Chapter 391: Operation Begins

2:50 a. m.

The dormitory lights were off; the emergency lights in the corridor outside the blinds seeped through the gaps, casting a few pallid beams that sliced the ceiling into uneven strips of light and shadow.

Jiang Yuan sat on the edge of the bed.

He had put on his combat suit twenty minutes earlier, the zipper pulled down to below his Adam's apple, cuffs tightened, the Card Bag hanging at his waist, the Spinal Sword stored in the Magnetic Snap Buckle on his back. All preparations were complete.

He did not move.

Both hands rested on his knees, ten fingers interlaced and locked, the nail beds turned pale. Between his right index and middle fingers he held the True Sight Eye, its bead's surface heated by the sweat in his palm.

The Shadow Ghost ran at full power inside his body.

This level of suppression was a first. It wasn't the frequency‑tuned fine‑tuning used on the battlefield; it handed over complete control of his circulatory system—heartbeat, breathing, adrenaline secretion, even the pupil's dilation were locked to a fixed value.

Jiang Yuan could feel his heart beating in his chest.

But it wasn't his rhythm.

It was the Shadow Ghost's.

Even, steady, sixty‑two beats per minute, fluctuation within plus or minus one. A perfect resting heart rate. Perfect to the point it didn't seem like a person about to kill.

Sweat trickled from his hair roots down along his temples, across his ear, over the black curved device, finally dripping onto his collar. The inner lining of the combat suit pressed against his back, cool and tinged with the lingering scent of laundry detergent.

On the nightstand lay the "Scavenger" file; he had turned to page three and folded a corner.

The first name.

Logistics warehouse attendant, employee ID 3307, Zhang Deming.

53 years old, employed for a year, in charge of night‑shift inventory of the equipment depot on the second underground level of Zone B. According to inspection records, Zhang Deming's head and left torso displayed typical Fake Person traits under the True Sight Eye.

The dormitory was on another floor of the building.

Jiang Yuan closed his eyes and ran the route through his mind again. From his room out, up the stairs, the corridor stretched forty‑seven meters; surveillance coverage was concentrated in the middle section and at the elevator entrance, with a roughly three‑meter blind spot at the far end. Zhang Deming's dormitory door was a push‑in type, its lock model an electronic lock issued uniformly by the Investigation Bureau; Jiang had recently obtained a master key card from the equipment depot.

Open the door, go in, close the door.

True Sight Eye confirmed.

Shadow Legion Throat Seal.

There will be no sound.

If the time is short enough, no one in the corridor will notice. Then the second, the third, proceeding down the list.

Three hundred eighty‑six.

All must be cleared in one night, resolved before dawn. The window Wei Gong gave was from 3:00 a. m. to 5:30 a. m., two and a half hours.

He needed to fight for every second.

Jiang Yuan opened his eyes.

The digital clock on the nightstand ticked once.

02:53.

He stood up, his knee joint cracked—a sound—having sat too long, his legs were stiff. He flexed his ankles twice, slipped the True Sight Eye into his right pocket, and walked to the door.

His left hand rested on the door handle.

The metal felt icy, and when it met the heat of his sweaty palm, it sparked a layer of gooseflesh.

He pressed the handle down.

The door opened a crack, the corridor's cold white light sliced in, flashing his eyes.

"Jiang Yuan?"

His hand froze on the handle.

A person stood in the corridor.

Chestnut‑colored short hair, ends tucked inward, wearing an oversized grey sweatshirt whose hem covered the tops of his thighs, exposing two slender legs and a pair of plush slippers. In his left hand he held a paper cup, steam rising from the rim, the air carrying the cheap, bitter aroma of instant coffee.

Mo Shu tilted her head, her almond eyes round and bright, with a hint of surprised delight at being caught.

"What are you doing this late? Dressed so neatly?"

Jiang Yuan's heart broke free from the Shadow Ghost's control in that 0.1‑second interval.

Thud—

It jumped to 109 in an instant.

Just outside the ear bone, the curved device emitted an extremely faint 'zila' sound, like a nail scraping silk, so subtle only skin‑contact could hear it.

Current warning.

The edge of the shielding field showed invisible ripples to the naked eye.

The Shadow Ghost's power detonated from the base of his spine, surging up each vertebra, and within 0.1 seconds reclaimed control of his heart's rhythm.

109, 94, 83, 71.

It was suppressed.

The 'zila' sound vanished.

The device resumed silent operation.

From heart‑rate loss of control to re‑lock, the whole process took no more than 0.3 seconds. Mo Shu stood three steps away, blinked, and noticed nothing.

"You scared me," Jiang Yuan released the door handle, leaned against the frame, adopting a freshly‑woken weary pose, "Why aren't you sleeping either?"

His voice was hoarse. No need to act; he'd been hoarse all day.

"Can't sleep, huh?" Mo Shu swirled the paper cup, its side bearing the Cafeteria's self‑service logo, "I had two strong teas this afternoon, now I'm as energetic as if I'd been injected with chicken blood, tossing and turning until 2:30 and couldn't stand it, so I came down to brew a cup of coffee."

She said that, stepped a pace forward, her gaze sweeping over Jiang Yuan—from his combat suit to the Card Bag and then to his boots.

"Your gear… doesn't feel right."

Her tone remained sweet and soft, with that characteristic rising inflection. But her eyes were no longer purely teasing; there was a hint of scrutiny.

The professional instinct of an elite agent.

Or rather—the fake person replicated the professional instincts of elite agents.

