The Hongjing Library, although old, had quite a few floors.

Wang Chao rushed to the rooftop with his notebook, panting heavily. He pushed open the heavy wooden door of the journal repository, and the heavy smell that greeted him caused him to sneeze.

Looking around, he couldn’t see any figures, so he called out loudly, “Boss, A’Chen Gege, where are you guys?”

The teenager’s clear and melodious voice echoed among the shadows of the floating bookshelves. Perhaps this was the moment when Xing Conglian was closest to Lin Chen’s inner thoughts, except for when they were lying in bed.

He finally understood why Lin Chen always risked his life in many situations; he probably no longer wanted to leave the decision-making power to others.

And now, he still had a chance to ask Lin Chen what landmines were—whether they were metaphors, actual existing bombs, or just a hypothesis proposed by Huang Weiwei to put him at ease. But all the truths had already merged into the molten steel that fell from the sky, and no one could know.

He thought this was the end.

He gazed at Lin Chen’s back, determined, and said loudly, “Over here, by the window.”

Upon hearing this, Lin Chen made a slight and almost imperceptible motion, as if wiping away tears, but his hand quickly dropped.

When Wang Chao ran up to them, it was as if nothing had happened.

“Boss, A’Chen Gege received that message, and it indeed points to a certain part of the dark web..” The young man’s words suddenly stopped as his gaze swept over the two of them, as if sensing the strange atmosphere. His voice faltered. “Uh.. Did I come too early? I can go out and wait for you guys to get ready..”

He was about to turn around and leave, but Xing Conglian’s frown persisted, and his emotions didn’t ease for a moment. He just kept staring at Lin Chen.

“Come back.” Lin Chen spoke at this moment.

Wang Chao’s figure abruptly halted, and he turned around awkwardly. “A’Chen Gege..”

In this short moment, Lin Chen had already regained his composure.

Xing Conglian looked at Lin Chen, but the latter lowered his head, showing no desire to meet his gaze.

Lin Chen stood up, walked to Wang Chao, as if seeing through the teenager’s thoughts, and said calmly, “Rest assured, I didn’t quarrel and break up with your boss.”

He once again restored his usual clean and bright appearance. Xing Conglian finally understood that all the qualities present in Lin Chen were the result of being tempered to the extreme in darkness.

“Oh, I knew it! Where does the Boss get such audacity!” The teenager’s smile was radiant as he made noise and sat down at the desk, looking fearless as if he could dispel all the gloom.

Lin Chen sat opposite Wang Chao, holding the thick periodical, and said, “The sender’s number points to a certain website on the dark web, right?”

All the pain and anger from just now had disappeared completely. Lin Chen, as always, was succinct and decisive as he discussed the main topic with Wang Chao.

“Yes, A’Chen Gege. I used brute force to crack it!” Wang Chao opened his laptop and turned it towards Lin Chen.

In the center of the screen was a red countdown, and the lower right corner showed a cluster of golden flowers.

The website was overly simplistic, with coarse pixelation. Although it didn’t deliberately create a bloody feeling, its indifference conveyed a chilling disregard for life, and indifference was always scarier than passion.

This familiar scene made Xing Conglian retract his gaze and connect the cause and effect. He looked at Lin Chen again, afraid that Lin Chen had sensed it earlier than him. Therefore, no matter how difficult it was, Lin Chen would have to finish telling him the story.

“A’Chen, are they.. the same group we encountered before?” Wang Chao asked.

Lin Chen furrowed his brows, pondering deeply, and didn’t answer immediately.

“There’s only a countdown on the website. What does it mean?” Xing Conglian changed the topic and asked Wang Chao.

“It’s not just a countdown!” Wang Chao clicked the countdown at the center of the screen, and an equally rudimentary pop-up window appeared instantly.

Below was a familiar scene often seen in movies; since there was a website and a pop-up window, there must be a place to input a password.

On a white background, there was only a box and a line of a simple word—”password”.

The countdown continued to go backward, showing 12:32:31. However, the units weren’t in hours but in minutes. If they couldn’t crack the password within 12 minutes, who knows what would happen.

“Everything before this is just a gimmick! We need a password to enter the website’s inner world!” Wang Chao knocked on the keyboard. “A’Chen Gege, the password.. that should be your part to decipher.”

Xing Conglian coldly retorted to Wang Chao, “Aren’t you a master?”

“Even if I’m a master, I can’t defy the laws of nature. With a supercomputer and half a day, I can crack it for you. But within twelve minutes, I can’t do it!” Wang Chao looked like he couldn’t do it, and he was about to say something else when Lin Chen finally spoke up.

Lin Chen slowly flipped through the journal in his hand and turned it to the page with over a thousand pages. He gently touched the page and said to Wang Chao, “On the dark web, did you see the map of the three provinces nearby?”

“Ah, yes!”

“On the internet, how frequently does our map appear?”

“It’s quite frequent, but most of them are accompanied by that sentence!”

“A balancing game on a tightrope,” Lin Chen said.

