131: Chapter 131 The Last Ark

The night was starless.

Thick smoke clouds obscured everything above Nanjing.

Only the distant glow of fires illuminated the city's outline, casting it into a series of grotesque silhouettes.

Chen Xi did not go to Tani Hisao's residence.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction.

Before the trial, he had one last thing to do.

To arrange a final path of survival for the 'sparks' he had rescued from the butcher's knife.

He moved like a true ghost through the ruins and darkness.

Through the communication channels established earlier, he contacted the most trusted assistants of Rabe and Vautrin respectively.

There was only one order.

Immediately transfer all the rescued experts, scholars, and their families to a secret waterway entrance in the south of the city, which was abandoned and connected to the Qinhuai River.

The operation unfolded in silence.

One by one, the terrified figures were led out from their various hiding places under the cover of night.

Among them were white-haired elders, terrified middle-aged couples, and children holding tightly to their parents, not daring to make a sound even while crying.

Everyone was silent, following the guides toward an unknown destiny.

The group gathered at an abandoned pier.

It reeked of the river's fishy smell and the stench of mud, but it was the only Noah's Ark in this city of hell.

Dozens of scholars, representing the future of the Dragon Kingdom, were now like frightened birds, gathering together and looking at the young man standing before them, who radiated a cold aura.

Chen Xi had no superfluous words.

He spread out a map captured from the Japanese Army. On it, a red line clearly marked a waterway, planned by the 'Great Wall' project team, which was a path of narrow survival.

"This path leads to the Yangtze River."

His voice was calm, without a ripple.

"Follow the riverbank westward, and someone will meet you."

He handed the map to the oldest and calmest historian in the crowd.

"Old sir, from now on, I entrust this group to you."

The historian took the thin map with trembling hands—a map that carried dozens of lives and the future of the entire nation.

He looked at Chen Xi, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something but couldn't.

Chen Xi understood the look in his eyes.

"I still have some personal business that needs to be settled," he said calmly.

"To exact a blood debt for this city."

Everyone fell silent.

They looked at the young man, at his bottomless eyes burning with a cold flame, and instantly understood what he was going to do.

"If I do not return before dawn," Chen Xi's gaze swept over everyone.

"You must leave. Do not wait for me."

These words hit everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.

The wind blows mournful, the Yi River is cold; the hero departs, never to return.

No one tried to persuade him otherwise.

In such a hell on earth, any words of persuasion seemed pale and powerless.

After a long silence, the white-haired historian slowly bowed deeply to Chen Xi.

Immediately after, all the scholars and their families behind him, regardless of age or gender, silently bowed deeply to the young man who had brought them a chance at life.

There were no words.

This silent, heavy entrustment was worth more than a thousand words.

Chen Xi silently accepted this gesture.

He placed the last of his high-energy compressed biscuits and a medical spray at the historian's feet.

This was the last protection he could offer.

After doing all this, he had no lingering attachment.

He turned around.

Step by step, he walked into the deeper, heavier darkness of Nanjing.

His retreating figure, seen through the blurred tears of the crowd, did not tremble, nor did it hesitate.

Like a lonely priest, he walked toward the bloody altar that had long been destined for him.