Chapter 97: You Think Turning Off the Lights Means You Can’t See the Hand

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The night hung heavy over the metal roof of Warehouse D7 like a wet cloth soaked in ink. The sound of tactical boots crunching on gravel was swallowed by the wind, and Song Zhao’s orders came through the bone conduction earpieces, cold and devoid of any warmth. They moved like ghosts merging with the darkness, silently encircling the slumbering steel giant.

The countdown pulse beat in Lin Wan’s channel; each changing number struck like a drum against everyone’s hearts. The moment the timer hit zero, the portable EMP device emitted a hum too faint for human ears, instantly disabling the fragile electronic defenses of the outermost layer of Warehouse D7. The emergency power indicator flickered twice before going completely dark.

Almost simultaneously, Tang Yurou had already entered the main ventilation duct via a preset route. Like a nimble wildcat, her movements were light and precise as she steadily injected inert gas into the circulation system. This was not to incapacitate enemies but to erect an invisible barrier—a safety wall to lock down any unseen lethal threats at the source, those deadly nerve agents that could annihilate the entire squad with a single drop.

“Target signal is on the move. Confirming vehicle route, destination: Warehouse D7. Estimated time of arrival: eighteen minutes,” Lin Wan’s calm voice came through. On the screen, a red dot sped along the suburban highway—this red dot represented Zhou Zhengsheng and marked the long-anticipated trap finally closing in on its prey.

This signal was irrefutable proof linking him to the “Resurgence Node.”

At 2:08 a.m., in the underground refrigeration chamber of Zone B, the heavy lead-lined blast wall was torn open by a muffled explosion, releasing a cold mist mixed with dust. The assault team filed in one after another, beams from their tactical flashlights cutting through the haze, revealing a chilling sight.

Six cryogenic pods gleamed coldly in metallic light, lined up like six coffins prepared for the living. Above each pod, status indicator lights showed that three were in the warming process, the faint hum of electricity piercing the silent chamber.

Song Zhao’s gaze did not waver as he strode directly to the leftmost pod, numbered D3. His movements betrayed no hesitation, as if rehearsed countless times before.

He yanked open the observation window, revealing a face swollen from prolonged cryogenic preservation, its contours still faintly recognizable. It was Chen Yanting, the chief forensic expert missing for three years.

His eyes were tightly shut, his complexion pale as death; without the faint rise and fall of his chest, he would have been indistinguishable from a corpse.

“Vital signs are stable but extremely weak, in a shallow awakening state,” Tang Yurou quickly applied electrodes from a portable monitor onto the pod’s external interface. A stream of data flowed across the screen. “Brain waves are abnormally active, with high-frequency regional stimulation—linguistic information. He has recently been passively receiving a large amount of audio recordings.”

At that moment, Tang Yurou’s fingers brushed against several irregular protrusions at the bottom of the pod. Bringing her flashlight closer, her expression instantly grew grave.

Scratched desperately into the metal interior by nails or some sharp object was a line of shaky but powerful writing: “Save me, Zhou is lying.”

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At 2:34 a.m., the central control room of Warehouse D7 had been completely secured.

Shen Yan’s fingers flew over the keyboard of the server console, lines of code cascading down the screen like a waterfall. Lin Wan worked beside him, tirelessly decrypting layers of encrypted operation logs.

The cold truth peeled away bit by bit as the data unlocked. A top-secret project called “Echo Plan” surfaced, its core content chilling to the bone—nine “live reserve witnesses” holding critical evidence in key cases, with Chen Yanting just one among them.

They were declared “dead” or “missing” for various reasons but were in fact cryogenically sealed, to be “awakened” at any time, their memories altered to provide “perfect testimonies.” The logs revealed that three witnesses had already been used to fabricate death statements, completely erasing their existence from the world.

“Found it.” Shen Yan suddenly stopped, pulling from the deepest corner of a seemingly unrelated archive cabinet a leather-bound log wrapped in plastic.

