125: Chapter 125 Dawn and the List

The third-floor window shattered behind him.

The whistling wind and the screams from the ground blended together in Chen Xi's ears.

[Exoskeleton Auxiliary System - Anti-Gravity Buffer Mode] activated.

The falling force, strong enough to turn a person into mush, was instantly neutralized by a gentle power.

The three of them, like three weightless feathers, drifted down and landed on the cold lawn of the headquarters' backyard.

The landing was silent.

Chen Xi did not pause for a single moment.

He grabbed the still-shaking Zhao Beichen with one hand and Nakajima Shinichi, who was nearly collapsing, with the other, reactivating the optical camouflage.

"Go!"

His voice sounded as if it had been fished out of an ice cellar.

Behind them, the headquarters compound had descended into absolute chaos.

Sharp alarms, Soldiers' shouts, and officers' roars intertwined into a chaotic symphony.

No one noticed three blurred figures in the dark corners moving away at extreme speed.

Chen Xi did not look back.

Following the path he came by, he navigated precisely through the labyrinth of ruins and shadows.

Finally, he stopped in front of an abandoned church that was half-destroyed by bombs.

This was one of the backup safe points he had selected long ago.

"Stay here."

Chen Xi pushed the two terrified men into the church's basement.

"Do not come out and do not make any noise before dawn."

Zhao Beichen's lips quivered as if he wanted to say something.

But when he saw Chen Xi's emotionless eyes, he swallowed all his words back down.

He simply nodded vigorously.

Chen Xi said no more, turning to close the heavy stone door of the basement.

He did not leave.

Instead, he climbed the church's crumbling Bell Tower with his bare hands.

This was the highest vantage point in the vicinity—the most dangerous, yet the most suitable for keeping watch.

He needed an absolutely quiet environment to take stock of the gains from this brush with death.

The darkness before dawn was at its deepest.

Leaning against the cold stone wall, pain and exhaustion washed over Chen Xi like a tide.

But he did not rest.

With a thought, he began taking the heavy spoils of war out of the system space one by one.

Dozens of cold, black film canisters.

Several thick document bags wrapped in kraft paper and sealed with wax.

And two small wooden boxes made of high-grade paulownia wood, emitting an ominous aura.

He first picked up a document bag.

He tore open the wax seal and pulled out the documents inside.

Operational orders from the Japanese Army's Sixth Division, logistics reports, casualty statistics...

The system's built-in scanning and translation function converted the Japanese text into words he could understand.

[Guiding Plan for the Liquidation of 'Resistance Elements' within Nanjing...]

[Implementation Details for the Establishment of 'Military Comfort Stations'...]

[Distribution Report on Spoils of War (Including Civilian Property)...]

Every document was a piece of bloody evidence.

Expressionlessly, Chen Xi scanned these documents in high definition, encrypted the package, and transmitted them to the 2026 'Great Wall' Command Center.

In the Livestream room, hundreds of millions of viewers saw the contents of these documents simultaneously.

The bullet chat, which had just been cheering for the protagonist's successful escape, instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Next came an endless eruption of volcanic rage.

[Beasts! Absolute beasts!!!]

[This is their so-called 'Holy War'? They are just a pack of beasts in military uniforms!]

[I... I can't watch anymore... my hands are shaking...]

[Carve these things into stone! Let their descendants see exactly what their ancestors did!]

Inside the 'Great Wall' Command Center.

The white-haired head of the History Group, Elder Qian, trembled violently as he looked at the clear documents on the screen.

He suddenly clutched his chest, his mouth open but unable to make a sound, as muddy tears silently rolled down his wrinkled cheeks.

The staff nearby quickly supported him and fed him Fast-acting heart relief pills.

The entire Command Center was shrouded in a suffocating grief and indignation.

Chen Xi ignored all outside sounds.

He simply scanned and uploaded the documents mechanically.

Then, he picked up the first paulownia wood box.

He opened it.

Inside were a dozen rolls of 8mm film and a small hand-cranked projector.

Chen Xi remained silent as he loaded a roll of film.

He turned the handle.

A beam of light projected onto the mottled wall of the Bell Tower.

Shaky, silent black-and-white footage began to play.

Two young men in Japanese Army second lieutenant uniforms leaned on their katanas, flashing bright, boastful smiles at the camera.

Behind them were rows of numbed Chinese prisoners of war with their hands tied behind their backs.

One of the lieutenants drew his sword and walked toward a prisoner.

The hand rose.

The sword fell.

...

Expressionlessly, Chen Xi turned off the projector.

He was afraid that if he watched any longer, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from rushing back to the Japanese headquarters right now to kill everyone inside.

He put away the first wooden box.

He picked up the second one.

This box was heavier than the first and was locked.

Chen Xi took out the large water gun and used the lowest power setting to instantly melt the small brass lock into molten iron.

He opened the lid.

There was no film and no documents inside.

Only a thick, black-covered ledger lay quietly on the red velvet.

On the cover, a title was written in gold-stamped Japanese Kanji.

Jinling Cultural Elite Liquidation List.

Chen Xi's pupils suddenly constricted.

He flipped open the list.

The first page.

It was a photo of a lean, middle-aged man wearing glasses.

Name: Liu Guowei.

Occupation: Fluid dynamics expert, former Central University professor.

Address: No. XX, XX Road.

Below was a line of handwritten notes: "Potential threat to Imperial aircraft manufacturing; priority disposal recommended."

In the final column were three blood-red stamps.

[Scheduled Disposal Date: Showa Year 12, December 15th].

That was today.

Chen Xi flipped through page after page.

Architects, chemists, paleographers, famous Kunqu opera performers, masters of traditional Chinese painting...

Nearly a hundred names, nearly a hundred photos.

Every single person was a most precious treasure of this nation.

Behind every person's name was a blood-red date that was already imminent.

This list was a hundred times more detailed and accurate than the one the 'Great Wall' project team had painstakingly pieced together from various historical records.

This was a death note.

Chen Xi immediately scanned and uploaded the entire list, not missing a single page.

At the 'Great Wall' Command Center.

Looking at this list, Elder Long and all the experts gasped.

They immediately performed cross-references and discovered that many people on this list were marked as "missing" or "died in the war" in their original history.

This meant that in the original timeline, they had all died.

"Ghost! Ghost!"

Elder Qian's voice, filled with tears and extreme excitement, exploded in Chen Xi's mind via the encrypted channel.

"This list... it's not just a death note... it's a rescue map! It's the most precise rescue map we've ever had!"

Chen Xi slowly closed the list.

In the east, a sliver of white was appearing on the horizon.

A new day had arrived.

But for those on the list, this might be the last dawn of their lives.

All expression vanished from Chen Xi's face.

Exhaustion, anger, sadness...

At this moment, it all transformed into an absolute, cold, machine-like calm.

He spoke only one sentence into the communication channel.

"Sort their locations by urgency and sync them to my map in real-time."

"The operation begins now."