Chapter 56: The Theft Succeeds

Chapter 56: The Theft Succeeds

Around nine in the morning, Du Xiaoran’s pigeon landed on the roof.

He carried himself with the same easy confidence as before. When he saw that I had also come in pigeon form, he said, “Why are you in a pigeon body? How are you supposed to operate my equipment? Is your technician not here yet?”

“You came in a pigeon body too,” I pointed out. “Why didn’t you bring the equipment yourself?”

“I keep my word,” Du Xiaoran said. “When I say I’ll do something, it’s done. I placed the equipment here in advance — you just haven’t found it yet. And just now I slipped over to the wall outside the secure records room and set two sensors next to its network cables. That way we can use them to pull in more of the electromagnetic signals leaking out. Call your person up. We can run the operation from the roof right now.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll bring him up. You walk him through the device on site.”

I brought the bionic human up to the roof. The parasitic pigeon took the opportunity to slip away and return to the base.

The bionic human was still me — only wearing a different face.

The moment the bionic human appeared, Du Xiaoran startled. He clearly recognized the body. This particular bionic human had been produced by the Shadow Pavilion and carried a legal identity.

“Don’t be alarmed,” I said. “This body has already gone through a full system replacement. The soul inside is still me. I’m the owner of the pigeon you made the appointment with.”

Du Xiaoran hesitated. The bionic human was plainly making him uneasy.

“You’re an elite person,” I said. “How can you not sense it? Fine — only the two of us know about Yellow Hair Zhang Yu. Test me if you want.”

Hearing Zhang Yu’s name seemed to settle him. “Then tell me — what’s Zhang Yu’s younger sister’s name?”

“Her name is Zhang Li. She was thirteen when I met her. I treated her illness — she had tuberculosis, and I was the one who paid for her treatment. And yesterday you were boasting that following you meant I’d have meat to eat. The device you gave Zhang Yu was called an information intelligence processor. You said you gave it to him because he once saved your life.”

“All right, all right,” Du Xiaoran said. “I believe you. But the person I asked you to find was someone with exceptional electromagnetic sensing ability. Why did you come yourself?”

I laughed. “Because I am that person. I’ve also replicated a transmission-and-reception processing structure for electromagnetic waves. Stack the two together and I’m probably your best option. On top of that, I’ve already used that first-generation information intelligence processor you built, back when I was working with Zhang Yu.”

“If that’s true,” Du Xiaoran said, “this might actually work. Come with me.”

He flew to a water tank on the roof, pointed inside with his beak, and said, “Equipment’s in there. Help yourself.”

I reached into the side of the tank and pulled out a device — slightly larger than the one I had used with Zhang Yu, and with the two earphones replaced by electrode earbuds.

I carried it to a corner of the roof, sat beneath the parapet wall, fitted the electrode earbuds in place, and began calibrating the device.

Du Xiaoran stood beside me and connected the earbud electrodes to a recording key on the device, then talked me through which buttons to press and how to parse and break down the information stream.

The signals were immediate — a dense tangle of chaotic electromagnetic noise.

Following Du Xiaoran’s instructions, I began using my consciousness to tease apart those jumbled signal threads one by one, extending, analyzing, differentiating. Gradually, a complete information directory concerning the quantum materials took shape in my mind.

As the directory spread open, I pressed deeper, layer by layer. It was like the last time Zhang Yu had led me into the heart of the Sweepers’ supercomputing core — I seemed to step into a hidden world. Below the directory, the space was…