Ice skates forward, regardless of east or west.

1

In the storage room of the abandoned factory, the air seemed to freeze.

After Gu Xidong left, Ling Wuwen did not move.

She sat in front of the monitor, which emitted a dim, flickering light, like a stone statue.

She slowly opened her eyes only when the sound of rain outside the window gradually subsided.

She knew that Gu Xidong was bluffing her.

He was testing her limits, and also trying to find out how much she had discovered.

But what he didn't know was that the "beacon" he left behind had completely betrayed his secret.

Ling Wuwen reconnected the burnt hard drive.

This time, she didn't try to recover those insignificant browsing records.

She started a deep dive program.

This is a special tool she obtained through internal channels, specifically used to dig into the underlying layers of completely formatted data.

On the screen, the progress bar crawled slowly.

One hour.

two hours.

Just as the first rays of dawn shone through the dilapidated window of the storage room and onto her pale face.

"drop--"

A crisp notification sound.

The program has stopped running.

An encrypted folder hidden at the bottom of the hard drive was forcibly decompressed and revealed to her.

2

The folder's name consists of only two words: "Script".

Ling Wuwen clicked on it.

It contains neither videos nor pictures.

It's a collection of encrypted communication records.

The identity identifiers of both parties in the communication are a string of meaningless gibberish.

But the content of the communication instantly soaked Ling Wuwen's back in cold sweat.

[Sender ID: Black Swan_Administrator]

[Recipient ID: Albatross_Infiltrator]

[Subject: Progress Report on the "Swan Lake Project"]

[Content: Act One: Broken Wings. Completed. The prey has fallen according to the script. Public anger has reached its peak.]

[Email ID: Albatross_Infiltrator]

[Recipient ID: Black Swan_Administrator]

[Subject: Reply: Progress report on the "Swan Lake Project"]

[Content: Act Two: Depravity. In progress. The prey has lost all social function. Next step, as planned, is the "final judgment."]

[Sender ID: Black Swan_Administrator]

[Recipient ID: Albatross_Infiltrator]

[Subject: Warning]

[Content: Watch out for "Nightingale." She's awake. Don't let her interfere with the final performance of "Project Swan Lake."]

Ling Wuwen's finger hovered over the screen.

"Swan Lake Project".

This was not an accident.

This is a meticulously planned "drama" that has lasted for three years and is aimed at Gu Xidong.

They broke his wings, made him fall, and made him degenerate, all so that he could play the role of a "sinner" on this stage.

And what exactly is this so-called "final judgment"?

Should we make him disappear from this world completely?

and also……

"nightingale".

The record mentions "nightingale".

That was her code name.

The other party already knew she was involved in this matter.

They had been monitoring her.

3

Ling Wuwen forced himself to calm down.

She initiated the tracking process.

She needs to find the "administrator" who sent these records, the key figure in the "black swan" incident.

The program started performing calculations frantically.

The trail was traced on the map, forming a series of complex lines.

Multinational servers.

springboard.

Dark web nodes.

Everything was as expected.

But when the program attempts to lock the final physical address.

The trail suddenly took a turn.

It doesn't point to some mysterious island across the ocean, nor to the center of some bustling city.

It pointed to... this abandoned factory area on the map.

The red dot of light was flashing less than 500 meters away from her current location.

Ling Wuwen suddenly stood up.

Her mind went blank.

The person who orchestrated all of this.

The person who ruined Gu Xidong.

The person who was watching them all.

For the past three years, I've been living in these ruins.

It's always been right under their noses.

4

Around noon.

The iron gate of the abandoned factory made a dull thud.

Old Zhao, the hunchbacked gatekeeper with a perpetually honest smile on his face, slowly pushed in a creaking old tricycle.

As usual, the vehicle was loaded with various daily necessities.

Several cases of cheap liquor.

Several bags of rice.

There are also a few boxes of fast food.

"Little Gu, Little Ling, dinner's ready!" Old Zhao shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice loud and hoarse.

He parked his tricycle by the ice rink as usual.

