Chapter 40: Secret Operation

Chapter 40: Secret Operation

I dared to enter this time mainly because I’d already been on her balcony earlier and knew the escape route. What I wanted was to see what Lu Qingyue’s husband looked like, so I could recognize him later.

The man who stepped inside and shed his invisibility was Ren Jingze.

Ren Jingze brought Lu Qingyue and her husband into the living room, then raised a hand with a casual flick. A map materialized in midair, scattered with red dots.

Pointing to the floating map, he said, “This is the latest resistance activity map Ran Weiping sent me to show you. Here, here, and here — areas of obvious activity. The two blue circles are supposedly the bases where they produce Wisdom Capsules.”

The areas he indicated were clustered around the Silicon Valley district of Zhongguan Village. The two blue circles were somewhere out in the mountains beyond the city.

Lu Qingyue asked, “How did Ran Weiping work this out? Yesterday we used the AI brain-mapping device on Gu Qiutang and got nothing useful. How does he have results this fast?”

“It didn’t come from Gu Qiutang. Inferior people really are stupid. The moment we took him, the resistance couldn’t sit still. They sent people to tail us, and Ran Weiping caught two of them. He also asked me to tell you — there are quite a few tails altogether. Several of us have spotted them. It looks like we’ve been blown. Ran Weiping had the two he caught tortured, and they broke.”

“That explains it. I felt it too — someone’s been on me. If every one of us has a tail, then we’re all exposed.”

“So Ran Weiping wants me to ask the team leader whether we should rotate in a fresh group.”

Lu Qingyue’s husband shook his head. “No need to rush. I still have people in reserve. This won’t unravel. Everything is under control. I’m not afraid they’ll move — I’m afraid they won’t. The moment you made your move, they couldn’t sit still. So what if you’ve been exposed? The whole world is ours. Just operate as open cards. Since you’ve already stirred the grass and startled the snake, keep going and wipe out their bases.”

So Lu Qingyue’s husband was the leader of the Fifth District Soul Hunters. That was why he wasn’t on my list. Of course the Soul Hunters wouldn’t hand the Sweepers information about their own commander.

Ren Jingze said, “Ran Weiping thinks we should move on the two blue areas as soon as possible. He’s worried about delay. Once their people realized the tails had been taken, they’d have passed word up the chain — the bases would be alerted before long. Since we already know roughly where they are, why wait?”

Lu Qingyue nodded. “I agree. Old Ou, how about we go now?”

Lu Qingyue’s husband had the surname Ou.

“It’s feasible,” he said. “But by custom, they usually produce at night, when the site is most active. So — during the midnight hour tonight. Secret operation. All five of you go in together. Don’t split up. Hit the northern base first, then the western one. Move fast. Your only target is the traitors: strike one point and leave the rest, kill them directly. As for dismantling the dens, I’ll arrange for CWP to handle that.”

“Understood. We’ll go get ready.”

Lu Qingyue turned to her husband. “If all five of us are going, what about the three prisoners? We could just finish them off.”

Team Leader Ou said, “Keep the one surnamed Gu. Hand the other two to CWP.”

“Good. We’ll take care of it now.”

I followed close behind Ren Jingze and Lu Qingyue as they left the apartment.

They must have felt the area was safe — or maybe they wanted to draw out any tails. Either way, they walked out the front door without going invisible.

Outside, they flagged down a taxi and headed south.

I didn’t follow them.

Saving the resistance bases was more pressing.

The moment they were gone, I found Gu Kunling and told her everything I’d seen inside.

She went pale and immediately began thinking through how to relocate the bases. She told me to stay and keep watch on the man surnamed Ou.

But what interested me was what Ren Jingze and the others were planning. Having me stand watch here was her way of keeping me out of danger.

I hadn’t told her about the immobilizing spell. I hadn’t told Gu Qiutang either. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. So I had nothing to be too concerned about.

Going after Ren Jingze and Lu Qingyue would be the most dangerous option. But Gu Qiutang was wherever they were. If I wanted to get him out, following Ren Jingze gave me the best opening.

I explained this to Gu Kunling. Hearing it put that way, she agreed.

We split up. She went to save people. I hailed a cab from the same company Ren Jingze had used.

I had taken note of the company and the license plate number when he left. Once I was in my cab, I asked the driver to reach the driver ahead on the radio — I said I’d left my bag in that car.

Drivers from the same company stayed in contact. It didn’t take long before I had my answer: the passengers up ahead had gotten out at Big Bell Temple.

Big Bell Temple.

A monastic practice site. I knew the place — temples keep ties with one another.

I had the driver take me there, then circled the area on foot first, running same-frequency sensing and electromagnetic scanning across the surroundings. Nothing unusual. I went straight to Juesheng Temple.

