mijobooks Chapter 15 Emergency Situation
Chapter 15 Emergency Situation
Li Shancheng's palms were sweaty, and the concealed equipment in his backpack felt as heavy as a time bomb. He looked at Xu Qingqing, who shook her head slightly—a signal not to act rashly. But security supervisor Zhao Gang was clearly no ordinary person; his eyes were sharp as an eagle's, seemingly able to see through their disguises.
"Backpack," Zhao Gang repeated, his voice carrying an unquestionable authority.
Li Shancheng took a deep breath and slowly took off his backpack. Just as he was about to place it on the table, Xu Qingqing suddenly clutched her forehead: "Ah... my head..."
She swayed and leaned forward. Li Shancheng instinctively reached out to catch her, and the backpack slipped from his grasp and fell to the ground. Just as the backpack hit the ground, Xu Qingqing subtly tapped a hidden button on the side of the backpack with her toe.
A slight, high-frequency humming sound rang out, and the indoor lights flickered.
"What's going on?" Zhao Gang looked at the ceiling alertly.
"Sorry, I have low blood sugar." Xu Qingqing steadied herself, her face indeed a little pale—this time it wasn't feigned, "I didn't eat breakfast this morning."
Zhao Gang looked at her suspiciously, then at the backpack on the ground. He bent down to pick it up, his fingers just touching the fabric—
"Supervisor! Emergency!" the walkie-talkie suddenly crackled to life. "Alarm in the experimental area on the 23rd floor! Repeat, alarm in the experimental area on the 23rd floor!"
Zhao Gang's expression changed instantly. He straightened up and pressed the intercom: "What's going on?"
"Unexplained energy fluctuations have triggered a Level 3 alert! Please proceed immediately!"
Zhao Gang hesitated, glancing at Li Shancheng and Xu Qingqing, then at the backpack on the ground. Ultimately, professional responsibility prevailed.
"You all wait here and don't leave," he commanded, then hurriedly walked out of the security checkpoint and locked the door behind him.
The moment the door closed, Xu Qingqing breathed a sigh of relief: "Cheng Xu made his move."
"What?" Li Shancheng didn't react.
"That button on my backpack is an emergency signal for Cheng Xu," Xu Qingqing quickly explained. "He remotely triggered a false alarm on the Hanshan Technology system to buy us time. Quickly, we only have a few minutes."
She picked up her backpack and took out a device that looked like an ordinary pen from a hidden compartment. Unscrewing the cap revealed a miniature laser cutter. Xu Qingqing aimed it at the gap in the door lock, and the blue laser beam silently melted the internal structure of the lock cylinder.
Thirty seconds later, the door opened.
"Take the stairs, don't use the elevator," Xu Qingqing said. "Cheng Xu will continue to interfere with the monitoring system, but the time is limited."
They quickly left the security checkpoint and found the nearest fire escape. The distant sirens and hurried footsteps echoed in the stairwell—security personnel were rushing to the twenty-third floor.
"Where are we going now?" Li Shancheng asked as he walked down the stairs.
"Lin Han's car in the underground parking lot," Xu Qingqing said. "Liu Wei has been taken away; she might be the key to finding Chen Ya."
"But how can we track Lin Han when he's with her?"
"Cheng Xu has hacked into the building's vehicle tracking system." Xu Qingqing waved her phone; a map was displayed on the screen, with a red dot moving. "Lin Han's car has GPS installed, and Cheng Xu has located it. The car is currently... heading towards the western suburbs."
They reached the underground parking garage, where the alarms fell silent. The garage was nearly empty; most of the vehicles had been driven away by visitors during the morning open house. They found their car—a regular rental sedan.
Xu Qingqing started the car and drove out of the parking lot. The red dot on her phone continued to move westward at a slow speed, seemingly weaving through city streets.
"They're taking a detour," Li Shancheng observed the route. "It doesn't seem like they have a clear destination."
"They're probably checking if they're being followed," Xu Qingqing said. "Cheng Xu, can you hear me? We need real-time navigation."
Cheng Xu's voice came through the earpiece, still somewhat weak but clear: "I'm... connected to the traffic monitoring system... turn right at the intersection ahead, they might be testing us... I suggest maintaining a distance of three cars..."
Guided remotely by Cheng Xu, they maintained a safe distance while following Lin Han's car. Twenty minutes later, the vehicle left the main urban area and entered the industrial zone in the western suburbs. Here, factories stood in rows, roads were wide but vehicles were scarce, making tracking even more difficult.
"They slowed down...and are entering a warehouse area," Cheng Xu reported. "I'm retrieving information about the area...the registered company is 'Hanshan Logistics,' a subsidiary of Hanshan Technology."
The screen displayed a vast warehouse area, surrounded by walls and surveillance cameras. Lin Han's car passed through the gate and disappeared into the depths of the warehouse area.
"We can't get in." Xu Qingqing parked the car in a secluded corner. "The access control system requires card swiping and facial recognition."
Li Shancheng looked at the high walls of the warehouse area: "Maybe we don't need to go through the main entrance."
He closed his eyes and tried to reconnect with the array's core. This time, he wasn't trying to enter the secret vault, but rather to expand his sensory range—just as Bishop Qin had taught him, letting his consciousness spread like ripples on water.
At first, he could only sense things within a radius of a few dozen meters: earthworms under the concrete floor, insects in the cracks of the walls, dust floating in the air... But as he concentrated, his perception range gradually expanded. One hundred meters, two hundred meters...
Suddenly, he "saw" something—not with his eyes, but through spatial perception. There was something beneath the warehouse area: a huge cavity, about fifteen meters deep. The cavity emitted a strong energy reaction, originating from the same source as the energy being siphoned from the Wen Shu array eye.
"There are facilities underground." Li Shancheng opened his eyes. "About fifteen meters below the center of the warehouse area. The energy readings are very strong; it's probably a laboratory."
"Can you sense the specific entrance?" Xu Qingqing asked.
Li Shancheng tried again, but this time he encountered resistance. The underground facility seemed to have a protective layer that blocked his sensory exploration.
"It's protected, but I can pinpoint the general location," he said. "The entrance is probably inside some warehouse."
Cheng Xu's voice rang out again: "I found the architectural drawings for the warehouse area... There are additional structural markings in the basement of Warehouse No. 3, but the drawings are incomplete, showing it as 'spare storage space'."
"That should be the entrance," Xu Qingqing said. "The question is, how do we get in?"
They observed the warehouse area. The wall was about three meters high, topped with barbed wire and surveillance cameras. Every fifty meters there was a guard post where security personnel could be seen.
"We can't get in through the main gate, and the wall is too difficult to climb over," Li Shancheng analyzed. "Unless..."
He recalled a mural he had seen in the Wenshu Secret Treasury, depicting ancient cultivators using "Earth Escape Talismans" to pass through walls. The information conveyed by the Book of Time seemed to contain a similar combination of runes.