Chapter 223

November 20xx.

This winter came particularly early, and the temperature dropped below zero without warning, which caught everyone off guard.

What swept across the country with the cold winter was the sudden exposure of political scandals - they quickly spread across the Internet at a viral speed. All those in power who tried to put pressure on the scandal would see their names carrying countless dark powers the next day. Money transactions made headlines on the front page.

"The new energy program laboratory has exploded inside information again, and the military is suspected of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction."

"The large-scale surveillance program was exposed, and the public's online privacy rights were gone."

"5,031 top-secret documents are leaked, and the whereabouts of hundreds of billions of funds flowing are unknown?"

"The missing population has been reported in the past decade, and the government's hidden department is suspected of being responsible for this."

...

All the media were ready to go, exhausted, search engines and related websites collapsed several times, and the relevant crisis departments were almost crushed, and the speed of clarification copy release could not even catch up with the new round of bombing of revelations - those leaked inside stories were so dense, secret, and terrifying that this invisible political earthquake quickly attacked the entire country with the sharp drop in temperature.

No one knows who is behind the scenes.

Each anonymous file finally hides a simple and abstract icon, looking like a smiling teddy bear.

Until a relevant practitioner recognized a line of familiar, almost iconic code in this icon—explosive news occupied almost all media front page headlines:

"The famous international terrorist, hacker one, returned to the world after eleven years of disappearance??"

"Who is the mysterious person behind a series of military and political scandals? The mysterious hacker is said to be responsible for this?"

In an instant, all the true or false speculations, exaggerated or mysterious, filled all social media. All the legends that have long been forgotten deep in the Internet were dug out again, causing an uproar internationally.

Jiang Yuanbai lowered his eyes and his fingers slowly slid on the screen, and countless sensational news titles flowed by under his fingertips.

The driver's respectful voice came from the front: "Sir, you are here."

He raised his head and put his phone back in his pocket. The vehicle under him slowly and steadily entered the lane. The person who had already been waiting outside hurriedly ran up and opened the door.

Jiang Yuanbai bent down and stepped out of the car door. The person beside him quickly stretched out the umbrella and blocked the tiny snowflakes slowly falling in the air.

He waved his hand and his voice was soft: "No need."

The umbrella was removed.

Jiang Yuanbai looked up and stared at the dark and dark iron gray sky. The tiny slag of ice fell on the tip of his nose, and instantly melted by his warm skin, leaving only a little cold water stain. He raised his hand and stood up the collar of his windbreaker to resist the more violent cold wind, and then accelerated his pace and walked forward.

The cold wind wrapped in snowflakes swept silently, and the world was deserted and lonely.

He stood at the door, raised his hand and rang the doorbell without any hope.

But to his surprise, he was given little time to wait, and the door slowly opened, as if the people inside had already expected him to come.

Jiang Yuanbai quickly calmed down the emotions on his face, and then walked into the house with a cold air.

The warm and dry air inside melted a thin layer of snowflakes from Jiang Yuanbai's coat. When he arrived in the laboratory thousands of meters below the ground while sitting in the elevator that was almost endless, only shallow wet water stains remained on the beige coat, and disappeared without a trace with a light dusting off his palm.

He walked deeper along the long corridor, and the hard soles of the shoes knocked on the ground with a clear and uniform sound, and he reached out to push the door at the end.

The pale light shone down from the top of the head, illuminating the entire spacious and cold metal hall. Unknown machines and instruments were buzzing, and the dark surface was flashing with small lights of different colors. There was a self-contained ecological environment in the main hall of the laboratory, which made Jiang Yuanbai subconsciously lighten his pace.

The change here was too great than when he first came here a few months ago. He could only follow the route he remembered and slowly walked towards the depths of the laboratory. Finally, in front of the huge screen that almost covered the entire wall, Jiang Yuanbai found the figure he had been searching for.

Thin, tall, straight back, and even through the thick sweater, you can still see the sharp curve of the protrusion of the shoulder blades.

It seemed that he could hear his footsteps. The man not far away turned around and heard the sound. The dark eyes behind the thin lenses were still sharp. His gaze casually swept around Jiang Yuanbai's body, and then looked at the huge screen in front of him again. The sound was faint, and he could not hear any emotional fluctuations:

“It’s snowing outside?”

