Chapter 55 – A Trap With No Exit
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The night air was thick with tension.
A decoy task force was dispatched to District C's Building 11—flashing lights, fake encrypted communications, and actors posing as elite agents. It was the perfect show.
But Bai Xueqing and Mo Chen weren't anywhere near it.
Instead, they were in a silent surveillance room five blocks away, inside an unassuming laundromat with reinforced steel doors and retinal scanners. The walls were lined with screens—each one displaying live drone feeds, thermal scans, and network traces.
"Anything yet?" Xueqing asked.
Mo Chen didn't look away from the central monitor. "Lin Nuo says the mole took the bait. The decoy site was accessed via a stolen keycode—one only the internal ops team knew."
Her eyes narrowed. "So we do have a second traitor."
Mo Chen nodded. "And this one's more dangerous. They're not being blackmailed—they're loyal."
She folded her arms. "Then we won't show them mercy."
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Elsewhere…
The masked man, known only to a few as "Mr. Zhen," stood in a dark apartment lit only by a single lamp. He was studying the live footage of the Building 11 decoy site. His gloved fingers hovered over a tablet screen.
"Everything's too clean," he muttered.
Behind him, a younger subordinate said cautiously, "Sir… should we abort?"
"No." Mr. Zhen's eyes gleamed behind the mask. "We test them further."
He tapped a command.
From a nearby laptop, an auto-triggered signal shot out—a dormant virus hidden in an old Bai Corp data system woke up. It began probing for access to the primary network.
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Back in the surveillance room, Meng Zhihao cursed, nearly falling off his chair. "We've got a breach!"
Mo Chen and Xueqing spun around.
"Where?" she asked.
"Low-grade attack, but it's deep. They're not trying to break in—they're testing response time."
"Kill it," she said.
Meng typed furiously. "Already on it. Deploying a counter-spike to trace the source…"
One second passed. Then another. Then—
"Gotcha!" Lin Nuo cheered, his voice crackling through comms. "They pinged us from a relay tower in District E. And guess what? That tower's been flagged before—in an old military case file linked to Project X."
Xueqing stiffened. "Project X?"
Mo Chen's eyes darkened. "A ghost operation. Shut down years ago. Only a handful of files ever survived—and one of the agents… disappeared."
"You think it's him?" she asked.
"I think," Mo Chen said grimly, "the past isn't as buried as we thought."
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That night, they launched a silent hunt.
No sirens. No headlines. Just quiet steps in shadow.
Xueqing, dressed in black tactical gear, slipped into the back entrance of the relay tower while Mo Chen disabled external CCTV feeds.
Inside, the air was stale. Dust coated the abandoned control panels, but one monitor still blinked faintly.
"He's using this place," Xueqing whispered.
A faint beep sounded.
Then the door slammed shut behind them.
Gas hissed into the room.
"Trap!" Mo Chen shouted, grabbing Xueqing and yanking her down behind the server rack.
But the poison wasn't lethal—just disorienting.
A speaker crackled above them.
"Well played," said a distorted voice. "But you're not the only ones with old tricks."
Xueqing narrowed her eyes.
"I'll see your tricks," she whispered, "and raise you a war."