Chapter 253: The Eyes of Aurora City

"Then is Aurora City doing nothing at all?" Jian Changsheng frowned.

"If the Aurora Sovereign really dies, the fall of Aurora City is a certainty. Don't those Enforcers have any countermeasures?"

"Countermeasures? What countermeasures could they have?" Chu Muyun spoke slowly. "Aurora City must have started researching how to extend the Aurora Sovereign's life a long time ago. Believe me, they have done everything they could, but you just don't know about it... They even considered finding a way to replace the Aurora Sovereign to protect the entire Aurora Realm, but in the end, there were no results."

"How do you know so clearly what they've done? Has the Twilight Society's infiltration of Aurora City reached this point?" Jian Changsheng didn't believe it.

"Because I have seen it with my own eyes."

"You've been to the Aurora Base?"

"No, not the Aurora Base..."

Chu Muyun looked deeply at Jian Changsheng. "Do you think that among the nine human bases, the Aurora Sovereign is the only one whose life has reached its end?"

Jian Changsheng was stunned. He suddenly recalled a rumor about the Twilight Society that was extremely vicious and shocking...

"You mean..."

"Some things, once you have experienced them yourself, you will naturally understand."

Chen Ling watched the two of them speaking in riddles, his brow full of confusion. Just as he was about to speak, Chu Muyun said again:

"In any case, you two are the best candidates to infiltrate the Aurora Base. This mission is very important and carries a high degree of danger. You need to be mentally prepared."

"But isn't it said that the Aurora Base is the heart of the entire realm, with extremely strict security, and it's very difficult to get in?" Jian Changsheng pointed at himself. "Just relying on us two 6s, how are we supposed to sneak in?"

"[Heart 6] has special means to disguise his identity and enter. But there are many checkpoints in the base, and it's not that easy to get close to the Aurora Sovereign... Unless someone inside the base is there to assist him."

"Assist?"

Jian Changsheng reached out blankly and pointed at himself. "...Me?"

"That's right."

"I don't have any means of disguise, how am I supposed to get inside the base?"

"You don't have the means of disguise, but you have strengths in other areas..." Chu Muyun looked at Jian Changsheng with a smile. "I already have a meticulous plan, but it requires you to make a small sacrifice..."

Looking at Chu Muyun's smile, Jian Changsheng suddenly had an ominous premonition.

……

In the chaotic and narrow room, Wen Shilin pinned a photo to the wall, then let out a long sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed, exhausted.

He looked at the opposite wall, where the dense, crisscrossing lines looked like a spiderweb, connecting a large number of disorganized photos, articles, and notes. At a glance, it looked like he had entered a spider's cave...

The dim sunset shone through the window onto this dazzling wall. Wen Shilin rubbed his eyes wearily.

He rested on the bed for a moment, then slowly climbed up and sat back down at his desk.

"New Calendar Year 379, December 28th..."

As he spoke in a hoarse voice, the fountain pen on the notebook began to write automatically.

"Another day without going out... However, I have completed the puzzle of all events suspected to be related to the 'Hand of Redemption.' Excluding those events that can already be confirmed as unrelated, there are a total of three related events that I have filtered out."

"First, Deputy Chief Tan Xin secretly transferred a large quantity of explosives to the Aurora Base."

"Second, judging from the transaction records obtained from the Star Chamber of Commerce, a portion of organs was once traded to an entity named 'Aurora.' For the Star Chamber of Commerce to dare only leave two characters without any extra information, it couldn't possibly be an ordinary merchant or an individual alias... Related to these two characters, it could only be 'Aurora Realm,' 'Aurora City,' 'Aurora Base,' or 'Aurora Sovereign'... From the scope, the first two can be ruled out, and the 'Aurora Sovereign' is already inside the 'Aurora Base,' so that batch of organs most likely went into the Aurora Base..."

"Third, the elderly disappearance case I was investigating half a year ago... Patients judged by doctors as incurable disappeared from the hospital out of thin air, and even their families were unaware. The next day, a large sum of property appeared in the family's bank account... At the time, that case was traced all the way to the Enforcers. Later, the authorities issued a document with a voluntary signature, stating that the elderly person did not want to be a burden to their family anymore and thus voluntarily donated themselves to the Aurora Base for human experimentation."

"Explosives, organs, human experimentation... All three are closely related to the Aurora Base. What exactly are they doing there?"

Wen Shilin fell silent.

He looked out the window at the setting sun, at the city buildings and pedestrians extending to the edge of the horizon, and a look of determination appeared in his eyes.

"This case involves too much, and even cost A-Cheng his life... I cannot drag Lin Yan into this. I have to investigate this matter myself."

"Too many people live in this city, and their fates are beyond their control. If the Aurora Base intends to harm the entire city, it will be devastating... No matter how dangerous it is, someone must seek the truth..."

"I am willing to be the eyes of this city."

"...Record complete."

As Wen Shilin finished the last sentence, the fountain pen gave a slight shake and automatically fell back onto the paper.

Wen Shilin took a deep breath. He quickly threw on his coat at the door, put on a gray beret, stuffed the notebook and pen into his pocket, and left in a hurry with a camera hanging around his neck...

Click—

The door locked from the inside in the dusk.

……

The night grew darker.

Residents along the street lit candles, placed them gently into lanterns, and hung them under the eaves of their doors. Squinting at them, they looked like clusters of flowers.

Except for the dense and bustling commercial districts, few streets in Aurora City had streetlights. In this era where electrical resources were extremely precious, it was these gentle lights hanging at the doors that cast patches of brightness onto the dark streets, guiding their husbands, wives, or children toward the direction of home.

At this moment, a young man wearing a gray cotton-padded jacket was slowly weaving through the gentle lights. His shadow, like a flickering candle in the wind, was constantly being shortened and elongated...

His chapped lips parted slightly, and a puff of white mist drifted into the cold night wind, scattering into fragments in the blink of an eye, disappearing into nowhere.

"Noodles~! Piping hot noodles~~"

"Little brother, off work so late? You must be hungry, right?"

"Come have a bowl of noodles to warm your stomach!"

A hearty voice came from the side. A middle-aged man wearing an apron stood at the door, holding a noodle strainer in one hand and hands on his hips, speaking enthusiastically to Zhao Yi as he passed by. His voice was like the scorching sun in winter, full of vitality and hope.

Zhao Yi stopped. He turned his head stiffly to look at the noodle shop illuminated by the lanterns, his expression somewhat dazed.

"Little brother, why is your complexion so poor?" The middle-aged man asked with concern. "Looking at you, you're only in your teens, right? How come you seem more listless than an old man like me who's pushing fifty..."

"...No, nothing." Zhao Yi's head was a mess right now. He waved his hand subconsciously, having no idea what he was saying.

"Come in and have a bowl of noodles. You look like a kind person; how about I give you a twenty percent discount? Our shop's pork chop noodles are the best in Aurora City!"

Zhao Yi looked deeply at the pot of boiling, bubbling noodles and couldn't help but swallow his saliva.

But when his fingertips touched the meager amount of money in his pocket, he finally looked away.

"Thank you, but I'm not hungry."