271: The Trap of Empire

Chen Wang released the bowstring, his fingers slightly numb. He and Su Ling were lying on the roof of the vehicle, the snow already piled up to their shoulders. On the distant ice hills, there were twelve red dots, scattered even further apart than before. The broadcaster didn't sound again.

"They won't wait forever," Su Ling said.

Chen Wang nodded. He knew they couldn't delay any longer. Two tires had blown, the support frame was deformed, and the wuling type 100 wouldn't hold out much longer. He looked down at the cockpit; the interface of the kindling system was flashing yellow, indicating vehicle stability was below 30%.

"Prepare to evacuate," he said.

Su Ling didn't move. "Where to?"

"Get off the ramp first." Chen Wang climbed back into the driver's seat. As soon as his hand touched the steering wheel, the navigation screen displayed garbled text. He rebooted the module, but the radar showed overlapping signals all around, and the GPS location kept jumping, showing three hundred meters to the east one moment, and five hundred meters to the west the next.

"Turn off the lights," he ordered. "Switch on the night vision."

Lin Wei activated the thermal imaging in the back row. Multiple moving heat sources appeared on the screen, distributed in the southeast, northwest, and due north directions, all at a temperature of 36.7 degrees, with a margin of error of no more than 0.1 degrees.

"That's not right," she said. "It's impossible for humans to have such uniform body temperatures."

She called up the engineering module to scan the surface refractive index. After the data scrolled for a few seconds, a warning popped up: [Detected high-reflection nano-coating, optical path anomaly].

"It's fake," Lin Wei looked up. "We've entered a holographic maze. The paths, enemies, and terrain we see... none of it is real."

Amy sat in the command seat, holding three metal chips in her hand. After hearing the analysis, she lightly tossed one into the air, caught it, and tossed it again.

"If it's a maze, then there is only one true path," she said. "But the person who set this up will definitely have laid traps on the most logical route."

Chen Wang stared at the screen. The "enemies" in the thermal imaging moved in a pattern, repeating every thirty seconds.

"Machines can be deceived, and eyes can be interfered with," Lin Wei unbuckled her seatbelt. "I need to go out and see."

She picked up an insulated hammer and walked toward the passenger-side window.

"Wait," Amy spoke up.

Before she could finish, Lin Wei had already brought the hammer down. The glass cracked, and before it could fall, a blue light suddenly shone from one of the reflections in the distance.

An energy beam struck the flank.

The explosion sent Lin Wei flying, slamming her into a seat. Her ears were bleeding, and the kindling system alarm sounded: "External temperature rising! Directed energy weapon charging detected!"

Su Ling immediately ran over to check on Lin Wei. She was still breathing, but her consciousness was blurred. Chen Wang cut the power distribution and diverted the remaining energy to the Shield module, but the system indicated that the Shield generator was damaged and could not be deployed.

"We have to charge through," he said.

Amy didn't speak, placing the three chips on the console. She picked up one of them, an old coin engraved with an "X".

"If I were the one who set the trap, I would set an ambush on the true path," she said. "Because I know that people who want to survive will choose the path that looks the safest."

She paused. "But I would also guard against people doing the opposite. So both the true and fake routes could be dangerous."

Chen Wang looked at the navigation screen. There were seven wuling type 100 reflections, arranged symmetrically. One of them had a taillight flashing at a frequency synchronized with the heartbeat of the kindling system.

"We'll take the most unstable one," he said.

He stepped on the accelerator. The vehicle surged forward, its tracks grinding over the ice, making a harsh, grating sound. The six reflections in front moved simultaneously, but the third one on the right was half a second slower.

That's it.

The vehicle turned to the right front, crashing toward that set of reflections. When they were fifty meters away, the ground began to shake, and the ice sheet emitted cracking sounds.

"Hold on!" Su Ling shouted.

The wuling type 100 hit the ice wall, and the surface instantly collapsed. The surrounding reflections shattered like glass, twisted, and vanished. A corner of grayish-white sky was revealed, but the next second, the ice under their feet collapsed.

The vehicle fell.

Su Ling lunged for the control lever, tightening everyone's seatbelts. Star Pupil pressed her hands onto the dashboard, injecting mental power into the system to stabilize the core circuits. Amidst the shaking, Lin Wei forcibly accessed the space expansion module, compressing the volume of the living cabin to free up 0.8 cubic meters of space.

The vehicle body rolled, smashing through two layers of ice crust, and finally landed heavily on a slanted platform.

The impact sent everyone lurching forward, only to be yanked back by their seatbelts. Smoke billowed from the hood, carrying the smell of molten metal. The kindling system went black for a few seconds before lighting up again, its interface fragmented.

Chen Wang coughed. His left arm had been scratched by ice shards, and blood was dripping down his sleeve. He ignored the wound and looked up ahead.

The windshield had a large crack. Through the gap, he could see a ruin below. Walls had collapsed, pipes were exposed, and the ground was covered in semi-melted ice. There was a smell of rust in the wind.

He unbuckled his seatbelt and walked to the vehicle door. Lin Wei was leaning against the medical chair, her face pale. Su Ling stood up from the back row and checked her archery gear. The quiver was fine, and the bow wasn't broken either.

"Still usable," she said.