Jiang Yuan had a string twisted at the base of his skull—twisted too tight; another half turn and it might snap.

But he didn't let that string break.

"Temporary mission." He lowered his voice, glancing toward the surveillance probe in the middle of the corridor; the motion was slight, but enough for Mo Shu to notice.

"Wei Gong approved it directly—classified."

Mo Shu's expression changed.

Not suspicion, but restraint.

Anyone who's worked at the Investigation Bureau understands this code—lowering the voice while scanning the surveillance means "This can't be talked about in the corridor."

She held the paper cup, stepped back half a step, pressed her lips together, and the dimple vanished.

"How big a deal is it?"

"Not really." Jiang Yuan straightened from the doorframe, the corridor light stretching his shadow long enough to cover Mo Shu's slipper tip, "but we're short‑handed; running some places alone isn't convenient."

He looked at her.

The expression on his face was fine‑tuned by the Shadow Ghost—seven parts fatigue, two parts casual, one part hesitation. The hesitation was key; he needed her to think he was weighing whether to speak.

"If you can't sleep—" he paused, gauging it just right, "lend a hand?"

Mo Shu blinked her almond eyes twice.

Then she smiled.

The dimple resurfaced, faint, looking especially soft in the cold glow of the emergency light.

"You should've said so! Anyway, being idle is being idle."

She handed the hot coffee in her hand to Jiang Yuan's chest, the motion so natural it made one's chest ache.

"Hold it—just brewed, still hot. I see your lips are chapped; drink a couple sips to wake up."

Jiang Yuan reached out and took it.

The paper cup's warmth seeped through the wall into his palm, pleasantly warm. The instant coffee's aroma mingled with the creamy sweetness of milk powder, drifting into his nostrils and mixing with the corridor's cool circulating air.

Her finger brushed his knuckle as she passed the cup.

The fingertip was warm.

The sensation was real.

It was indistinguishable from human skin temperature, texture, and tactile feedback.

Jiang Yuan gripped the paper cup tightly.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Mo Shu had already squatted down to tie her laces, kicking her plush slippers into the corner and swapping them for another set of tactical boots placed by Jiang Yuan's dorm door. She moved swiftly, finished in a dozen seconds, stood, patted her hem, and said, "Let's go—where to?"

Jiang Yuan held that cup of coffee and took a sip, head lowered.

Bitter.

Not the bitterness of coffee. There's an indescribable astringency from the base of the tongue to the throat, unrelated to taste, tied to something else.

He let out a breath.

The breath drifted gently out his nose, his shoulder line dropping two centimeters, as if a bit of weight had been lifted.

At last he'd steadied her.

We can't act in the corridor—there's surveillance, sound carries, and anyone sleeping next door would be roused.

The fake persons' stress‑response mechanism isn't fully understood; if Mo Shu were attacked in a public area and triggered some kind of group alarm, all 386 fake persons would erupt at once, and headquarters would be finished tonight.

So we have to take her with us.

Take her to the target's dorm.

In an enclosed space, the Shadow Legion's suppression efficiency is highest and the chance of sound leaking lowest. Killing Zhang Deming, meanwhile—

Jiang Yuan chewed those two words in his mind.

Handily.

What a lightweight term.

He'd once wondered what word to define this action—"execution" too cold, "eradication" too official, "kill" too blunt; in the end he picked "handily."

Handily killing a girl who would hand him oranges, block a blade for him, down two beers then flop on the table saying, "You gotta stay safe."

Or rather—handily killing something that replicated those memories.

He still hasn't fully figured out the difference between the two.

And he doesn't plan to.

"Come with me." Jiang Yuan stepped forward holding the coffee, his tone flat, without a hint of inflection.

Mo Shu jogged two steps to catch up, her tactical boots tapping lightly on the floor tiles, the sound interlocking with Jiang Yuan's steady footsteps.

The two walked past the corridor's midpoint; the surveillance probe's red indicator blinked overhead. Mo Shu didn't ask for mission details, merely glancing at Jiang Yuan now and then.

In that gaze lay curiosity, an eager‑to‑try excitement, and an unconditional trust unprocessed by any filter.

Jiang Yuan didn't look back at her.

He was drinking coffee.

He sipped it mouthful by mouthful, not fast, the intervals even. The paper cup's heat dwindled, the liquid level dropped, and the wall's temperature cooled bit by bit.

By the time they reached the elevator door, the cup was empty.

He crushed the empty cup and shoved it into the trash can at the corridor corner.

The elevator doors opened, cold light spilling out.

The two stepped inside.

Jiang Yuan pressed the floor button; the metal panel reflected a tiny speck of light at his fingertip. The elevator began to rise, the steel cables' humming from above vibrating along the narrow car walls.

Arrived.

The door opened.

The Corridor's illumination is limited, and a few equipment boxes that hadn't been cleared are piled in the corner.

Jiang Yuan walked ahead.

He stopped in front of the fourth door.

He pulled the universal card from behind his waist and stuck it onto the access sensor area.

Beep— the green light lit up.

He rested his hand on the door handle, but didn't push immediately.

Behind him, Mo Shu stood quietly, without urging or asking, just waiting.

The toe of her short boots was less than half a meter from his heel, close enough for him to smell the lingering laundry detergent on her sweatshirt.

Jiang Yuan pressed his throat and spoke.

His voice was very soft, soft enough only to reach the ears of the person behind him.

"Action begins."

He pushed the door open a crack, without looking back.

"No matter what you see, stay silent."