Harvest

Looking at the emblem in his hand, Chen Chuan couldn't help thinking back to Tan Wang. That man had been a member of the Secret Snake Cult, and according to the later interrogation records, he had been hired by Wei Jun to take care of him. Could the same be true here? It was very likely. But who could it be? Setting aside the identification documents and papers, he began flipping through the notebook in his hand. Every page inside was covered in coded phrases. Without the cipher, there was no telling what it was for, though every few pages, detailed dates were noted at the bottom. The earliest date recorded in the notebook was from two years ago. Flipping through to the end, he checked the final entry. March 20th. Hm? Chen Chuan's gaze shifted slightly. He remembered that was the exact day of his entrance assessment and evaluation. Could there be a connection between the two? It was too early to tell. After a moment's thought, he set the notebook aside, intending to take it back later and see if the Disposal Bureau's specialists could crack the cipher. Next, he pulled open the second drawer. Inside lay two spare boundary credentials—one a newer model, the other an older, used unit. Perhaps something could be traced from them. In the third drawer, he found some routine anti-alienation drugs and a battered esoteric classic. His eyes paused. He picked it up and flipped through the pages, finding that its contents were recorded using a mix of text and symbols. Some symbols were standard esoteric ritual sigils. To an ordinary person, it would read like gibberish; even Chen Chuan, who had read esoteric cult materials before, found it exceedingly difficult to parse. No matter. If he couldn't understand it, someone else would. He decided to take this book back as well, take photographs of the pages, and send them to Bureau Director Lei. Bureau Director Lei would likely have little trouble making sense of it. After checking the bedside table, he moved to the wardrobe and searched through it. Inside hung a fair amount of spare clothing. On the back panel, he found a hidden compartment. Dismantling it revealed several firearms—both rifles and handguns—along with matching boxes packed full of ammunition. Judging by their condition, they had barely ever been used. Seeing that there was nothing else of value here, he stepped out and headed to the last room. Opening the door, he found two cabinets arranged along facing walls—one long, one short. At the sight of them, a faint suspicion formed in his mind. He walked back to the previous room to grab a few likely keys, returned, and tried two of them on the short cabinet before finding the right one. Opening it, he saw that, sure enough, it was stocked with training medicines for martial cultivation—likely meant for third-limit fighters. Among them were several peculiar drugs sealed in glass vials, resembling fluid liquids that emanated faint, scattered glimmers. He couldn't tell what they were. He shut the door and moved to the long cabinet opposite. Trying the lock, it clicked open. What met his eyes were rows upon rows of high-energy nutrient cans, practically covering an entire wall. He had figured that since the man used a resonance nest, there was bound to be some high-energy nutrient solution stored here, but he hadn't expected such an enormous quantity. Still, knowing little about such bio-organisms, it was hard to say how long this supply would actually last. After taking a look, he shut the cabinet, casually locked it, and exited the room. Having thoroughly searched the second floor, he headed up the stairs to the third. The floorboards and walls here had clearly been reinforced. There were no partitions. An algae oil generator sat on one side, and besides that, two vehicles were actually parked inside. He walked over and took a look. The key was still inserted in the ignition of one of them. Its front faced toward the rear, where a ramp equipped with a spring-loaded door was installed; it looked as if one could drive straight down from there, evidently prepared as an emergency escape route. He checked it with his boundary credential. It was an ordinary commuter vehicle manufactured by the Jiade Company, though it appeared to have been privately modified with protective armor plating on the exterior. The other vehicle was draped beneath a car cover. Lifting it, he discovered a Silver Lightning produced by the Baorui Company. Its body was entirely silver, gleaming with radiant luster, fitted with headlights clustered at the front. The lines of the chassis were sleek and dynamic; one could easily imagine how it looked when running at full speed—likely truly like a bolt of lightning. Just then, Wu Bei's excited voice sounded through his boundary credential. "Brother Chen, I've arrived!" Here already? Chen Chuan said, "Alright, Brother Wu, wait there. I'll come down right away." He descended the stairs and peered outside. Though the rain hadn't stopped, it had lightened somewhat. His previous smock had been torn to shreds, so he found an umbrella in the storage bin beneath the canopy and made his way down the hill. Reaching the foot of the hill, he spotted a medium-sized transport truck reinforced with protective plating parked in the distance. Its headlights beamed bright, illuminating the ripples of raindrops upon a nearby pond with crystal clarity. Seeing him approach, the vehicle's door slid open, and Wu Bei waved from inside while his voice came through the boundary credential at the same time: "Brother Chen, over here!" Chen Chuan walked over. Wu Bei's stout, plump frame squeezed hurriedly out of the truck. He popped open an umbrella that barely sheltered his bulk and hurried before Chen Chuan, breathing rather heavily. Chen Chuan smiled and said, "Take your time, Brother Wu. Catch your breath. Did you bring water?" "Brought some, brought