72: Evelyn's "confession" and the power struggle between father and daughter

Inside the private suite on the top floor of the Prophet Foundation headquarters, a space that occupied the entire floor like an aerial palace, the air was as cold as a polar ice core.

Evelyn Li stood alone before the massive curved floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the dazzling, vibrant, and prosperous night cityscape of the Free Confederacy's core area, which seemed as if it were paved with countless star fragments.

Neon lights flickered, and aircraft shuttled silently between the skyscrapers like light shuttles, sketching a futuristic and vibrant picture.

However, this scene of extreme prosperity reflected only a cold, suffocating void in Evelyn's eyes.

She felt as if she were imprisoned in a transparent and indestructible glass cage; the bustling world outside the window was close at hand, yet it felt worlds away, completely isolated from her.

Luxurious silk carpets, priceless artworks, intelligently controlled constant temperature and humidity systems... all this extreme comfort and luxury could not dispel the cold, omnipresent sense of surveillance and the desperate loneliness that permeated the air.

Ever since her father, Morpheus Li, caught her attempting to send a warning message in the study that night, she had been silently placed under house arrest.

There were no reprimands, no trials, and not even an explicit ban, but the significantly strengthened, ghost-like security forces inside and outside the suite, as well as the complete interruption of all external communication channels, clearly indicated her situation—she had become a caged bird imprisoned by her own father in a gilded cage.

This silent, cold oppression was far more suffocating and terrifying to her than any furious reprimand.

She felt as if she could sense her father's deep, unfathomable eyes, which seemed capable of discerning everything, constantly staring at her every move through the omnipresent hidden sensors, dissecting every fluctuation in her heart.

Time passed slowly in silence, every minute and second feeling like waiting for the final judgment to arrive, tormenting her nerves that were already stretched to the limit.

One evening a few days later, the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the sky a bleak, vivid purple-red, casting long, twisted shadows into the room through the thick bulletproof glass.

The heavy, solid wood study door of the suite, made of top-tier soundproof materials, finally slid open silently again.

Morpheus Li walked in slowly.

He was still wearing a perfectly tailored custom suit, meticulous, with no obvious joy or anger on his face, calm as a bottomless pool of cold water.

In his hand, he held a thin paper report that felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.

He walked to the wide ebony desk and placed the report gently on the mirror-like surface, making an almost imperceptible sound.

"Evelyn," he spoke calmly, his voice steady without a ripple, yet carrying an invisible, heart-palpitating pressure, his gaze falling like a precise laser onto his daughter's pale face, "I need an explanation regarding the leak of this list."

Evelyn's heart sank sharply, as if she had instantly fallen into an ice cellar.

She forced herself to remain calm, stepped forward, and picked up the report.

The cold touch of the paper made her fingertips tremble slightly.

The report was exactly the copy of the "Prophet Foundation Asia-Pacific Deep-Net Node and Partial Deep Diver List" that she had risked everything to download from The Foundation's core database and pass to Wang Jianguo.

However, at this moment, on this copy, the coordinates of several key Nodes and the codenames of some deep divers were carefully circled in a glaring scarlet ink, with extremely neat yet cold and ruthless handwriting annotated next to them: "Node expired, signal interrupted," "Personnel lost, suspected counter-action," "Channel exposed, emergency burn procedure initiated"...

The cold words were like poisoned daggers, stabbing fiercely into her eyes, making her feel a sudden wave of dizziness and suffocating fear.

Her brain raced at an unprecedented speed, trying to find a glimmer of survival in the desperate situation, weaving a seemingly reasonable excuse that could pass...

"No need to waste effort making up any unbelievable reasons, Evelyn." Morpheus Li seemed to be able to see through her thoughts, directly interrupting her unvoiced defense, his tone still calm but revealing a trace of hard-to-conceal, deep disappointment—a disappointment that stung her more than anger, "I used the Chairman's highest audit authority to conduct a comprehensive source-tracing investigation. You did indeed act very carefully, almost perfectly clearing the access logs and operational traces in the main database and all regular backups, using very professional techniques, even overwriting physical storage sectors with forged junk data streams... However," he paused slightly, his gaze becoming sharper, as precise as a scalpel dissecting her defenses, "you overlooked, or rather, your resources and time at the time were insufficient for you to reach and clear—the read-only logs in the 'Black Box' mirror server, which is deeply hidden in the physically isolated emergency backup center three hundred meters underground. It recorded every bit of your access behavior, accurate to the millisecond level."

