The Most Powerful Brain in the Interstellar Space

Chapter 344 Clues
He didn't take it out to examine it properly; he just fiddled with the area around the ring. With a "click," the small mechanism on it, which wasn't very secure to begin with, popped out after a little fiddling, revealing the narrow groove inside.

This is a ring style that has been popular for a long time, with a shallow groove at the bottom of the ring face to hold a signet or small image. However, because it is so common and simple, no one would use it to hide anything too secretive.

Moreover, they had only discovered Angel's sudden death not long ago, and they hadn't even figured out the real cause and circumstances of his death, so naturally they didn't have time to check his personal belongings.

Zong Ting fiddled with the ring on a whim, not expecting the other party's hints to be so obvious, as if afraid others wouldn't notice.

He paused for a moment, then took out a small, meticulously folded strip of paper from the small groove. Because it was folded so precisely and delicately, unfolding it took quite a bit of effort; in the end, he had to use his index finger to carefully untangle it.

The entire roll of paper, when unfolded, was only four or five centimeters long, with a short passage written on it, the tiny characters squeezed together.

'To my venerable adversary, when you open this scroll, I will surely be dead. My crimes are undeniable, choices made, and there is no room for regret. But I have also failed the Empire's grace, a sin beyond redemption. Therefore, I leave this message… The key is lost; may it be found soon.'

The young man stared intently at the concise words on the paper, his expression unreadable. The writer readily admitted to his betrayal, yet there was not a trace of remorse in his words, as if he were simply stating something mundane: "I did this and I accepted the consequences." It must be said that the writer was, at heart, quite arrogant.

However, the other party admitted that he had wronged the Empire and then provided a clue about the flow of the key. Although it was not very clear, the truth it revealed was still quite astonishing.

And if what's said here is true... then that's really good news.

Ironically, the rebels went through so much trouble and sacrificed so many of their elite troops to steal what they had managed to do, only to lose it all because of their own cleverness.

Even they themselves don't know where the key is now, so these geniuses have gathered a large number of people to carry out various "small actions" in the permanent star system. They are willing to waste manpower and use spies to create various kinds of chaos and divert the military's attention, just in case the military finds out about this news and recovers the key before they do, at which point they will have no chance to get this information again.

No wonder those rebels were acting like madmen, provoking everywhere; they were trying to divert attention.

Even if the military knew this, they would likely be powerless to do anything. They did have a method to locate the key before the protective core was destroyed, but this function was lost after the key was unilaterally damaged. Because if the link between the key and the Imperial main system database wasn't broken, the data within the key would be in extreme danger every day, making this a last resort.

Currently, apart from some unusable source data, the key only has basic sensing and resonance functions. Carrying the master tape core left over from the original manufacturing, it can be sensed within a certain distance.

The galaxy is so vast that even if the military searched tirelessly with the mother tape, it might take a hundred or two hundred years to find it.

Moreover, there is only one master tape core. In such a vast search space with no time limit, the risks will only increase. It would be even more dangerous if the master tape were intercepted by the rebels, because the connection between the master tape and the main system database is much tighter.

Therefore, if Angel's last piece of information is true, it's safer to leave things as they are for now. In any case, if what Angel said is true, the rebels finding the key would be like searching for a needle in a haystack—the chances are extremely slim.

Zong Ting's mind raced, and he was about to put the rolled-up paper back in his pocket. Suddenly, just as he was halfway through rolling it up, he noticed something unusual about the blank space at the bottom half of the paper. A shimmering light flashed by under a certain light, but it was gone in an instant, somewhat like the luster of metal after refraction.

He looked at the angle of the reflection and, sure enough, saw a dazzling fragment of a mecha pointing in his direction, the sunlight casting a ray of light onto the paper. But it wasn't just that—

Zong Ting suddenly raised his middle finger and rubbed it on the spot where the abnormality had just occurred.

Then a faint gray suddenly appeared on the blank paper, a gray as light as smoke, as if a thin layer of dust had been applied, which would have been blown away by the slightest breeze.

The young officer's expression hardened, and he immediately traced the lines of text from left to right, revealing the entire line.

However, just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished just as fast. The first spot to blur and fade was the area he had just smeared in the middle, followed by the area from left to right; the entire process, from beginning to end, took only a blink of an eye. Like smoke, it vanished in an instant, almost like an illusion.

Only Zongting, the person directly involved, knows what those words meant.

He stared silently at the now unmarked piece of paper, and the still clearly visible characters in regular script, lost in thought.

...Is there anything unusual? Well, some of the things that have happened in the military in recent years can be explained.

His unusual period lasted so long that even his adjutant couldn't help but come closer to see what new clues his superior had discovered from Angel.

"Lieutenant Colonel, you..."

Zong Ting didn't care whether his adjutant had seen the contents of the note. He simply replied with a casual remark, then rolled the note up again and carefully put it away.

He glanced around at the gradually quieting inner area and the people who had gathered after the retreat signal; the chaos was finally coming to an end.

Zong Ting casually summoned his adjutant and the leading soldiers beside him, and instructed them to carry out the finishing work and clean up the interior.

The remaining surviving rebels... well, there were very few left. Those who were alive had all been taken into custody. So the so-called "cleanup" and "settlement" mainly referred to what happened afterward, including the civilians who died tragically and their comrades who perished in the chaos. They urgently needed to be settled; the war was over, and their souls couldn't be left without peace.

Most people in the arena had new jobs, but the leaders of the Zongting were far from idle. What they would have to deal with next was no simpler than the fierce battle they had just fought. After all, their arrival at the Changzhu Xinxi was not just for this one battle; their real mission was still nowhere in sight, and it had also unwittingly involved many other things.

As one of the commanders of this team, Zong Ting needs more time to deal with these tangled matters.

He suddenly stopped and looked at the two groups of people standing not too far away.

(End of this chapter)