375: Chapter 375 The World of Mysticism, Firewall Protocol

Dongdu University, Dean's Office of the Law School.

Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting a slanted glow across the polished redwood floor.

The air was filled with the mellow scent of old book pages mixed with a faint aroma of tea.

The office's furnishings were antique and solemn; bookshelves spanning an entire wall were crammed with all kinds of heavy legal classics and Chinese-foreign literature, exuding a deep sense of accumulated knowledge.

Dong Yunchuan was sitting behind the coffee table, skillfully manipulating an exquisite set of purple clay tea ware.

His fingers were thick and powerful, instantly revealing them to be hands accustomed to practicing martial arts year-round, which seemed somewhat out of place with his identity as a college professor.

However, his actions of brewing and pouring tea at this moment carried a unique elegance characteristic of a scholar.

"Come, A-Cheng, try my pre-Qingming Dragon Well tea."

He steadily pushed a cup of clear, emerald-green tea soup in front of Fang Cheng, a kind and amiable smile hanging on his face.

Fang Cheng picked up the teacup and took a light sip.

The tea was warm and smooth, slightly bitter upon entry, but quickly turned sweet afterwards, with a fresh fragrance permeating his lips and teeth.

"Good tea, thank you for the hospitality, Dean."

After putting down the teacup, Fang Cheng's gaze calmly fell upon the old man opposite him.

The Dean Dong before him quietly overlapped with the image of the steady-Aura elder accompanying Councilor Zhao at Wangjiang Tower that night.

Although he recognized his appearance, Fang Cheng did not proactively mention this matter.

After all, interpersonal relationships in official circles carried a certain degree of sensitivity.

It was just that at this moment, the other party's attitude seemed a bit too cordial, and that warm concern felt like an elder coaxing his most valued Junior.

"Hehe, we haven't seen each other for a long time."

Dong Yunchuan smiled and asked with concern:

"Is your mother doing well? And your grandfather, I heard from Senior Brother Ma last time that he was feeling unwell, is he better now?"

While speaking, he refilled Fang Cheng's cup, as if calling yesterday was just to chat about ordinary family matters.

"They are all doing quite well, thank you for your concern, Dean Dong."

Fang Cheng responded politely and thanked him again.

After a few pleasantries, he didn't want to continue beating around the bush, so he took the initiative to speak:

"Dean Dong, did you specifically ask me to come over today for something?"

Dong Yunchuan's hand holding the teacup paused slightly in mid-air.

He put down the teacup, the smile on his face subsided somewhat, and his expression became solemn.

"A-Cheng, it's like this..."

The old man pondered for a moment, seemingly weighing his words, and his tone was very tactful.

"Didn't you previously apply for our Dongdu University's master's program in law?"

"Through our school's comprehensive evaluation and the feedback from the background check of the higher-level authorities, your conditions temporarily fail to meet our school's admission requirements."

"Therefore, regarding this... we deeply regret it..."

Inside the office, it fell quiet for a moment.

Only a few occasional bird chirps from outside the window and the rustling sound of the wind blowing through the branches and leaves of the camphor tree remained.

Fang Cheng's expression did not change at all, calm like a pool of deep water without raising the slightest ripple.

Dong Yunchuan observed his expression, unable to help feeling a bit surprised in his heart.

He originally thought this young man would be stunned, angry, or at least show some reaction and question him.

But... the other party did nothing.

Thinking that Fang Cheng was introverted and forcibly suppressed his huge disappointment deep in his heart, Dong Yunchuan quickly explained:

"Don't misunderstand, this matter has nothing to do with your grades."

"To be honest, whether in the written test or the interview, your performance is the most outstanding student I, Old Dong, have ever seen in my life!"

"The problem with this matter mainly lies in the candidate's background check."

"Background check?"

Hearing this, Fang Cheng's gaze flickered slightly, and he finally spoke to ask:

"I've checked the requirements for the postgraduate political review and the conditions for the law major I applied for; as long as there is no criminal record and bad behavior, it should be fine. I should meet all of them, right?"

You must know that a postgraduate's background check is far less rigorous than taking the civil servant exam, and it wouldn't easily implicate family members.

"Sigh..."

Dong Yunchuan let out a heavy sigh, looking at him with a complex expression.

"This matter is very complicated to explain; it involves a... hidden rule that ordinary people don't know. The problem lies in your father's file."

The fingers of Fang Cheng's hand holding the teacup tightened imperceptibly.

He raised his head, and those originally calm eyes instantly became as sharp as a knife's edge.

"Does postgraduate admission actually require investigating blood relatives?"

Fang Cheng's voice was not loud, yet it carried an inexplicably aggressive implication.

At that instant, Dong Yunchuan felt as if the air in the office had frozen.

He even had an illusion.

As if what he was facing was not a student in his early twenties, but a veteran of many battles, a superior figure holding the power of life and death.

