...
The Que Organization's base never saw the light of day, with lights constantly kept on everywhere.
The next day, while almost everyone was fast asleep, no one except the backstage staff noticed that the lights in the corridors were going out one by one without any warning.
Starting from the deepest main control room, the darkness spread outward along the corridors, accompanied by the crackling sound of electricity.
Within a mere three seconds, the entire underground base was swallowed into a dead, silent darkness.
The backup power did not turn on.
Technicians frantically typed on their keyboards in the dark, but only a line of red error codes kept flashing on the screens.
Access denied. Permissions transferred.
They attempted to activate the physically isolated backup circuits.
However, nothing happened.
"Communications have been cut off too!" someone shouted.
This was immediately followed by more voices surging from all directions, with people demanding to know what was going on.
The vigilant ones immediately started running toward the armory, trying to find something to defend themselves.
Shen Yi walked out amidst this chaos.
Standing at the door were two members of the Que Organization, sent by Li Jianwei to escort her out.
The two men blocked the corridor, one on the left and one on the right. Their expressions were tense; they had clearly received news of the attack on the base.
And their orders were to get this green-haired girl out first.
"Let's go, we're getting you out of here," the man on the left said, reaching out to grab her.
Shen Yi stepped aside to avoid the hand. "Who are you?"
"Li Jianwei's men," he answered.
Shen Yi nodded, and then ran.
Bah.
Who cared what arrangements Li Jianwei had made? She couldn't be bothered with him.
The young girl was light on her feet, darting more than a dozen meters away in just a few bounds. The two grown men chased after her for a couple of steps before realizing they couldn't catch up at all.
This little girl's footwork was too ridiculous. She dodged left and right in the dark corridor, slippery as a loach.
"Stop right there!"
Shen Yi turned a deaf ear and disappeared around the corner of the corridor.
She ran directly toward her friend's office.
Less than two hundred meters away, she ran head-on into Sasa, who was also rushing over.
Sasa looked much more disheveled, her face pale, sweat on her forehead, and gripping a phone with no signal in her hand.
The moment she saw Shen Yi, she instinctively reached out and grabbed her wrist, her knuckles white from the force.
"Sasa?" Shen Yi slowed her pace.
Sasa nodded.
Her mind was a bit muddled; she didn't understand what was happening.
Sasa wasn't the only one confused right now.
Almost everyone was kept in the dark, only knowing that after the sudden power outage, the base seemed to have been invaded.
Sasa's first reaction had been to find her two friends.
Bumping into Shen Yi on the way made her relax slightly.
She then turned to go check on Chen Yu.
"Do you know what happened, Xiao Yi?"
Shen Yi actually did know, but compared to that, she was more surprised that the personnel in this place weren't armed with guns.
"Do you have any weapons to protect yourself? Like a piece of truth?"
Sasa: "Truth... do you mean a gun? I don't have one on me right now."
"Our organization does have an armory," Sasa panted, her voice hurried. "But it's always been under Teacher's control. Unless we're on a mission, they don't issue us guns."
"We don't have time to go get them now anyway. All the passages have been cut off, and we're trapped in the core area." She forced a smile at the corner of her mouth. "Let's go find Chen Yu first. He's probably just as confused."
Shen Yi nodded and followed behind Sasa.
However, when the two went to his office and looked around, they found it completely empty.
"Where is Chen Yu?" Shen Yi asked in confusion. "He couldn't have run away already, right?"
Sasa's expression went blank for a moment, followed by bewilderment, and then a slowly rising sense of unease. "...Now that you mention it, I don't think I've seen him since noon today."
"Weren't you two always together?"
"Yeah," Sasa's voice dropped as she tried to recall. "Just today, in the morning, Teacher asked for me. But I was really sleepy then, so I didn't go. Chen Yu went instead. Teacher said it was a routine questioning, so I asked Chen Yu to ask for a leave for me. After he went..."
She paused.
The two exchanged a glance.
Shen Yi's eyelid twitched as she finished the sentence: "—he never came back?"
Sasa's expression looked grim. "I don't know. I sent him messages, but he didn't reply."
Shen Yi: "..."
Fuck.
Li Jianwei!!!
Shen Yi immediately pulled Sasa and ran to Li Jianwei's office, kicking the door open violently. Sure enough, it was empty.
He had long since disappeared!!
He really was lying to her last night.
So much for perishing together.
This sinister bastard didn't want to die at all. Anyone who could wipe out his own father to take power at fourteen was definitely not the kind of person who would just accept his fate.
