Chapter 235: Matrix Core

The entire floor suddenly tripped the power the moment the USB drive was pushed into the slot. Xu Xiaochuan knocked over a rattan chair as he scrambled up, and a cursing sound came from the mahjong parlor on the second floor. Qin Tianluo's forehead pressed against the smoking laptop shell, veins bulging at his temples: "Three... protocols are fighting for control... damn it!"

The screen's blue light suddenly surged into an indigo color, crawling with snow-like noise. Xuanyuan Qing swung an electric mosquito swatter at the power strip, and in the sparks, she caught a glimpse of Xu Jianhua's ID photo flashing through the code stream. Qin Tianluo's nostrils bled two lines of blood, his knees shaking against the edge of the table.

"Sanqing Bell! The drawer!" Xu Xiaochuan suddenly howled, throwing his slippers to hit the calendar. When Xuanyuan Qing opened the biscuit box and touched the cold metal, Qin Tianluo was already convulsing backward. The moment the copper bell sound rippled out, the mahjong parlor's Peking opera broadcast suddenly cut to "Love Trade."

The code waterfall stopped abruptly. Xu Xiaochuan danced barefoot on the leaking power strip: "Damn, damn, numb, numb!" Xuanyuan Qing grabbed Qin Tianluo by the collar and pressed him to the floor, discovering tiny characters like anti-counterfeiting watermarks flashing in his pupils.

"Donkey meat burger shop... WiFi password..." Qin Tianluo coughed up blood foam with a burnt smell. "Old Xu used my brain as a meat sandwich..." Xu Xiaochuan suddenly held up a smoking phone: "The hacker just sent a compressed file!"

When the decompression progress bar hit 99%, the pancake stall downstairs exploded. Xuanyuan Qing peered out from the window frame, seeing the researcher with gold-rimmed glasses riding a balance bike with blue flames, with two grilled sausages strung on his mechanical arm.

"Run in the opposite direction!" Qin Tianluo suddenly did a carp leap. "That guy is using the auto-aim algorithm I wrote three years ago!" He kicked open the storage room, and forty mining machines flashing green light entered his view—all the electricity stolen from the entire urban village was here.

"This broken bell is freezing my hand!" Xuanyuan Qing suddenly threw the silver bell away, the cuff of her school uniform stained with a yellowish-brown smudge from the rust. She crouched in the green light of the emergency light in the stairwell, checking the scabbed wound on her knee—the scrape from the alley battle last night was oozing blood beads.

Qin Tianluo suddenly grabbed an ashtray and smashed it against the anti-theft door. In the muffled sound of the inferior plaster cracking, cockroaches in the stairwell scurried away.

"I have a blue light on my lower molar!" He bared his teeth at the broken mirror, and a ghostly blue light was actually glowing in the crack of his lower right wisdom tooth. "The Laba garlic Old Xu gave me three days ago definitely had something in it!"

Xuanyuan Qing sat on the coffee table piled with chargers, an unplugged charging cable hanging from her ankle. The phone screen showed 17 missed calls, and the latest text message sent at 3 AM was garbled: "Server crash—donkey meat burger shop—coordinates..."

"Si Jiu City." Xu Xiaochuan suddenly gripped the cold USB drive, the plastic shell still sticky with bun filling oil. "This thing was burning hot just now! It was so hot it melted the buttons on my pants!"

The air was filled with the smell of rotten leek boxes. The greasy shouting from the night market downstairs came, and Qin Tianluo suddenly extinguished his cigarette and grabbed his mountaineering bag: "Take the fire escape; the front door monitor has been changed to iris recognition."

When the three dived into the underground garage, stepping over "unblock sewer" spray-paint ads, Xuanyuan Qing's skirt was stained with five-year-old wall dust. The loose thread on the back collar of Xu Xiaochuan's school uniform fluttered in the night wind, revealing two suspicious red and blue medicated patches.

