99: Chapter 99 The gate faces the sea, where three rivers converge and flow for ten thousand years.

The entire fifth basement level of the Chinese medicine shop had been converted into a high-tech biological laboratory, roughly half the size of a football field.

Cool white LED strips were arranged overhead, illuminating the entire space without leaving any shadows or blind spots.

Gene sequencers, protein purification systems, and a row of instruments he didn't recognize stood against the walls. One of them was emitting a rhythmic hum, with a green waveform jumping across its screen.

Various test tube racks and Petri dishes were neatly stacked on the tabletops. A faint, characteristic scent of chemical reagents drifted through the air.

At the workbench in the center of the lab stood Black Panther and an elderly man of Indian descent.

Black Panther turned around, holding a data tablet in his hand. The screen was filled with genetic sequences that Thompson couldn't understand.

The elderly Indian man beside him had skin like old leather, weathered by both sun and time. He wore a pair of thick reading glasses and a traditional turban wrapped around his head, leaning over a microscope eyepiece to observe something.

"Did you really have to design the secret code to be so complicated?" Thompson looked at Black Panther, who was wearing a white lab coat, and complained immediately upon meeting. "When I was in school, my least favorite thing to learn was Chinese. It's such a tongue-twister."

"I practiced that sentence over forty times into my phone, and I still almost bit my tongue just now."

Black Panther gave a slight smile. He placed the experimental data tablet on the table and unhurriedly took off a glove.

"Comrade Thompson, this secret code was actually created to commemorate a bloody period of history."

"Have you ever heard of the Great East? There was once an empire called the Qing."

Thompson nodded. "I've heard a little about it."

Black Panther picked up an unopened bottle of water and placed it next to Thompson. "The rulers of that dynasty were far more cruel than the alien Chen Mu is today."

"You might find it hard to imagine, but in that empire, people could be seized and beheaded by those rulers just for saying one wrong word."

Thompson's fingers tightened on the water bottle. The plastic wall made a faint, sharp crack. "Just because of a single sentence? They'd take a life?"

"Mhm," Black Panther nodded. "And sometimes, it wasn't just you they killed."

"Your parents, wife, children, and even your siblings—all of them would be seized and killed, or reduced to slavery."

Thompson was completely stunned. He had worked for the NYPD for twenty-six years. The most brutal case he had seen was a drug dealer who burned a competitor's entire family of seven alive in a car to seize their supply; the entire precinct hadn't slept well for three days after that.

But what Black Panther was describing now wasn't a crime—it was a system. A system decreed by a dynasty, enforced by officials, and accepted by society as a whole.

"Oh my God!" Thompson slammed the water bottle onto the table. "Did that country have no human rights?"

Black Panther shook his head. "To the Emperor at the time, the common people below were merely livestock he kept in private pens."

"Just as Chen Mu views us humans."

"The difference is that Chen Mu needs us to film plotlines, while those Emperors needed those livestock to work for them so they could support him."

"And no one resisted them?" Thompson asked with some indignation.

Black Panther looked at him, a glint of light finally surfacing in his eyes. "Of course there were."

"And that is the origin of this secret code. There was once a group of people who were the first to stand up in that era, resisting that dynasty called the Qing. Although they ultimately failed, the sparks of their resistance have been passed down ever since."

"Wait." Thompson suddenly raised a hand, a layer of alertness flashing in his eyes.

"Didn't you say that dynasty would kill everyone related to the resistance? That they wouldn't even let their relatives go?"

"Then how were their sparks passed down?"

Black Panther was silent for a moment before speaking softly. "Of course, they didn't just kill everyone involved in resistance activities."

"They also invented ten types of extremely cruel punishments specifically to intimidate those who hadn't joined the resistance."

Thompson's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

Black Panther continued, "The most cruel among them was a punishment called Lingchi. They would tie the prisoner up and slice the flesh off their body, one cut at a time."

"In the most severe cases, it's said they would make over three thousand cuts, literally shaving the prisoner down to a skeleton while they were still alive."

Thompson broke out in a cold sweat. In his many years with the NYPD, he had seen many autopsy report photos, the most horrific being car accidents and burn victims, but those were instantaneous deaths.

But Lingchi with three thousand cuts meant the executioner had to precisely calculate the depth and position of every single cut, ensuring the prisoner didn't die within the first five hundred.

This wasn't a goddamn execution; it was the most cruel torture a civilization could inflict upon its own kind.

"Oh! Hallelujah!" Thompson couldn't help but cross himself. "How much agony must that be?"

Black Panther didn't speak; he just looked at Thompson in silence.

Once Thompson had calmed down, he murmured to himself, "Why did they resist? Was it because they couldn't survive anymore?"

Black Panther shook his head. "Some things are just like that; there doesn't necessarily have to be a 'why'."

He took half a step forward. "Furthermore, many of the high-ranking members among those rebels weren't unable to survive. On the contrary, if they had lived normal lives, they would have lived very well."

As those words fell, Thompson felt his scalp tingle. For a moment, he felt like these people were insane. Why would they seek death when they clearly had good lives?

Black Panther raised his head, casting his gaze toward the ceiling.

But Thompson knew he wasn't looking at the ceiling, but at New York—at the world above that had been rewritten by aliens.

"So you understand now, Comrade Thompson." Black Panther's voice grew solemn. "Even if we ultimately fail, even if everyone is killed and paraded through the streets under the most cruel alien punishments..."

He withdrew his gaze and looked into Thompson's eyes.

"I bet that as long as humanity hasn't gone extinct, there will surely be others in the future who will hold high the banner of the Human Renaissance, carrying on the sparks of the Human Renaissance for us."

Thompson sat there, not speaking immediately. He lowered his head and looked at his own hands.

A few minutes ago, he was in the elevator complaining that the code was too much of a tongue-twister, but now, that code had become incredibly heavy.

'The earth shakes the high ridges, a scene of mountains and streams beautiful for eternity. The gate faces the great sea, three rivers join their waters to flow for ten thousand years.' This wasn't some password game.

It was the last words someone shouted through gritted teeth centuries ago while being cut three thousand times.

"I understand," Thompson said, his voice raspy. "This code is used to remind us that someone before us once did something equally remarkable."

Black Panther suddenly dropped his usual solemnity and patted his shoulder with a chuckle. "Don't be so serious, Thompson. To tell you the truth, I've already sold out the name of the Human Renaissance Alliance."

"Pfft!"

Thompson, who had just taken a sip of water, suddenly spat it out. He didn't even have time to wipe his mouth. "You sold what?!!!"