Chapter 65: The Phone Call

"Found it."

Inside a certain laboratory, a large screen was playing a video. It was a video from the Cleaning Center's forum, and an operator was currently conducting a data comparison.

In the video, a woman wearing a black Cleaner's protective suit used a gun to pin a mermaid against the glass wall, and then cleanly and decisively shot the mermaid's body to pieces.

The commotion caused at the aquarium this time was massive. Under the premise of triggering an A-level situation, every single person survived.

It was said that the person leading the team was a Cleaner from the Cleaning Division.

She was simply too eye-catching a person, making it hard not to notice her. The woman who had purified Experimental Subject No. 777 last time had also worn a black Cleaner's protective suit.

Both were women, both wore Cleaner attire, and their styles of handling matters were extremely similar.

After obtaining the video data, the technician immediately ran a physical silhouette comparison of the two individuals.

Comparison failed.

Four cold characters appeared on the screen.

"Why?" The technician was baffled. "It should be her."

"It's Prometheus," Professor Chu said.

They had previously paid attention to Zhu Ning; Professor Chu's list of suspects contained Zhu Ning's name.

They had downloaded the video from when Zhu Ning harvested the merman, conducting behavioral analysis and physical trait and appearance comparisons, but it yielded no results.

Later, they searched all video records of the Cleaning Center over the years, and found no matching person.

With this incident at the mechanical aquarium, Professor Chu refocused his attention on this woman, and his intuition told him it was her.

The behavioral patterns were extremely similar.

Yet the data comparison still failed. There was only one possibility: the protective suit Prometheus gave her was problematic, and the video uploaded to the Cleaning Center forum had also been tampered with.

Prometheus was protecting her.

If Professor Chu had been somewhat uncertain before, he was now utterly certain. The only thing capable of making Prometheus go to such great lengths to cover up was the mysterious woman who had purified Experimental Subject No. 777 that day.

Zhu Ning.

Professor Chu carefully savored those two words on his tongue; this time, he had finally learned the other party's name.

"It's her," Professor Chu said, pronouncing the final verdict.

The technician let out a sigh of relief. If this still hadn't worked, all his overtime over the past few days would have been in vain.

"Where is she now?" Professor Chu asked.

The technician replied, "At the Cleaning Center, she should be undergoing data collection. We cannot make a move inside the Cleaning Center."

Making a move right under the Cleaning Center's nose was far too dangerous. For many years, the Cleaning Center had sensed there were a few rats within its ranks, but lacking the ability to wipe them all out in one sweep, they merely probed for information.

They existed in a state of mutual infiltration.

A very delicate surface peace was maintained between the Cleaning Center and Immortal Pharma.

Making a move within the Cleaning Center was equivalent to discarding the surface peace and directly tearing off the masks; Zhu Ning was not worth them taking that risk.

Professor Chu lowered his eyes, his cold lenses obscuring his gaze and making his expression unreadable.

The technician asked, "Shall we make a move? We currently have three available Awakeners nearby. We can make a move once she comes out."

As long as Professor Chu nodded, Zhu Ning would completely vanish from District 103 tomorrow.

Professor Chu did not speak. He looked at Zhu Ning on the screen; she was purifying the jellyfish pavilion in a rather unconventional manner, and the professional competence she displayed from start to finish continuously surprised him.

If prior to this Professor Chu had merely wanted to figure out who purified No. 777, now, having watched the video, he had other plans.

***

It was now eleven-forty at night.

Zhu Ning had not left yet and was still at the Cleaning Center. Many colleagues passing by greeted her, and some even took photos with her.

After all, Zhu Ning was currently a forum celebrity.

"Why aren't you leaving yet?" A young girl passed by. She was the security personnel on night shift today, and she asked, "It's almost twelve. If it gets any late, the neighborhood won't be safe."

District 103 was a Federal waste disposal center, plagued by defective products and high crime rates. Even with Zhu Ning's combat skills, it was best not to take risks.

Because the Cleaning Center permitted neither bringing weapons inside nor carrying weapons outside, no one possessed any self-defense items.

And human flesh could not match firearms; running into armed criminals on the road made one very vulnerable to being taken advantage of.

Zhu Ning said, "I'm waiting for twelve o'clock."

Twelve o'clock? Why? But Zhu Ning was no ordinary person; perhaps she had some plans she couldn't fathom.

The girl shook her head and walked away.

Twelve o'clock—the grave post mechanism would begin to operate. Zhu Ning guessed that the grave post mechanism only started running at midnight, which was likely the window of time during which Prometheus could move freely on a small scale.

She needed a grave post mission.

Zhu Ning hadn't expected the Cleaning Center to actually upload the aquarium video to the internal network. In truth, ordinary missions below A-level were basically all uploaded.

These videos allowed people to exchange information, learn from experience, and understand different individuals' styles.

However, since the aquarium involved the Transparent Man, she had assumed the Cleaning Center would go through confidentiality procedures.

Putting herself in their shoes, Xuan Qing failing to suppress this matter meant this approach likely yielded the greatest benefits.

It might fish out some individuals hiding in the shadows.

Or rather, this was a simpler screening method; no interrogations or searches were of any use. Zhu Ning had passed three rounds, and the final round was whether she could survive herself.

If she ended up dying at the hands of Immortal Pharma next, there would be no need for explanations—she was precisely the person they were looking for.

In the Grave Post Enthusiast Center, her last chat log with Wildcat had remained frozen from three days ago, the day she first went to the Immortal Pharma Foundation.