“Yes!” Wang Chao paused for a moment and asked, “Should I try entering this phrase?”

“How many characters are in the password?” Xing Conglian asked.

“11!” Wang Chao answered.

Xing Conglian quickly ran through this set of words in his mind and then said, “No language in any country can match this set of 11 characters.”

“Oh.. I see. Fortunately, I didn’t try. Otherwise, three wrong attempts might have caused the website to self-destruct.” Wang Chao mumbled.

“It won’t,” Lin Chen interrupted.

“Why won’t it? Why?” Wang Chao was still excited, asking repeatedly.

“Because this is a large-scale game involving the entire internet, and the website won’t be destroyed.” Lin Chen paused and continued. “You can print out the map—use A4 paper. If it’s not enough for A4, enlarge it to fit.”

Wang Chao was stunned. “Okay, but what map do you want? The three provinces around us?”

Lin Chen nodded.

“Do you want a satellite topographic map, or a regular 2D map? Google, Baidu, or..?” Wang Chao spoke as he moved.

“I want the map you found on the dark web.”

“Huh?” Wang Chao’s hand was faster than his brain. He casually clicked on the saved map on the computer desktop. The red and blue lines were intertwined like blood vessels, as if indicating something.

Lin Chen glanced at the map and said sternly to Wang Chao, “Go and print out this map, immediately!”

Wang Chao was clever and could hear the difference in Lin Chen’s tone. He quickly searched for the internal network printer and rushed out like a gust of wind.

Xing Conglian walked behind Lin Chen and looked at the image displayed on the screen.

It was just an ordinary flat map, showing the neighboring provinces of Cheng’an, Jiangxia, and Zhelin, which were the surrounding cities they were all very familiar with.

The map was covered with dense dots. Xing Conglian counted the number of dots on the map—clearly more than fifteen.

All the black dots were connected by straight lines. If it weren’t for the improper timing and location of this map, it would easily be ignored as something ordinary, like a signature in an ordinary forum.

Xing Conglian took a deep breath, placed his hand on top of Lin Chen’s head, and pointed to the collection of periodicals on the table, asking Lin Chen, “Password book?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Just like in the Yongchuan University suicide case, the mastermind clearly didn’t change their usual methods.

“Then, Song Shengsheng..”

“He should also be under their control.”

Xing Conglian’s heart trembled.

“That’s why I said, things will never be over.” Lin Chen stared at the screen, but his tone wasn’t sorrowful or weak; it sounded determined and composed.

Xing Conglian bent down, with one hand still on Lin Chen’s head and the other hooking around his neck, embraced him, and whispered in his ear, “I’ll be here for you from now on.”

This was probably more like a hug between comrades than between lovers. Lin Chen nestled in his arms, finally turned his head and rubbed against his cheek. His gentle breath carried warmth. “That day on the Zhourui Pharmaceutical building, I’m very sorry, and also for many things before. But if we encounter similar situations in the future, I’ll probably still do the same. The past has left too strong a mark on me, which determines who I am now, and that will never change.” Lin Chen paused, rare hesitation showing in his words. “But I still hope that you can accept.. accept me as I am,” Lin Chen said earnestly.

Xing Conglian remained silent for a few seconds. He let go of Lin Chen, stood up, and held his shoulders, solemnly repeating, “From now on, I’ll be here for you.”

....

When Wang Chao came back in, Xing Conglian had already settled next to Lin Chen.

Outside the window, a gentle breeze blew, and the morning sun shone brightly, accompanied by the chirping of birds.

There were still 8 minutes left on the countdown.

Wang Chao rushed in like the wind and slammed the printed map on the table. Lin Chen had already taken out a ballpoint pen from his pocket and pressed it open. He circled all the black dots at the intersections of the lines on the map and said, “If I’m not mistaken, this should be a point code. Overly complex and modern encryption tools are not conducive to widespread information dissemination for the mastermind, and he is an old-school person with special interests.”

As Lin Chen spoke, he began to overlay the printed map on the page of the journal with pencil writing. “The point code requires everyone to have the same decryption alphabet. This paper is the alphabet. And these maps widely spread on the dark web are encrypted ciphertexts. The so-called maps and all the intersections of the lines are there to conceal the point code ciphertexts, eliminating them directly.”

Lin Chen meticulously aligned the map with the journal page, and some letters from the journal were indeed faintly visible. Just as Lin Chen had said, those tiny black dots were perfectly aligned with specific letters.

Lin Chen pressed the ballpoint pen on the black dots of the map paper, gently lifted the blank paper, and pierced the surface with the pen tip, making light marks on the next page of the journal.

Xing Conglian counted. He had poked exactly eleven times.

Finally, Lin Chen lifted the paper and, in order, reported all the blue dots he had marked as letters, saying, “The password is: I, N, T, O, T, H, E, D, A, R, K.”

INTO THE DARK.

Into the dark, in the dark.

Kinky Thoughts:

Just for some clarity, the last part in capitalized letters is in English while the last line is in Chinese (basically explaining what the English code means).