I was just telling a story, why is the whole internet urging me to turn myself in?

Chapter 86 Since we're going to risk our lives, let's tear the sky apart (4000 words)

The Special Case Team's meeting room is located next to the interrogation room on the second basement floor of the Jiangzhou Defense Agency.

Su Qing pushed open the door and slammed a thick stack of files onto the long table with a loud thud: "Everyone, hand in your cell phones."

On either side of the long table, the six members of the special case team sat up straight, looking at each other.

Xiao Li swallowed hard, then took out his phone and threw it into the black signal jamming bag in the center of the table.

Seeing this, the others followed suit.

Su Qing's gaze swept over each face, making sure no one was hiding a second device, before she coldly said, "The official statement regarding Liu Jianhua is that he suffered a sudden heart attack."

"But none of you here are fresh graduates from the police academy. The suspect foamed at the mouth, convulsed, and died halfway through the interrogation. What does that mean? I don't need to say more."

"Starting today, the focus of the investigation will be entirely shifted to screening all personnel within the agency who have had unusual financial dealings or business interactions with Liu Jianhua! We will pay special attention to three types of targets!"

Su Qing picked up the remote control and pressed it. The projector's bright light shone on the whiteboard, and a complex network diagram of relationships popped up.

"First, find out any private financial transactions you've had with Liu Jianhua over the past five years. Even something as small as a five-yuan WeChat red envelope!"

"Secondly, in the sensitive cases handled by Liu Jianhua, there were leaders at various levels with abnormal approval records."

"Third, and most importantly, all the people who entered and exited the second basement level on the day Liu Jianhua was poisoned!"

No sooner had he finished speaking than the meeting room door was pushed open from the outside.

Qin Zheng stood at the door with a livid face, holding a brown paper document bag in his hand.

"Captain Su." Qin Zheng walked to the table, casually tossed the file folder aside, and said with undisguised anger, "Director Zhou has approved your application to adjust the direction of the investigation. I just finished reading it."

"What's your starting point? Just because some unknown online streamer mentioned something about the novel 'White Night' in their live stream and brought up the concept of a symbiotic structure, you're planning to shift the entire special task force's focus from investigating Dingsheng Industrial to a massive internal purge?"

"Captain Su, I've been working with you on cases for three years. I don't recall ever teaching you that jokes from livestreams can be used as evidence in court, replacing physical evidence!"

The conference room fell silent. Six pairs of eyes darted back and forth between Su Qing and Qin Zheng, and no one dared to breathe too loudly.

Faced with her former boss's questioning, Su Qing didn't rush to refute.

She walked to the projector, took out an encrypted USB drive from her pocket, inserted it, and pulled up a video.

"Director Qin, please take a look at this first."

The footage shows the last interrogation video of Liu Jianhua before his death.

Su Qing precisely dragged the progress bar to 14:37:22, which was the exact moment the auxiliary police officer on duty pushed open the door and entered the interrogation room with a paper cup in hand.

"Look at his right hand." Su Qing tapped the screen.

Qin Zheng frowned and leaned closer to the screen.

In the video, the auxiliary police officer is seen holding the bottom of the cup with his right hand and lightly supporting the side of the cup with his left hand. His gait is steady and his expression is relaxed, with absolutely no faults.

"What's the problem?" Qin Zheng asked.

However, the next second, Su Qing typed on the keyboard, and the screen instantly switched to the synchronized view of the corridor surveillance camera, rewinding time to 14:3.

7: 15.

At that moment, the auxiliary police officer was carrying water from the water dispenser to the interrogation room, just passing through the second security gate.

Suddenly, the screen jumped out of control.

The amplitude is extremely slight; it is imperceptible to the naked eye unless played back frame by frame.

But after Su Qing highlighted and enlarged it with a red box, the frame jump seemed so abrupt that it became something that no one could ignore.

"The frame skipping lasted for a full seven seconds. After the technical department confirmed overnight, it wasn't an equipment malfunction, but rather that the surveillance video had been remotely overwritten." Su Qing turned around, "and the access level used for the overwriting was Level A."

"Hiss!"

A collective gasp filled the conference room.

Of the several thousand people in the entire Jiangzhou Defense Administration, only five hold Level A surveillance privileges!

Su Qing raised her right hand, spreading her five fingers in sequence: "Director Zhou Weiguo, Chief of the Technical Support Section Jiang Minghui, and former head of the Information Security Section Liu Jianhua."

"Besides these three, the remaining two are Tao Zhiyuan, the director of the Logistics Support Department, and Sun Weidong, the liaison officer of the Provincial Department's Inspection Office stationed in Jiangzhou."

