Chapter 185: Xu Da Mao

Zhao Jianguo walked toward East City, his phone still vibrating. He didn't stop, swiped the Screen, and the system displayed a new System Prompt: "High‑value historical information source detected—Xu Da Mao's labor‑reform diary, Coordinates locked."

His steps halted.

He had originally intended to go to the Cultural Palace to intercept that three‑wheeled cart, but now his mind was filled with the tiny line written by Shuang Baotai: "Next time we'll try stopping for five seconds." He knew that merely blocking the goods in front was useless; he had to find the person behind it. Who was driving these events? Who had given Chen Xiao Jian those schematics for the scrap parts? Who had drawn a man like Xu Da Mao into the mix?

The answer may lie in that diary.

He turned, took the bus line heading to the suburbs. Two hours later, he stood outside the gate of the labor‑reform farm.

A sentinel at the gate stopped him. Zhao Jianguo produced a card, the system's sign‑in reward granting a "temporary overseer identity," with a clear number and intact seal. The sentinel examined it for a while, then waved him through.

The farm was windy, the gusts pressing his clothes against his back. Following the system's guidance, he headed straight for Xu Da Mao's former guard quarters. The room was empty, the bed slats half‑flipped, and a few unclaimed old garments piled in the corner.

He felt something in the space between the bed slats.

It was a notebook wrapped in oil‑paper, its cover bearing the four characters "Thought Report," the handwriting crooked. Opening it, each page was filled with dense records—not a self‑critique, not reflections, but rather… a diary.

The first page read: "August 3, 1976 – Today someone came to see me again, a man in a suit, saying he could help me go abroad."

Zhao Jianguo frowned.

He kept turning pages. Several in the middle were torn, their edges uneven, as if someone was in a hurry to destroy something. A later passage read: "They had me inquire about Zhao Jianguo, asking whether I knew what he feared. I said I didn't know, though I actually did."

He flipped faster.

"March 5, 1978 – A man in military uniform came, asking in great detail, even whether his child grinds his teeth while sleeping. I didn't answer, but they promised to arrange my exit paperwork."

The system vibrated briefly.

A prompt popped up on the Screen: "Keywords '1978' 'exit' triggered a high‑risk correlation alert."

Zhao Jianguo sat on the steps outside, uploading the notebook page by page into the system. The text was too voluminous; the system could only highlight the key points in red, leaving the rest for him to piece together.

When he reached the final page, his hand stopped.

It was written in pencil, the strokes faint as if afraid of being discovered: "They said, if I provide Zhao Jianguo's weakness, they'll arrange my exit. I know he fears something happening to his children… but I can't say."

The last sentence ended there; nothing followed.

Zhao Jianguo stared at that line for a long time.

Xu Da Mao was selfish, opportunistic, and talkative, but he had never actually done anything deadly. The time he stole iron from the factory, he was also goaded by others. Looking at this diary now, it's clear he had been targeted and threatened, yet in the end he never handed over the children's information.

Perhaps he still had a line he wouldn't cross.

But the enemy wouldn't wait for his hesitation for long.

Zhao Jianguo closed the notebook, rose, and headed toward the archives room. The system had just pinpointed a location—the old warehouse outside Xizhimen. The diary mentioned this place three times: once as a "meeting point," once that "the cargo arrived," and finally: "They hid the 'machine' in Warehouse No. 3, saying it was for teaching, but it wasn't."

Just as he reached the office building entrance, a black jeep silently parked in the Courtyard.

The door opened, and the Special Forces Captain stepped out.

"You've entered a restricted zone," he said.

Zhao Jianguo didn't move.

"I knew you'd come," he said. "You've been looking for a foothold in the capital, right?"

The Special Forces Captain gave no reply, only staring at the notebook in his hand.

Zhao Jianguo turned the final page over for him: "They're using the children as a breakthrough. Xu Da Mao didn't speak, but they'll go after someone else. Moreover, they're already acting on it."

The Special Forces Captain stared at the pencil line, his complexion gradually changing.

"These Coordinates," Zhao Jianguo pointed to the red dot on the system map, "the old warehouse outside Xizhimen, Warehouse No. 3. The diary says they hid a 'machine' there. I'm not sure if it's linked to the Virus signal, but the timing matches. The batch of stationery from East City follows a delivery route that passes that spot."

The Special Forces Captain was silent for a few seconds, then reached out: "Give me the notebook."

"No." Zhao Jianguo clenched his fist. "This is the only evidence. If you take it, I can't continue the investigation. I can cooperate with your operation, but we have to do it together."

"Do you know what status you hold now?" the Special Forces Captain lowered his voice. "There's a monitoring order on you. Contacting a prisoner's belongings without authorization counts as overstepping."

"Then why haven't you acted yet?" Zhao Jianguo retorted. "You clearly know that warehouse is problematic; three months ago there was an Energy Fluctuation, and you thought it was interference. It isn't now. It's connected to a child's toy, to a calculator—what will it connect to next? The Classroom's broadcast? The Blackboard? The workbook?"

The Special Forces Captain said nothing.

The wind swept through the Courtyard, raising dust from the ground.

After a few seconds, he said, "Tonight at eight o'clock we'll send a team inside to investigate. You may join, but you must follow orders. No unsanctioned actions, and no personal equipment."

"Agreed," Zhao Jianguo nodded. "But I have a condition—whatever you find, inform me immediately. Especially any part concerning the children's safety."

"Deal."

The Special Forces Captain took the notebook, flipped two pages, and slipped it into his briefcase. Then he looked up: "Where did you get it?"

"From the space between the bed slats."

"No wonder," the Special Forces Captain sneered. "They searched his belongings but didn't dismantle the bed. They probably assumed someone like Xu Da Mao couldn't write anything useful."

"He did write it," Zhao Jianguo said. "It's just that no one wants to read what he wrote."

The two walked side by side outward. The jeep remained where it was.

Just before boarding, the Special Forces Captain halted abruptly: "You said he didn't reveal the weakness… what about you? What are you afraid of?"

Zhao Jianguo didn't answer immediately.

He recalled the moment Shuang Baotai pressed the button, a sparrow frozen mid‑air; the photo of Jia Wu on the wall fading gradually; and Chen Xiao Jian's words as he chased out: "They wrote it down, next time we'll try stopping for five seconds."

He wasn't afraid of something happening to himself.

He feared the children would unwittingly walk onto a path they couldn't return from.

"I'm afraid that when they grow up, they won't remember what's happening now," he said. "I'm scared that one day they'll ask me, 'Dad, did we ever stop time before?' and I can only answer, 'No, that's something you made up.'"

The Special Forces Captain gave him a look, then said nothing more.

The vehicle started. Zhao Jianguo sat in the back seat, still clutching the oil‑paper.

A System Prompt tone sounded: 【Clue Chain Updated: Overseas Site → Teaching Infiltration → Child Cognitive Intervention】

He closed his eyes, the diary's words filling his mind.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated.

It was the system's automatic scan result.

On the architectural blueprint of the old warehouse outside West Zhimen, the system highlighted an anomalous area—underground second floor, not large, enclosed on all sides, with the sole entrance marked as "Ventilation Maintenance Passage".

But the strangest thing was that there was a faint energy reading there, its frequency exactly matching the Pulse emitted by the Shuang Baotai toy.

Zhao Jianguo snapped his eyes open.

He slammed the car window open and said to the front, "Change the plan."

Special Forces Captain turned his head back: "What?"

"Don't wait until night," he said, "they're already using it. That place must be entered right now."