Chapter 1366: The Intercepted Path

An hour before Wu Lun was discovered by He Huan, a military vehicle and an ambulance had just entered a satellite launch base thousands of miles away. The ambulance quickly turned a corner with its wounded passengers, heading towards the base hospital on the outer edge. At the same time, the military vehicle continued towards the depths of the base, oblivious to the extra passenger it carried.

Nu Yue’s fingers gripped the vehicle’s chassis tightly, her toes hanging in the gap beneath, and her abdomen tense like iron. When the vehicle stopped, and the people inside jumped out, she glanced sideways and found that the military vehicle seemed to have stopped in front of a building, with two pairs of feet firmly stationed at the gate, likely guards.

She frowned and thought momentarily, then tightened her grip even more.

No one moved the three corpses covered with waterproof cloth off the vehicle, and the engine was still running, indicating that the bodies were meant to be teleported elsewhere. Holding her breath for a moment as the military vehicle started again and circled to the back of the building, she seized the opportunity, her hands loosening and dropping to the ground, rolling on the ground before the vehicle’s wheels could crush her.

“Be careful,” Han Suiping said in her earpiece. “The building behind you is the Armed Security Department.”

‘I almost followed them into their lair.’ Nu Yue smiled bitterly. Now dressed in black civilian clothes, her hair and nails were still stained with blood that hadn’t been cleaned off, making her look suspicious as can be. She crouched in the wall’s shadow, just behind a camera’s blind spot, and said with a frown, “I need to find the headquarters first to blend in.”

She thought the headquarters might not be easy to find, but when she looked up, she was stunned.

The vast satellite launch base seemed empty. Straight roads divided the sandy open ground into several sections, most covered with yellowish grass. Under the blue sky, the most conspicuous was undoubtedly the rocket launch pad—it hadn’t even been loaded with a rocket yet, but it was already surprisingly large and towering, several kilometers away from the nearest buildings.

Not far from Nu Yue stood the tallest white building in the base, with red characters on the outer wall from top to bottom reading Hengchang Satellite Launch Center.

“How do I get in? Can’t just barge in, right?” Nu Yue squatted down, hiding behind a sparse thicket, and looked towards the gate of the launch center. Two fully armed guards were standing motionless at the entrance.

She waited for Han Suiping to answer her with something like “I have a way,” but after a while, he hesitantly said, “We… can try… Just be careful not to trigger the alarm.”

Nu Yue was taken aback. “Are we really going to barge in?”

“The communication signal inside the launch center is isolated,” Han Suiping whispered. “I can’t penetrate from the outside… I can’t help you. Instead, I need you to go in first so that I can try to connect to their internal launch system.”

Nu Yue sighed silently and looked up. Several surveillance cameras were under every streetlight on the road to the launch center. The base was open and spacious, and there were no hiding places once she left.

“They know I’m here; they’ll definitely step up their defenses,” Nu Yue said, frowning.

From where she stood, she could see groups of people marching along the perimeter of the rocket launch area in an orderly fashion. Compared to that, the security around the Armed Security Department seemed lax. “If they spot me the moment I rush into the building, what do we do? Even if they can’t catch me, what about the communication device which will be inserted into the satellite? We’ll be caught sooner or later.”

Han Suiping fell silent for a moment.

“In that case, we might only have one option.”

After a few minutes of quiet discussion, Nu Yue calculated her speed in her mind and slowly stood up.

“Alright, let’s do it,” she said. It was now or never.

She sprinted towards the launch center at full speed. On the straight and open road, she suddenly turned into a speeding black shadow—The two guards at the gate quickly raised their guns, but they were too late. Before they could even shout, “Who’s there?” Nu Yue had already reached the gate.

She stopped between the two guards, turning her body lightly, and kicked one of the guards’ guns with her foot, smashing the barrel and sole of the shoe into the man’s face. The other guard hurriedly turned around to activate the alarm on the wall. Nu Yue kicked off with her feet and pounced on him, grabbing his clothes and pulling him back, his hand slipping off the alarm.

