Chapter 77: The Half-Skull Passed from Hand to Hand

Chapter 77: The Half-Skull Passed from Hand to Hand

When Du Xiaoran heard me admit that I had an innate sensing response to the Myriad-Dimensional Brain, his worry visibly melted into something like joy. That meant my existence mattered to him—mattered a good deal. Exactly how much, only he knew, and he clearly wasn’t about to say.

I didn’t see how I could help him get the thing back. Pu Liuqian had already taken it—that much was plain. If we wanted it, we’d have to go ask her for it, steal it, or take it by force.

Was any of that even possible?

That was why I was a little baffled.

Seeing that I hadn’t caught up to his good mood, Du Xiaoran didn’t bother explaining. Instead he said, “Want to go back to that base with me? Take another look?”

“So you admit it was your base?”

“Admit it? Not even if you beat me. Admit it, and Pu Liuqian will skin me alive.”

“Then why go back? There’s nothing left in there. The patrol team won’t have left anything worth taking. Besides, I heard Pu Liuqian order them to keep watch on the place—anyone caught there gets hauled in for questioning.”

“You, in your current state, worried about getting caught? This body of mine cost a lot more than yours, and even I don’t mind risking it. What have you got to lose?”

“Fine, if you put it that way, I’m not scared either. Let’s go.”

I flapped off toward the raided base, Du Xiaoran close behind. The moment we’d both burrowed into that pile of junk, he pecked me sharply from behind.

“This way.”

I turned and followed him straight into the sewer beneath the debris.

A pigeon, squeezing through a sewer—feathers and all? Not exactly a smooth fit. But Du Xiaoran moved through it with obvious familiarity, and as it turned out, there was a narrow path inside, sized just right for a pigeon body. Clearly, this was the real way in and out of the base.

Then what was that other pipe route for?

That night, the two scout pigeons had slipped in with practiced ease—not their first time, certainly. They must have found that passage only after watching and tracking Du Xiaoran. Otherwise, who would ever guess the entrance was a pile of junk?

But once inside, that other pipe had been obvious—visible the moment you got inside. Had Du Xiaoran left it there on purpose?

If the route he was leading me down now was the true one, that other pipe had to be a maze route.

But that decoy had led straight to the Myriad-Dimensional Brain’s storage room. Wasn’t that just handing the thing to Pu Liuqian on a plate?

None of it added up.

I followed close behind Du Xiaoran, walking the narrow path inside the sewer for a long stretch. Who would have thought a sewer could hide a path like this—built, it seemed, for pigeons exactly our size.

After many twists and turns, we came at last to a fully sealed room, small, and clearly treated against detection.

Only then did Du Xiaoran fly up onto a piece of equipment and tap it awake.

A panoramic map bloomed across the wall behind it, a single bright point glowing somewhere on its surface.

I moved closer to study it. It looked like a full map of the Elite World—Hua City and Ouluo City both marked, along with mountains, rivers, and seas. I’d never visited the other cities shown, but I could still make out their locations.

What did that bright point mean?

Du Xiaoran came over and gestured at it. “That point marks where the Myriad-Dimensional Brain is right now. I’ve watched it for two days. It hasn’t moved once, which means it’s already been put into storage there—in Yaxi City.”

I asked him to zoom in; the detail was too fine to make out.

He adjusted the view, closer, then closer still, until I could see the building itself, and even the exact floor.

“Where is this?”

“That is where the core supercomputer terminal is located. The Shadow Pavilion Building.”

“The core supercomputer terminal? Then where is the supercomputer’s main body?”

“The core supercomputer’s main body is three thousand meters underwater on the seabed. No…