"Yes." Jiang Yuanbai subconsciously patted the dry clothes on his shoulder, then reached out and pulled a chair next to him to sit down, and his eyes fell on Mo Yi's back - this was the first time he had seen Mo Yi's face in several months. He was much thinner than Jiang Yuanbai's memory, which made the lines and outlines on his face look quite aggressive, and almost made him lose the courage to ask.

He coughed softly in a concealed manner, and then asked with a pretentious ease:

“…How long has it been since you went out?”

The sound of typing on the keyboard did not stop, and the other party replied without hesitation: "It's not long."

——After I came last time, Mo Yi never went out again.

They all know this very well.

Jiang Yuanbai opened his mouth and finally swallowed the words that were about to be rushed out, and only squeezed out a faint sigh.

He turned his eyes away and changed the subject more clearly: "Speaking of it, you have been upsetting the outside world recently."

Mo Yi did not stop typing on the keyboard, and replied absent-mindedly: "Isn't this good? Justice has been fulfilled, isn't it?"

Jiang Yuanbai frowned a little uneasy and said, "But the matter is so big now that they will definitely do everything they can to find you, even digging three feet into the ground."

Mo Yi did not turn his head, but just sneered softly, with extreme arrogance and absolute confidence in his own strength:

"Then they must dare to do it."

Jiang Yuanbai was silent.

It seems that Mo Yi’s recent actions are probably more in-depth and secret than what he sees on the Internet now, or even as he imagines,... or even extreme.

The room was in a dead silence for a moment, and only the keyboard typing echoed in the empty underground space.

In fact, four months ago, Jiang Yuanbai realized something was wrong without long. First, the piece of paper that notified the start of the game next time disappeared, followed by a specific image of his face being taken by the camera. Finally, what made him sure that he guessed was that he was supposed to enter the copy, but he was still in the real world.

Mixed with incredible shock, ecstasy, and panic attacked Jiang Yuanbai. In a state of chaos, the only clear thought in his mind was:

...He did it.

...Mo Yi, did it.

Perhaps it was in his subconscious that Mo Yi was the only existence that could destroy this terrifying behemoth, or who else was there except him?

So Jiang Yuanbai ran to Mo Yi's villa as fast as possible, opened the door with his spare key, and then searched for the other person's figure in the room frantically, but found nothing - there was still trace of life in the house, but he disappeared. Just as Jiang Yuanbai fell to the chair in the study room at a loss, his brain was uncontrollably fantasizing about Mo Yi's possible whereabouts or... When he encountered it, the flat wall in front of him suddenly separated.

Then, under Jiang Yuanbai's stunned gaze, the iron door behind the wall slowly opened, and the pale-faced Mo Yi walked out. He looked embarrassed, with thick bandages wrapped around his hands, and his face covered with semi-solidified dark blood stains. He didn't seem surprised that Jiang Yuanbai was here, but nodded at him calmly, then turned his head to the side and asked, "Are you going to come in?"

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Yuanbai took the elevator to the underground thousands of meters deep under a state of crashing his brain and visited the magnificent and huge fortifications. Then, after Mo Yi briefly explained the situation of the incident, Jiang Yuanbai, who had not yet fully reacted, was politely invited to leave the villa.

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Yuanbai never met Mo Yi again in the next few months. Every time he came, he ended up being turned away.

It was also during this period that countless high-end and sophisticated equipment, from Jiang's subsidiary companies and several overseas top high-tech companies, were continuously transported into the villa through newly built channels - but Jiang Yuanbai knew that this was only part of what Mo Yi was willing to discover. Where he could not see, Mo Yi was probably doing more. The revenue of related business projects of his company increased by nearly 10%. In the absence of excessive changes in the international situation, such a large amount of money flow may not be related to the mysterious hacker who was nesting in his basement.

Mo Yi finally stopped what he was doing, and the room fell into a suffocating silence, leaving only the buzzing sound of the ventilation fan filling the huge space like white noise.

He turned the chair to face Jiang Yuanbai, crossed his fingers on his knees, stared at him leisurely, and asked:

"I know you have a lot of questions you want to ask, and this time I will try to answer you within my ability."