Tao Zhiyuan, a seasoned veteran who has worked in the department's logistics system for twenty years, is in charge of everything from equipment procurement and infrastructure maintenance to access control system replacement. He can be considered the "chief steward" of the National Defense Administration.

Sun Weidong, an inspector and liaison officer parachuted in from the provincial department, is nominally in charge of supervising internal discipline, but in reality, he has extremely high authority and can access almost all non-top secret files.

Qin Zheng stared at the blacked-out projection screen, his expression shifting between anger and uncertainty.

"Director Qin, I absolutely did not use the live broadcast as a source of clues." Su Qing turned off the projector, her gaze intense. "I want to know more about Shen Feng's background than anyone else here."

"But everything he said before was later proven true. This time he's talking about symbiotic structures," I've chosen to treat it as a criminal investigation hypothesis awaiting verification.

She turned around, her finger emphatically pointing to the timeline on the whiteboard: "You may not believe his story. But this seven-second overwrite is from the technical department's report, meaning that right under our noses, someone erased the poisoner's traces!"

The meeting room fell silent again, for a full half minute.

"What do you need me to do?" Qin Zheng finally asked.

"I hope to get your support and, through your channels in the provincial department, check Sun Weidong and Tao Zhiyuan's travel records, communication records, and bank transactions over the past three years."

"I have no personal connections to help you." Qin Zheng tucked the brown paper document bag back under his arm, turned around, and pushed open the door to leave.

The moment the door closed, Xiao Li poked his head out from behind his workstation and whispered, "Captain Su, Director Qin's 47-page top-secret report was also tampered with. You entrusted such an important investigation to him? You trust him that much?"

Su Qing rubbed her temples wearily: "If we suspect everyone, it means we won't be able to find out anything about anyone."

At the same time, on the 68th floor of the Shanghai World Financial Center.

Six empty cans of Red Bull were scattered haphazardly on Xiaoyu's workstation. He had half a spicy snack in his mouth, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was staring intently at the three screens of code scrolling wildly in front of him.

Although Liu Jianhua is dead, the backdoor he left in the Defense Agency's OA system has not yet been closed.

For the past few days, Xiaoyu has been running his self-written automatic monitoring script to capture abnormal data streams from the intranet in real time.

Suddenly, a red alert popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen!

"Holy crap, someone's tampering with the system's underlying history logs!" Xiao Yu sat up abruptly, nearly dropping half a spicy snack onto the keyboard.

The monitoring script has detected a hidden data stream in real time, attempting to erase a specific access record from the server.

"Trying to cover up your crime in front of me? No way!"

Xiaoyu's fingers flew across the keyboard, leaving afterimages as he typed.

He immediately followed the data stream to intercept, capture packets, and reverse analyze them.

In less than three minutes, he forcefully pulled out a real record that had been forcibly hidden and displayed it again on the screen.

Upon seeing the record, Xiaoyu couldn't help but exclaim again, "Holy crap—!"

The recovered logs show that an account codenamed "Sky Eye Backup" accessed Liu Jianhua's personnel file, salary payment records, and job change history seven times between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM today!

The National Defense Agency's internal network naming convention is "department abbreviation + employee number," so this "Guanyan Backup" is definitely not an official account!

Someone has created a fake account and is frantically researching Liu Jianhua's background in the dead of night. They are now trying to erase all traces of him!

What's even more interesting is that Xiaoyu followed the trail and discovered that the account's IP address hopped through three layers of internal network relays, ultimately pointing to a backup server in the technical support department.

However, the creation date was November 3rd of last year, which is only one day different from the date Liu Jianhua last applied to upgrade his monitoring privileges!

Xiao Yu grabbed his laptop and rushed into the CEO's office next door: "Master! A big fish! It's bitten!"

Shen Feng was lounging in the boss's chair with his legs crossed, scrolling through his phone.

The hashtag for last night's "White Night Walk" live stream is currently ranked fourth on the trending topics list, with over eight million discussions, and it's still rising at a visible rate.

Looking at the "popularity value" on the system panel, which had already exceeded ten million, Shen Feng was happily calculating what good things he could draw.

Hearing the commotion from next door, he calmly placed his phone face down on the table, adopting an air of superiority: "What's the rush? Speak."

Xiaoyu turned the screen around and rattled off a description of the "Sky Eye Backup" situation.

Shen Feng stared at the line of red logs for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"Sky Eye" is the internal code name for the city's Skynet surveillance platform.

So what exactly is "Sky Eye Backup" backing up? Is it backing up the shady money data that Liu Jianhua handled? Or is it backing up all the secrets that Liu Jianhua himself knows?

