Free Web NovelChapter 320: Chapter 320: Premonition
"I...I’m going upstairs to change clothes! They got dirty during the evacuation earlier..." she said with a cough.
"Really?" Chen Xuan couldn’t see anything dirty on her. The explosion started from the bottom of the building, and because of the floor-by-floor barrier, she wasn’t exposed to the strong light.
"Yes!" Lin Qing hurried upstairs as if fleeing.
Back in her room, she still couldn’t calm down.
"Heart rate and state do not match, adjust the throttle valve," Lv reminded.
"Shut up!" Lin Qing ordered fiercely.
What happened to her just now?
No...she knew what happened, but the point was, she shouldn’t be like this.
She’s a Future Warrior, having traveled a century back from the future, a last chance for human survival granted by the god of fate. From the moment of her birth, she was destined to give her all for this goal.
Just like her comrades who would never return.
Compared to the Rebel Army leader who could help the resistance achieve this goal, she was insignificant.
So when Chen Xuan chose to save her instead of Honglian, she really ought to feel angry.
When carrying such an important mission, emotions must not override reason. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
But Lin Qing had to admit, when she heard it, her first reaction was happiness. In the more than ten battles she participated in before, she and the other warriors were always just weapons to achieve goals, and as long as the mission was completed, no superior cared about the sacrifices made.
Even if they were the elite of the rebel army.
There was something she hadn’t told Chen Xuan.
She actually didn’t have a name. Lin Qing was an identity forged during the raid on the Crystal Palace, allowing them to pass through security barriers. She didn’t remember the other identities she forged before because this data existed in memory chips with leakage risks. So, every time she returned to base, she would delete the residual mission data.
In the rebel army, she only had a commonly used call sign and a secret code number.
Although the raid on the Crystal Palace failed, she returned a hundred years earlier, meaning the mission was not over, so she continued to use the identity of Lin Qing.
This was also, in Lin Qing’s memory, the first time she was treated with such importance.
"Anyway, being happy isn’t against the law, right?" she muttered to herself.
No response.
Oh...Lv was silenced. "You can speak now."
"Not against the law," AI immediately responded in her mind, "as long as Honglian is alive, you’ve done nothing wrong."
"I think so too," Lin Qing smiled, completely relaxing.
Optimism was her greatest strength.
Even in desperate situations, she had the confidence to face it calmly, munching on chips taken from the manager’s shelf. Moreover, this was far from a desperate situation; she could adjust her vastly fluctuating mood.
"Let me think...assuming the Dimensional Limit Mechanism didn’t consider the task force as disposable pawns, they should be in a safe place now. Once midnight passes, Chen Xuan can use his summoning ability again to bring Honglian to the store."
"Logical reasoning," Lv agreed.
"And then show her the video of the meeting site, so she can recognize the true face of the Mechanism, and thus become the historic insurgent leader..." Lin Qing suddenly paused, "But how exactly did Honglian become the leader of the rebel army?"
She had thought this person held a high position in the Mechanism, if not a high-level manager at the headquarters, then at least a supervisor at a branch. However, after contact, Honglian was merely the team leader of the Jiang City branch’s execution team.
Could such a person really lead a split in the Mechanism in the future and initiate a revolt against technological domination?
She had considered this previously.
But there was still a long time, and Honglian had enough room for growth.
At the current pace, dramatic change may happen in the future.
Dramatic change?
Lin Qing looked up, staring at her reflection in the window, stunned.
...
After finishing his coffee, a thought suddenly occurred to Chen Xuan—there must have been a major incident at the Cui Ting Building; even his newly set branch store was wiped out, but he still had other stores!
With this in mind, he immediately sat down in front of the computer, setting a branch location as a rental apartment in Paris.
Sure enough, the other stores were unaffected, and the app showed the setting as successful.
In this way, he wouldn’t have to wait foolishly in the store until tomorrow, but could immediately confirm the situation in Jiang City.
Chen Xuan intended to call Lin Qing, but seeing she hadn’t come down yet, he decided to take the elevator himself. Anyway, when Lin Qing came down and didn’t find him, she could probably guess where he went.