Evelyn's face turned paper-white instantly, devoid of any color, and her body swayed almost imperceptibly, forcing her to reach out and steady herself against the cold desk.

She had thought that by using the highest authority key left by her mother and all her anti-tracking techniques, she had done it flawlessly, a perfect ghost operation...

Unexpectedly, she still failed at the last hurdle, revealing a fatal flaw in front of her father's omnipresent, absolute power.

The immense sense of defeat and the fear of being completely seen through almost instantly shattered her psychological defenses.

"Why, Evelyn?" Morpheus Li's voice carried a trace of imperceptible, seemingly genuine heartache for the first time, and he took a small step forward, staring into his daughter's eyes, his gaze seeming to want to penetrate all her disguises and look directly into the deepest part of her soul, "Just for that boy? An outsider from the bottom who happened to touch some realms he shouldn't have? A test subject that can be replaced or even cleared at any time? You were even willing to use the last legacy your mother left you, betraying the family that gave birth to and raised you, betraying the great ideal of leading human civilization's 'ascension path' that The Foundation has fought for for decades? Where did your reason and your stance go?"

Her father's questioning hit Evelyn's heart like a heavy hammer, but this time, after the fear, a surge of intense, uncontrollable emotion mixed with anger, disappointment, and sorrow welled up in her heart.

She suddenly raised her head, her eyes filled with tears, yet flashing with an unprecedented, almost desperate firm light, her voice trembling slightly from excitement:

"Ideal? Father! What exactly are your 'ideal' and 'ascension path'?! Is it using 'pandora', those forbidden knowledge fragments from an unknown abyss that even we ourselves cannot fully understand or control, to lure, poison, and completely destroy an unsuspecting genius?! Is it using nano-level emotional pheromones and neural induction Resonance agents, those base and vicious means, disguised as comfort items, to ambush a patient who is already lying in a hospital bed, with a collapsed nervous system, having lost almost all ability to resist?! Is this the noble 'ascension path' our Li family has pursued for generations? When did The Foundation become so... unscrupulous, so... cold-blooded?! This is not leading, this is murder! It is plundering! It is the most despicable theft!"

She became more and more excited as she spoke, her voice unconsciously raising, as if she wanted to pour out all the fear, anger, and guilt accumulated in her heart: "I read the latest medical assessment report for Excellence! Father! I can understand those data! He almost died! His brainstem reflex disappeared! His hippocampus, prefrontal cortex... those core areas responsible for memory, thinking, and creativity, suffered near-destructive, possibly irreversible damage! He is like a broken doll now, unable to even take care of his basic life! Is this what you call 'necessary pain' and 'worthwhile choices'?! At the cost of completely dimming a young life that could have illuminated an era, to exchange for those cold, potentially disastrous data fragments?! Is this our 'ideal'?!"

Morpheus Li listened silently to his daughter's excited, even somewhat out-of-control accusation, and the mask of eternal calm on his face seemed to show a tiny, extremely subtle crack, a trace of an extremely complex, unreadable light flashing deep in his eyes.

He did not immediately refute, nor did he get angry, just standing there quietly, as if re-examining this daughter who was both familiar and strange to him.

After a long while, he spoke slowly, his voice recovering its usual calmness and depth, but seeming to lack a bit of the absolute coldness from before: "Evelyn, you are indeed still too young, too prone to... acting on emotion. You are blinded by appearances and personal feelings, unable to see the deeper structure and greater inevitability. The 'ascension path' has never been a smooth road filled with flowers; it inevitably comes with sacrifice, difficult, and even cruel choices. Excellence's value far exceeds what your current cognitive level can understand. The domain he touched and attempted to fuse with contains potential energy and rules that might even exceed the sum of all our Foundation's research projects over the decades. That might be... the key to the next level of civilization."

He slowly paced to the massive floor-to-ceiling window, with his back to Evelyn, looking at the prosperous empire outside that he had helped create and control, his voice becoming somewhat distant: "But... your foolish betrayal, and this... emotional accusation of yours, although the method was wrong and the cost heavy, acted like a mirror, forcing me to re-examine the efficiency and... side effects of some strategies."

Evelyn was stunned, looking at her father's back in disbelief, never expecting him to say such things.

Was he... admitting he was wrong in a roundabout way?