Mo Yi's words were so straightforward that Jiang Yuanbai was a little at a loss. He still remembers the at a loss after Mo Yi finished explaining it - the kind of feeling as if the world had become strange, and there was only an incredible voice in his mind silently asking over and over again: Impossible, right? Are you kidding? What viruses, what time and space jumps? What artificial intelligence is leaving control and feeding on humans... This strange sense of dislocation brought by things that seem to appear in science fiction novels or movies makes it difficult for Jiang Yuanbai to accept Mo Yi's almost fantasy explanation.

Or... somewhere in his heart, he was still surrounded by unanswered questions.

Why is there such a huge underground laboratory underground in the villa under Jiang Yuanrou's name? What does it have to do with the game body? Before entering the dungeon for the last time, Jiang Yuanrou must remind him to bring Mo Yi here. Is it because of this? And... what does this have to do with Jiang Yuanrou's death?

A nearly panic-like mood fermented in his heart, but before he could vent his full doubts and even resentment to Mo Yi, he was ruthlessly invited to go out.

Although he often came here next, hoping to see Mo Yi again, he was rejected mercilessly every time.

Even so, Jiang Yuanbai still had a glimmer of hope in his heart - he hoped that Mo Yi would only tell a kind lie, and hoped that the truth would go against his worst imagination and guess.

It was not until three months later that news like a tsunami like a landslide swept across the Internet. The hypocritical mask was torn down, revealing the facts and truths hidden from layers. The human face that was covered by filth and darkness and became ferocious under the trend of ambition and greed. Jiang Yuanbai had to face up to this possibility - what Mo Yi told him at the beginning might be... facts.

So today, Mo Yi was finally willing to meet him.

He finally appeared in front of himself, instead of the images presented through the cold screen, his voice was clear and real, rather than the distortion and blur of the intercom passing through the door.

——But Jiang Yuanbai didn’t know what to ask at this moment.

Before he knew it, the dead silence in the room had been maintained for a long time. Mo Yi waited for a long time. Jiang Yuanbai took a deep breath, then turned his gaze as if he was escaping and asked softly:

"So, is your previous explanation true?"

Mo Yi nodded slowly.

"Then my sister... Jiang Yuanrou, it was because she discovered these that she was pulled into the dungeon in advance by the game?"

Mo Yi's voice was calm and calm: "I don't know the specific situation, because the information she left behind has been tampered with, but... you must know that in your sister's position, you will definitely understand many secrets that outsiders are not aware of, such as the top-secret plan that has been stopped, so she may have had some vague guesses, but she was inspired by some opportunities at that time."

Jiang Yuanbai's voice was slightly tight, and he continued to ask calmly: "Then..."

He suddenly couldn't say anything, as if something had instantly expanded, and it had blocked his throat, forcing him to swallow the sound of blurting out. Jiang Yuanbai took a deep breath, and the stuffy and sore feeling in his chest stinged sharply, making him feel a little difficult to breathe for a while.

Jiang Yuanbai didn't realize that this was the first time he had really talked about Jiang Yuanrou after he noticed that she had left.

At this moment, Mo Yi stood up from the chair, walked slowly to Jiang Yuanbai's side, and slowly pressed his palm against his shoulder.

The palm of his palm was unexpectedly warm, almost penetrated the thick coat, burning Jiang Yuanbai's shoulders.

Immediately afterwards, a little undetectable weight suddenly appeared on his knees. He lowered his head in confusion, and saw an old-fashioned black video tape lying quietly in front of his tightly clenched palms. The old metal surface was covered with light-colored scratches, which looked quite old.

"This is what she left behind, I think...she will hope you can see it."

The other party's voice was gentle and gentle, as if it had penetrated the layers of armor that Jiang Yuanbai was wearing in an instant, cutting a huge wound, and dark pus and blood flowed outwards.

Jiang Yuanbai slowly released his tightly clenched fist, his pale and cold fingers trembled slightly, and he gently pinched the video tape.

The cold and rough surface felt as if it had triggered a switch hidden in his body. His straight back seemed to collapse in an instant, as if something had finally broken the dam. He curled up slowly in pain and trembling, put his forehead on his knees, took a hoarse breath, and then collapsed and cried out in despair.

Two hours later, Mo Yi sent Jiang Yuanbai out of the laboratory in person. He opened the door, and the cold air rolled into the room with snowflakes, blowing the wide sweater he was wearing.
To be continued...