This awe-inspiring Aura flashed and disappeared, so fast that he thought it was his hallucination.

Dong Yunchuan steadied his mind, smiled bitterly and shook his head, deciding not to beat around the bush anymore.

"A-Cheng, I know that a large part of the reason you applied for the master's in law is to clear your father's name."

"I completely understand your feelings, and even... I personally respect this persistence of yours."

Dong Yunchuan's tone was full of sympathy, as if carefully uncovering an old scar.

"You yourself are indeed of upright character, with excellent grades, and there is no problem at all."

"However, this review and certification work is relatively special; it is not led by our school, but comes from an official institution, the Special Investigation Team."

The Special Investigation Team!

These three words made Fang Cheng's heart sink abruptly.

To tell the truth, whether he was finally admitted to the postgraduate examination or not, he actually didn't care much.

Because he had absolute confidence in being able to master his own destiny.

If this place won't keep me, there are places that will; where in the world is there no scenery?

But the intervention of the Special Investigation Team made this matter appear extraordinary.

This meant that he might have already been exposed to the horizon of this massive law enforcement agency.

"School admissions belong to the education System, and the Special Investigation Team is the law enforcement System. How could they intervene in matters like candidate background checks?"

Fang Cheng's thoughts turned, and he asked the key doubt in his heart.

"Because... your father was identified as a 'spiritually out-of-control mutant' in the Special Investigation Team's archives."

Dong Yunchuan stammered for a while, and at this point simply laid it out to say:

"Regarding the Special Investigation Team and mutants, when you first joined the Martial Arts Research Association, you should have learned about it from Senior Brother Ma Jianguo."

"I've read the case files of your father's crime back then; your mother once appealed, and there were indeed many doubts, but the black-and-white archive records cannot be erased."

"According to regulations, the Special Investigation Team needs to conduct long-term monitoring of the direct blood relatives of high-risk mutants to prevent similar mutation situations from occurring."

"However, you've behaved normally since childhood, so the monitoring personnel withdrew very early on, which is why you didn't feel it."

"But this doesn't mean the file was destroyed. Once your life trajectory touches certain sensitive Domain, the alarm will be re-triggered."

Speaking to this point, the old man paused, lowering his voice even more, and with greater caution.

"I need to explain the reason to you. This is not a punishment for criminals' families like you, but a... necessary procedure involving the government's long-running firewall protocol."

"Firewall protocol?"

In silence, Fang Cheng's eyebrows furrowed slightly:

"Dean Dong, can you elaborate? I really don't know much about this aspect."

This was the issue Fang Cheng cared about most after hearing the failure-of-admission news today.

Because this unknown protocol might not only relate to the truth of his father's death, but also determine the way he would act in the future.

"Yes."

Seeing this, Dong Yunchuan nodded, and his expression became unprecedentedly solemn.

"The establishment of this protocol stems from that global world war seventy years ago."

"Ordinary people only know that it was an aggression launched by ambitious people, but behind it, a shadow war involving 'mysterious power' was hidden."

"Before that, people with special abilities mostly hid in a few prominent families or were regarded as legends, but with the arrival of the war, everything changed completely."

"In pursuit of absolute military force, many civilian associations studying paranormal phenomena appeared in society, and many national governments also established research institutions, unscrupulously searching for so-called 'mysterious power' to arm their militaries."

Speaking of this, a trace of disgust flashed in his eyes.

"For example, the German Nazi group, they formed the infamous 'Ahnenerbe Research Society', and frantically searched for legendary places like Atlantis and Shambhala all over the world, especially in our country's snowy plateau and other places."

"They even conducted extreme human experiments in concentration camps with cruel and bloody methods, and implemented an Aryan race plan named 'Lebensborn', boasting themselves as the chosen people, attempting to rule the world with so-called higher races and mysticism."

"Once these powers are awakened, it is like Pandora's magic box being opened."

"The 'mutant' phenomenon thus began to appear on a large scale in society. The disasters caused by out-of-control abilities were far more bizarre and fatal than artillery fire on the battlefield, causing the whole world to be turbulent and the people to live in destitution."

Hearing this, Fang Cheng's heart couldn't help but stir.

He thought of "Noah", who was equally mysterious and whose style of action carried a certain extremist color.

"Do these secret plans still continue today?"

"Yes."

Dong Yunchuan answered decisively.

"Not only do they exist, but with the development of technology, they have become more efficient and even more terrifying."

"The only difference is that previously they were semi-public secrets, while now they are completely hidden in the darkness that non-participants can never know."

His gaze suddenly became somewhat distant, as if falling into a long-past memory, and his voice also carried a trace of hard-to-detect tremor.

"When I was young, I joined a mountaineering team and followed to protect a scientific research expedition into the no-man's-land of the snowy plateau. The wind there scraped against the face like a knife, and heaven and earth were in absolute silence; even the traces of birds and beasts could not be seen."

