209: Chapter 213 White Grave No. 3

The fire in Docking Port No. 7 had already died down.

The ruptured bulkheads were still spewing white steam, and the broken lighting tubes flickered occasionally, casting a ghastly, intermittent pallor.

The ships jammed in the passageway now resembled dissected fish. Their hulls were cracked, skeletons exposed, and bits of uncleared blood still clung sporadically inside.

The cargo area in the deepest part of the main ship had been sealed off.

It wasn't for fear of people going in. It was for fear of what was inside coming out.

Astartes lined up along the walls on both sides, their helmet visors lighting up one by one in the semi-darkness. Some guarded the doors, some sealed the lines, and some dragged away smoking corpses and weapon fragments. Their movements weren't fast, but just standing in that corridor, one felt as if the very air was being weighed down by their boots.

Inside the Exile Fortress's main control cabin, Li Cang switched the display to a cross-section of the main ship's lower deck vault.

The black box was on the third level.

Its position wasn't remote, but it was hidden extremely well, encased in three layers of protective shells. The first layer required Captain's authorization, the second required Overseer's authorization, and the third linked back to the Frost Prison No. 4 Station's main control. One wrong move at any level, and the entire box would incinerate. Not explode, but directly scorch the contents into waste, leaving not even a fragment behind.

Li Cang watched for a while, then reached out to merge three viewports together.

On the left was Wensel.

In the middle was Irene.

On the right was Celine.

Three people, three faces, three expressions.

Wensel was pinned to a temporary restraint rack. The wound on his leg had been sealed, but he still maintained that upright, stubborn posture.

It was as if, even now, he felt he was only temporarily at a disadvantage and hadn't truly lost anything.

Irene was quieter than him. Half her body leaned against the restraint bed, the pallor from blood loss making her face look even thinner. Yet, the look in her eyes hadn't wavered. It wasn't forced endurance, but a kind of trained coldness. She was used to including herself in the project's cost calculations.

Celine sat at the other end. She looked the most like a living person, and also the most uneasy. The more she saw now, the more she realized how little she had known before.

Li Cang didn't speak first.

He let the three screens stay merged for dozens of seconds. No one spoke. Only the faint sound of boots pressing over blood and glass shards in the corridor occasionally leaked through the speakers.

Finally, it was Wensel who spoke first.

"You can't open it," he said. "This authorization chain isn't for outsiders. Station, Overseer, Seal-Bearer—the three layers must be accessed in order. Miss one, and the black box self-melts. You'll get nothing."

"You say that as if you could still take it away," Li Cang replied, his tone very flat.

Wensel looked at the camera and didn't respond.

Li Cang enlarged the cross-section of the black box and pushed it in front of the three.

"You have the Captain's authorization. She has the Overseer's authorization. She has the Station's authorization." He tapped his fingertips on the screen, pointing at Wensel, Irene, and Celine respectively. "The three of you make a complete set."

"And so?" Irene asked.

"So today, the three of you finally have a chance to prove that all these years being supported by the Federation wasn't for nothing." Li Cang leaned back, his voice steady. "Open the box. The contents belong to me, and you'll live a bit longer. Don't open it, and I'll open it myself. If it really burns to nothing, you'll burn with it."

"You think this is enough to force a nod?" Wensel looked at him coldly.

Li Cang ignored him and switched the display to the Silent Bell Chamber.

Nine Silent Species were still fixed to brass contact points. That section of black spine was embedded in the center like a living stake. There was no wind in the bell chamber, and the lights didn't flicker, but as soon as the screen switched over, the monitoring bars for all three people jumped simultaneously.

It wasn't pain.

It was dullness.

Like a membrane in the brain being pressed by a hand.

Irene looked at the bell chamber, her breathing noticeably heavier.

She knew what it was.

She also knew it shouldn't look like this.

"Your Federation cares about craftsmanship," Li Cang said. "I don't. You need nine bodies, stabilizers, a whole clean environment, and calibration. On my end, I just need it to ring."

He said this without emotion, as if it were an ordinary matter.

But that only made it more uncomfortable.

Because Irene knew very well that if a Silent Bell Chamber was welded together in such a reckless way, the consequences once it started running would be unpredictable. The reason the Federation's projects were slow and tedious, with layer upon layer of procedures, was because they knew that if something like this went wrong, the first to die would often be themselves, not the enemy.

And Li Cang didn't care at all.

That was the most troublesome part.

"After opening the box, what do you intend to do?" Irene suddenly asked.

"Look first."

"And after looking?"

"What can be mounted will be mounted on the ship. What can be dismantled will go into the furnace. For what can't be mounted or dismantled, I'll start by carving your manuals out of your brains." Li Cang paused. "What, afraid I'll learn it?"

Irene closed her eyes.

She wasn't afraid he'd learn it.

She was afraid he'd learn it wrong.

But saying that was meaningless.

Silence lasted for a few seconds.

Celine lowered her head and spoke first.

"I can give you the Station link," she said. "But Wensel must move first. If the Seal-Bearer's authorization isn't recognized first, the next two layers won't light up."

Wensel turned to look at her.

That look was very cold.

Celine didn't flinch.

"Looking at me is useless," her voice was a bit hoarse. "You brought the cargo to the Outer Ring, and now that things have gone wrong, you want someone like me to be buried with you? I'm not that valuable, nor am I that loyal."

When those words came out, Wensel didn't get angry.

He just went quiet for two seconds and then suddenly laughed.

The laughter was thin and cold.

"So you finally realize you're not worth much."

Celine's face paled for a moment, and she didn't speak again.