Their conversation hadn't gone smoothly. Wildcat and she had some disputes over the ownership of Cheng Mofei's wristband, and neither side had conceded.

They called it cooperation, but many matters had failed to be negotiated.

It was like a standoff between two opposing armies, deadlocked. Zhu Ning insisted on viewing the contents of the employee wristband, while Wildcat seemed intent on seizing it directly.

Zhu Ning thought about it and decided not to seek help from Wildcat.

Depending on others was inferior to depending on oneself; she didn't believe she was bound to die.

*Ding—*

The time displayed exactly twelve o'clock, and a gray post appeared on the page.

Grave Post. Prometheus did not betray her expectations and truly pushed a new mission to her.

She briefly reviewed the general contents and memorized the address of the grave post; it wasn't very far from here.

The system prompt asked her whether she accepted the random mission, but Zhu Ning did not select yes just yet.

This was her trump card to fall back on. If necessary, she would need to lure people into a contaminated zone; contaminated zones were extremely chaotic and could potentially serve as a protective shell for her.

The young security guard glanced at her once more. Zhu Ning's behavior was very strange; the entire Cleaning Center lobby was left with only her, and she had been quietly waiting all this time.

Waiting until twelve-five, Zhu Ning zipped up her jacket and waved at the young girl.

"See you tomorrow."

See you tomorrow? The girl was somewhat puzzled. Zhu Ning had just finished a mission and should be on her rest period, with the minimum rest period being a week.

Why say see you tomorrow?

Zhu Ning walked out the front doors of the Cleaning Center. The wasteland world had recently cooled down, with temperatures reaching a maximum of only twenty-six degrees, plunging into autumn overnight.

After walking out, Zhu Ning glanced back. The Cleaning Center was brightly lit, and its three-hundred-and-sixtieth-floor structure looked like a lighthouse at this moment.

The massive robot-shaped incinerators were burning, and the entirety of District 103 had gone to rest, yet this garbage dump operated ceaselessly day and night.

The waste disposal produced a rather peculiar odor that drifted faintly through the air.

There was hardly anyone around in the surroundings, but because of the burning incinerators, it was very bright here.

Ordinarily, taking the sub-track would be the way for Zhu Ning to get home, but the last train had already stopped running.

She had money now, and taking a flying cab wasn't considered extravagant for her.

Yet Zhu Ning chose to walk home.

If she were an assassin plotting an assassination, her best choice would be along this very stretch of road after she got off work.

The Cleaning Center enforced strict regulations, prohibiting employees from carrying weapons during non-mission phases, so anyone walking out of the center could be safely presumed to possess zero self-defense weapons on their person.

Meanwhile, back at Zhu Ning's home was a crate of standard-issue weapons left behind by Prometheus; that was her only opportunity to acquire a weapon.

Therefore, the assassin would either lie in wait along her path home or lie in wait at her home.

The entire stretch of road from the moment she walked out of the Cleaning Center until she returned home belonged to Immortal Pharma's assassination window.

The address of the new contaminated zone Zhu Ning had seen on the grave post earlier was relatively close to her, about the same distance as her walk home.

The contaminated zone, the Hive, and the Cleaning Center formed a triangle.

Yet Zhu Ning did not break her stride. Without a protective suit, she could not enter a contaminated zone and had to return home first.

Zhu Ning grew further and further away from the incinerators, the light growing dimmer. This entire area consisted of slums.

To reach the Hive, one had to cross two communities. Zhu Ning walked along the narrow, dim path, silently observing her surroundings.

Two people.

One person had been trailing right behind her all along, while the other seemed to be an Awakener, walking continuously through the air, his entire body moving like a condensed shadow, leaping silently across the rooftops.

The person behind her could not yet be determined as an Awakener or an ordinary person, maintaining a certain pace as they followed Zhu Ning.

One Awakener, one unconfirmed.

It was unknown whether there was a third.

When dealing with an assassination, the primary rule was to figure out the enemy situation.

As for that rapidly moving shadow, she wasn't sure if she could outrun it even if she used the rotting fish head.

The one behind her was a complete unknown.

Unless forced to, she was quite reluctant to use the defensive spatial zone; after all, its effective duration was only thirty minutes, and after thirty minutes she would be a fish in a barrel.

The third had appeared.

Positioned twenty meters ahead of her, he turned back to look at her. He was a 2.3-meter-tall behemoth wearing a denim jacket, turning his head to reveal his left eye.

A mechanical left eye flickering with red light.

Probably a cyborg soldier.

Splendid—one cyborg soldier, one high-speed moving shadow-like Awakener, and one unknown.

Zhu Ning didn't even have a weapon on her side.

As a sharpshooter with no weapon, no companions, and no support, she was truly isolated and helpless.

Yet Zhu Ning was not afraid in the slightest. Internally, she continuously calculated which skills and talents she could deploy to break the deadlock.

Her footsteps never stopped, and her gaze was already scanning the surroundings for usable metallic items. It wasn't entirely impossible; the odds of winning were fifty-fifty.

The slums were filled with the impoverished. Zhu Ning passed a drunkard holding a bottle of vodka, his face flushed red, muttering drunken nonsense continuously under his breath.

Upon seeing Zhu Ning, he let out a whistle, shouting flirtatiously and loudly, "Hey beauty, give us a smile!"

He was the exact sort of low-class male she found deeply annoying, fond of preying on young girls and acting uninhibitedly because he banked on young girls lacking the courage to fight back to the death.