EDEH Chapter 55.1

[007 Diary Twenty-One]

[“Dawn” restoration progress 100%, fully loaded.

…The truth is always so shocking. “Dawn” is even more cruel and dark than “Dawn No. 2.”

From ninety years ago, when the Court began crafting Huo Feng’s heroic image, everyone has lived in lies from birth to death.

For the first time, data analysis cannot provide a clear answer. I suddenly find it difficult to decide whether to expose this lie or continue maintaining it.]

·

The night was deep.

A slender figure rummaged through boxes and cabinets in the room—cabinets, drawers, even the interlayers behind paintings, but still found nothing.

She anxiously scratched her hair, completely unaware of the dark shadow that had appeared behind her.

“What are you looking for?”

The sudden voice scared her so much that she jerked around, her lower back hitting the hard table edge, causing file folders to clatter to the floor.

She supported herself against the desk, swallowed, and after a long time could see who it was: “…Sang Jue?”

Sang Jue stood with his hands behind his back, repeating: “What are you looking for?”

“I—”

Shiwei pressed her heart, recovering from the shock before explaining in detail: “I don’t know specifically what I’m looking for, it’s just that what happened these past two days makes me feel that Carol’s death… that’s my partner’s death, might have some connection to Old He.”

They were now in District A No. 1 Supervision Bureau, in Old Herman’s office.

Sang Jue asked: “Why do you suddenly think that?”

Shiwei was silent for a moment, then said: “Carol didn’t have any particular abnormalities before he died, but one day he suddenly mentioned to me, ‘I feel like you’re going to have a stepmother.'”

Sang Jue blinked, not understanding.

Shiwei slid into the chair, silent for a while before saying: “I was picked up by Old He from the ruins twenty years ago, when I was only eleven. Although I never called him dad, we really lived together like biological father and daughter for twenty years.”

About half a month ago, Carol accidentally saw Old He secretly meeting with a woman with shoulder-length hair in a secluded alley. He didn’t see her face clearly, but from her aura, she seemed young and beautiful.

So Carol came back and jokingly mentioned to Shiwei: “You might be getting a stepmother.”

Shiwei casually replied: “Maybe it’s Old He’s work colleague or friend.”

Carol didn’t believe it, laughing: “Ordinary colleagues and friends don’t need to meet in such secluded places, right?”

Shiwei didn’t pay much attention at the time.

During Herman’s decades in high position, he had no companion by his side. Apart from her, the daughter he picked up, he had no relatives, no friends, let alone a lover.

He walked through decades of life alone, sacrificing everything yet being pointed at by thousands, and in the end might even enter the crematorium bearing infamy.

If there really could be a lover to accompany him through the final stretch of life, that would indeed be a good thing.

At the time, she didn’t think there was anything significant about what Carol saw, but now thinking carefully about it, there was a kind of chilling terror.

Who was the woman Old He met with that day? What were they planning, and was it related to Huo Yanji’s arrest today?

One question after another.

“Old He was really good to me. The day he brought me back, he told me he only had a few insignificant small requirements for me: no being a mercenary, soldier, or deviant, no entering any executive department of the Supervision Bureau. Everything else was up to me—I could do whatever I wanted.”

Sometimes Shiwei felt that Herman didn’t particularly like her as a daughter, but just randomly brought home a child—anyone would do, male or female didn’t matter. Herman just wanted this child to experience the carefree life he had never felt.

By watching from the side, he would have experienced it too.

“But ever since his student Bo Qing had his incident eleven years ago, I’ve understood him less and less. He’s become increasingly taciturn, increasingly ruthless, and increasingly secretive.”

Shiwei picked at the dead skin around her nails: “But before Huo Yanji was arrested, I had never suspected Old He… Carol and I were about to get married, why would Old He…”

Sang Jue pursed his lips: “Do you believe Ji… Huo Yanji is innocent?”

“I believe it, of course I believe it.” Shiwei smiled with forced lightness, “He and Bo Qing are ranked second and first respectively on my dream lover list.”

So the number one dream lover was Bo Qing.

Sang Jue noted this secretly, but couldn’t compare who was better since Bo Qing was already dead.

Sang Jue asked: “So now you want to find evidence that Old He killed Carol?”

Shiwei shook her head, saying quietly: “Rather than looking for evidence that he killed Carol, I’d say I’m looking for evidence that Old He is innocent.”

When you suspect someone, it plants a seed in your heart that takes root and grows with time, becoming a towering tree. Any abnormal behavior from that person makes the tree more lush.

This was painful.

Shiwei looked around the office that had basically been searched once, closing her eyes with a slight sigh.

Even though she found nothing, the suspicion still hadn’t disappeared.

Sang Jue suddenly said: “I don’t know if Old Herman killed Carol, but I know he framed Huo Yanji.”

Shiwei paused, not too surprised: “Do you have evidence?”

“I’m also here looking for evidence.” Sang Jue raised his index and middle fingers, seriously proposing: “You now have two choices: accompany me to find evidence, or I kill you—”

Remembering Huo Yanji’s words about not randomly killing people, Sang Jue changed his words: “Or I knock you unconscious, then find evidence myself.”

