Joven Primer Ministro, un ermitaño

Capítulo 33

"You're not kidding, are you?" Ye Cheng stared at Xia Chen with wide eyes.

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Xia Chen asked rhetorically.

Ye Cheng said helplessly, "I've been a policeman for so many years and I've never heard of any SS-level evidence room in our city. I've only heard of four evidence rooms: A, B, C, and D. Heaven knows where this SS-level evidence room is."

Luo Shimin pointed to a line of text on the document, "It should be in Beijing. It's written in the document, isn't it? You might not know, but your colleagues might. Ask them."

Ye Cheng said, "If anyone knows about an SS-level evidence room, it would definitely be the director. Do you think he would tell me if I asked him? Besides, I guess even the director doesn't know there's such an evidence room."

Xia Chen said, "The SS-level archives must be in Shangjing City, and in a very safe place. Think about it carefully, and you might remember it."

"Impossible!" Ye Cheng said decisively. "If there really was such a place in Beijing, I would have found it long ago. What place could be safer than the police station?"

Xia Chen snapped his fingers. "Then it'll be at the police station."

"That's even more impossible!" Ye Cheng was going crazy. "I've lived and worked at the police station since I became a policeman. I know every corner of the police station like my own hands. It's impossible for it to exist in the place you're talking about."

"Let me tell you something: nothing is impossible, only unimaginable." Xia Chen pulled Ye Cheng to his feet. Ye Cheng asked, "Where are we going?"

"To the police station you know best!" Luo Shimin and Xia Chen dragged Ye Cheng out together. Li Xiao skipped and jumped after them; she was very eager to know the secrets of the police station.

Hu Rongrong didn't follow. "I'm not going. I'll stay and take care of Shui Lan and Zheng Yubing."

Half an hour later, Ye Cheng was dragged to the police station by Xia and Luo. Standing at the entrance of the police station, Luo Shimin sighed, "So this is what the police station is like. It's not as scary as my brother said."

Ye Cheng helplessly spread his hands and said,

"You see, the police station is such a small place. It's possible to hide one person, but hiding an entire evidence room is not impossible, it's absolutely impossible."

Xia Chen said casually, "Don't speak too soon. We've been to the basement before. Take us to see other places. I've visited many places, but I've never visited a police station."

"What's so interesting about visiting a police station?" Ye Cheng looked at Xia Chen and Luo Shimin's eager expressions, while Li Xiao grinned mischievously beside them. He knew she definitely wouldn't help him. Ye Cheng knew he had to take them on a tour; if they couldn't find the SS-level archives, they'd give up.

"Follow me." Ye Cheng led the two into the police station building and stopped in front of the elevator. "The police station building has fifteen floors and three elevators, but only two are usually in operation. One goes up one floor and the other up two floors. Both elevators don't stop on floors one through five. Floors one through five are occupied by ordinary units. The evidence rooms A, B, C, and D are on the sixth floor. The thirteenth floor is the archives, and floors fourteen and above are the main conference rooms. The locations of some departments are classified, so I can't tell you or take you there. Li Xiao's forensic room is on the ninth floor, and my office is also on the ninth floor. Xia Chen has been there before. Where would you like to start?"

Luo Shimin asked curiously, "Why is the evidence room on the sixth floor while the forensic department is on the ninth floor? Shouldn't these two units be as close as possible to each other?"

Ye Cheng was stumped. From the first day he stepped into the police station, the layout had remained the same. Time had clouded his judgment, and he had never noticed anything amiss in the layout. Faced with Luo Shimin's question, he couldn't answer. Li Xiao spoke for Ye Cheng, "Perhaps the chief at the time liked this layout when the police station was built; that doesn't prove anything."

Xia Chen smiled and said, "In the eyes of a qualified detective, every illogical point is suspicious. If something exists, it must have a reason. This seemingly illogical layout must have a reasonable explanation. Perhaps the place we are looking for is right there. Let's begin."

Ye Cheng exclaimed, "You're not going to the evidence room, are you? Outsiders are not allowed in there. If we get caught, my police career will be over. Besides, I don't have the key to the evidence room. How are we going to get in?"

“I have some!” Li Xiao raised his hand, revealing a bunch of keys. He shook them gently, and they jingled pleasantly. “The four evidence rooms are full of evidence from closed cases. If they’re left untouched, they’ll be destroyed after a while. What’s the point of showing them around?”

Ye Cheng looked suspicious. "You're just a trainee police officer, how could you have a key to the evidence room?"

"It was Sister Li from the evidence room who gave it to me. She saw that I had nothing to do these past few days, so she asked me to help her clean the evidence room. You wouldn't believe it, the dust inside is almost a centimeter thick."

