80: Clues of the organization

Lu Jianchuan was about to put away his phone when the screen lit up again; it was a message from Lin Wan. His fingertips paused, and he tapped into it.

It contained several photos of watercolor paintings. They depicted the breakfast stalls at the corner of the old street, with sunlight filtering through the sycamore leaves to cast dappled spots of light, and the patch of wild grass by the riverbank, rendered with a sense of tranquility through her warm color palette.

The brushstrokes still carried the awkwardness of a beginner, but the colors were clean and bright, showing the artist's heart.

Looking at these scenes of ordinary daily life, Lu Jianchuan felt his nerves, which had been tense all day, gently soothed by this touch of bright color. He typed a reply.

Lu Jianchuan: The paintings look very beautiful.

The reply came almost instantly. Lin Wan: Really? Thank you, Officer Lu! [Happy Twirl.jpg] I'll keep working hard! I won't disturb your work anymore!

One could almost feel that simple joy through the screen. Lu Jianchuan put down his phone; the afternoon sun in the office was just right, making the fine dust in the air clearly visible.

The rest of the afternoon passed without incident, time slipping by steadily through reviewing documents and occasional conversation.

As night fell and the city lights began to glow, Lu Jianchuan returned to his quiet rental apartment and changed out of his police uniform, which still carried the outdoor chill.

He didn't reach for his personal phone on the table first. Instead, as was his habit, he walked to the bedside table, pulled open the drawer, and unerringly felt among the various items for that cold, rectangular black communicator.

The moment he gripped it in his palm, the device vibrated imperceptibly. The dark screen lit up silently, revealing a line of text that seemed frozen from ice crystals:

"Three days from now at 23:00, the abandoned 'Kangan Pharmaceutical Factory' in the west of the city. Suspected Prometheus transaction activity. Requesting assistance. No reply needed."

The text hovered on the screen for five seconds, precise as a programmed sequence, before vanishing completely. The screen returned to a dead silence, leaving no trace behind.

Lu Jianchuan gently placed the communicator back in its place. West of the city, Kangan Pharmaceutical Factory... He quickly located the place in his mind; it was a corner long forgotten by urban development.

"Prometheus"... The name surfaced again, bringing with it visions of the pale laboratory lights and Wu Meng's twisted sarcomas.

He had only just learned of their madness regarding live experiments, and now, official channels had sent word of their next move.

He walked to the window, the night enveloping him. In the distance, the city's neon lights outlined the skyline, a picture of prosperity and peace. But to the west, where his gaze was fixed, in that industrial zone submerged in darkness, an undercurrent of evil was converging.

Three days. He needed to ensure both himself and the armor were in peak condition.

Over the next three days, Lu Jianchuan's life fell into a peculiar rhythm—a deliberately maintained calm before the storm.

His training became more targeted. He no longer merely pursued the limits of endurance and strength; instead, at the old spot by the riverbank, he repeatedly practiced instantaneous bursts, rapid turns, and fast movement in complex terrain. He imagined everything that could happen in the complex environment of the abandoned factory and prepared for it. Sweat soaked his clothes and his muscles screamed in fatigue, but he never tired of it.

Eating became a matter of pure energy replenishment. He ate more and was more meticulous about it; high-protein foods and carbohydrates were precisely calculated, as if adding fuel to a precision machine.

wechat exchanges with Lin Wan became a soft adjustment in these tense days.

She would share small bits of her daily life: a line drawing she was halfway through and dissatisfied with, a friendly stray cat she met on the road, or just a simple sentence:

"I passed by your Police Station while delivering food today, but I didn't see you." Lu Jianchuan's replies remained concise, but were no longer just polite formalities.

"Better than last time," "The cat is very fat," "I'm out on patrol." A few simple words, yet they were a silent response, letting the bond of connection grow quietly in the details.

At work, he handled trivial cases like neighborhood disputes, car scrapes, and information verification. He forced himself to concentrate on these daily matters, using his identity as a police officer to anchor himself in the normal world. His interactions with Old Zhang and other colleagues were as usual—cracking jokes and discussing cases—though the occasional gravity flashing in the depths of his eyes would be caught by the observant Old Zhang, earning him a knowing, slightly concerned look.

Occasionally, he would also click on that social media account named "Hongyi or Not Hongyi."

Since that deleted "Hero's Declaration" video, the account had indeed gone completely silent, with no further updates. This silence, however, made one somewhat uneasy.

In this state of being relaxed on the outside but tense on the inside, time quietly slipped toward the third day.

In the evening, Lu Jianchuan returned home from work. He didn't turn on the lights; the light in the room was being rapidly sucked away by the dusk, and the silhouettes of the furniture became ambiguous in the blurred shadows. Only the distant lights of buildings outside the window cast flickering traces of light across his face.

He calmly prepared dinner for himself, ate in silence, and then washed and put away the dishes.

After doing all this, he went into the bedroom, took out a set of dark, easy-to-move-in casual clothes from the bottom of the wardrobe, and changed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he tore open the packaging of energy bars and ate three in one go, feeling the high-concentration energy slowly dissolve in his body, storing the final fuel for the upcoming operation.

When the clock hand pointed to the right moment, he stood up and walked to the center of the room. Outside, the city lights had already merged into a single expanse, yet his gaze was even calmer than the dark corners of the room.

He raised his left arm, holding it horizontally in front of him. With his right index and middle fingers together, he swiped along the mysterious patterns on the armband toward the center, finally pressing down precisely and forcefully on the crimson orb that instantly became scalding hot!

Buzz—

A low biological hum echoed in the silent room. Silver-white biological fluid instantly emerged, silently "swallowing" and decomposing the casual clothes he was wearing, perfectly merging them into its own flowing structure.

Vambraces, greaves, cuirass... A streamlined helmet covered his head, and the visor suddenly lit up. The azure light was like the eyes of a beast awakening in the dark, instantly dispelling the gloom in the room.

Transformation complete.

silver skeleton slightly clenched his fist, feeling the surging power within his body perfectly fuse with the energy he had previously ingested.

Without the slightest hesitation, he walked to the window. His figure, like a bolt of silver lightning, silently flipped out of the window and blended into the city night, speeding toward the abandoned pharmaceutical factory named "Kangan" in the west of the city.

Just as he was about to reach the designated rendezvous point—an abandoned two-story building overlooking the main entrance of the pharmaceutical factory—a lowered voice came from behind a broken wall to the side.

"Over here! Mr. silver skeleton, over here!"

Lu Jianchuan turned his head and saw Chen Xing poking half his body out from behind the wall, waving at him vigorously. He immediately changed direction and glided silently behind the broken wall.

The interior of the small building had been simply cleared to form a temporary observation point. A small team had already gathered here. Besides Chen Xing and several fully armed, sharp-looking GUPA combat personnel, two other people were particularly striking.

Leading them was Zhan Yong. He was still wearing that dark gray uniform, but with a tactical vest over it, his eyes sharp as a hawk's in the darkness.

And the other person standing beside him made the light of Lu Jianchuan's visor flicker slightly.

That person wasn't particularly tall, but his entire being exuded an air of capability. He wore a set of Mechanical Exoskeletons with smooth lines that shimmered in matte blackish-gray.

The metal frame fit tightly against his limbs and torso, with complex hydraulic transmission structures at the joints. On his back was an integrated power pack providing energy for the entire System.

His helmet visor was a dark tactical eyepiece, and the exoskeletons on his arms and shoulders integrated some precision equipment whose purpose was not yet apparent.

This equipment made him exude a high-tech pressure far beyond that of an ordinary person just by standing there, as if he were a humanoid war machine ready to strike.