Shiwei casually shrugged: “I’ll accompany you. What are you looking for?”

Sang Jue said uncertainly: “Probably a document called ‘Dawn No. 2.'”

This was what 007 had overheard through the communicator during Huo Yanji and Old Herman’s conversation.

Shiwei looked puzzled: “Dawn No. 2? What’s it about?”

“Do you know why Herman wants to harm Huo Yanji?” Sang Jue asked and answered himself: “Because he and many high-level officials united to send hundreds of thousands of people in batches to the bottom of the rifts, to recreate a few war gods like ‘Huo Feng,’ and Huo Yanji wants to stop them.”

“…What do you mean?”

Sang Jue took out Ivan’s notebook he had found at the rift base, flipped to the last page about the rumors before Huo Feng’s complete disappearance, and handed it to Shiwei.

Then he explained again about how people who ‘failed genetic testing’ had higher success rates fusing with wild contamination genes, and the truth about General Huo Feng becoming a deviant.

…

After hearing everything, Shiwei’s mouth hung slightly open, full of shock, unable to digest this information.

A long time later, she finally said haltingly: “Such a mission jointly ordered by so many high-level officials must have written documents… but they must be hidden very secretly.”

Although Sang Jue knew the truth, in human eyes he was just an insignificant nobody. Without evidence, no one would believe what he said.

Shiwei stood up, checking the time: “The next patrol shift change at the Supervision Bureau is in half an hour. We can search some more, and if we still have no results, we’ll go to Old He’s house.”

The office ultimately yielded nothing.

The two snuck out during the patrol shift change, heading straight for Old Herman’s house.

Old He had personally arrested Huo Yanji and would surely be too busy to stop these past two days—impossible to have time to go home and sleep.

His house was like Huo Yanji’s apartment—lived in for decades but empty, bare walls, nothing.

Shiwei searched while saying: “Even if we found ‘Dawn No. 2,’ it couldn’t prove Huo Yanji didn’t kill deviants. There’s no direct connection between the two. You need to prepare mentally—after all, there really aren’t many people in the city who like him and are willing to trust him.”

Sang Jue pursed his lips: “There will be evidence.”

007 was capturing surveillance footage of all high-level conversations from the past half month, pulling out and analyzing any archived footage that mentioned Huo Yanji’s name.

There was also that fragmented classified document called “Dawn” that 007 had discovered in the main city’s network domain earlier. Although Sang Jue didn’t know its contents, his intuition told him it was a truth as cruel as “Dawn No. 2.”

Huo Yanji had mentioned several times that “so-called evolution is just a lie,” and in Ivan’s notebook, Huo Feng’s final words also mentioned that he and many high-level officials had told all survivors a massive lie.

This ‘massive lie’ must not be the currently known information, but a more terrifying truth.

Old Herman’s house also yielded nothing.

The furnishings in his house were obvious at a glance—very simple, with no place to hide things, not even a safe.

Shiwei sat on the sofa in a daze for a while, then waved her hand: “You go first, I’ll sit a little longer.”

Sang Jue wasn’t too disappointed and left first.

Before coming, he had mentally prepared himself that such important documents wouldn’t be easy to find.

Fortunately, there was still 007, which was infiltrating deeper network domains. Although viewing the “Dawn No. 2” files required high clearance, for 007 it was just a matter of time.

On this technologically backward planet, it was a god of the network domain.

The night was already deep.

Although the highest executive officer had been arrested, the curfew system he had established was still being enforced as usual. The streets were quiet and empty, like a dead city.

Sang Jue hid in the dark shadows. The passing patrol team didn’t notice the slender figure under the eaves.

Sang Jue felt a confused sense of having nowhere to go.

Before, he thought home was just a room with food and a bed—that was home.

But looking at the scattered starlight filling the sky, he suddenly understood that on his home planet, wherever the doctor was, that was home. And on this strange planet, wherever Ji Ji was, that was home.

Hmm… would the Supervision Center mind if a dragon slept soundly during interrogation?

After all, the dragon just wanted to go home and sleep.

Sang Jue wandered about indecisively, feeling his logic was perfect and shouldn’t be stopped by anyone.

Ahead, a team of patrol soldiers suddenly ran past the moonlit street, with some chaotic sounds coming from the side.

Sang Jue quietly followed and discovered it was a group of humans clamoring for public trial and execution of Huo Yanji, mostly deviants.

Compared to ordinary people, deviants hated Huo Yanji more.

Ordinary people were only shot if infected, but deviants had to undergo contamination index checks every month, and countless deviants on the verge of losing order died at the hands of supervisors every month.

There were too many supervisors to hate them all, so Huo Yanji in his high position was the best target for venting.

They ignored the curfew system, walking in groups on the streets: “Publicly announce all of Huo Yanji’s crimes!!”

“He has no right to be the pioneer leading humanity!!”

“Request public trial, public execution!!”

“Huo Yanji must pay the price!!”

…

This scene wasn’t the first time it had been performed—it was just that the previous two days had demonstration teams during the day, but tonight they appeared too.

Sang Jue became angrier as he listened. His entire arm under his jacket turned into green slime, creeping forward stealthily under cover of darkness until it climbed onto a deviant’s shoe.