some." Wu Bei retrieved a thermos from his harness pouch, took several hearty gulps, and immediately felt much better. He pulled out a handkerchief to dab the sweat from his forehead. Once Wu Bei's breathing leveled out, Chen Chuan turned to lead the way. "Follow me. The mountain path is slick, and there are quite a few traps around. Watch your step and stay behind me." "Right, will do!" Chen Chuan led Wu Bei back up to the house halfway up the slope. Upon entering the room, Wu Bei completely disregarded the bare skeleton standing upright and the severed human head resting on the floor. His gaze was instantly and utterly captivated by the resonance nest. His eyes practically shone with light as he trotted over, circling around it while babbling: "It really is a Mobile Green Island model produced by the Duxiang Tianmen Company! A thirty-year lifespan, and its resonance boost can max out at a hundred and seventy percent! "Wait, it's a special low-consumption variant? Hiss... brand new, this would run over 1.2 million! On the second-hand market, the baseline is at least five hundred thousand, and a better one easily goes for seven hundred thousand. This one couldn't have been in use for more than a year—it hasn't even formed complete field compatibility with its owner yet. Good stuff, absolute treasure..." Seeing him rub his hands in sheer excitement, it looked as though he might throw his arms around it the very next second. Chen Chuan smiled and said, "Brother Wu, it's all yours to handle. You can take it back and study it at your leisure." "Yes, yes, absolutely..." Wu Bei nodded like a pecking chicken, his double chin quivering continuously. His delight was beyond words; he seemed just a step away from kowtowing to the thing. Chen Chuan took out the boundary credential and handed it over. "Brother Wu, see if you can pull any useful information from this." Wu Bei's expression immediately turned serious. He grunted in agreement, brought the boundary credential before his face, rested his hand against his neck, and stared intently at it for a moment before finally letting out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, the boundary credential hasn't been scorched." "Scorched?" Wu Bei explained that scorching referred to how some people equipped their boundary credentials with bioelectric power organs alongside biofeedback mechanisms. In passive setups, once the owner died and their biological field vanished, it would trigger the organ, causing the entire boundary credential to incinerate, leaving no records behind. It wasn't entirely impossible to recover, but the cost was exorbitant, and there was no telling how much could actually be retrieved in the end. "This boundary credential is also connected to a power organ, though it looks like an active type. In the end, he never got to use it. You must have moved too fast for him to react, Brother Chen." Chen Chuan pondered this. Third-limit fighters possessed formidable vitality; even with their head cut off, they wouldn't die instantly. If the man had genuinely intended to destroy it, he probably could have. Whether he had failed to do so under the influence of the urban legend or simply hadn't wanted to was hard to say. After examining it, Wu Bei transferred the more readily accessible field communication records onto his own boundary credential, starting with the most frequently used contacts. The top layer of the boundary credential held field exchange data from the past three days, which allowed him to reconstruct all external conversations the man had conducted during that window. He first attempted to reconstruct the most recent one. A rigid, monotone voice resonated through both their credentials: "Youxing, the client asks when the target of the commission will be eliminated." Then came a raspy, dry reply: "Tell the client: soon." Hearing these two voices, Chen Chuan's thoughts spun rapidly. That dry, raspy voice undoubtedly belonged to the man whose head now lay on the floor. So his name was Youxing—likely a code name. A client—someone had hired this man to deal with him. He recalled the Secret Snake Cult flyers and the cult's services; everything fell neatly into place. He looked up and asked, "Brother Wu, can you trace the origin of that first voice?" Wu Bei mused, "It probably routed through a non-active conscious entity. Tracing that would be extremely difficult." Chen Chuan considered this, then asked, "Now that we have this credential, suppose someone contacts him again. Could we use that to uncover any leads?" Wu Bei said, "That depends on whether he has an interactive data link with the non-active consciousness behind it—like a platform account. If he registered for a service, it would conduct biological field data exchanges with the account holder at regular intervals. Shorter cycles might be every ten minutes or half an hour; longer ones might be half a day, a full day, or even several days to half a month. "If the account holder dies and no exchange occurs for an extended period, the account freezes. I can't say for sure whether he had such an arrangement. If he did, the people behind this might already know he's dead. "And even if they haven't realized and still try to talk to me, if they run a voiceprint frequency comparison, I could never mimic his voice with absolute precision, even with recordings of him to work from." Having heard this, Chen Chuan nodded. "In that case..." He glanced at the resonance nest. "Brother Wu, you mentioned there might be residual information lingering on that thing. I'll have to trouble you to inspect it through that." Hearing this, Wu Bei instantly grew thrilled. He rubbed his hands together and walked over to the front of the resonance nest. "Understood! Let me adjust its field frequency first. It won't take long, and once it's tuned, I can make it cooperate with my work."