Arriving at the branch store, Chen Xuan hurried to turn on the TV—after all, the rent included internet and TV channel fees.
"Disaster-level explosion occurred in Jiang City an hour ago."
"Nearby cities detected an abnormal rise in radiation levels."
"This is Fakes News International Channel, our reporter is risking life to enter Jiang City."
"No organization has claimed responsibility for the incident yet."
Chen Xuan switched several channels, finding that all without exception were covering the explosion, and at this moment, the world’s attention seemed to be focused on Jiang City.
Honestly, in the ten-minute trip back to the store, there was an surreal sense in Chen Xuan’s mind. Whether it was the sudden turn of events or the brilliant white light that could imprint silhouettes on walls, these all happened in an instant, making people question if they really happened.
Now, the doubts were confirmed.
Through the floating car’s camera, he could see the city below—the spot of the original Cui Ting Building now had a huge pit, with flames and smoke constantly erupting, dyeing the clouds above a dark red. Surrounding the pit, all the houses and streets were destroyed by shockwaves, even reinforced concrete structures close by couldn’t withstand it, rubble and debris radiated outwards like collapsed dominoes.
The place where he rented also no longer existed; if Liuli had left a moment later, she might have been reduced to ashes with the branch store.
A large number of medical and fire floating cars gathered, searching for survivors among the building ruins.
In areas slightly less affected by the explosion, wounded people lay everywhere.
In those burning buildings, occasionally people entirely smoking would jump out of windows.
"It’s so tragic..." Chen Xuan murmured.
The city before him resembled a hell on earth.
This was the future dominated by Demons—the people living here were merely bargaining chips in their gamble. When their interests were threatened, Demons didn’t care how many had to accompany them to the grave.
Although both were called Jiang City, the situations couldn’t be more different.
"If we don’t overthrow the Mechanism, our world won’t fare much better." A familiar voice came from behind.
Chen Xuan turned around, and it was Lin Qing.
She had indeed changed her clothes, from a small suit she wore at the hotel to the combat gear she wore when they first met. Chen Xuan was slightly surprised, as Lin Qing preferred wearing casual clothes in the store, saying it had a homely feeling, and he even bought her several oversized t-shirts.
But it wasn’t his place to dictate what his partner should wear now, "The Dimensional Limit Mechanism wouldn’t be as ruthless as Demons, right?"
"Of course, most Ability Users joined the Mechanism with the intention of protecting the world," Lin Qing nodded, "but by then, the true enemy wasn’t the Mechanism itself, but the completely out-of-control nano bug disaster caused by Mechanism’s abuse. From the moment they gained consciousness, they were preparing to eradicate humans."
"Don’t worry, history will not repeat itself this time," Chen Xuan promised confidently.
"Hmm." Lin Qing smiled, her eyes full of trust.
"But where are Xiao Canong and the others now?" he looked at the TV, "The entire hotel has become a pit, they’re not still in the pit, are they?"
If the execution team returned to the Five Rings Machinery Factory, then either Honglian’s or Jiang Siqi’s phone would emit location information to them.
"Wait!" Lin Qing suddenly pointed to the TV.
"What is it?"
"Switch to another channel!"
Chen Xuan complied, the screen showed footage shot on the ground at the scene. Compared to the floating car’s view, the ground perspective was much narrower, but the atmosphere was more somber. In the camera, no pit could be seen, probably because the shot was taken some distance from the Cui Ting Building, only collapsed buildings and thousands of wailing residents could be seen.
"What is it?" Chen Xuan couldn’t see anything amiss.
"The look of those collapsed buildings seems familiar." Lin Qing stared at the screen for a while, then took out her phone, flipping to the picture she previously sent to Chen Xuan—a picture of an elderly lady in heavy protective clothing standing in a city turned to ruins.
This was the only preserved photo of the rebel leader Honglian. freewebnovel.cσ๓
After several checks, Chen Xuan couldn’t help being shocked. Despite a slight angle deviation and the incongruence of rolling smoke and the vine-overgrown ruins on the photo, he could recognize, this place was the same as in the photo!