Luo Shimin patted Ye Cheng on the shoulder and said, "Being a policeman has no future. If you are fired after being caught, I will talk to my brother and you can work for him. You can earn more in a month than you would in a year as a policeman."

Ye Cheng wanted to cry. If he joined the Batian Gang, given his grandfather Ye Fanye's personality, he would definitely chop him into countless pieces with a kitchen knife.

Xia Chen pointed to the police station building and said, "I have a purpose in going to see the evidence room, not just to see something new. If you look at the height of the building, and each floor is two meters high, the building is definitely more than fifteen stories high. The exterior of the building is entirely decorated with dark glass, so people won't notice the floors from the outside. I make this deduction: the police station building actually has sixteen floors. The SS-level evidence room we need to find is hidden under the four evidence rooms. As long as we make some changes to the stairs from the first to the fifth floor, we can completely hide this floor."

"This..." Ye Cheng thought about it seriously. What Xia Chen said wasn't impossible. The highly classified SS-level evidence room had been right under his feet for many years, and he had never discovered it?

"Let's leave now, let's go." Li Xiao pushed Ye Cheng into the elevator.

With a ding, the elevator stopped on the 7th floor. Ye Cheng peeked out; the corridor was empty. "Hurry!" Ye Cheng grabbed Xia Chen and Luo Shimin and ran out of the elevator, Li Xiao following behind with a grin. There were several security cameras on this floor, and Ye Cheng knew their location well. When they reached the door of the Class A evidence room, Li Xiao didn't follow. Looking back, Ye Cheng saw Li Xiao walking leisurely behind them. He urged in a low voice, "Hurry up, you have the key. Don't let anyone find out."

Li Xiao shouted, "What am I afraid of, a policeman walking in the police station building?" Seeing Ye Cheng's face turn as black as the bottom of a pot, Li Xiao ran a few steps and opened the two large iron doors of the evidence room. After pushing open the third iron door, a chilling blast of air blew out, and the four of them subconsciously took a few steps back.

Ye Cheng joked, "What's going on? Even during the hottest days of summer, the air conditioning is only allowed to run for a few hours. Why is it so strong in this deserted place? Has the director lost his mind?"

Li Xiao was the first to enter the evidence room. "There's no air conditioning in the evidence room at all; it's chilly all year round. The first time I came in, I got goosebumps. If Sister Li hadn't been holding me back, I would have turned around and run away." Ye Cheng followed him in. The air seemed to be filled with some kind of gray particles, making the whole room feel deathly still. There was also a peculiar smell in the air, an indescribable stench of blood or decay, making him want to vomit. The walls were covered with a dense layer of water droplets, and moss grew in the corners where there was no sunlight. There was definitely a strange feeling here; Ye Cheng felt uneasy. He had never imagined that a police station could have such a terrifying place besides the morgue.

"What kind of things are stored in this evidence room?" Xia Chen and Luo Shimin walked in hand in hand. Luo Shimin covered her nose with her other hand. Having spent a lot of time with Xia Chen, she had gradually become accustomed to all sorts of strange smells. There was a small notebook next to the door. After looking at it, Li Xiao said, "This evidence room contains the murder weapon, crime scene evidence, and photographs."

Xia Chen said expressionlessly, "No wonder the Yin energy is so heavy. I've heard a saying that the resentment of the murdered person will attach to the weapon that killed them. The more people a knife has killed, the more malevolent it is. A knife that has killed more than 10,000 people can even slay ghosts and gods. Luo Xie's Great Xia Dragon Sparrow is an example."

Li Xiao walked to the shelf and took out a hammer that was still stained with blood in a plastic bag. He was as excited as if he had found a treasure. "This is the hammer that Ma used in the serial murder case that shocked the whole country. He used this hammer to kill three of his classmates."

Ye Cheng snatched the hammer back and put it down. "There's nothing to make a fuss about. You have ten minutes to look at it quickly, then leave." Ye Cheng ran back to the door to stand guard. Actually, there was no need for this at all. This place might not even be visited once a month. Ye Cheng was just feeling guilty.

Xia Chen walked around the room, unsure of what he was looking for. Li Xiao followed behind and asked, "Is the SS-level evidence room really down here?"

"I don't know either, I'm just guessing." Xia Chen's answer made Li Xiao a little embarrassed.

Ten minutes passed quickly. Ye Cheng stood at the door and peeked out, asking, "Someone's coming soon, have you noticed?"

Li Xiao shook his head.