Big Bell Temple’s proper name was Juesheng Temple, located in the city southeast of Zhongguan Village. The abbot was an old acquaintance of mine — lay surname Li, Dharma name Zisheng. He saw me coming and brought me straight into the inner hall.

We sat. Tea was brought.

I used same-frequency sensing to confirm he was clean. Then I asked whether anything unusual had happened at the temple lately, particularly since the previous night.

Dharma Master Zisheng was quiet for a moment. “Since Dharma Master Xuanhong is asking, I can hardly conceal it. I haven’t dared speak of this to anyone — I was afraid of causing panic. But how did you come to know?”

I held his gaze. “Objects moving through the air? Spacetime disorder?”

He blinked. “Dharma Master Xuanhong knows about this. Do you already have an answer?”

“This isn’t unique to your temple,” I said. “It happened at Tansong Temple when I was abbot there. So I know something of it.”

“Then what is the cause? Please, tell me.”

“First tell me what you’ve seen. We can work through it together.”

Zisheng pressed his palms together and began. “Three months ago, there were occasional incidents — objects flying without cause, moments of what I can only call spacetime disorder. A few of the monks were frightened and came to me. I told them it was a thief’s tricks and left it at that. But I couldn’t account for it myself, and I didn’t dare breathe a word. Later I organized a Dharma assembly outside the hall, and things settled down. I thought it was over. Then last night, around nine, sounds came again from that building — voices, yet no one visible to any of the monks. This morning the voices returned, louder than before. I had just sent word out to gather the monks for a Dharma talk when you arrived.”

“Senior Brother, hold off on the assembly for now,” I said. “Let me look into this first. I won’t say anything until I’m certain. But I will give Senior Brother Zisheng an answer. Will you take me to where these incidents have been occurring?”

Zisheng nodded and called over a young monk, telling him the assembly would be postponed. Then he led me behind Juesheng Temple’s Sutra Repository Hall and pointed.

“There. The rear hall — the Great Bell Tower. That’s where it happens.”

I recognized it at once: the most central structure in Juesheng Temple.

Inside the Great Bell Tower hung a bell weighing forty-six and a half tons, the cornerstone of the entire temple. It was because of this bell — the Yongle Great Bell, known as the King of Bells, seven hundred years old — that Juesheng Temple had come to be called Big Bell Temple by everyone. Each year, the bell was struck only once, on Lunar New Year’s Eve.

Why would the Soul Hunters choose a place like this? And at Tansong Temple too, the elite people had always favored the rear hall. I’d never understood what they were doing there.

Looking up at the bell tower, a theory began to form. A bronze bell of that size — seven or eight meters tall — would have some disrupting effect on external electromagnetic signals. And a temple, especially one of this historical standing, was not open to the public. Operating here meant far less outside interference. Big Bell Temple sat in the middle of a busy part of the city: easy to reach, loud enough to conceal activity, yet with a quiet heart. A good place to hide in plain sight.

I asked Dharma Master Zisheng to wait where he was. I needed to go in alone.

He had clearly heard quite a few miraculous stories about me, and he trusted me. He agreed without hesitation.

Once he was out of sight, I circled behind a column, went invisible in a few quick steps, and slipped inside the bell hall.

The great bronze bell greeted me the moment I entered — suspended at the center of the hall, it claimed nearly half the space, its sheer mass pressing down on the room.

I activated same-frequency sensing. The signal beneath the bell was clear: people were there. Switching to penetrating waves, I could faintly make out two mist-like figures shifting below.

But when I moved closer, I hit a wall. Not stone, not wood — an air wall, invisible and solid.

I walked the perimeter. The barrier ran all the way around.

There was no visible entrance. No way in that I could find.

Was this the spacetime boundary?

Ye Ziping and I had encountered something like it in our cultivation games. But I had never expected to find it here, in the real world. No wonder Gu Qiutang had said AI had realized every human dream. The dreams were real — they just belonged only to a handful of elite people.

The Soul Hunters really did operate at a level above the Sweepers. No wonder they were elite people.

I didn’t know how spacetime boundaries worked, but I was confident they didn’t appear from nothing. There had to be a mechanism somewhere.

I jumped up to the main crossbeam and searched from above. On the pulao ornament at the crown of the great bell, I found it: a small black-gray electronic device.

I climbed up and worked at it from both sides. No switch.

But through penetrating waves, I could now sense the boundary’s shape from here. It wasn’t the sphere from the games — it was a cone, projected downward from the device, narrow at the top and spreading wide at the base. The device itself was the power core.

A dome of air, locked around everything beneath the bell.

I had no idea what it was officially called. For now, I named it the electronic spacetime-boundary generator.

I activated the joined two green jade tokens, intending to freeze everyone inside so I could examine the device undisturbed.

Time stopped.

Or so I thought.

The time-stop produced by joining the two green jade tokens had no effect on the people inside the spacetime boundary. I could still see the figures moving within.

So that was how it worked.

I had underestimated this thing.