99: Chapter 99 Rescue List

The briefing room was silent.

The air seemed to have frozen solid.

The bone-chilling killing intent radiating from Chen Xi caused the temperature in the room to drop several degrees.

Elder Long stood beside him, remaining silent.

He knew that at this moment, any words would be hollow.

The image on the main screen had switched to the emblem of the 'Great Wall' project.

But the hideous, smiling faces of those two Japanese Army Officers and that diary entry about the 'Hundred-Man Killing Contest' were like an indelible brand seared into the retinas of everyone present.

They were also carved into the hearts of the hundreds of millions of viewers in the Livestream room.

“Child.”

Finally, Elder Qian spoke.

His voice was hoarse and dry.

It sounded like two pieces of parched, old tree bark rubbing against each other.

He didn't look at Chen Xi, only at the screen.

“I know what you're thinking.”

“You want to kill them all.”

“You want every demon in that city to pay for their blood debts.”

Chen Xi didn't speak.

But his knuckles, turned white from the force of his clenched fists, said everything.

“But, you can't do it.”

Elder Qian's voice was soft, yet cruel.

“That is a fallen hell on earth.”

“It is a meat grinder running at high speed.”

“Inside are over a hundred thousand beasts, armed to the teeth.”

“Even if you don't sleep, rest, eat, or drink, how many could you kill alone?”

“A hundred?”

“A thousand?”

“Even if you killed ten thousand, compared to the blood feud of those three hundred thousand, it would be nothing more than a drop in the ocean.”

Every word Elder Qian spoke was like a cold, sharp scalpel.

Bit by bit, he dissected the raging fire of revenge in Chen Xi's heart, forcing him to see the cold, brutal reality beneath the flames.

Chen Xi's body swayed slightly.

Of course he knew.

How could he not know?

That sense of helplessness, that heart-wrenching pain of watching his compatriots being slaughtered while he was powerless to help.

Back at Sihang Warehouse, the moment Little Chen took his leap, he had already experienced it to the fullest.

The briefing room fell into a suffocating silence once again.

“So...”

Elder Qian slowly turned around. His clouded, bloodshot eyes looked directly at Chen Xi for the first time.

“We cannot only think about revenge.”

“Because, above hatred, we have an even more important mission.”

His voice suddenly rose.

“Child, you are not going into hell to be a lone vengeful ghost.”

“You are going to that scorched earth to be a guardian.”

“To rescue the final sparks of civilization belonging to our nation from the midst of the avalanche!”

As his voice fell.

The main screen lit up again.

This time, it was no longer those bloody historical records.

Instead, it was a list written in the most solemn Song typeface.

《Jinling Spark Plan - Grade A Rescue List》

Chen Xi's gaze was locked onto that title.

Immediately following, black-and-white photos, along with their names, identities, and last known locations, slowly emerged on the screen.

“Liu Guowei, thirty-seven years old, fluid mechanics expert, Dean of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at Central University.”

Elder Qian's hand pointed to the first photo.

It was a middle-aged man wearing round-rimmed glasses, with a gentle gaze and an elegant, scholarly air.

“He was a classmate of Mr. Qian Xuesen and a founder of our country's first generation of aero-engine theory. If he had survived, our nation's aviation industry could have been advanced by at least twenty years.”

“History records that he died on December 15th. On his way to the refugee shelter at Jinling Womens College of Arts and Sciences, he was bayoneted to death by the Japanese Army.”

The photo switched.

It was an elderly man wearing a long gown, with a thin face but exceptionally determined eyes.

“Chen Yinke, forty-seven years old, historian, linguist, academician of the Academia Sinica.”

“When the Japanese Army entered the city, he was organizing tens of thousands of precious ancient books moved south from the Forbidden City. To protect these national treasures, he refused his friends' advice to evacuate and chose to live or die with the books.”

“On December 18th, the Japanese Army broke into the basement where he was hiding and burned him along with tens of thousands of volumes of ancient books.”

The photo switched again.

It was a young girl with braided hair and a shy smile.

“Li Pei, twenty years old, a student at Jinling Womens College of Arts and Sciences, our country's future ‘Mother of Applied Linguistics’.”

“She...”

As Elder Qian spoke to this point, for the first time, his voice trembled violently and uncontrollably.

He closed his eyes, unable to go on.

Chen Xi's chest heaved violently.

He looked at those vivid faces on the screen, full of wisdom and integrity.

These people should have been shining brightly in their respective fields.

They should have become this country's most precious wealth in the future.

Yet, in the next few days, they would all wither away in that hell on earth in the most humiliating and tragic way.

Is this what the system meant by the loss of civilization in that parallel universe?

No.

This isn't a damn loss.

This is murder.

It is a most vicious decapitation strike against a civilization.

“This is your mission.”

Elder Long's voice sounded from the side, heavy yet firm.

“We cannot stop the massacre.”

“But we can save the future.”

“Every person on this list is a spark that our nation will rely on for its future rejuvenation.”

“Your mission is to find them under the butcher's knives of the Japanese Army, protect them, and ensure they survive at all costs.”

“You can kill.”

Elder Long's gaze became incredibly sharp.

“But every time you kill, it must be to better save people.”

“This is the way of revenge we have chosen for you.”

Chen Xi didn't speak.

He just quietly looked at those faces on the screen—some elegant, some firm, some youthful.

He slowly closed his eyes.

He branded the appearance, name, and last known location of every person deep into his mind.

When he opened his eyes again.

In those eyes that had been burning with the flames of fury.

There was only a cold, absolute calm remaining.

And a determination as heavy as a mountain.

“I understand.”

He slowly uttered those two words.

His voice wasn't loud.

But it was like a heavy hammer striking the heart of everyone present.

He knew what he was about to face.

It was an asura field a hundred times more desperate than Sihang Warehouse.

It was a thorny path ten thousand times more dangerous than the hellish Zipline.

But this time, he was no longer lost.

Nor was he alone.

Because he knew what he was fighting for.

And he knew for whom he was going.

He wasn't going for revenge.

He was going to carry out a judgment that spanned time and space.

And to complete a guardianship that belonged to the entire nation.