"Beneath the glacier, we discovered a massive ruin that didn't belong to any known civilization. After going inside, we saw... we saw things that couldn't be described with language."

"That was not a creature, nor was it like machinery; it just 'existed' there, causing everyone's psyche to begin collapsing."

"That night, someone went crazy and attacked their companions, someone knelt on the ground kowtowing incessantly until bruised and bleeding, and someone... smiled as they dug out their own internal organs."

The old man's face turned pale, and the hand holding the teacup was trembling slightly.

The boiling tea overflowed from the rim of the cup and splashed onto the back of his hand, but he seemed completely unaware.

"Another team member and I were the only remaining survivors. When found by the subsequent troops, we were at our last gasp. Ever since then, I've known that this world is far more dangerous than we imagined!"

Saying this, he stopped abruptly, shook his head, as if trying to shake that terrifying memory out of his mind.

"Let's not talk about it anymore; it's all old history."

Dong Yunchuan managed a smile, picked up the teacup and drank it in one gulp, as if suppressing the chill in his heart.

"In short, after that tragic world war, the surviving countries all realized that unrestrained exploration and use of this power would only bring destruction."

"Therefore, under the leadership of several major powers, all nations jointly signed a top-secret bill, which is the 'Firewall Protocol', completely banning all civilian research institutions and publicity channels concerning supernatural powers."

"As for the mutants hidden in society, the protocol aims to establish a barrier to strictly prevent two situations from happening."

"First, mutants with the risk of losing control entering key positions such as government, judiciary, military, and education, causing greater disasters."

"Second, people with blood relations to high-risk mutants holding power sufficient to affect society without knowing whether they themselves also have the risk of Awakening."

"Only after long-term monitoring and review can they gradually lower their hazard Rank and live a relatively normal life."

"This is not discrimination, but being responsible for the entire society."

"When relevant personnel apply to enter these key fields, their personal information will automatically trigger the protocol."

"As the executing party, our university must report the data and cross-reference it with the Special Investigation Team's 'High-Risk Mutant-Involved Archive'. Once matched successfully, the System will sound an alarm."

"Your file was flagged this way."

Dong Yunchuan's tone was solemn as he revealed information to Fang Cheng that ordinary people could not know:

"Currently, you have two labels on you: one is 'direct blood relative of an out-of-control mutant', and the other is 'person involved in a high-risk case'. The System judges you as a 'potential Awakened' with a lower hazard Rank."

After listening to Dong Yunchuan's narration, Fang Cheng understood completely.

In fact, he had already stepped one foot into the scanning range of the national security machinery long ago.

The so-called postgraduate identity, this "charm for peace of mind" he meticulously prepared for his mother, the "protective coloration" used to cover his true intentions, was destined from the very beginning to never truly be realized.

What Fang Cheng worried about was not himself, but his mother.

He could imagine that when his mother learned of this news, that heartfelt disappointment and worry.

Also, his uncle said his father was wronged, and an extremely dangerous secret was hidden within it.

Yet in front of this cold "firewall" protocol, the truth didn't seem important at all; what mattered was that "original sin" derived from Bloodline.

Seeing Fang Cheng remain silent, Dong Yunchuan quickly comforted him:

"A-Cheng, don't worry, I have already applied to the higher-ups for a delayed process."

"You have a very favorable condition: in that high-risk case, you participated in the comprehensive search organized by the Special Investigation Team, the physical examination records on file show normal, and your physical activity values are also within the range of ordinary people. All data shows that you are an absolutely normal person, and I will argue strongly on your behalf."

Dong Yunchuan leaned forward slightly, a flash of sharp light crossing his eyes.

"Moreover, I have a very close personal friendship with a councilor of the parliament—it's Councilor Zhao, whom you helped eliminate two assassins and saved that night at Wangjiang Tower."

"He has always been grateful for kindness, and with him stepping forward to guarantee and plead for you, things will be much easier to handle."

Fang Cheng's pupils flickered slightly, neither admitting nor denying it.

"By then, as long as you undergo another physical examination to prove your body is fine, obtaining the master's degree in law should not be a problem."

"After all, you are just studying, not taking the civil servant exam to become a judge; they don't need to be so rigorous."

Speaking of this, Dong Yunchuan couldn't help complaining.

"At the end of the day, this set of rules is too rigid and should have kept pace with the times long ago! The Special Investigation Team themselves often break the rules and exploit loopholes, yet they point fingers at us ordinary judicial and education Systems!"

"Thank you, Dean Dong."

Fang Cheng thanked him, pondered for a moment in his heart, and then threw out another question.

"Master Ma once told me that many members of the Special Investigation Team strengthen their bodies by injecting potions, and they similarly face the risk of mental loss of control."

"Does this Firewall Protocol not work on themselves?"

Hearing this, Dong Yunchuan was slightly stunned, and his expression instantly became extremely complex:

"Sigh... This is also a helpless move."