Morpheus Li turned around slowly, his gaze falling on Evelyn again, that gaze now containing a bit more scrutiny and... a new kind of calculation: "You were right about one thing, I might have... been too eager, too reliant on hard methods in dealing with the 'seed'. The power of 'pandora' seems to be more... overbearing and difficult to control than we estimated, and the subsequent forced infiltration and stimulation seem to have triggered unpredictable rejection reactions and countermeasures, leading to the current deadlock and... unnecessary losses." He glanced at the report on the table marked "expired".

"Your betrayal is certainly unforgivable, but it also made me realize that perhaps... we need to change our thinking, a softer, more sustainable way to handle the 'seed' issue." Morpheus walked toward Evelyn, stopped in front of her, his tone seeming to soften a bit, yet carrying a more unsettling, snake-like implication, "Since you are so 'concerned' about him, and believe so strongly in the power of warmth and trust... perhaps you can become a new, more effective bridge between us and Excellence."

Warning bells rang in Evelyn's heart, and she looked at her father vigilantly: "What... what do you mean?" She smelled the thick, irresistible scent of calculation in it.

"I will lift your current... movement restrictions, and restore some of your non-core internal permissions." Morpheus Li announced calmly, as if bestowing a great favor, "I need you to approach Excellence as a 'friend', a lost soul who has awakened due to guilt and sympathy, betrayed the family but longs to make amends. Try to gain his trust, deeply understand his true recovery, especially... those valuable 'fragments of inspiration' and thinking characteristics that might be revealed in his unconscious state."

His words were like cold silk threads, slowly weaving into an invisible net: "Use your way, Evelyn, the 'gentle' way you believe in. This is both an opportunity for you to make amends for the losses you caused The Foundation, and an important adjustment to The Foundation's overall strategy. After all," he paused meaningfully, a cold arc curling at the corner of his mouth, "if he can truly miraculously recover some functions, a grateful partner who trusts us and cooperates voluntarily has a long-term value far exceeding a hostile experiment subject that requires constant guarding and forced information extraction, doesn't it? This is more in line with The Foundation's long-term interests."

Listening to her father's words, Evelyn's heart was filled with immense conflict, suspicion, and cold chills.

Her father's words sounded logically tight, even carrying a kind of rational compromise and "progress", but she knew him too well.

This was definitely not a father's understanding and tolerance for his daughter; it was more like a strategist making a cold and precise strategic shift based on the latest intelligence and loss assessment.

He saw the failure and cost of hard methods, and now, he wanted to use her residual "emotional factors" that might work on Excellence as a more exquisite, more hidden tool to achieve goals that "hard methods" could not realize.

This was not forgiveness at all, but a higher-level utilization and manipulation. This was a trap, a more dangerous poisoned bait wrapped in sugar.

But she knew she had no choice. She knew very well what refusal meant.

This might be the only, and last, "way out" her father was giving her, and it was her only opportunity to continue to get close to Excellence, and perhaps do something in the dark to truly protect him from further harm.

Although this opportunity was full of risks of being used and losing control, she had no other choice.

An immense psychological struggle played out intensely in her heart, and in the end, her worry about Excellence's situation and a faint, extremely weak hope that she might be able to change something, overcame all fears and doubts.

She slowly lowered her head, her long eyelashes covering the complex emotions in her eyes, and replied in a nearly submissive, low voice: "I... understand, Father. I will... I will try to do as you ask."

A extremely subtle, indescribable smile appeared on Morpheus Li's face, a smile without temperature, containing only a cold satisfaction that everything was under control. "Very good. Remember, Evelyn," he turned and walked toward the door, his voice calm but carrying a final warning, "the future of the family and The Foundation is always the highest and only principle. Do not disappoint me again."

The study door closed silently behind him, leaving Evelyn alone again in the dead silent, luxurious, and cold space.

She slumped powerlessly in the chair, feeling as if all her strength had been drained, her heart filled with mixed feelings, a deep-seated exhaustion, and a... tremendous fear of walking on an even thinner and more dangerous tightrope.

She did not know if this forced, humiliating compromise was right or wrong, and did not know if a bigger trap or a faint dawn awaited her ahead.

But she knew that from the moment she nodded, she had stepped onto a path of no return, even more fraught with crises.

She would simultaneously play multiple roles—Traitor, pawn, and perhaps... a desperate protector—dancing a more complex and dangerous dance under her father's cold gaze.