bioinnovel Chapter 324 The Hunting Grounds Have Opened!
Chapter 324 The Hunting Grounds Have Opened!
Zhang Yan went out at 10 a.m. the next day.
Nie Qingcheng was still asleep, the blanket was pulled up tightly, only half of her face was visible.
He left a note on the bedside table with a note indicating where breakfast was, then quietly closed the door.
The hallways were quiet, the elevators were quiet, and the underground parking garage was quiet.
He didn't drive; he walked directly to the shopping street.
It's not far, about twenty minutes.
The jewelry store hadn't opened yet; a sign at the entrance said "Open at 10 AM." He glanced at the samples in the window, then, without waiting, sat down at the coffee shop next door, bought an Americano, and checked his phone for the message Qin Xiao had sent the night before.
"There are three heat sources over Yokosuka, not two."
He replied with two words below the message: "Understood."
Then I opened the military's data interface and retrieved the global anomaly monitoring map updated last night.
The red dots are densest in Southeast Asia, and there is a continuous, spreading magnetic field distortion in the area south of the Aung Tun region in northern Myanmar.
Counting north, the area around Jinghai has been completely cleared. After the last cargo ship incident, he had Qin Xiao conduct a thorough search, and there were no remnants.
What caught his attention most was a coordinate point in Central Asia that suddenly lit up around midnight last night, lasted for forty minutes, and then went out.
It's not a gradual weakening, it's a direct cut-off, like someone flipping a switch.
This characteristic is unlike the natural dissipation of a family member.
He sent a screenshot of the coordinates to Qin Xiao: "Check this out."
"Okay, here you go today."
After I finished my coffee, the jewelry store opened.
The shop assistant was a woman in her thirties. When she saw him come in, she calmly looked him over from head to toe, smiling very professionally.
"Hello, is this for personal use or as a gift?"
"The engagement ring."
The woman's eyes changed, her enthusiasm surged, and she immediately led him to the display stand.
Zhang Yan stopped in front of the glass table and pointed to the innermost row.
"Platinum, nothing too flashy."
"Okay, please look this way—"
He spent a while browsing, three minutes, and selected two styles.
One is a classic single diamond, clean.
The other countertop has fine lines that are not noticeable at first glance, but when viewed from the side and illuminated, the entire rim reveals intricate craftsmanship.
"This one," he said, pointing to the second one.
"You have excellent taste; the inner ring can be engraved. Take a look—"
"Engrave 'Yan' in the inner circle." He thought for a second, "Just one character."
The woman paused for a moment, then nodded.
"size?"
"52 millimeters."
The woman looked up at him, as if to say: Have you measured it?
He didn't explain, but took out his phone and showed her the line of text on Nie Qingcheng's note.
The woman took it, glanced at it, her lips twitched slightly, she confirmed the size and packaging, and then paid.
The entire process took eleven minutes.
My phone vibrated as I was leaving the house; it was a message from Nie Qingcheng.
"Where did you go?"
"outside."
"What are you doing?"
"Buy things."
"...What should I buy?"
He took a picture of the black velvet bag in his hand and sent it over, only showing the outline.
Nie Qingcheng remained silent for thirty seconds.
Where are you now?
"On the way back."
"hurry up."
……
Back at the villa, Nie Qingcheng was already sitting in the living room, her hair freshly combed, wearing his gray hoodie, with a blanket draped over her legs, holding a cup of hot water. She watched him enter, her gaze falling on the bag in his hand before looking away.
He pretended to be very calm.
Zhang Yan put the bag on the coffee table and sat down opposite her.
"Open it and take a look."
Nie Qingcheng put down the cup, slowly took the bag, untied the strap, took out the small box inside, and opened the lid.
Just watch.
He didn't say anything.
Zhang Yan waited for a while.
"When viewed from the side in the light, there are fine lines," he said.
Nie Qingcheng picked up the ring, brought it to the window, and held it up to the light.
Then she turned the ring over and looked at the inscription on the inner band.