"Give me five more minutes," Xia Chen said to the two women. "Everyone, split up and look for anything related to S. Filing cabinets that start with S, evidence with S in them, anything with an S in it will do, two SSs would be even better. Or even S-shaped decorations will do."

Luo Shimin pointed to the floor under Xia Chen's feet, "There are two snakes intertwined on the floor under your feet, which looks just like an S."

Xia Chen glanced down, somewhat admiring Luo Shimin's imagination. It wasn't an intertwined snake at all; it was two S's. Seeing "SS" written on the floor in the suspected evidence room was enough to explain the situation. Xia Chen pointed to the floor and said, "I think the confidential archive we're looking for is downstairs."

Ye Cheng closed the door and ran over. "The SS-level classified room is downstairs? But where's the entrance?"

Xia Chen bent his middle finger and tapped the floor, making a loud thud. "It's hollow underneath. There must be some kind of mechanism nearby. Everyone split up and search."

"What should the organization look like?" Luo Shi was getting a little tired of standing. She leaned against the file shelf next to her, and with a click, the shelf slid open, revealing a dusty display screen. "You're my lucky star!" Xia Chen excitedly hugged Luo Shi and kissed her. By the time Xia Chen realized what he had done, Luo Shi's face was already redder than an apple. "This...this...what is this?"

Ye Cheng wiped the dust off the screen. At the top were four sets of passwords, each consisting of four numbers or letters. Below was a keypad for inputting the password. At the very bottom, Ye Cheng also saw a line of small print: "Made by Xia Group." Ye Cheng cursed, "Damn it, it's Xia Group stuff again. I hate Xia Group. Does anyone know how to fix this piece of junk?"

No one noticed Li Xiao's expression change briefly before quickly returning to normal. She said, "This is one of the Xia Group's cutting-edge technologies—a variable-digit digital lock. The password is sixteen digits long, and it's not fixed; it changes periodically depending on the user's requirements. After three incorrect attempts, the system automatically alerts the local police station. Considering we're inside the police station, the police will arrive within thirty seconds. It has an independent built-in power system, so a power outage won't affect its operation. The system's casing is made of titanium alloy; even if you blew up the entire police station, the system wouldn't be affected in the slightest. The Xia Group produced a total of five of these; I never expected to see one here. I bet the room below is an SS-level archive."

Everyone stared wide-eyed at Li Xiao, and Luo Shimin asked, "How do you know so much?"

"I learned about it at school. The Xia Group's system is very advanced, so I studied it specifically." Li Xiao wiped the dust off the screen and pressed a key on the keyboard with his slender fingers.

"Don't touch it," Ye Cheng said a little late. Li Xiao's hands flew across the keyboard, while Ye Cheng covered his ears with his fingers. The alarm remained silent for a long time.

“No system in the world is perfect. Every security system has vulnerabilities, and manufacturers will leave backdoors in the system for various purposes. I can use the keyboard to write a small binary virus, delay the alarm time, and then enter the system to find backdoors or vulnerabilities. We can then enter the SS-level evidence room and see what we want to see without anyone knowing.”

"Did you learn this at the police academy?" Ye Chengjue found Li Xiao increasingly mysterious. The skills she possessed couldn't possibly have been taught at the police academy. Just who was she?

"This is my hobby, and I feel I need to remind you that I can only delay for five minutes. If you don't want the alarm to go off, then don't bother me anymore." Li Xiao's words made Ye Cheng break out in a cold sweat. If the alarm went off, he wouldn't be able to explain himself no matter how hard he tried. There were already rumors in the department that he was colluding with the Batian Gang. If his colleagues who rushed over after hearing the alarm saw him with Luo San Nu's youngest daughter trying to hack into a top-level security system, his fate might not be as simple as just being fired.

The evidence room immediately fell silent, with only the sound of Li Xiao typing on the keyboard audible.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes passed, and beads of sweat appeared on Li Xiao's forehead.

Four minutes passed, and Li Xiao typed even faster.

In the last thirty seconds, Ye Cheng began to consider whether he should hide Xia Chen and Luo Shimin first, since Li Xiao would be fine even if the police arrived and caught her.

In the final ten seconds, it was too late. Ye Cheng closed his eyes, resigning himself to fate. Following Luo Xie might not be a bad choice.

Ten seconds passed, and Li Xiao pressed the Enter key, giving everyone a strange smile.

Click click...

The floorboards bearing the letter SS sank inwards, revealing a staircase made of gleaming steel. Lights below flickered and illuminated. Li Xiao gestured for everyone to proceed. "The legendary SS-level evidence room is right before us. Please prepare yourselves."

