67: Evelyn's Struggle and the "Dangerous Game"

On the top floor of the Prophet Foundation headquarters, Evelyn Li felt as if she were walking barefoot on a wire suspended over a bottomless abyss. The wire was as thin as a hair and bone-chillingly cold; every slight tremor was enough to send her into eternal damnation. Beneath her feet was an endless darkness formed by Morpheus Li's deep eyes, which seemed to perceive everything yet held no warmth.

The "Gardener" Project initiated by her father was like a precise and heartless machine, operating systematically at full speed. Every day, even every hour, she would receive detailed reports through an encrypted internal channel from the "Gardeners" lurking by Excellence's side, disguised as medical and cleaning staff. These reports, in The Foundation's standard cold data format, recorded every minute change in Excellence's recovery (or rather, "existence") status in exhaustive detail: how many more milliliters of a specific formula nutritional supplement he drank today; a slight, almost imperceptible frown in response to the hum of a recovery device at a certain frequency; or how, during fine motor skill training for his hands, he unconsciously and repeatedly scribbled a twisted, strange pattern on paper that faintly contained non-Euclidean geometric features, flagged by algorithms as "resembling some undeciphered ancient energy rune"...

This cold, objective, and emotionless stream of data was like the cruelest of torture instruments, tormenting Evelyn's heart and conscience day and night. On one hand, she felt a pathetic, flicker-of-a-candle-like relief that Excellence was still alive and even showing extremely faint signs of recovery, albeit at a despairingly slow pace. On the other hand, she felt immense anger and a bone-deep revulsion toward her father's pervasive monitoring, which treated a living human being like an observable, measurable, and controllable experimental subject. In particular, the cold assessment submitted by the chief medical expert among the "Gardeners" regarding Excellence's nervous system suffering "irreversible structural damage" and severe degradation of high-level cognitive functions—nearly returning to a child-like state—was like a rusty, blunt knife cutting and grinding away at her already overburdened conscience.

The "pledge of loyalty" she had risked sending seemed to have worked for the time being. There had been no further active contact from Wang Jianguo's side, and that deep-water zone remained unsettlingly quiet. However, the sudden tension within The Foundation, the silent yet incredibly fierce investigations by the Information Security Department, and the occasional casual yet meaningful, soul-piercing gazes from her father during dinner or in the hallways all made her feel as if she were sitting on a bed of nails, every nerve strained to the limit. She knew she was dancing in a minefield; every step could trigger a devastating explosion. She had embarked on a dangerous path with no turning back and no end in sight.

Late one night, shielded from all external light by heavy radiation-proof curtains, most areas of The Foundation building had fallen into a sleep-like silence, with only the low hum of server clusters serving as an eternal background noise. Like a ghost, Evelyn once again activated the secure terminal in her private room, which was highly physically isolated and software-disguised. Holding her breath, she cautiously accessed the only fragile and dangerous encrypted ghost channel between her and Wang Jianguo. She desperately needed to know how Excellence's true situation was on Wang Jianguo's end. Was he truly fulfilling his promise to protect Excellence? Or did he also merely view Excellence as a highly valuable "tool" or "asset" that needed careful maintenance? This unverifiable uncertainty was nearly driving her insane.

After an exhausting effort of probing and cracking, akin to decoding on a knife's edge, she successfully intercepted a fragment of exchange data from what appeared to be an internal medical team of the National Special Bureau conducting a remote expert consultation. The data had been packetized, bounced, and encrypted multiple times at a very high level. Even with noise reduction, the extreme gravity and a trace of imperceptible helplessness in the doctors' voices were still audible. They were discussing "unprecedented bioelectric signal disorders" encountered during Excellence's neural remodeling process, "synaptic regeneration efficiency far below expectations," "potential permanent disconnection of functional links between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex," and the "need to develop an extremely long-term, or even lifelong, cognitive support and life care plan"...

These professional, calm, yet utterly cruel terms were like ice picks at a hundred degrees below zero, instantly piercing Evelyn's heart and making the blood in her body feel frozen at that moment, her fingertips cold and numb. Excellence... he might really... never recover into that clear-eyed, quick-thinking genius boy who could create miracles in the laboratory? Was it because of that damned pandora fragment from the abyss that her father had deployed? Was it because of her initial "gift" that she thought would help him, but which had indirectly pushed him into hell?

A massive, almost tangible sense of guilt and an overwhelming wave of sorrow instantly submerged her completely. She slumped weakly into her cold ergonomic chair, curling her body up and covering her mouth tightly with both hands to prevent any sound that might be monitored from escaping. Only hot tears flowed silently and turbulently across her pale cheeks, dripping onto the cold metal tabletop. In the darkness, she seemed to hear the sound of her own soul shattering.

Just as this extreme despair and self-reproach were about to consume her—an extremely secretive monitoring sub-program she had planted in the core of The Foundation's internal Network Security Department at a great cost, using a long-forgotten backdoor program left by her mother, suddenly emitted an extremely faint yet needle-sharp alarm pulse!

