandfather never went into his bedroom, it was better if he didn't find out.

Now that things have come to this, with 20,000 yuan in my pocket, I'll go out and buy a smartphone to make work easier. After I get back and take a nap, we'll see if any of the three are imposters.

9/14—7:59
For Fang Yan, it was like sleeping in late.

So……

let's start.

(End of this chapter)