Evolution - Chapter 152

Chapter 152

Commander Xingchen was a man of great resolve. He made a swift decision, saying, “I’ll arrange for someone to disguise themselves as you and deliver the Iridium Gold Stream tomorrow afternoon to see if we can fool them. We’ll record the video and send it to you immediately.” He personally took over Ji Changqing’s email account, reassuring her, “All incoming emails will be recorded and sent to you right away.”

Ji Changqing clenched her jaw, the lines of her face tightening. For some reason, she had a strange feeling they wouldn’t be able to fool the other party.

That meant they had to find Yu Zhiyao as quickly as possible!

Traveling through the sea of stars wasn’t a simple matter of flying in a straight line. The universe was filled with all sorts of things: asteroids of all sizes; terrifying stellar hurricanes that could strip a layer off anything and grind it into fine sand; unstable dead stars on the verge of exploding; black holes of varying scales; dangerous rifts in spacetime; and even space beasts that could roam and survive freely in the void.

Thus, every stable shipping lane carved through the vast sea of stars was paved with money. Any deviation from these routes introduced a host of unpredictable dangers.

Even with the top-of-the-line small warship issued to their special forces unit, and a crew of experienced, highly skilled, and daring individuals, they didn’t dare to charge recklessly through space.

The team took turns resting. Regardless of whether their previous injuries were severe or minor, everyone received the same treatment, conserving their strength to ensure they could execute their mission in peak condition at any moment. Only Ji Changqing slept curled up in the cockpit, her arm exposed to serve as a navigation device.

Twenty-four hours had passed since they received the mission and corrected their course. Ji Changqing had woken up; there were still four hours until three in the afternoon.

The team ate lunch in silence. Ji Changqing was consumed with worry. First, she was concerned for Yu Zhiyao’s safety. Second, she wondered if the plan to have someone impersonate her on Muyun Planet would succeed. If it failed, how much time could it buy them? Would it be enough for their team to find Yu Zhiyao first?

Everything was an unknown.

The only certainty was that Yu Zhiyao was in a terrible, life-threatening situation.

After learning that Yu Zhiyao had been abducted, she truly understood why family and friends were always asked to step aside during a crisis. When a person was gripped by panic, their mind ceased to function properly. Their reactions would always be a few beats too slow, and their emotions would be incredibly volatile.

Right now, for instance, she was completely incapable of thinking clearly about how to handle the situation step by step—how to assess the circumstances, how to deploy personnel, how to configure the team, what possible scenarios might arise…

Her mind was filled with a single, all-consuming thought: she had to get to Yu Zhiyao’s side. Immediately. Right now!

But that was impossible. So she was like a caged animal, trapped in a relentless cycle of anxiety, unease, frenzy, irritability, and despair, punctuated by furious curses directed at the mastermind—curses that spared none of their ancestors for eighteen generations. It was a cycle without end.

After three in the afternoon, Ji Changqing became almost obsessive, her eyes glued to her comms screen whether she was standing, sitting, or lying down.

Commander Xingchen had only taken over her email account to facilitate tracking when a message arrived; she could still see new mail notifications.

As the commander, he didn’t need to report every detail of the operation on Muyun Planet to her. He would have arranged for someone to impersonate her and someone to run the trace. The enemy would surely anticipate this, but whether the trace was successful would come down to a contest of skill.

At 3:37 PM, the new email notification chimed. Ji Changqing’s reaction was explosive; she practically shot up from her seat.

Less than two minutes later, Xingchen opened a communication channel and played the recorded email video for her. Yu Zhiyao was bound to a chair, her limbs secured. A highly conspicuous timer was attached to the armrest, and a dense web of wires and explosives was visible beneath the chair.

Her expression was calm, her tone perfectly steady. “Changqing, I’m not afraid. You don’t have to be afraid either.”

Ji Changqing’s eyes burned, a sourness rising in her nose as tears welled up. She couldn’t even bear to blink. Subtitles appeared at the bottom of the video: “24 hours left. Good luck.”

Ji Changqing slammed her fist onto the floor and covered her face, tears seeping through her fingers.

Xingchen glanced at her, his expression unreadable, but fury was clearly burning in his eyes. His calm voice cut through the air. “She must be on a starship. We’re analyzing the details from the previous photos and this video to match and identify the model of the vessel.”

“Team Seven is heading in the same direction you’ve been traveling for the past day. If necessary, we’ll have them provide priority support.”

Ji Changqing quickly regained her composure. She wiped her face and stood up, her voice still raspy and low. “I’ll let you know when we’re within ten thousand li.”

“Understood.” A flicker of surprise crossed Xingchen’s face before vanishing. “Within ten thousand li… at warp speed, even with detours, two hours should be enough. We’ll contact the nearest military garrison for support.”

An hour later, the analysis identified the starship model. They then cross-referenced all ships of that model that had departed from planets near the secret project’s location. After filtering by departure time and eliminating those that had already landed or were scheduled to land within 24 hours, they narrowed the list down to six vessels.

By overlaying the direction indicated by Ji Changqing’s navigation, they judged the flight paths and identified three ships as the most suspicious.

The critical problem was that all three were passenger starships, carrying hundreds of thousands of travelers.

They immediately requested the boarding surveillance footage from all three ships. After nearly going blind from staring at the screens, they finally confirmed that Yu Zhiyao had not boarded through normal means. It was highly likely that members of the starship crew were either complicit or part of the enemy’s group.

The investigation then shifted to the crew members. They meticulously combed through their social connections, frequented establishments, and personal relationships, cross-referencing them with the group that had abducted Yu Zhiyao from the secret project site to identify any possible points of intersection.