"I'll go first!" It had probably been many years since anyone had gone down there, and Ye Cheng, worried about potential dangers, was the first to descend. His shoes made a crisp sound on the bronze steps. Ye Cheng went down, the lamplight casting his shadow on the steps, and then he stopped.

Xia Chen asked anxiously, "What did you find?"

"You'll see when you come down and take a look." Ye Cheng was so surprised he didn't know what to say.

Xia Chen and the other two practically ran down the stairs, and the highly confidential SS-level evidence room came into view.

It's not much different from the Class A evidence room above, with shelves that seem to stretch as far as the eye can see. The only difference is that each shelf only holds one or two items, and there's no dust in the room, so there's probably an automatic dust removal system here.

Li Xiao walked to a shelf containing a large glass bottle. The bottle's opening was only the size of a fist, but inside was a human head that filled the entire bottle. The head had no neck, and its chin was smooth and flat, without any cuts. When Li Xiao looked up, she saw that the head's eyes were open, staring at her. Li Xiao gasped in surprise; she clearly remembered that when she first saw the head, its eyes were tightly closed.

Ye Cheng pulled Li Xiao away from the bottle with the human head on it. "You'll have plenty of time to study this later. We need to find what your information mentions first."

"Come quick, we found it!" Luo Shimin shouted. In a corner of the evidence room, there was a special section with four cabinets labeled "Yishi Academy." On the second cabinet were eight glass bottles. Four of them contained two eyes, with the black part of the eye taking up most of the space, leaving only a small amount of white. The black part of the eye was covered with countless pinhole-sized pupils, a sight that would haunt one's dreams for days. The other four were single eyes, indistinguishable from ordinary eyeballs. The labels on the bottles read "Removed from the brain."

Fear suddenly pressed down like a mountain, making it hard for the four to breathe. Fear was also like a venomous snake, instantly coiling around their bodies and baring its deadly fangs. The excessive tension even caused Luo Shimin's body to convulse uncontrollably. Xia Chen held her tightly, unsure how to soothe her fear, because even he himself was terrified. Ye Cheng and Li Xiao were in no better shape, huddled together against the support behind them.

The eyes, originally at the bottom of the bottle, all rose to the center as the group approached, staring directly at them as if countless eyes were watching them. All four had the inexplicable feeling that these eyes were alive; they simply were! When they moved a few steps to the left, the eyes shifted accordingly. When they moved a few steps to the right, the eyes moved as well.

“That’s impossible. The last eyeball we put in was four years ago.” Ye Cheng mustered his courage, picked up a bottle, and shook it up and down a couple of times. The eyeball sank to the bottom, then floated back up. He shook it left and right a few more times before putting the bottle back. The eyeball spun around in the bottle several times before finally stopping and staring at the four of them again.

"Let's go." Li Xiao felt a sense of relief. The fear had reached the limit that her heart could bear. If they didn't leave soon, her heart would burst.

Just as the four were about to leave, all their eyeballs instantly turned blood red. A fierce hatred pierced through the bottle like a sharp knife, cutting into their skin. In their minds, it sounded as if many voices were speaking simultaneously, "Run! Run! Hawkeye's awake!"

008 Dream Woman

None of the four remembered how they got out of the SS-level archives. When they regained consciousness, they were already standing at the door of the A-level archives. The door was locked. If their clothes hadn't been soaked with cold sweat and their hands hadn't been covered in dust, they would have thought they were dreaming. Now, they wished it were a dream.

The four of them refused to speak, silently walked to the elevator, and left the police station building.

At the entrance of the police station, Ye Cheng broke the silence first, saying, "What exactly is Hawkeye? Why do I feel my soul tremble when I hear those two words? After all these years, why are these eyeballs still alive?"

Xia Chen rubbed his head; it ached a little. The voice in his head had said something else at the end, but he hadn't heard it clearly—it seemed to be a name. He had heard Ye Cheng's question, but he couldn't answer it. There was one thing he knew: the voice in his head hadn't said "Eagle Eye," but "Fly Eye." The pronunciations were similar, but the connotations were worlds apart. Eagle Eye was proud and unyielding; Fly Eye was filthy and disgusting. Whatever Fly Eye was, it had existed longer than he had lived. It hadn't appeared for over four years. How had Zheng Yubing offended such a thing? If he didn't find a way quickly, she would surely die. "I'm going back to the hospital first," Xia Chen said helplessly. He didn't even know what he was dealing with; how could he possibly have a solution?

Li Xiao and Ye Cheng did not return to the hospital. Instead, they stayed at the police station, trying to find clues from the mountain of files from Yishi College and doing everything they could to prevent Zheng Yubing from becoming the eighth victim.