Clearly, some people feared that with Liu Jianhua's death, certain crucial information would spiral out of control, so they immediately activated this alias for remote salvage.

"Keep a close eye on it." Shen Feng put his feet off the table. "Next time this account becomes active, I need your precise physical location. Can you do that?"

"If he dares to go online, I can find out even the color of his underwear!"

Xiao Yu patted his chest to assure them, then turned to run, but suddenly turned back as he crossed the threshold. "Oh, right, Master, there's one more thing. The data on the dark web has been updated. The Lanternman's Queen Bee team's advance reconnaissance has arrived in Jiangzhou, and they are expected to be fully operational within forty-eight to seventy-two hours."

"Buzz"

The moment Xiaoyu uttered the words "Queen Bee Team," the black fitness tracker on Shen Feng's left wrist suddenly vibrated violently without warning!

Shen Feng glanced down at his wrist.

The bracelet's surface showed no change in light, but the tingling and icy vibration traveled up his wrist to the back of his head, causing him to break out in a cold sweat.

Xiao Yu was still rambling on at the door, explaining the organizational structure of the Queen Bee Squad: "I heard that these people never use conventional weapons; they prefer neurotoxins and micro-bombs —"

He was completely unaware that his ancestor's back had already stiffened.

"Alright, I understand. You go ahead and do your thing." Shen Feng forced down his wildly beating heart, his tone remaining calm and composed, as if even if Mount Tai collapsed before him.

"Okay!" Xiaoyu replied, grabbed the computer, and ran off.

The office door clicked shut the moment it closed.

Shen Feng's previous air of profound wisdom and superiority shattered instantly.

He sprang up from his chair as if he'd been electrocuted, grabbed the remote control on the table, and swiftly lowered all the bulletproof and blast-proof curtains around the office to the floor!

The wristband's sensing radius is two kilometers.

In other words, at this very moment, within a two-kilometer radius of this 68-story building, there is at least one person who clearly wants him dead, roaming nearby!

Shen Feng touched the bracelet on his left wrist, swallowed hard, and grabbed the walkie-talkie on the table: "Old Xu! Old Xu got a reply!"

Three seconds later, Xu Zhengyang's calm voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Sir, I'm here."

"Where are the grizzly bears and jackals now?"

"The grizzly bear is sniping from the southeast corner of the rooftop, while the jackal is checking vehicles at the entrance to the B3 level of the underground parking garage."

"Not enough! Far from enough!" Shen Feng strode to the coat rack, ripped off the two suits hanging outside, revealing the innermost dark gray custom-made jacket. "Have them add another layer to my 68 layers of physical defense!"

""

"Don't overlook elevator lobbies, fire exits, air ducts, even ventilation openings—every single entrance must be manned!"

There was a visibly pause on the other end of the walkie-talkie, and Xu Zhengyang's tone immediately took on a cold, wary edge: "Sir, has something happened?"

Shen Feng did not answer. He took off his light blue casual suit and quickly put on his dark gray coat.

The moment the fabric fits the body, the nano-bulletproof layer embedded in the lining is instantly activated by body temperature.

The 0.3-millimeter-thick honeycomb structure unfolded silently, clinging tightly to the inside of the coat fabric, protecting his torso.

From the outside, it looks like a well-tailored, ordinary suit.

Shen Feng straightened his collar in front of the full-length mirror next to the coat rack, looked at his slightly pale face in the mirror, and let out a long breath.

The black bracelet on my wrist remained silent and stopped vibrating.

But silence doesn't mean safety; it only means that the person with murderous intent has temporarily left the two-kilometer sensing range.

With a ten million dollar bounty, these desperados are definitely not going to let this go so easily.

The bulletproof liner only protects the torso, leaving the head exposed. The warning bracelet can only sound an alarm; it can't automatically fire lasers to slice the killer into pieces.

Even the fiercest mercenaries are still just mortals. If they really encounter an elite squad like the Lanternmen, which is of military-grade quality, they will still be overwhelmed by firepower!

Ultimately, it all comes down to the system! It all comes down to popularity!

He needs more, even more outrageous, life-saving gadgets!

Shen Feng glanced at the clock on the wall, his eyes gradually turning crazed.

Since you want to kill me, then I'll shatter this illusion completely!

He picked up his phone, opened Xiaoyu's WeChat, and quickly typed a line: "Tonight at 8 PM, streaming will start on time!"

Go all out with pre-launch promotion across all online channels!

"Tonight's episode of 'White Night Walk' must have over 30 million viewers online! I want to make sure the mole within the Jiangzhou Defense Bureau can't even sleep soundly!"

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