An encrypted instruction marked as "Highest Emergency, Absolute Priority, Shadow Protocol" slid silently through the deepest dark web channel within The Foundation, which was theoretically impossible to monitor, like a pitch-black venomous snake! The sender's code was heavily disguised, but its authorization level and encryption characteristics pointed to a name she absolutely did not want to see—the "Scavenger" group, the most mysterious and cold-blooded unit within The Foundation that reported directly to her father, Morpheus Li, and specialized in "highest priority dirty work"!

The content of the instruction instantly froze the blood in her entire body, and even her heart nearly stopped! The instruction required: Target, a low-level member of the outer security team at the Recovery Base where Excellence was located (responsible for the logistics channel security check rotation). Requirement: Within 36 hours, on their commute route after work, stage a "completely accidental" traffic accident seemingly caused by drunk driving, resulting in serious injury (at least a moderate coma, unable to perform duties in the short term), but ensuring stable vital signs to avoid an escalation of the investigation. Operation Code: "Gardener's Scissors". Purpose: To create a temporary vacancy in that position so that a disguise and infiltration expert secretly controlled by The Foundation (code-named "Stand-in") could quickly take their place, thereby getting closer to the core area of the Recovery Base to execute subsequent deep penetration and intelligence gathering tasks, and if necessary, employ "unconventional means" to ensure the "controllability" of the target (Excellence)!

Evelyn's mind instantly exploded! Her father... he wasn't satisfied with just remote, indirect monitoring! He had actually started using the "Scavenger" team! Those cold-blooded ghosts who would stop at nothing to achieve their goals! He wanted to wedge a nail directly into Excellence's personal security circle! What did this mean? Did it mean that through those seemingly mundane reports from the "Gardeners," he had noticed some extremely subtle, discordant signs that made him suspicious? Did it mean he had lost patience and decided to take more direct, aggressive, and dangerous measures to control the situation? Once his people successfully moved close enough to Excellence, the consequences would be unthinkable! Poisoning? Hypnosis? Directly stealing cranial nerve activity data? Or even... in accordance with that cold phrase in the instruction, "ensure controllability," performing a silent "clearance"?!

Fear, like a cold giant hand, tightly gripped her heart! She couldn't wait any longer! Not for a single second! She had to warn Wang Jianguo immediately! Otherwise, it would be too late for everything!

Evelyn's heart hammered frantically and uncontrollably in her chest, nearly breaking her ribs! Adrenaline surged sharply, but instead of strength, it brought an uncontrollable trembling to her fingertips. With the utmost speed, she forced herself to calm down, calling upon all her willpower to suppress the trembling of her body. On the encrypted terminal, she typed an extremely brief warning message at a dizzying speed, devoid of any redundant information but containing the highest priority alarm codes: "'Scavenger' dispatched! Target: Security infiltration! Code: 'Gardener's Scissors'! 36-hour window! Highest danger!"

She packaged the information using the highest-level encryption algorithm she could mobilize, a fusion of asymmetric quantum keys and one-time pad technology. The mouse cursor trembled yet moved with absolute determination toward the only send button, which represented immense risk but was also perhaps the only way out. Her finger hovered, and cold beads of sweat slid down from her temple.

However, just a thousandth of a second before her fingertip could press that fate-deciding button with the force of a thousand pounds—

The heavy solid wood door of the study, made of top-tier soundproof and explosion-proof materials, slid inward without any warning or sound. There was no knock, no sound of footsteps, not even the slightest prior change in airflow.

Morpheus Li stood quietly at the door, wearing a silk dark robe and elegantly holding a glass of unfinished deep-red wine that looked like congealed blood. There was no expression on his face, and his eyes were as calm as an ancient well that had seen no ripples for ten thousand years, so deep they seemed capable of swallowing all light and sound. No trace of emotion could be seen—neither surprise nor anger, only a kind of... all-perceiving, suffocating calm. He just stood there quietly, like a phantom, looking at her—looking at her in the middle of the night, alone, sitting before a terminal screen flickering with the light of encrypted communications, her finger hovering over that dangerous send button that could detonate everything.

Time seemed frozen at absolute zero at this moment.

Evelyn's breathing stopped abruptly, and the blood in her entire body seemed to flow backward instantly, rushing to her cold and stiff head. Her mind went blank, leaving only the most primitive fear, like being stared at by a natural predator. She had been discovered! At the most fatal and critical moment! She could even hear the thumping of her heart crashing in her chest like a death struggle, sounding exceptionally deafening in this deathly silent space.

The gazes of father and daughter met in the cold, frozen air. Silence crashed down like the pressure of a billion-ton deep sea, filled with a silent yet soul-crushing fatal tension.

After a silence of several seconds that felt as long and agonizing as several centuries...

Morpheus Li finally spoke slowly, his voice terrifyingly steady, without a hint of a ripple, yet carrying a blood-freezing, all-perceiving coldness:

"Evelyn, my daughter, it's so late..." His gaze swept over her pale face and her slightly trembling fingertip hovering over the send button, his tone as soft as a devil's The Whisper, "...are you still working so hard on 'official business' for The Foundation?"