Xia and Luo walked back to the hospital in silence, holding hands tightly, exchanging words of confidence and strength. Xia Chen's mind raced. Of the seven victims before Zheng Yubing, five were suspected of participating in the Nuwa Project; the other two were a member of the Xia Group and a Japanese national. Analysis suggested that Fly Eye knew the details of the Nuwa Project and had been trying to thwart its progress. It also disliked the Japanese and members of the Xia Group, making Fly Eye seem like a good person. So why did it attack Zheng Yubing? Her father did work for the Xia Group, but he was a lawyer and couldn't possibly be involved in the Nuwa Project. Or perhaps Zheng Yubing had inadvertently witnessed something, and Fly Eye needed to keep her quiet to protect the secret. This possibility was unlikely, but not impossible. What had she seen?

Xia Chen was still deep in thought when they arrived at the hospital. Hu Rongrong was waiting for them at the door and asked impatiently, "What have you found? Can you wake Yu Bing up?"

There was no good news. Xia Chen didn't know how to tell Hu Rongrong. Luo Shimin had already started talking to Hu Rongrong, and the more Hu Rongrong listened, the more heartbroken she became, tears welling up in her eyes. Xia Chen said, "We will definitely find a way to wake Zheng Yubing up. How are she and Shui Lan doing?"

Hu Rongrong wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes. "The doctor just did rounds. Shui Lan is fine, Yu Bing is still the same. Her family came and just left. Oh, by the way, one of the doctors casually mentioned something during rounds..."

"He's still dreaming, it just won't stop. I've never seen such strange brainwaves before." I asked him what it meant, and he told me that the patient's brainwaves were repeating periodically, probably because he was repeating the same dream.

"A dream?" Xia Chen slapped his forehead.

"How could I forget about her dream? Dreams are a function of the human brain. If you experience certain stimuli during the day, you might dream about them while sleeping, and subconscious thoughts can also manifest in dreams. Zheng Yubing is having recurring dreams, and there must be many clues within them. It would be great to know the content of her dreams. If she were awake, we could use hypnosis to find out the content of her dreams, but she's currently unconscious, and current technology can't do that. How can we find out what she's dreaming about?"

Luo Shimin said, "I have a way!"

"What did you say?" Xia Chen couldn't believe his ears.

“I have a way,” Luo Shimin said. “My brother has a subordinate named Meng Po. She has a secret technique that allows you to enter another person’s dream. At first, I didn’t believe it, but Meng Po used the technique to make my brother and me have the same dream. In the dream, my brother and I even talked. After we woke up, we compared our words and found that not a single word was wrong.”

"There are people like that?" Xia Chen was still a little skeptical. "How did your brother find her? Could he have been a con artist who offered himself up?" Xia Chen knew that some sophisticated con artists were experts in psychology and could read your mind to know what you were thinking, then use certain methods to make you hallucinate. He once met an old man with a white beard who could guess what you were thinking after chatting with you for a while, and he was almost always right.

"She was hired by one of my brother's rivals to deal with him. For a while, my brother had the same nightmare every night for four consecutive nights. After paying close attention, he discovered that a new maid in the house was secretly putting something in his coffee. My brother caught her red-handed and interrogated her until she told him everything. She was a secret witch from deep in the mountains of western Hunan. The locals called her the Dream Granny. Her dream magic was so advanced that she could even kill people in their dreams. She and the corpse-driver were known as the two evil spirits of western Hunan. My brother's rival paid a lot of money to bring her out of western Hunan. My brother said she was a master, so he didn't make things difficult for her. The Dream Granny was grateful to my brother for not killing her, so she stayed. Later, my brother caught his rival, and the Dream Granny used her dream magic to make him have nightmares every night. In less than a month, he went insane."

Thinking of Luo Xie's methods, Xia Chen shuddered. Hearing Luo Shimin's words, this Dream Woman was truly capable. If she could let me know Zheng Yubing's dream, perhaps she could awaken Zheng Yubing, solve the mystery of the fly's eye, and even break Nuwa's plan. With this thought in mind, Xia Chen said to Luo Shimin, "Call your brother immediately and tell him to bring the Dream Woman here right away." Luo Shimin glanced at Hu Rongrong, who nodded and went to find a quiet place to make the call. Xia Chen didn't notice the anger that had crept onto Hu Rongrong's face.

Luo Shimin skipped back, relieved that Zheng Yubing might be saved. Her mood improved considerably.

"My brother said he would arrive with Meng Po within half an hour."