Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

"Wang Hongyuan is the third political commissar of Lieyang Province. Without solid evidence, we can't touch his people." Han Qiming frowned even more. "Yunyin Manor is Song Mingzhang's private territory. Wang Hongyuan's people are guarding it. We have no reason to go in and search. Taking rash action would trigger a political incident, and no one can afford to bear the consequences."

"What if he's next?" Yue Sheng asked. "Are we just going to stand by and watch him get killed?"

"What else can we do?" Han Qiming leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples wearily. "We don't have any evidence right now. We can't just rush in and protect Song Mingzhang based on a few encrypted phone calls, can we? What are we going to say if Wang Hongyuan asks? That he might be facing retaliation from a superhuman? Have you thought about how much panic that would cause?"

Yue Sheng didn't speak. He knew Han Qiming was right. At this stage, there was nothing they could do but wait.

Wait for Liu Zhen to make his move, wait for the energy signal to appear, wait for them to rush over with their men, and clean up the mess that has long since cooled down.

"That's enough for today." Han Qiming stood up, put away the survey report on the table, and stuffed it into a confidential document bag. "Yue Sheng, you go back to the base first and have your people keep on standby. I will notify you immediately once the monitoring station detects any abnormal signals."

Yue Sheng nodded and turned to walk towards the door.

His military boots made a louder sound on the floor than when he came in.

As he reached the door, he suddenly stopped without turning around, his voice deep and resonant: "Old Han, I hope we can make it in time next time the signal comes through."

The door was gently closed, leaving only Han Qiming and Xiao Lin in the command center.

Han Qiming walked to the screen and looked at the map with more than two hundred red dots. He lightly tapped the location of Yunyin Manor with his fingertip. It was the only point that was not marked in red, but it felt like a heavy stone, making it hard to breathe.

"I hope so too," he said softly, his voice almost inaudible.

The discharge waveform on the screen was still fluctuating, with sharp peaks and troughs like knives hanging overhead, and no one knew whose head it would fall on next.

The night was still deep, and the whole city was asleep, except for the lights of the Abnormal Affairs Bureau, which stood like a lonely lighthouse, guarding this unseen and intangible peace.

------

Yunyin Mountain Villa, located in the southern suburbs of Zhaoming City, was shrouded in fog for three consecutive days, with the dark outlines of the pine forest appearing and disappearing in the mist.

Liu Zhen and Meng Zhaowen had been lingering in the woods outside the villa for three days.

Three days ago, the name Han Dongcheng uttered in the underground parking garage of Jingyuan Villa was like a red-hot branding iron, searing into the bones of the two men—Song Mingzhang.

The two of them didn't separate for the past three days.

Liu Zhen leaned against the pine trunk, keeping watch. A faint, almost invisible arc of electricity always clung to his palm, and the slightly tingling sensation at his fingertips was his most reliable weapon.

Meng Zhaowen squatted down, his palms pressed against the damp soil, his consciousness extending downwards along the roots of the plants, like countless invisible tentacles, penetrating layers of soil, all the way to the base of the wall of Yunyin Manor.

The roots of the pine forest run deep, some as thick as an arm, others as fine as silk, weaving a dense, impenetrable net.

Every pine tree was his eyes, every clump of wild grass was his ears. The vibration of the wind through the leaves, the sound of insects crawling across the grass, even the frequency of the security guard's leather shoes stepping on the cobblestone path inside the wall, all entered his mind through the roots.

The results of three days of observation were unusually "normal".

Song Mingzhang's schedule was very precise: every morning at eight o'clock, the black sedan would drive out of the villa gate on time, and Meng Zhaowen could hear the sound of the wheels rolling over the fallen leaves clearly.

We always return at 12:30 pm sharp, with a takeout breakfast always on the passenger seat.

I went out again at 2 p.m. and returned promptly at 7 p.m. The light in the study on the third floor of the main building was always on until 1 a.m.

Occasionally, visitors' cars would come and go, and occasionally, workers would chat while mowing the lawn. Security guards would huddle in the guardhouse complaining about their low wages, and the cook would berate his apprentice in the backyard for chopping vegetables too slowly.

All the sounds were trivial and ordinary; there were no footsteps urgently calling for reinforcements, no metallic clashes of weapons, and no patrol orders as vigilant as those given by Han Dongcheng.