The log was signed by Zhou Zhengsheng, the handwriting strong and forceful, the contents chillingly cold: “…The body will decay, evidence will vanish, but as long as consciousness remains, the truth is always controllable... That old stubborn Song Jianguo’s last words were ‘You cannot kill memory.’ How laughable—memory is the easiest thing to reshape.”

Song Jianguo.

The name stabbed into Cheng Ye’s eardrums like a steel needle. He gripped the log so tightly his fingertips whitened.

At 3:11 a.m., Cheng Ye signaled everyone to leave the refrigeration chamber where Pod D3 stood.

Alone before the cold metal pod, the only sounds were the low hum of instruments and the thudding of his own heartbeat.

He slowly removed his tactical gloves, reaching out with his bare right hand to lightly touch the cold metal seam of the pod.

In an instant, it was as if all the world’s sights, sounds, and electricity were sucked away, then violently surged back into his mind in chaotic torrents.

Residual perception exploded.

He “heard” the needle piercing Chen Yanting’s arm, the cold agent flooding his veins and triggering involuntary muscle tremors deep inside. He “saw” a pair of white latex-gloved hands calmly adjusting the parameters on the instruments—the gloves belonged to Zhou Zhengsheng, whose eyes behind the lenses were utterly impassive.

Then, a sharp dull pain radiated from his spine—the same pain from fifteen years ago when his father was dragged out of his office by two unknown men, his back slammed hard against the doorframe... Three sensory fragments from different times and individuals collided and intertwined in his consciousness, ultimately reconstructing a complete holographic scene.

Song Zhao’s eyes snapped open, his forehead drenched in cold sweat.

His gaze locked onto a nondescript corner at the back of the cryo pod’s control panel.

There lay a barely visible scratch that had just flashed in the residual echo—a deliberate pattern: the opening move of the Nanzhi Fist’s “Returning Horse Stance.”

It was the first and most crucial life-saving technique his father taught him in martial arts.

A final mark left by his father, transcending fifteen years and the boundary between life and death.

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Trembling, he took from around his neck a copper token—his father’s relic, a seemingly ordinary fragment of an old military ID tag.

He aligned the token with the groove of the scratch, fitting it perfectly into place.

With a soft “click,” a hidden compartment on the side of the console popped open, revealing a tiny data storage chip the size of a fingernail.

Inside was the complete backup footage from the night of the fire fifteen years ago, the night all evidence was destroyed.

At 5:07 a.m., in the command room of the support center, all electronic data, physical evidence, and the crucial storage chip had been sealed in the highest-grade evidence box, awaiting transfer to the Supreme Procuratorate.

The prolonged high tension and the immense drain from the residual perception had nearly exhausted all of Cheng Ye’s strength.

Leaning against the cold wall corner, his fingertips that had touched the cryo pod were unnaturally scorched black, his body temperature plummeting as he teetered on the painful edge of a seventy-two-hour empathic hallucination.

In his haze, he saw his father standing at the entrance of the fire scene fifteen years ago, smiling and waving at him.

He heard his mother sitting by a moonlit window in the psychiatric hospital, humming the lullaby he had known since childhood over and over again.

Those forcibly sealed memory fragments now sliced through his nerves like the sharpest blades.

A warm blanket was gently draped over his shoulders.

Lin Wan crouched beside him, her voice low but resolute: “Hold on. You still have to personally take them to court.”

Meanwhile, atop the city’s most exclusive private club, Shen Wei held a glass of whiskey, gazing down on the city still half-draped in slumber.

Suddenly, a specially encrypted phone screen by his side lit up—no caller ID, no sound, just a stark, ruthless message: “Pod D3 is empty. They heard it.”

Shen Wei’s movements remained unchanged; he slowly set the crystal glass back on the marble tabletop with a crisp clink.

Turning, he looked out the window.

On the distant skyline, the first faint ray of dawn pierced through the dense river fog like a sword.

A new day had begun.

And with this sliver of morning light, a storm unknown to all was about to break.