Chapter 376 Tomorrow at 2 PM, a clash is imminent.

The alley returned to its deserted state.

The calm before the storm enveloped this land of sin.

Night had completely fallen over Sanbianpo.

The night in this lawless land brought no coolness; instead, it made the muggy humidity in the air even heavier.

In a three-story building on the edge of town, the door to the corner room on the second floor was tightly shut.

Yan Poyue was in the simple small hotel where he was staying.

As soon as he entered, he locked the bolt behind him.

Then he quickly walked to the window, pulled the thick, dust-covered curtains, completely blocking out the occasional car lights and noisy dog barks from outside.

The light in the room instantly dimmed.

With a click, Yan Poyue flipped the switch.

Only a bedside lamp, covered in cobwebs and emitting a dim yellow glow, remained.

The faint light barely illuminated the single bed covered with a cheap synthetic fiber sheet.

He took off his loose disguise jacket and sat cross-legged on the bed.

From his close-fitting waterproof backpack, he took out his weapons and began the final meticulous pre-battle maintenance.

...

The room was very quiet.

Only the faint clicking sound of metal and special material components rubbing against each other could be heard.

Yan Poyue's gaze was focused.

His fingers moved nimbly.

He used a special cleaning cloth to meticulously wipe away any tiny dust particles that might be present inside the gun barrel.

Then.

After maintaining his customized weapon, his fingers slid over the trigger and safety mechanism in sequence, confirming that every component was in absolutely perfect, peak condition.

He securely placed it under the pillow, where it was easiest to reach.

After completing these routine pre-battle preparations, Yan Poyue should have immediately laid down to rest and conserve his energy.

However, his gaze did not retract.

Instead, through the dim yellow light, it fell upon his black travel case at the foot of the bed, which he used to deceive others.

Inside were a few changes of clothes.

And at the bottom layer of the clothes, something was pressed down.

Yan Poyue looked at that corner, hesitated for a moment.

He reached out and flipped open the clothes.

Then he took out the gray Firefighting Parent-Child Pistol, which was completely out of place in the surrounding grim environment.

...

Whether it was its weight or texture, this gun exuded a plasticky feel.

Looking at this unremarkable plastic gun in his hand.

Yan Poyue's usually proud heart, as a top student, throbbed faintly with pain.

He felt his temples twitching and tightening.

This was the culprit that had made him lose face in front of all his comrades!

As soon as he saw this dull gray gun barrel.

His mind uncontrollably conjured the scene in the special forces base dormitory.

He was forcibly pinned to the bed by several muscular comrades, one tightly restraining his neck, another roughly pulling off his socks, and fiercely tickling the soles of his feet to extract a confession.

That sense of shame, accompanied by the deafening laughter of his comrades, was even more unbearable than taking a bullet.

'How could I, a top student who fought his way out of a pile of overachievers, be tricked by a broken toy?' This thought surfaced in his mind.

Yan Poyue was utterly speechless, and the corners of his mouth twitched violently and uncontrollably twice.

Logic told him that this thing was a defective product that had slipped in from the logistics department and should be thrown directly into the hotel's trash can.

But that extreme unwillingness brought by sunk costs grew wildly in his heart like a weed.

He was unwilling to give up!

He was unwilling to just abandon the fruits of his three days and three nights of sleepless effort.

Those were dense fluid mechanics formulas!

That was the infrared target acquisition pressure distribution map he had derived countless times!

Even if it was a toy gun, it had to be a top-tier water gun that conformed to aerodynamics!

In the dim light, he carefully ran his fingers over the rough seams on the gun body.

As he touched it.

He again thought of the sentence on the back cover of the thick instruction manual, a sentence that practically rubbed his intelligence into the ground:

"If the user does not wish to delve into tedious parameter configurations..."

"One-click smart matching!"

Yan Poyue squeezed out these words through gritted teeth, feeling his scalp tingle.

Then.

Following the blueprint memory that had been etched into his bones during those three days.

His finger traced down the barrel and, in an extremely concealed groove in the anti-slip texture above the grip, he found the button.

He gritted his teeth, the muscles on his cheeks bulging slightly.

It was as if he was wrestling with this broken plastic gun, and also as if he was seeking justice for his deceased brain cells.

He pressed down hard with his thumb.

He firmly pressed that legendary one-click matching function.

...

The room was remarkably quiet.

With an almost imperceptible click from his fingertips.

Then.

Something unexpected happened to Yan Poyue.

The bottom of this plastic pistol, which had been jostled all along.

At the base of the grip, a faint red indicator light lit up.

That circle of red light was particularly glaring in the dim hotel room.

Immediately after.

A faint electrical current sound came from inside the gun body, and a emotionless electronic synthesized voice emerged.

The sound was not loud, and even seemed a bit muffled due to the gun body's material wrapping.

But in this small space, it was clearly audible:

"One-click smart matching activated. Please verbally input the Fire Extinguishing Time."

...

Yan Poyue stared blankly at the gun in his hand that had suddenly started talking.

Fire Extinguishing Time?

What the hell is Fire Extinguishing Time?

Hearing this rigid, dull prompt, Yan Poyue's brain immediately began to race.

As a special forces elite who constantly walked the line between life and death, his mind had long been trained into a precise killing machine.

Any word in his ears would automatically be converted into tactical terminology.

'Fire extinguishing... clear targets, suppress enemy firepower.'

'This is asking me for the timing of the general assault!'

He recalled the orders he and his team had received.

The time for tomorrow's operation.

That is, the moment their team would cross the outer cordon, infiltrate the core area of the largest fraud park in Sanbianpo, and prepare to launch a thunderous assault.

Therefore.

In this small, moldy hotel room.

Yan Poyue's face was solemn.

He lowered his voice, using the cold tone characteristic of an agent performing an assassination mission.

Towards what was likely the voice sensor in front of the muzzle.

He uttered, word by word:

"Tomorrow at 2 PM."