Chapter 274

"It's not ringing!" Xu Xiaochuan gasped for air, his voice trembling. "It's… something is grabbing me! Clawing at me through my skin!"

Xuanyuan Qing struggled to turn half her body, her voice hoarse from the intense pain: "The chip, take it out."

Xu Xiaochuan pulled out the chip with trembling hands, it was so hot he nearly dropped it. The surface of the chip was glowing with an eerie blue light, flickering on and off.

Xuanyuan Qing took it with one hand, but the moment her fingertips touched it, she recoiled, her face turning even paler.

"It's using this thing to triangulate!" her voice was light and urgent. "This isn't an ordinary chip; it's a quantum entanglement component, connected to the main system!"

"Fuck!" Lin Yu cursed, pulling the pitch-black gun from his waist. "Throw it away!"

Xu Xiaochuan snatched the chip back, clutching it tightly in his palm: "No! Xiao Ya's information is in here!"

"This is a damn living target!" Lin Yu roared. "Throw it away now, and we can still run! Five more minutes, and the drones in the sky will blast us to dust!"

"I have something." Xuanyuan Qing endured the pain, pulling a palm-sized silver metal box from another pocket. "A shielding box, put it in there."

Xu Xiaochuan hurriedly shoved the scorching chip into the box, closing it with a 'click'.

Almost simultaneously, the tearing, burning pain on his back suddenly subsided, and the squirming beneath his skin stopped.

"It worked!"

"Temporarily." Lin Yu's voice was cold as ice. "Military shielding box, it'll hold for ten minutes at most. We need to find a place to hide."

No sooner had he spoken than a low roar of engines came from the distance.

The sound was steady, powerful, and carried a mechanical indifference; it was definitely not an ordinary vehicle.

Military off-road vehicles.

More than one.

"Damn it!" Lin Yu cursed under his breath. "They've caught up! Faster than I thought!"

On the horizon, two red dots were approaching at high speed; they were drones.

Lin Yu grabbed Xu Xiaochuan by the collar with terrifying strength: "Listen! Two kilometers ahead, there's an abandoned mine! There are forks inside, the left leads to the observatory, the right is a dead end! We can't shake them, we have to split up!"

"What?"

"You take the chip and go left! Xuanyuan Qing and I will go right to draw them away!" Lin Yu didn't wait for an answer, pulling a small, hard object from his waist and shoving it into Xu Xiaochuan's hand. "A locator, turn it on when you reach the observatory, we'll come find you!"

Xu Xiaochuan's throat went dry: "No! We go together—"

"Shut up!" Lin Yu interrupted, his voice like tempered ice. "Your receiver is reacting, which means Xiao Ya is connected to you! You must go to the observatory! Find her! This is what your father gave his life for! And it's the whole point of us taking down the Zero Machine!"

The sound of engines and the buzzing of drones grew closer, almost directly overhead.

"Uncle Lin—"

"Are you fucking deaf?!" Lin Yu shoved him violently. "Take this damn box and get to the observatory! Find Xiao Ya and get her out! That's an order!"

"Then you guys…"

Xuanyuan Qing pressed a hand onto Xu Xiaochuan's shoulder, her voice weak but carrying unquestionable strength: "We'll shake them off and come find you. Trust him, he's done this more than once."

Lin Yu looked up at the two red dots drawing closer and stopped wasting words: "Go! Mine entrance, left! Keep going!"

Xu Xiaochuan gritted his teeth, nodded, and straddled the motorcycle again.

Lin Yu suddenly reached out, pulled a gleaming dagger from his chest, and shoved it into his hand.

"If you run into trouble, stab the eyes first, then slit the throat." His tone was as flat as if he were talking about eating. "Don't go soft; the things chasing you aren't human, they're machines."

He patted Xu Xiaochuan's shoulder heavily and flipped onto the other motorcycle. Xuanyuan Qing leaned weakly against his back.

The engine let out a roar, kicking up dust, and the two figures quickly vanished into the darkness on the right.

Xu Xiaochuan had no time to hesitate; he twisted the throttle and charged in the opposite direction.

The engine and buzzing sounds behind him indeed followed Lin Yu and the others.

The night wind grew colder, stinging his eyes.

A sense of responsibility weighed on his chest like a stone, heavy and oppressive.

The shielding box lay quietly in his pocket, no longer burning.

Xu Xiaochuan's fingers subconsciously rubbed the cold metal casing, and that intermittent crying echoed in his mind: "Is anyone listening… save me…"

"Xiao Ya, I'm coming," he whispered to the boundless night.

——

The mine entrance was hidden behind a patch of overgrown bushes; if Lin Yu hadn't pointed the way, he never would have found it.

Xu Xiaochuan pushed the motorcycle into the bushes to hide it, took a deep breath, and walked into the pitch-black cave entrance along the slippery stone steps.

A cold, damp smell, mixed with rust and the indescribable odor of something rotting, rushed toward him.

He turned on the 'flashlight' Lin Yu had given him—actually a military-grade high-intensity searchlight—its beam piercing the darkness and illuminating the tunnel ahead.

It was muddy inside, with abandoned, rusted, and broken rails buried in the sludge. Sticky moss hung on the walls, and cold water droplets fell from overhead from time to time, hitting his neck and sending a shiver down his spine.

His feet stepped into the mud, making a 'squelch, squelch' sound, which was particularly jarring in the deathly silent mine.

After walking for about five or six minutes, a fork appeared ahead.

The tunnel on the left was narrower, dark and bottomless. The one on the right was more spacious and looked easier to walk.

Xu Xiaochuan didn't hesitate and turned directly into the left one.

The further he went, the narrower the tunnel became, and the ceiling grew lower and lower, until he finally had to walk hunched over.

The air grew turbid, permeated with a strange smell, like old machine oil mixed with disinfectant.

Suddenly, his foot stepped into empty air!

His whole body instantly lost weight and fell!

"Fuck!"

He subconsciously reached out, his fingertips clawing at the slippery rock wall, finally managing to hook onto the edge of a protruding stone, his body suspended in mid-air, with bottomless darkness below and cold wind whistling upward.

The muscles in his arm instantly tightened, and a sharp pain shot through him, feeling as if his arm were about to be torn off.

At this critical moment, the shielding box in his pocket suddenly burned hot!

Through several layers of fabric, the scorching heat made him shudder.

Immediately after, a strange throbbing sensation came from the skin on his back.

It wasn't pain, it was a… very strange pushing force, as if someone were gently supporting him from below, dissipating part of the downward momentum.

He gritted his teeth so hard his gums nearly bled, the veins in his arm bulging, and using this inexplicable force, he pulled himself up bit by bit.

By the time he finally crawled back onto solid ground, he was completely exhausted, cold sweat soaking his tattered clothes, his fingers trembling like a sieve.

"What the hell…"

Xu Xiaochuan hurriedly closed the box lid.

The box was scorching hot to the touch.

The thing beneath the skin on his back was still moving, just not as frantically.

That invisible thread was connected, not broken.

No time to ponder.

He pressed against the damp, cold stone wall and crept forward.

A bit of light appeared ahead.

It was the exit.