Amy sat in the command seat, organizing her chips. She placed the "X" coin into a hidden compartment in the console and whispered, "We won this time, but the person behind the scenes hasn't made their move yet."

Star Pupil didn't move. She sat in the corner, sweat beading on her forehead, while the mechanical parrot "broadcaster" perched on her shoulder, emitting a low-frequency hum. Suddenly, she looked up, gazing into the depths of the ruins.

Chen Wang followed her gaze.

Under a pile of collapsed metal racks, there was an upright nameplate. The surface was rusty, but the lettering was clear. It read five words: Ark Project · Seventh Experiment Station.

He walked back to the driver's seat and tapped his fingers lightly on the steering wheel. The map module was non-functional, so he manually pulled up the camera feed and zoomed in on the nameplate area.

There were scratches on the back of the nameplate, as if someone had wiped it. But he recognized it—the prefix of that serial number was the same as the one on the bottom of his father's pocket watch.

Lin Wei caught her breath and opened her eyes. She was clutching a fragment she had brought back from the ice layer, a sample of the nano-coating. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were calculating something.

"This material... isn't meant for fighting," she said. "It's meant for hiding things."

Su Ling walked over and handed her a water bottle. She scanned the gaps in the ruins but didn't detect any movement.

"No one is guarding it," she said.

"Not necessarily," Amy said. "Maybe it doesn't need to be guarded."

Chen Wang didn't speak. He opened the kindling system log and flipped to the first record: [Binding Time: 0 seconds after the apocalypse descended] [Carrier: vehicle model] [Host: Chen Wang].

That day, he was trapped in the vehicle, and the broadcaster suddenly emitted a mechanical sound. He had thought it was a coincidence.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

Star Pupil suddenly stood up. She walked toward the vehicle door, her steps unsteady. The broadcaster flew up and circled around her.

"There's a sound below," she said.

"What kind of sound?" Chen Wang asked.

"A data stream." She pointed to the center of the ruins. "Very weak, intermittent, like... a severed signal."

She raised her hand, her palm facing the crevice. The broadcaster squawked, spread its wings, and projected a waveform graph.

Amy leaned in to look. "This isn't the Empire's frequency."

Lin Wei struggled to stand up and took the tablet. She called up the spectral analysis, and three seconds later, she looked up.

"This is an early communication protocol from the Stasis Zone," she said. "I've seen similar coding at the Research Institute."

Chen Wang walked over to look at the screen. There was a gap in the middle of the waveform graph, as if it had been artificially cut off.

"Someone is sending a message from below," he said.

"Or calling for help," Su Ling said.

Amy picked up a new chip and twirled it in her hand twice. "Going down is too dangerous. We only have 41% energy left, the Shield is broken, and if we are attacked, we won't last more than three minutes."

"But the clue is here," Lin Wei said. "The 'Ark Project' isn't a legend. It really exists, and... it's related to us."

Chen Wang looked at her. Her eyes were clear, not dazed.

He knew what she was thinking. She had said before that the project she participated in was actually a key part of a climate weapon. She thought she was building an escape pod, but it turned out to be a destruction switch.

Now, this nameplate could be proof, or it could be a judgment.

He walked to the vehicle door control panel and pressed the open button. The hydraulic system made a muffled sound, and the door slowly opened.

Cold wind rushed in. He put on his cold-weather mask and gripped the wrench tightly.

"Prepare to go down," he said.

Su Ling strapped on her bow and checked her quiver. Lin Wei put the sample into a sealed bag and tucked it close to her body. Amy took out a backup power source and connected it to the kindling system backup port.

Star Pupil stood at the doorway, not moving. She closed her eyes, and the broadcaster perched on top of her head.

"The signal is stronger," she said. "It's calling to us."

Chen Wang took the first step. As his foot landed on the platform, the ice made a slight cracking sound. He looked down and saw black liquid seeping out from the edge, emitting a dark blue light.

He crouched down and dipped his gloved finger into it. The liquid was very sticky and shiny.

"Don't touch too much," Amy warned from the vehicle. "Stasis agent residue might trigger a parasitic reaction."

He nodded and threw off his glove. As he stood up, he caught sight of carvings on the side of the platform out of the corner of his eye.

He walked over and used the wrench to scrape away the ice.

It was a string of numbers: 7-23-0419.

He memorized it.

He turned back to look at the vehicle. "Lin Wei, check this serial number."

Lin Wei typed it into the tablet, and a few seconds later, she shook her head. "The database is incomplete; no match found."

"Archive it," he said.

Su Ling jumped off the vehicle, snapping a metal pipe as she landed. She immediately became alert, scanning the surroundings with her weapon.

"Quiet," she said.

It was indeed too quiet. The wind had stopped, and even the sounds of the ice were gone.

Star Pupil suddenly raised her hand. "Don't speak."

She pointed to the end of the platform. There was a half-collapsed wall there, with a small hole at the base of the wall. The opening was very smooth, as if it had been burned through by high heat.

The broadcaster flew over and hovered above the hole. Its eyes lit up with a red glow, scanning the interior.

Three seconds later, it retreated, landed on Star Pupil's shoulder, and emitted a short audio clip.

Star Pupil's expression changed.

"There's something inside," she said. "It's not a machine, and it's not a corpse."

"What is it?" Chen Wang asked.

She looked at the hole, her lips trembling.

"It's a heartbeat."