In the main control cabin, Li Cang watched this scene, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. This was exactly what he was waiting for. Once people started seeing their positions clearly, the next door would be much easier to open.

"Follow the sequence," he said.

The order went out. In front of the black door on the lower deck's third level, several Astartes dragged Wensel over. The door wasn't large but was incredibly thick, with no keyhole on the surface, only three offset metal panels. The top panel was embedded with the Seal-Bearer's sigil, the middle was the Overseer's identification zone, and the bottom connected to the Station link.

Wensel was forced to look up at the first layer.

The Seal-Bearer's sigil lit up. It didn't open completely, just retracted half a notch.

Irene connected the Overseer's signature. The second layer lit up, and the black door emitted a soft metallic echo. When it was Celine's turn, she didn't offer her hand, but her voiceprint and gaze. The bottom link connected, and the entire door seemed to finally recognize everyone, slowly sliding open to both sides.

Behind the door was not the treasury they imagined.

There was only a very short walkway with a person-sized black cabinet at the end.

The cabinet was square, edged in silver, with only a faint cabinet-shaped mark on the front. Otherwise, there were no patterns. It didn't look like a high-tech product, but rather like a box placed on an altar. The simpler it was, the more unsettling it felt.

No. 1 was already standing at the door.

He tilted his head, waiting for Li Cang's next command.

"Drag it out," Li Cang said. "Don't open it."

No. 1 raised his hand, attached the power hook, and forcibly ripped the black box from its base. The moment the cabinet left its slot, the entire third level shook slightly. A thin white line lit up on both side walls simultaneously, as if some final insurance had been awakened.

Irene's face changed.

"Stop!" she blurted out instinctively. "The black box can't be more than three meters from its slot, or the internal pressure will become unbalanced and the memory layers will shatter!"

Li Cang looked at her.

"Finally willing to say something useful."

He didn't stop No. 1 but ordered two nearby Servitors to push over a mobile buffer platform. The black box was placed flat inside. As soon as the bottom interface connected, the white lines slowly dimmed.

Irene watched this, her lips tightly pursed.

She hadn't expected him to be so well-prepared.

Li Cang hadn't actually planned that far.

He was just used to leaving a receiving position for anything that "might explode." For him, it wasn't about precision, but about the fear of losing out.

"Open," he said even more briefly this time.

The latches on the front of the black box released notch by notch. The cover lifted, revealing the first layer of buffer gel film inside. Beneath the film was not a document or a chip.

It was a human head.

Not a living person.

Nor a completely dead head.

The head was cleanly severed, with a silver-white neural base attached below the neck. Eyes closed, fine needles pinned to the forehead, and the back of the head immersed in a pale liquid. It looked like it was sleeping, or waiting.

The moment Celine saw it, her whole body stiffened.

Irene's face went completely white.

"So you made the project director into a box," Li Cang said flatly, looking at the head.

Wensel closed his eyes and didn't speak.

He knew the truly terrible thing wasn't the box being opened, but that this man understood what the box was doing at a glance.

This wasn't a storage device.

This was a living authorization brain.

The black box didn't just contain keys or data; it contained a set of project control brain remnants open only to a "certain living person." To ensure the project chain didn't leak, the Federation had sealed the most important part of the authorization into a still-functioning human brain.

Person dies, protocol void.

Brain destroyed, link broken.

Getting the brain was equivalent to getting the door.

Li Cang stared at the closed-eyed human head for a while and suddenly asked Irene.

"Who is he?"

Irene was silent for a long time before finally spitting out a name.

"Hommel. The first Chief Auditor of the Holy Coffin Project."

"Living quite valuably," Li Cang remarked.

He enlarged the image. The micro-interfaces behind the ear, the silver needles in the back of the head, and the information threads in the liquid were all clearly projected on the main screen. The main project route, transfer sequences, research branches, and source templates were all linked to this brain.

And it was still alive.

"Very good." Li Cang tapped the table lightly. "This is much more useful than an account book."

Irene finally couldn't help herself.

"You can't touch him. If the project main brain is subjected to a crude connection, it will drag the entire Holy Ark chain into contamination."

Li Cang glanced at her.

"You're right."

Irene was just about to sigh in relief.

When the next sentence hit.

"So, no crude connection. Interrogate first."

He split the main screen in half, one for the head and the other for the Silent Bell Chamber in Docking Bay No. 4.

"Send this brain to the outer ring of the bell chamber first," Li Cang said. "I want to see which is tougher: your project brain, or my dirty bell pressing cracks into it first."

In the main control cabin, even Celine finally couldn't help but look up at him.

It wasn't her first time seeing Li Cang at work.

But at moments like this, she would realize all over again that the most terrifying thing about him was never his ruthlessness, but the fact that he truly pushed everything toward efficiency and value.

Even for a living project main brain, his first thought was to use it as a battering ram to see if he could smash out another door.

"The Recovery Team has an unsent recovery order," the sub-control Servitor suddenly spoke.

"Play it."

An unfinished instruction stripped from Wensel's deputy terminal popped up on the right side of the main screen. The header was the Inner Ring Recovery Bureau, and the endnote was the next step of deployment.

There was only one line.

[If the Holy Ark chain is broken, transfer to White Tomb Anchorage No. 3 for renewal.]

Li Cang stared at that line for two seconds and smiled.

It wasn't a loud laugh.

It was the short-lived smile of finally seeing the crack of the next door.

"White Grave No. 3," he murmured softly. "Good name."

The door was no longer just at the edge of the Inner Ring.

Now, someone had even written the next stepping stone into the order sheet for him.