"Old Qin, your phone screen is shattered enough to be a tattoo sticker." Xuanyuan Qing kicked away a soda can blocking the way, the crisp sound of the crushed tin can startling the grey pigeons on the distribution box.

Qin Tianluo turned off his smoking phone and stuffed it into his crotch: "Why didn't you say that when you fell into the sauce meat shop's slop bucket yesterday? That smell is more pungent than the Zero-Returner."

When they climbed over the last rusty iron gate, the sky suddenly began to drift with bitter metal snowflakes. Xu Xiaochuan's canvas shoes sank into the mud, and half a broken silver ring reflected a faint light toward the southeast in the moonlight.

"The code says the stone lion at Xisi Pailou is a 3D projection," Xuanyuan Qing stared at the oil stains seeping from the cracks in the silver bell, "but the real coordinates are engraved on your dad's jade thumb ring—"

"Shh!" Qin Tianluo suddenly pressed them into a pile of waste paper boxes, and three mechanical bodies in suits were sharing the remains of some glowing circuit board. Their tie clips flashed with the familiar 404 logo.

Xu Xiaochuan's old man phone suddenly vibrated with the "Love Trade" ringtone. When he scrambled to take it out, the mechanical bodies turned their heads in unison, revealing scarlet laser pupils.

"Run!" Xuanyuan Qing grabbed half a steel bar and pierced the window, the broken glass drawing a silver arc in the moonlight.

By the time the three fell into the moldy courier station warehouse, Qin Tianluo's mountaineering bag was leaking black water. The moment the zipper was pulled open, three glowing green micro-servers rolled onto the floor covered in dry cockroach shells.

"Old Xu's cold logistics data link." Qin Tianluo used a utility knife to pry open the server casing, the smell of burnt chips mixed with the rat poison smell of the courier station hitting his nose. "He said the money from selling buns was exchanged for..."

"Damn, this USB drive has a timer program!" Xu Xiaochuan suddenly threw the burning metal piece onto a cardboard box, and the screen lit up with countdown numbers: 11:59:59.

Xuanyuan Qing took out the compressed biscuits wrapped in oil paper and bit open the package: "After eating this, go to the Si Jiu City subway station, that side... cough cough... ptooey! These biscuits were produced in '09!"

In the darkness, rodents were gnawing on the server heat sinks. Moonlight cut diagonally across the tilted shelves, and three lit tablets suddenly began to play rage comics automatically.

"The hacker is invading through junk files!" When Qin Tianluo kicked away the nearest tablet, the remaining equipment began to recite excerpts from "The Three-Body Problem" in a mechanical voice.

Xu Xiaochuan suddenly held up a flattened cola can: "My dad's distress signal code is on the soda tab—look! Doesn't this serrated shape look like the key symbol for the compressed file?"

The sound of tires rolling over broken glass came from afar. Three red dots projected onto the ground through the warehouse vent, transforming into jumping oracle bone characters.

"After cleaning up here," Xuanyuan Qing pulled half an electric baton from the moldy sofa seam, "we have to ask Xiao Chengzhou—what kind of ghosts were hidden in that box of Erguotou he sent Old Xu."

Xu Xiaochuan suddenly shook a calendar from his bag, and on the yellowed page, it was written in sugar stains: "Donkey meat burgers are going to increase in price—stuffing a coin into the mouth of the third stone lion in Si Jiu City gets you a discount."

Xu Xiaochuan's canvas shoe tip kicked a soda can, and the sound of metal rolling exploded in the alley. Before his sole hit the ground, he was grabbed by the collar by Qin Tianluo, his military boots emitting a teeth-aching groan as they stepped on the rusty drainpipe.

"Ouch ouch ouch! Uncle Qin, my new AJ!"

"Wait for your dad to come back and reimburse you." Qin Tianluo's windbreaker collar was still dripping—twenty minutes ago they had waded through the foul-smelling accumulated water of the underground pipes. ===== CHAPTER 236 =====