He took a new bottle of liquor from the car and placed it on the bench where Gu Xidong often sat.

"Little Gu, here's the wine you ordered, it just arrived." Old Zhao chuckled, wiping his sweat. "It's cold outside, have some wine to warm yourself up."

Gu Xidong sat on the bench, looking at the bottle of wine, his eyes no longer filled with the longing he once had.

He simply gave a faint "hmm".

Old Zhao's gaze then turned to Ling Wuwen, who was adjusting the sound system.

"Young lady, don't overwork yourself, take care of yourself." Old Zhao handed her a lunchbox. "This is braised pork my wife made, have a taste."

Ling Wuwen took the lunchbox with a polite smile on his face.

"Thank you, Uncle Zhao."

Her fingertips trembled slightly the moment her hand touched the lunchbox.

She smelled it.

Beneath the faint smell of tobacco and sweat on Lao Zhao.

There was a very faint, almost undetectable smell of ozone and overheated electronic components.

That's the smell you get from years of exposure to high-power electronic devices.

An ordinary, sixty-year-old gatekeeper.

He doesn't need to know anything about satellite signal amplifiers.

You don't need to understand quantum encryption technology.

But he had a private base station with extremely high signal strength that could cover the entire abandoned factory area.

Ling Wuwen remembered that in Old Zhao's duty room, there was an old cabinet that was never locked.

There always seemed to be a slight, constant buzzing sound coming from behind that cabinet.

She used to think it was a small heater that Old Zhao used to keep warm.

Looking back now...

That's the sound of the device's cooling fan.

5

Old Zhao stood by the ice rink, watching them eat with a smile.

His eyes were cloudy yet kind.

Like an elder looking after a younger generation.

But Ling Wuwen saw a cold, scrutinizing look deep in his eyes.

He was looking after west Dong.

Let's see if he actually gets drunk after drinking.

He was looking at Ling Wuwen.

Let's see if she really eats what's in that lunchbox.

He was monitoring.

Like a skilled director monitoring his two actors to see if they are performing according to the script.

Ling Wuwen lowered his head and picked up a piece of braised pork with his chopsticks.

The meat smells delicious.

But she couldn't taste anything.

She could feel Old Zhao's gaze, like two needles piercing her back.

She chewed slowly.

Then, she made a bold move.

She didn't swallow the meat.

Instead, she looked up at Old Zhao and gave him a bright smile.

Then, in front of Lao Zhao, she spat the half-chewed braised pork into her hand.

She looked at the greasy piece of meat in her palm, then at Old Zhao.

There was no fear or anger in her eyes.

There is only one kind of... the chilling excitement of a hunter seeing his prey finally step into the trap.

The smile on Old Zhao's face froze.

In that instant, the cloudiness in his eyes vanished.

Instead, a sharp, razor-sharp glint appeared.

That's not the look a gatekeeper should have.

That was the look in a hunter's eyes.

Their eyes met in mid-air.

No words were spoken.

Only the invisible, smoky smell of gunpowder lingered in the air.

A few seconds later.

Old Zhao's expression returned to normal.

He acted as if nothing had happened, picked up the empty box from the tricycle, and dusted himself off.

"Eat up, and come find Uncle Zhao if you're still hungry," he said with a smile, turning around and slowly pushing his tricycle away.

The iron gate slammed shut with a creak.

Ling Wuwen watched his disappearing figure, then looked at the greasy braised pork in his palm.

She slowly clenched her fist.

She held the greasy meat tightly in her hand.

She didn't wipe her hands.

Instead, he turned his head and looked at Gu Xidong, who was not far away.

Gu Xidong was also looking at her.

He was still holding the wine bottle in his hand.

There was no sign of drunkenness in his eyes.

There was only one expression, the same as hers: a cold, knowing look.

He didn't ask anything.

He simply nodded slightly at her.

Ling Wuwen knew.

He already knew.

Or rather, he had his doubts.

This performance of "Swan Lake".

From this moment on...

The climax has officially begun.