But why did he take Chen Yu?
To threaten her?
Shen Yi directly ransacked his office.
As expected, she found a note:
[I took your friend, little assassin~~ If I'm lucky enough not to fall into the hands of other organizations, I will return your friend to you.]
[If I am unfortunately caught, Shen Yi, will you save me?]
When Li Jianwei left this note, his emotions were a mix of apprehension and excitement.
He wanted the Que Organization to end, wanted those damn members to end, wanted everything that bound him to end.
But he himself was going to walk away, stepping over these ruins.
And Chen Yu was the ticket in his hand.
Shen Yi, Shen Yi, Shen Yi...
Li Jianwei repeated her name back and forth a thousand times in his heart.
No matter how you looked at it, it was a very ordinary name.
But her surname was Shen.
Could that rumored underworld family be related to her?
For the past few days, Li Jianwei had been pondering this question.
That little assassin certainly wouldn't care about him.
But she definitely cared about her friend Chen Yu.
He was no saint; he took Chen Yu to gamble on that sliver of survival.
He just didn't know if Shen Yi was his sliver of survival.
Shen Yi also figured it out and cursed, "That old bastard."
She was in a foul mood and prepared to beat Li Jianwei half to death the moment she saw him.
Just then.
A series of orderly footsteps came from the end of the corridor.
A fully armed squad of at least a dozen people.
Without a word, Shen Yi grabbed Sasa and ran.
They headed toward an abandoned passage on the east side of the base.
Shouts came from behind: "Halt! You in front, halt!"
Shen Yi turned a deaf ear, pulling Sasa left and right through the maze-like corridors. Despite the identical-looking architecture all around, she remembered the layout flawlessly.
She managed to shake off one wave of pursuers.
Only to run into a new wave at the next corner.
This group was different from the last.
Shen Yi swept a glance over them.
Tactical vests, standard-issue rifles, earpieces, night vision goggles—their equipment was quite professional. They were likely personnel deployed by the local government.
And the undercover agents sent by the government had long since obtained the complete roster of Que Organization members.
Upon seeing the two girls, someone immediately took out the roster photos to compare.
They discovered that this young green-haired girl was not on the list.
But as a core member of the Que organization, Sasa's photo and name were clearly printed on it.
"The girl next to the green-haired one, see her?" The leader pointed at the photo on the screen and whispered into his earpiece, "Grab her."
Shen Yi stomped her foot.
How rude.
What green hair?
She pulled Sasa behind her, stepping sideways to shield her.
Sasa froze for a moment. Looking at the girl in front of her, who was nearly half a head shorter, her lips moved. She wanted to say, "Leave me alone, you go first."
Before the words could even leave her mouth, Shen Yi dragged her away, sprinting in the opposite direction.
Ahead was a window. With a drop of at least four stories, they could vault out of here to somewhere else.
Shen Yi's eyes lit up, ready to jump.
But when Sasa followed her gaze, her face instantly turned deathly pale.
"Holy crap," Sasa's voice trembled. "Shen Yi, I'm begging you. I'm just a normal human, I can't jump off a building!!"
Shen Yi glanced at Sasa, silently pulled back her outstretched leg, and continued to drag her along in a mad dash.
The pursuers behind them were getting closer.
Shen Yi's breathing remained steady, but Sasa was clearly running out of steam. She looked exceptionally anxious; having grown up in the Que organization, she knew exactly what falling into the hands of the government or the Archives meant.
Shen Yi felt the cold sweat in Sasa's palm and squeezed her hand firmly. "Don't be afraid."
"I'll get you out of here."
"Trust me."
Sasa didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
"Really?"
"Uh-huh," Shen Yi replied briskly. "The sky isn't falling today, Sasa."
Sasa was incredibly grateful to have someone by her side. If she had been alone, she would have resigned herself to her fate long ago.
When she entered this line of work, she was mentally prepared to be caught one day.
But now that the day had actually come, she realized she had no courage to face death at all.
Ahead was a T-junction.
Shen Yi was about to turn left when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a group of people at the end of the right corridor.
She slammed to a halt.
Those people were wearing completely different uniforms from the ones they had seen earlier.
Dark and impeccably tailored. The man leading them stood in the light at the end of the corridor, his profile sharply outlined by the pale glare of the emergency lights.
Tall, lean, with a relaxed posture.
Oh, shit.
Shen Yi was nearly scared out of her wits.
—Shen Zhizhao???