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The vegetation around the villa was also normal: the pine trees in the pine forest were decades old and had very deep roots, allowing Meng Zhaowen's consciousness to travel freely within them.

The bamboo grove grows on the west slope, rustling in the wind, just like any other mountain forest.

Wild berries hung from the branches in the bushes, and even the signs of insect damage were the same as elsewhere.

Only the lawns around the main building use shallow-rooted ornamental grasses, with roots that extend at most ten centimeters deep, so they don't convey any useful information—this is perfectly normal, as high-end residential areas love to use this kind of neat and attractive grass.

"It's different from Han Dongcheng's place." On the evening of the third day, Liu Zhen chewed on a dry, hard compressed biscuit, his voice extremely low.

As soon as you approach Jingyuan Villa, you can feel the tense vigilance. The breathing of the sentries can be picked up by the plants even hundreds of meters away. Yet, here it is as relaxed as an ordinary wealthy villa area.

Meng Zhaowen pushed up his glasses, the lenses fogged up a bit, which he casually wiped clean with the corner of his clothes: "Song Mingzhang is not Han Dongcheng. Han Dongcheng is the one who rushes to the front and does the dirty work, he has more blood on his hands, so naturally he has more enemies."

"Song Mingzhang is a strategist hiding behind Wang Hongyuan. Few people have ever seen his true face. Who would have thought that someone could follow Han Dongcheng's lead and get to him?"

The logic is sound and reasonable.

Han Dongcheng's death was sudden. Even if the news got out, someone like Song Mingzhang, who had always lived in the shadows, might not have had the same level of vigilance that Han Dongcheng had developed from living on the edge of a knife. He certainly wouldn't have expected that the two avengers would come knocking on his door so quickly.

On the first night, the two took turns resting.

Liu Zhen slept against the pine tree for two hours, while Meng Zhaowen kept his palm on the ground. He could be instantly awakened by any unusual vibrations that entered the root system.

The next day, they moved to a deeper part of the forest. Meng Zhaowen "heard" through the vibration of the grass that the chef at the mountain villa said that Song Mingzhang loved sweets and that the kitchen had to prepare osmanthus cakes every day.

Liu Zhen leaned against the tree and took out the photo wrapped in plastic film from his pocket. Moonlight shone through the gaps in the pine branches and fell on the boy in the photo who was missing a front tooth. His smile was dazzling.

He looked at the photo for a long time before carefully tucking it back into the inner pocket close to his heart, his fingertips still retaining the slight warmth of the photo.

Meng Zhaowen turned her face away and squeezed the morning glory seeds in her hand even tighter.

Those were seeds that his brother Meng Zhaohui used to plant in the courtyard of their old home. He secretly took a handful with him when he left. Seven years have passed, and the seed husks are worn shiny.

Everything was normal on the third day.

Song Mingzhang's car left promptly at 8:00 AM and returned at 12:30 PM. The takeout box in the passenger seat was replaced with chestnut cake. He went out again at 2:00 PM and returned at 7:00 PM. The study light stayed on until 1:07 AM.

At 1:20 a.m., the two stood up from the pine forest and brushed off the fallen leaves and dirt from their clothes.

Without discussing plans or dividing tasks, after so many days of fighting side by side, their fighting styles had long been ingrained in each other's bones: Liu Zhen charged ahead, while Meng Zhaowen covered the rear, one responsible for tearing apart the defenses and the other for eliminating all worries from the rear.

A wisp of dark blue electricity leaped from Liu Zhen's palm, illuminating the equally resolute light in their eyes.

Meng Zhaowen's fingers gently touched the wild grass at her feet. The slender blades of grass seemed to receive some kind of command, bending slightly as if clearing a path for them.

The night fog thickened, and the two, like shadows blending into the darkness, silently scaled the walls of Yunyin Manor and disappeared into the shadows of the dense vegetation.

Inside the main building deep within the walls, Song Mingzhang stood behind the curtains in his study, watching two figures on the monitor screen that were almost blending into the night. His fingers, holding the teacup, tightened slightly.

Beneath the ornamental lawn outside the window, in the hollowed-out soil, countless invisible metal probes lie silently, like traps waiting for their prey to trigger them.