Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

The incandescent light bulb in the abandoned research institute cast three elongated shadows on the wall. Meng Zhaowen used half a piece of white chalk to outline Wang Hongyuan's security layout on the mottled wall. The sound of the chalk cutting through the cement wall was particularly clear in the empty room.

"Wang Hongyuan rides horses at Qingyun Horse Ranch every Saturday afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm. There are three lines of defense around the ranch. The outermost layer is a mobile patrol car from the government office, which makes a round every half hour. The middle layer is plainclothes officers, mixed in with the grooms and tourists, and they use encrypted walkie-talkies. The innermost layer is eight bodyguards, all armed, and they are no more than five meters away from him."

He pointed to the three outermost arcs drawn with his fingertip. The numbers marked next to the lines were the shift change times he had spent three days feeling around with plant roots: "Every Saturday at 3:10 PM, the outer patrol cars change shifts, and the middle-level plainclothes officers have to go to the entrance to verify the identity of the newly arrived guards. There is a 15-minute window during which the inner-level guards will relax their vigilance and move towards the rest area. This is the only chance to get close."

Liu Zhen leaned against a pillar, the arc of electricity from his fingertips drawing faint blue marks on the ground. He stared at the road entrance sign of Qingyun Horse Ranch, his brows furrowed tightly: "There are two security checkpoints on the only road in and out, manned 24 hours a day. All vehicles and personnel must register. The three of us are wanted, and getting close will trigger an alarm. Even if we succeed, we'll be blocked halfway when we try to retreat."

"I'll find a hiking escape route." Xu Suyuan leaned against the window, a coin twirling between her fingers reflecting a cold white light. "We'll go through the barren mountains northeast of the horse farm, through the underground pipes of the abandoned chemical industrial park, and we can get around to the chestnut forest behind our base. The whole route avoids any official surveillance. My teleportation can bypass all checkpoints, and it's not easy to be exposed when I'm traveling alone."

She paused, glanced at the blood-soaked bandage still wrapped around Liu Zhen's left arm, and then looked at the gray hairs still visible at Meng Zhaowen's temples: "You two stay at the lodging to recover, and while you're at it, go over Wang Hongyuan's itinerary for the past three months again. I'll be back within 24 hours."

Liu Zhen nodded and tapped the outer casing of the circuit alarm lightly twice with his fingertips: "I've already adjusted the sensitivity of the outer electric grid. It will sound as soon as any living thing gets within fifty meters. When you go out, remember to use the gap in the southwest corner. I've left a safety passage."

Meng Zhaowen pressed his palm against the ground, and several thin vines, as thin as hair, climbed up the corner of the wall to Xu Suyuan's feet, the tender buds at the tips gently touching the soles of her boots: "I've spread some roots around a three-kilometer radius. If there's any unusual activity, I'll send you a signal through the vines. Be careful on the road."

Xu Suyuan bent down and held the vine in her hand. The warmth from her fingertips reached out, and the vine curled up slightly, as if in response.

Without saying anything more, she put the coin back in her pocket, turned around and pushed open the back door of the research institute, her figure quickly disappearing into the darkening night.

Qingyun Horse Ranch is located in the hilly area at the junction of Chenxi City and Zhaoming City. To the north are continuous barren mountains covered with waist-high weeds and thorny jujube trees. To the south, the provincial highway leads directly to the city, and the security checkpoints on the highway are lit with police lights 24 hours a day.

The abandoned chemical industrial park is located six kilometers northeast of the horse farm. The old factory buildings from the 1980s have all collapsed, and the rusted storage tanks lie overgrown with weeds. The air is filled with a faint smell of sulfuric acid. The crisscrossing underground pipes and drainage culverts between the factories are the only hidden passages that can avoid all surveillance.

Xu Suyuan's body remained in a semi-ethereal state, her boots making almost no sound as she stepped on the broken glass and rusted iron. She mentally rehearsed the route over and over again—a total of seven kilometers from her landing point to the outer edge of the horse farm, requiring her to pass through three collapsed culverts, two blocked ventilation ducts, and avoid the toxic gas accumulation zone remaining in the chemical industrial park.

She walked slowly, stopping at each fork in the road to mark the location of abandoned boiler rooms where she could temporarily hide, so that she would have somewhere to take refuge in case of an emergency.

As night deepened, the moon was obscured by thick clouds, and there wasn't a single star in the desolate mountains.

Xu Suyuan had already walked about two-thirds of the route and confirmed the first two hiding places where she could temporarily stay. She was preparing to enter the most complicated section of the underground pipe network when she suddenly heard indistinct voices and the sound of leather boots stepping on gravel about two hundred meters ahead.

She stopped abruptly, her body becoming completely ethereal, and slid into the shadows of the collapsed factory wall.

Through the cracks in the concrete wall, she saw five people standing at the exit of the underground laboratory. They were all dressed in black combat uniforms, and their pistols were all equipped with silencers. The muzzles of their guns were all pointed at the man surrounded in the middle.

The man surrounded by her had his back to her, so she couldn't see his face. His gray coat was torn in several places, and his back was pressed tightly against the rusted iron door. He didn't struggle or say anything.

Xu Suyuan glanced at the five men's positions. It was a standard arrest formation with no blind spots. The man in the lead had a scar on his left cheek, stood upright, and had calluses on his hands, especially on his thumb and trigger finger. He was a seasoned gunman.

She judged that this was an internal purge by the underground forces and had nothing to do with her reconnaissance mission, so she leaned against the cold wall, slowed her breathing, and waited for it to end before continuing her journey.

……

Lin Shen leaned against the rusted iron gate, the metal on his back icy cold. Blood was still seeping from the wound on his left arm, dripping down his forearm and onto the dusty ground, spreading out a small dark stain.

He was 22 years old, 1.78 meters tall, and thin. Long-term malnutrition had made his cheekbones protrude high, his eyes sunken, his hair messy and hanging over his forehead, his face covered with dirt and dried bloodstains, and his lips were chapped and peeling.

His eyes were cold, and when he swept over the five people in front of him, it was as if he were looking at a pile of lifeless stones. There was no fear, no anger, only a kind of weariness of "here we go again".

He was slow to feel pain; when the wound on his left arm was cut open, he only frowned slightly. Now that the blood had soaked through his jacket sleeve, he only glanced down at it before looking away.

The iron door behind him was the exit of the underground laboratory. The door hinges had been jammed for a long time. He had climbed out of the ventilation duct three hours earlier, with only half a moldy loaf of bread and a three-centimeter-long utility knife in his pocket.

"Lin Shen, come with us." The scarred man at the head of the group took a step forward, pointing his gun at Lin Shen's chest. "The organization needs your brains, not your life. Cooperate, and we might let you live."

The man's name is Yan Ke. He is an elite arresting officer that Zhong Lin transferred from Blackstone International. He has handled at least six similar cases of forced acquisition of "technical assets". The people arrested were all like Lin Shen, who had no background or backing, but who held core technologies.