"Yan," she read aloud, her voice not loud.
"I only engraved one character, because if I engraved yours here, it might not be enough space."
Nie Qingcheng took the ring back, closed the box, and placed it on her lap.
Looking up at him, I saw that his eyes were a little red, but they didn't fall, and the corners of his mouth were twitching upwards.
"Did you think you said something very romantic?"
"good."
She picked up the box, opened it, took out the ring, and compared it to her left ring finger; it fit perfectly.
"I need you to put it on for me."
Zhang Yan went over, sat down next to her, took the ring, held her hand, and slid it down her finger, stopping at the base.
Then he didn't let go.
Both hands were clasped together, and she was very quiet.
Nie Qingcheng turned her head to look at him.
"What are you thinking?"
"Thinking to myself, I have to return this hand to you."
She paused for a moment, then gently pushed him, her voice a little hoarse.
"Glib-tongued."
She pulled her hand back, took the ring off, and put it back in the box.
"Keep it for now, until you finish that matter."
"Wearing it then would be considered formal."
She clutched the box in her hand, looked down at it, and lowered her eyelashes.
"OK."
Zhang Yan remained silent.
The wind from Jinghai outside the window pressed down on the branches of the trees in the yard, bounced them up, and then pressed them down again.
The phone lit up on the table. It was Qin Xiao.
"The coordinates in Central Asia have been found. It's an abandoned Soviet-made underground command post that was sealed off many years ago."
There are no permanent residents within a radius of 200 kilometers.
"Last night, a high-density, scorched energy fluctuation was observed, which lasted for forty minutes before abruptly stopping, leaving burn marks on the ground."
Below that was another line of text:
"...Military satellite images show traces of human-like movement in the vicinity, three sets, with shoe prints of abnormal size, all exceeding the normal range for humans."
Zhang Yan picked up his phone and looked at it twice.
The Ruins' retinue does not need a base; they follow the energy core and will not stay in one place for more than three days.
But this underground command post had been abandoned for thirty years and had no resources. What were the families doing there?
"Send over high-resolution satellite images, and also have the military check the historical archives of this command post to see if there are any old records related to anomalous energy."
"it is good."
He put down his phone, looked up, and saw Nie Qingcheng looking at him.
"You've got work done?"
"There's a new coordinate that needs to be verified."
"Not in the land of cherry blossoms?"
"Central Asia," he said, "is a little closer than Japan."
Nie Qingcheng placed the box on the coffee table, leaned back, pulled the blanket up, her eyelashes pressed down, her face expressionless, but she did not object.
"Shall I take a day off and help you look this up?" she said.
"No need, I use the system to filter it here. I just sit and monitor the data until a conclusion is reached."
"Then you go keep watch, I'll sit next to you."
"……OK."
……
At 3 PM, the military archives were sent over.
That abandoned underground command post was used during the Soviet era for an experiment codenamed "Abyss Lamp".
The file contained no main text, only a briefing cover with an overprinted stamp and a few lines of summary—the experimental subject was an "unconventional energy body" of unknown origin, and the experimental progress was "suspended" because the sample "self-destructed."
Zhang Yan stared at the words "sample self-destruction" for a while.
It wasn't sample damage, it wasn't an experimental accident, it was "self-destruction".
He mentally reviewed the clues: the underground command post, sealed off for thirty years and abandoned, suddenly experienced energy fluctuations last night, lasted forty minutes, and then abruptly stopped.
It wasn't the retinue patrolling; something was activated and then deactivated.
It's possible that someone went there.
It's possible that someone deliberately turned it off.
It's also possible that someone went looking for something, couldn't find it, and then left.
He sent this idea to Qin Xiao, asking him to check if there were any border crossing records in the vicinity, regardless of nationality.
"Take a look at all undeclared cross-border activities within a 500-kilometer radius over the past month."
"This... is a bit difficult. I'll go through the military intelligence channels; it'll take two days."
"OK."