99: The key to gold

Hanhai Trade's data vault was the most heavily guarded, coldest heart of the entire base.

There were no windows here, only the cold wind with a metallic scent blown out by the constant temperature system, and the faint light of server indicator lights flickering eternally like stars.

Su Li sat before her exclusive console, her slender fingers hovering above the control panel. Behind her, Chen Feng and Reno stood like two statues on either side. Reno's hand never left the grip of the gun at his waist, his eyes alertly scanning the only alloy entrance, responsible for the final line of defense in the physical world.

As for Chen Feng, his gaze was locked onto the main screen in front of Su Li. He was the final lock of the digital world.

“Are you ready?” Chen Feng's voice rang out in the silent vault, sounding exceptionally clear.

“I can start anytime.” Su Li's voice betrayed no emotion as she pulled up a deep-level interface of the Interstellar Exchange System.

The interface was as black as ink, its style unsettlingly minimalist. In the center was only a solitary input box, with a cursor blinking beside it like the eye of an abyss.

Above the window, a line of blood-red Common Tongue was coldly displayed:

[Abyssal Messenger Service: This channel handles highly anonymous, high-risk transactions. All transactions are untraceable, no arbitration is provided, and the risk is your own.]

“This is the door to ‘Raven’,” Su Li said softly, as if explaining to herself. “A door where knocking incorrectly once will lead us to eternal damnation.”

Reno's Adam's apple bobbed, but he didn't speak. He couldn't understand the code on the screen, but he could understand those shocking financial figures. That was the family fortune they had all risked their lives to earn.

“Begin.” Chen Feng's voice remained steady.

Su Li nodded and typed in a long, extremely complex anonymous account code. A string of addresses composed of gibberish, ancient hieroglyphs, and mathematical symbols looked like a babble from a fever dream.

“Account code... confirmed.”

She paused, her gaze falling on the input box for the transfer amount, an astronomical figure enough to buy a small fleet.

But her finger did not press confirm.

“What is it?” Chen Feng asked.

“Due diligence,” Su Li replied succinctly, a professional instinct etched into her bones. “Even if the other party is ‘Raven’, I must perform one last scan of the ‘pocket’ receiving the money.”

Without waiting for Chen Feng's permission, she directly launched a deep analysis plugin she had written herself. The main screen was instantly covered by a waterfall-like data stream, with countless pieces of information spinning and colliding crazily around that abyssal account address like a violent swarm of bees.

“His account is shrouded in at least seventeen layers of top-tier encrypted mist, most of which are military-grade,” Su Li explained calmly, as if stating a weather forecast. “I can only see a massive inflow of funds, but I can't trace any source, nor can I see a single outflow. He's like a black hole that only takes in and never lets out.”

Reno listened with a furrowed brow; he didn't like this feeling of being out of control.

Chen Feng remained silent, trusting Su Li's professional judgment.

The analysis program ran rapidly for three minutes, and the data stream on the screen gradually thinned. Just as Su Li expected, 99.9% of the transaction records were covered by an impenetrable gray mist, refusing any form of prying.

However, just as the analysis was about to end, a tiny light point, almost negligible, flickered in the ocean of data.

It was too weak, like a forgotten, dying star.

But Su Li's pupils suddenly contracted at that moment.

“Zoom in on that node,” she told herself in a commanding tone.

The image was instantly pulled closer. It was a record that had been disturbed by the aftermath of the encryption algorithm and had not been completely erased.

The content of the record was eerily simple.

[Transaction Amount: 0.001 interstellar credit points.]

[Transaction Initiator: ‘Mechanical Divine Court - Public Information Exchange Node - A7’.]

[Transaction Time: Year 7384 of the Fourth Era, Ashen Earth Star Standard Time, 17:04.]

Su Li's breath hitched for half a second.

This point in time was less than twenty-four hours after Chen Feng and Sequence Zero completed their first ‘undead crystal’ transaction!

This mysterious ‘Raven’ had established contact with the other party right after their first encounter with the Mechanical Divine Court? Was this transfer, which was almost equal to zero, a signal for communication? Or... an ‘intelligence fee’ paid?

A terrifying thought flashed through her mind: Did ‘Raven’ know everything about them from the very beginning? Or even, was there some unknown, deeper connection between him and the Mechanical Divine Court?

This discovery instantly raised the risk assessment of this gamble to a fatal level.

She glanced at Chen Feng and Reno behind her; they clearly hadn't noticed this tiny detail.

Speaking out now would only shake their morale.

In a flash, Su Li made a decision. With an expressionless face, she instantly encrypted this clue along with her own speculation, sealing it in a private log to which only she had the highest authority, and marked it as — [Raven-Pantheon Correlation Pending Investigation].

Having done all this, she quietly closed the analysis plugin.

The main screen returned to that abyssal black interface.

“Investigation complete.” Su Li turned her head, meeting the questioning gazes of Chen Feng and Reno.

“Account verification confirmed.” Her voice was devoid of ripples, as if the shocking discovery just now had never happened.

Chen Feng gave her a deep look and finally nodded.

“Begin.”

“Reno, physical authorization,” Su Li said.

Reno stepped forward and pressed his palm into a groove, and a circle of green light lit up.

“Su Li, Operations Officer authorization.”

Su Li aligned her eye with the iris scanner, which emitted a soft “beep”.

“Chen Feng,” she looked at him, “final CEO Command Authorization.”

Chen Feng walked to the console without a moment's hesitation. Looking at the number on the screen that could determine the life or death of Hanhai Trade, he calmly said, “Authorize.”

His voice was verified through voiceprint recognition.

His brainwaves were verified through the induction headset.

Triple authorization complete.

On the screen, the “Confirm Transfer” button, representing all their hopes, was pressed by an invisible finger and turned into a cold light.

A progress bar appeared out of thin air.

The vault was deathly silent; the three of them could even hear each other's heartbeats.

The progress bar moved slowly, yet irreversibly, toward the end.

One hundred percent.

The progress bar disappeared.

The dazzlingly long string of numbers in Hanhai Trade's account instantly dropped to zero.

In its place, a cold, emotionless system message briefly appeared in the center of the screen:

“Credit Deposit has been escrowed. Your anonymous contact request has been sent to the designated node.”

Then, this message disappeared as well.

The screen returned once more to a deathly silent black.

The money was gone.

The request had been sent.

They were faced only with an unknown, suffocating silence.