Xingchen was even audacious enough to surreptitiously run checks on the high-level individuals he suspected, accessing any information that was within his authority and not too highly classified.

By just before ten that night, they had essentially locked onto the starship with the highest probability. The only hesitation was this: if there was a mole among the crew, would contacting them through the airline company tip them off and lead to an even worse outcome?

Xingchen dispatched several teams to discreetly investigate the individuals he suspected. He then contacted the military garrison that, by his calculations, would be closest to the starship at 3 AM.

Based on the most likely suspect ship’s trajectory, it would pass near the garrison’s location in a few hours.

Having the garrison dispatch a fleet would be useful, whether for a rescue or for support.

Just after eleven, Ji Changqing, who was so alert she seemed almost hyper, noticed the white arrow on her arm gradually turning pink. “We’re within ten thousand li!”

It was as if the entire team had been injected with adrenaline. They stared in silent awe at the pink arrow.

Commander Xingchen showed no surprise. This direction, this distance—it confirmed that their prime suspect was the correct one.

He notified the garrison to prepare for departure and gave them an approximate location. With that, his direct support for Ji Changqing’s team concluded. But on another front, the silent battle of investigation was just beginning to unfold. That was his battlefield now.

As the distance closed, the pink arrow deepened in color, eventually turning a rich, festive red.

At 1 AM, the passenger starship found itself intercepted by a warship from the front, signaling it to stop for inspection, while another warship pursued from behind, steadily closing the distance. The starship’s captain was terrified.

The special forces team leader forcefully patched into the captain’s communications, displaying his credentials. “Stop immediately and prepare for docking.”

The captain complied, slowing the ship. But a moment later, his expression changed. His fingers flew across the console, entering passwords to unlock and issue the command to halt, but after decelerating to a certain point, the ship’s speed held steady. A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. “The command is invalid! The central control has been forcibly locked into auto-pilot! It won’t stop until it reaches its destination!”

“Release your authorization,” the team leader said, his expression grim, signaling a technician to hack into the controls. Under Ji Changqing’s intense gaze, which felt hot enough to burn through his back, the technician struggled for nearly twenty minutes before shaking his head. “It’s no use. Disabling this lock will simultaneously trigger the self-destruct system.”

Being unable to stop meant they would have to perform a forced docking. Their small warship was out of the question.

The team leader could only instruct the starship captain to maintain minimum speed while he began coordinating a plan with the commander of the three ten-thousand-person warships and three small reconnaissance pursuit ships dispatched by the nearby garrison.

The final decision was for the warship carrying the garrison’s operation commander to perform the forced docking with the passenger liner. After all, their warship was more durable, and its crew had more experience and skill.

The special forces team, excluding the flight crew, transferred from their small warship to the larger one. Considering the need for close-quarters combat and the fact that over one hundred thousand people might need to be crammed onto the warship, the garrison had also preemptively transferred their non-technical and non-combat personnel to other ships.

At 3 AM, the warship, now having completed the massive personnel transfer, powered up, accelerated, and rapidly approached the passenger liner, which was proceeding at minimum speed. Amid a shower of sparks from the violent friction, the forced docking was successful.

In the meantime, the starship’s own technicians and security personnel had located Yu Zhiyao after a two-hour search.

She was conscious. The moment the door opened and she saw the search party, she calmly warned them, “Be careful. Don’t come any closer. It will explode.”

The chair she was in had been specially rigged. The slightest addition of weight would trigger the explosion.

The search party was scared out of their wits, wishing they could be as far away as possible.

After the docking was complete, the special forces team was the first to cross over, followed by specialists from the warship—communications, weapons research, and bomb disposal experts—as well as close-combat personnel, a significant number of whom were mecha pilots.

But Ji Changqing had nothing to do with the boarding party. The principle of keeping family and friends away was in effect.

Her mission was to stand guard at the docking bridge and serve as a human detector for malicious intent.

Lu Youxia and Weisman were on the warship, but they didn’t have a chance to speak. This was hardly the place for pleasantries, and with Ji Changqing’s girlfriend in a life-or-death race against time, there was no mood for catching up.

Over one hundred thousand people formed two lines, slowly moving into the warship. Ji Changqing stood in a spot where anyone crossing the bridge could see her without even looking up. Anyone involved in Yu Zhiyao’s abduction would surely recognize her. A single flicker of emotion would be all it took.

By 7 AM, the hundred thousand-plus people had finally been crammed into various parts of the ship. Ji Changqing had identified a total of seven people, including one crew member.

Each time she sensed someone, she would give a hand signal. Immediately, someone would lead the suspect in another direction, silently knock them out, search them, and drag them away to be locked up for later interrogation.

At 8 AM, Ji Changqing was finally allowed to board the starship.

After four hours of a painstaking, ship-wide search, and a collaborative effort between all the bomb disposal experts on-site and senior experts off-site, they came to a final conclusion: the bombs were rigged throughout the entire engine section of the starship. A single detonation would set off a chain reaction, making the entire vessel explode like a firework.

Some could be disarmed, but others were designed as a dead man’s switch—touch the wrong wire, and it would blow. Destruction was always far easier than restoration.

Yu Zhiyao understood this as well. Although she hadn’t seen how they set everything up, just by observing the setup around her, she knew that successful disarmament was highly unlikely. And getting her out of the chair was even more impossible.

Besides the timer, she herself was another trigger. The moment she left the chair, the bombs would detonate instantly, without delay or hesitation.

The mastermind had never intended to let her live.

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