Chapter Fifty-Two: An Inescapable Net

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[Time remaining until 'Zero Hour': 18:00:00]

The final calm had descended.

After the mighty machinery of the state had completed its thunderous deployment, everything once more returned to a heart-stopping silence. It was as if a colossal beast, brimming with power and poised to strike a fatal blow, held its breath in the instant before it sprang.

This vast net, woven across reality and the virtual world, was now cast.

Now, all that remained was to wait.

To wait for that moment, called “Zero Hour,” to arrive.

...

National Security Headquarters, fifth basement level, simulated shooting range.

Here, it was dim, cold, and lonely—only breath and heartbeat filled the silence.

On the massive holographic screen, shifting lights and shadows recreated, with uncanny precision, that alley corner on the rainy night five years ago—terrified hostages, ruthless criminals, and that little boy cowering behind his mother, terror shining in his eyes.

Xiao Ran stood alone in the empty firing lane.

In her hands was the cold Type 88 sniper rifle—the very weapon she had sworn never to touch again.

The rifle was spotless, every part fine-tuned to perfection, as if it was an extension of her own body.

She slowly raised the gun.

Sighted in.

Aimed.

Every movement was fluid, effortless; muscle memory had long since imprinted these steps deep on her soul.

The crosshairs pierced the curtain of rain, passed over the hostage’s shoulder, locking with unwavering precision onto the simulated “criminal’s” brow.

A perfect shooting window.

Her finger, slowly, rested on the cold trigger.

But in that very instant before she could pull—

Buzz...

That nightmare, haunting her for five years, descended once more!

Her right hand began to tremble violently—a familiar spasm, impossible to suppress with willpower.

The crosshairs jerked madly over the criminal’s brow, blurring, mocking her helplessness. On the screen, the terrified face of the little boy overlapped, thunderously, with the one buried deep in her memory.

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“Bang!”

In the end, she let the gun fall in defeat, the butt crashing heavily to the ground.

Leaning against the icy wall, she gasped for breath, hair at her brow already drenched in cold sweat.

She could command armies, cast her net across the world—

But she could not conquer the version of herself, cowering in her own soul, who had “failed” all those years ago.

...

“Singularity Security” Studio.

Here, it had become a battlefield of another dimension.

The air was thick with a programmer’s signature blend of nicotine, caffeine, and instant noodles.

Wang Zhe, draped in a wrinkled jacket, bloodshot eyes wild like an ascetic possessed, sat hunched before a massive virtual code screen, his fingers flying furiously.

He was not carrying out Xiao Ran’s orders.

He was conducting, in his own way, a solitary act of “redemption.”

Lin Feng’s “Digital Maze” was a grand, genius’s temple. But Wang Zhe knew that every temple needed countless tiles to shield it from wind and rain.

That was what he was doing.

He turned his brain into a CPU, simulating tens of thousands of the most cunning and bizarre angles Anderson might use to attack. For each, he crafted backup “firewall modules,” “redundant data interfaces,” and “logic-trap patches” to reinforce Lin Feng’s “Digital Maze.”

His fingers wove through the code like an tireless craftsman, interlacing all his labor, repentance, and his guilt toward his late mentor, Lu Hongsheng, into this web meant to protect HuaCore and the nation.

“...Madman, you’ve built the main temple...”

He gazed at the nearly perfect defense matrix on the screen, a faint light flickering in his murky eyes, muttering to himself.

“...Let me, this sinner, lay the remaining ‘tiles’ to shelter it, one by one.”

This was his final offering to atone for his past betrayal.

...

In a corner of the command center, the air was just as heavy.

Old K and several veteran techs, who had joined the task force after the “SkyVault Network” incident, gathered in silence around something.

It was a slightly yellowed digital photograph.

In the photo, a young man grinned with radiant confidence, an arm draped around a much younger Old K and others. Behind them, the logo of the first-generation “SkyVault Network” data center.

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That young man was Lu Hongsheng.

Back then, he was SkyVault’s guardian spirit, the brightest star in China’s cyber security world.

No one spoke.

Old K simply reached out a callused finger and gently wiped Lu Hongsheng’s time-frozen smile from the screen.

In his gaze was everything—remembrance, sorrow, anger... all finally forged into a resolve, fierce enough to incinerate all, to seek justice for him.

This battle was not only for the nation.

It was also to comfort those forgotten, fallen heroes.

...

Night deepened.

Like a gentle ray of moonlight, it swept over the bustling command center, the lonely training room, and finally, slowly, returned to the silent medical ward.

At Lin Feng’s bedside.

The machines continued their steady rhythm, emitting the life-sustaining sound—beep... beep... beep...

All was as before.

The nurse had just finished checking his condition, tucked in the covers, and left the room.

He was alone.

Beneath his tightly closed, long lashes, his eyelids suddenly, ever so slightly, but visibly... twitched.

Only the persistent and unyielding “beep... beep...” echoed in the quiet room.

Like a proclamation.

Like the overture to a king’s return.