Chapter 949: Staring

She completed facial feature matching, body‑size data matching, and movement‑trajectory prediction within a few seconds of midnight, then opened the panel and sent Heimu a new message.

"Madam, we'll keep watching from this side."

Heimu replied with a "Hmm."

The communication channel switched to silent listening mode, and the data panel's indicator light changed from blue to green, indicating the call had ended while the surveillance feed continued streaming in real time.

The system extended broadsword back out of the gap and swiveled it left and right.

The Black Shadow had already vanished at the other end of the alley, its movement trajectory pointing deeper into the sealed zone.

She did not pursue.

After all, her Task was to monitor the whole situation, not to track a single suspicious target.

But she created a new tag on the data panel, logging all the contour data and movement features just captured; the tag name was a question mark, with a small note beside it saying, "Recommend subsequent tracking."

Then her attention shifted back to the surveillance feed.

In the view, Qingque stood at the exact center of an ice‑crystal kaleidoscope, expressionless and upright.

As for her inner state, the system couldn't read Qingque's mind, but it could see Qingque's physiological data.

Heart rate was 140 beats per minute, blood pressure elevated, and adrenaline surged to four times the normal level.

The contrast between this physiological state and her ice‑cold expression caused the system to stutter briefly.

She searched her database for a term to describe this condition, and the results popped up a very precise label.

"Fake!"

The system pressed broadsword down half an inch, and she felt the assessment was spot‑on.

Her gaze returned to the alley entrance, the direction where the Black Shadow had vanished.

The inside of the trash can was completely quiet.

She tapped the panel lightly, raising the newly created "Recommend subsequent tracking" tag from normal to medium priority, paused briefly, then deleted the question mark and typed three new characters.

Pioneer.

Even though there was no evidence.

It was purely because the match between movement trajectory and body‑size data reached a threshold that made her think "should mark this."

But she was confident in her judgment, a confidence stemming from that unpleasant close‑range encounter during the day, when she was crouched in Changletian's trash can and a pair of hands suddenly groped around from outside.

The image of the gray‑haired Pioneer girl fondling the trash‑can shell while blushing still lingers in her memory.

Perspective shift.

Heimu kept walking forward, allocating a corner of his right‑eye view to the real‑time panoramic feed of Qingque's side.

The panoramic image came from a monitoring node she left in the sealed zone; the screen clearly marked each key person's position and status. Qingque stood at the center of a ruin, surrounded by countless frozen white Bubbles, whose surfaces were coated with the frost left by Jing Liu's footstep.

Jing Liu stood opposite the Bubble cluster, his crimson eyes piercing the gaps to lock onto Qingque; the black Eye Mask on his face had vanished, and his white hair drifted silently in the night wind.

On the roof of a three‑story building in the upper‑left of the battlefield, two light points hovered close then suddenly split; Sai Fei Er crouched on the railing, clapping wildly, his cat tail whirring like a propeller, while Huan Long, with Huo Huo's exterior, huddled behind a chimney, showing only half a head and a drooping floppy ear.

Further away, in the corner of the second side‑alley on the left of the street where Qingque and Jing Liu faced off, a blue light marked with a system ID lay quietly coiled inside a metal trash can.

Heimu's gaze swept the panoramic view and finally lingered on the Bubbles surrounding Qingque.

The conversion efficiency of the Bubbles was a full four percentage points higher than her prior simulation data.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, her dark‑purple pupils flickering with a hint of ripple under the cool light of the panoramic view.

How unexpected.

When she originally designed the Taixu Sword Heart trial for Qingque in that dream, she had used Shuhuo's residual power as a pressure source, but never expected that old Shuhuo would leave such a mark deep within Qingque's consciousness; the Abundance blessing and the Patrol Hunt blessing did not cancel each other in the same host, but instead formed a bizarre power balance, which Qingque remained oblivious to, assuming it was just a dream.

"Didn't expect Shuhuo could go that far."

Heimu muttered something silently to himself.

Meanwhile, Pa Duo, walking beside him, twitched her ears.

She looked up at Heimu, her amber‑colored round eyes blinking, and her paw pads tapped the floor twice lightly.

She was sure she had heard something, though she hadn't caught the exact words, so she asked in her soft voice:

"Madam? I think I just heard you speak."

Heimu looked down at her.

The tricolored cat tilted its head back, looking exactly like a house cat that finally found its owner after being lost, its tail curled behind into a huge question mark, ears perked forward, paws together.

Heimu shook his head, casually minimized the panoramic view from his right‑eye field to a corner, then gestured forward:

"There's movement ahead."

Pa Duo's cat ears instantly snapped from the question‑mark pose back to upright, her neck stretched forward, and her tail rose straight.

Her attention switched at an absurd speed—one moment she was wondering if Heimu was talking to himself, the next she was on high alert, ready to verify an escape route wherever an anomaly appeared.

She crouched like a cat and trotted forward a few steps.

At the corner, indeed a strange noise came—a clack, clack, clack, as if something was repeatedly striking a metal wall, interspersed with occasional sizzle of electricity.

Pa Duo's tail twitched sharply at the sound of the electric sizzle.

She stepped back half a pace, nearly bumping her rear against Heimu's ankle, then realized she was blocking the way and quickly shuffled forward half an inch.

Her amber round eyes widened, ears shifting from upright to a forward‑and‑rear alert stance—one listening ahead, the other ready behind to receive retreat orders.

Heimu stood firm behind her, his dark‑purple eyes passing over Pa Duo's cat‑ear tips toward the flickering glimmer deep in the corner.

She lightly rubbed her right‑hand fingers by her side; a tiny cluster of violet‑black light condensed at her fingertips, hovering silently without a sound.

Perspective shift.

At this moment, about three streets away from the sealed zone where Qingque and Jing Liu faced off, a Black Shadow stood on the ground, its shaggy gray hair to the shoulders fluttering messily in the night wind.

Golden eyes stared intently at a shallow wheel imprint on the ground.

Xing crouched, the hem of his trench coat dragging on the stone floor, his black‑gloved fingertips lightly brushing the edge of the imprint.

"Trash can," she whispered.

She has already been wandering in the sealed‑off area for more than an hour.

Xing brushed their left eye.