Chapter 109

Zhao Jianguo kicked open the laboratory iron gate; Chen Jianguo rushed in after him, the two leaned against the wall and caught their breath. The red light at the end of the corridor had begun to flash; the alarm sound was suppressed extremely low, as if someone was choking its throat and still screaming desperately.

"The server won't hold much longer." Chen Jianguo wiped his face, his fingers quickly swiped across the terminal a few times, "The firewall has a breach; the enemy is siphoning data out."

Zhao Jianguo said nothing, took three steps in two strides to the main control console, his finger just touched the keyboard, the whole screen suddenly went black. Immediately, all devices emitted a long "di——" sound, the backup power's green light lit up, but only flashed twice before flickering on and off.

"Power cut?" He looked up at the wiring box on the ceiling.

"Not a power outage." Chen Jianguo stared at the voltmeter in the corner, "It's an electromagnetic pulse; someone nearby detonated an EMP device."

As his words fell, a muffled thud came from the ventilation duct, like the sound of metal being stepped on and bent.

"Here he comes again!" Jia Dongxu jerked his head up from behind the operation console, his face paling, "Is he coming back?"

"Don't panic." Zhao Jianguo yanked the system terminal from his neck and plugged it directly into the main unit interface, "I still have one last move—anti-interference mode, which can use neural signals to bypass external interference and manually reconnect the protocol."

"Are you crazy?" Chen Jianguo glared, "That thing will fry your brain!"

"Now is not the time to reason." Zhao Jianguo gritted his teeth and pressed the confirm key.

In an instant, his temples throbbed as if a nail were being hammered in, the view before his eyes warped for a moment, but he still stared fixedly at the Screen, his fingers flying across the virtual keyboard. Lines of code poured out of his mind, like words being squeezed from flesh and blood.

"Cut the external port!" his voice trembled, "Physical isolation! Transfer the core database to the portable drive!"

Chen Jianguo immediately sprang into action, pulling out all network cables, removing the firewall motherboard, and casually stuffing a black storage Crystal into his carry bag. Jia Dongxu also reacted, trembling as he reached to pull the hard‑drive connector.

"Slow down! Don't yank it out!" Zhao Jianguo roared, "Wait until the verification finishes! Three encryption layers are still incomplete!"

Jia Dongxu's hand trembled, nearly flinging the cable end away. He curled up in the corner, sweat soaking his forehead: "Did I... did I mess it up? Just now... did I almost destroy the data?"

"Now is not the time for self‑blame," Chen Jianguo glanced back at him, "First, preserve the stuff."

At that moment, the overhead ventilation duct made a "ka" sound as the mesh cover was pried open from the outside, leaving a slit.

Zhao Jianguo's peripheral vision caught a glint, and he shouted, "Duck!"

Almost simultaneously, a dark silhouette leapt down from above, landing so lightly it barely made a sound. The figure wore dark combat gear, a half‑face mask, and held a short gun in the right hand, the barrel pointed straight at the main server's data interface.

"He's trying to destroy the equipment!" Jia Dongxu shrieked.

Chen Jianguo instinctively lunged forward, throwing his body across the front of the server. The gunshot "pop"ed, like a needle piercing a balloon; the bullet struck his left shoulder, jolting him, but he didn't fall.

"Run..." his lips moved, no sound came out, but his eyes fixed on Zhao Jianguo.

Zhao Jianguo's eyes reddened, his fingers hammered the final three commands on the keyboard. The Screen flashed, the progress bar leapt to one hundred percent, and a "ding" alert sounded.

"Seal successful!" He yanked the storage disc out in one motion and stuffed it into his chest.

Chen Jianguo leaned against the server, slowly sliding to sit on the floor, his left hand still clamping the interface area. Fresh blood streamed down his arm, pooling a small puddle on the ground.

Jia Dongxu slumped on the floor, watching the blood on Chen Jianguo's shoulder; suddenly his nose tightened, and tears burst out.

"Why are you… why are you shielding him..." he sniffed, his voice trembling, "We don't have to keep this data... isn't life more important than this?"