Even a well-trained ordinary person took her less than a minute to deal with. Although Nu Yue looked light and cute, unlike Lin Sanjiu, she had entered a state of war where anyone who wasn’t her ally was an enemy. Hence, she naturally had no mercy towards the enemy—she reached out and searched the dead bodies, finding a card, and swiped it on the door, and the lock clicked open.

From that moment on, speed determined everything. Before the two dead men were found by others, she had to put everything she needed into the satellite.

She dashed into the building, Han Suiping’s voice disappearing from the earpiece. This building was cut off from external communication signals, so her contact with Han Suiping was naturally interrupted. Following his previous instructions, she searched along the wall and managed to sneak close to the launch center’s command center under tight security.

Luckily, Nu Yue didn’t need to infiltrate the command center. She found the electrical shaft inside the building, broke the lock, and slipped in. In the darkness, she groped to the power connection and gently removed a small, smooth, cold carapace from her storage.

When Wan Qingge was blown into the air, she and Han Suiping thought that this thing had also been destroyed along with Wan Qingge—after all, Han Suiping had only cut off such a small piece from his own limb. If it had been destroyed, even if they had infiltrated the launch center, Han Suiping would have no way to access the internal system.

Perhaps there was no end to the road. This small carapace was still intact.

After replacing the cable with a small piece of carapace, Nu Yue crawled out of the electric shaft. She didn’t know if Han Suiping had successfully connected to the internal system or their current status; all she knew was that she still had the most crucial step to take.

The communicator with Lin Sanjiu’s message had been blown to pieces long ago. Fortunately, she had her own, and she remembered what Lin Sanjiu had said; after recording the message to Ji Shanqing, Nu Yue placed the communicator on a trolley she found and left it outside the equipment debugging room where Han Suiping had arranged to meet her.

She couldn’t disguise herself as a staff member like Wan Qingge, so she could only rely on this desperate method: if everything went according to plan, shortly after her leaving, someone would come and collect the items according to the instructions of the internal system; as long as the alarm didn’t sound, the unsuspecting base staff would have one last chance to check and install it into the satellite before sending it into space by the rocket.

Next, the communicator with the preset transmission time would send a message to Ji Shanqing from space.

‘Please, please, please let him receive it.’

When Nu Yue rushed out of the gate, the entire launch center was engulfed in a piercing alarm.

*

He Huan silently hung up the phone.

Wu Lun sat across from him, seemingly calm at first glance, showing no emotion. He Huan observed her silently for a while, then looked up at the clock on the wall, exhaling softly.

“It’s five past ten,” he said slowly. “Did you know that the Journey rocket just launched?”

Wu Lun raised her eyes blankly.

“Lin Sanjiu originally planned to send a distress signal to space by relying on the rocket launch. At least, that was one of her plans.” He Huan felt as if he were telling an old friend about another friend’s recent situation, but considering his position, this feeling was ironic. “But unfortunately, her plan just failed. And her other path… was also blocked at the Copper Harbor Pier.”

Wu Lun’s eyebrows twitched, but she still didn’t say anything. This girl had been tossed around by one upheaval after another. Seeing He Huan again, she found the only way to protect herself from the chaos: silence.

“Her companions actually resorted to force to break in. Brave but foolish,” He Huan said, shaking his head. “It was close. That communicator almost made it into the satellite. The rocket has launched, but Lin Sanjiu’s message will forever remain on this planet.”

Wu Lun’s gaze flickered, and she suddenly leaned forward slightly.

“Why?” After being taken away, she finally uttered her first words, staring intensely at He Huan. “Why… do you sound genuinely regretful?”

He Huan was slightly startled.

“Deep down, you also wanted to see her leave, didn’t you?”

Wu Lun stared straight into his eyes, her tone clear and firm.