"You're wrong," Zhao Jianguo crouched, one hand supporting Chen Jianguo, while watching the black‑clad figure retreat slowly, "If we lose these, we won't even know why we're here. Where does the Historical Correction Force come from? Who built the system? Who's rewriting the rules behind the scenes? All clues vanish."

The black‑clad figure stood in the shadows, no longer firing, merely raising a wrist to glance at the Terminal, then turned and walked toward the ventilation duct.

"He's leaving?" Jia Dongxu wiped his face, "Just let it be?"

"No," Zhao Jianguo shook his head, "The EMP blew the power system; his mission is complete. The remote data channel has been cleared, so even if we reboot the server now, we'll only see a pile of fragments."

"But we have the core," Chen Jianguo said weakly, a corner of his mouth twitching, "He can't take it away."

Zhao Jianguo nodded, reached out to drape his arm over his own shoulder, about to help him up, when the entire Laboratory suddenly jolted.

All the Screens had been dark, yet now they lit up for no reason, the images filled with snow‑like static. Then, on each Screen a line of distorted text appeared:

【Historical Correction Force intensity exceeds critical threshold】

The text flashed three times, and an unseen ripple seemed to ripple through the air; Zhao Jianguo felt his ears buzz and his heartbeat miss a beat.

"Time... stopped?" Jia Dongxu froze in place.

"It's not stopped," Zhao Jianguo gritted his teeth, "It's chaotic. The system is alarmed, indicating that our recent actions triggered something we shouldn't have touched."

He forced himself to stay upright, one hand pressing the storage disc against his chest, the other supporting Chen Jianguo as they moved toward the safe zone. With each step, his head felt as if struck by a hammer.

"We must shut down non‑essential functions," he panted, "Otherwise the whole system will collapse."

He fumbled to open the Terminal menu, forcibly disabling modules one by one. Lighting, communications, environmental control... in the end only life monitoring and data backup remained active.

The red light still flashed, but the alarm had ceased, and the whole space fell into an eerie silence.

Jia Dongxu knelt on the floor, watching Chen Jianguo's face grow paler, his voice trembling: "Will he die? Is he losing too much blood? Should we take him to a hospital?"

"We can't take him," Zhao Jianguo whispered, "Leaving now would be handing the data to someone else. Moreover..." He paused, "This person knows our location, knows how to get in. As soon as we leave, he'll have an opening."

"Then what do we do? Just wait here?"

"Wait for support," Zhao Jianguo leaned against the wall and sat down, gently laying Chen Jianguo flat, "I've already sent an encrypted signal; at most in half an hour someone will arrive for backup."

"But can he hold out until then?" Jia Dongxu clutched his hair, "I was so scared I wanted to yank the hard drive out just now... I'm such a useless person..."

"You didn't run away," Zhao Jianguo said, looking at him, "You stayed. That's enough."

Chen Jianguo barely opened his eyes, smiled at him: "Don't cry... it's quite a sight."

Jia Dongxu's nose tightened, and he lowered his head to wipe his face.

Zhao Jianguo leaned against the wall, closed his eyes for a while, then forced himself to open them again. He fished the storage disc from his chest and clenched it tightly in his palm.

At that moment, Chen Jianguo suddenly seized his wrist, his strength modest but firm.

"Remember..." his voice was soft, "Don't trust the System Prompt's final message."

"What does that mean?"

"It says 'exceeds critical threshold'... but the system never warns about results, only records the process," Chen Jianguo exhaled, "This prompt... doesn't sound like the tone it should have."

Zhao Jianguo felt a knot in his chest: "You mean... someone altered the system prompt?"

Chen Jianguo gave no reply, his eyelids slowly closing.

Zhao Jianguo stared at his pale face, then looked down at the storage disc in his hand. Its surface reflected the red light, flashing rhythmically like a heartbeat.

He suddenly recalled something, pulled up the Terminal log, and quickly scrolled to the last entry.

What should have been the system‑generated timestamp now displayed a strange string of numbers: 1978.3.15

His fingers froze.

This date...

Before he could think it over, a faint scraping sound came from the ventilation shaft above again.

He jerked his head up and saw a metal thread as fine as a hair slowly descending from a gap in the duct, a tiny receiver dangling from its end, less than half a meter above the ground.

Zhao Jianguo held his breath and slowly reached for the utility knife at his waist.