Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 591 Pop-up Window
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……

Two months later, in Chunming City, at the headquarters of Tian Shu Tower.

The Professor Ouyang mentioned by Zhulong is named Ouyang Fu. He was once the second-in-command of the Federal Aerospace Science and Technology Center. Later, he was seconded to the Fifth Research Institute under the Tian Shu Tower. He stayed at the Fifth Research Institute for twelve years and never returned to the Aerospace Science and Technology Center.

Although the research projects of Research Institute No. 5 are also related to strange objects, what they study are not strange objects, but various aerospace equipment, such as rockets, satellites, and spacecraft.

For example, the surveillance satellites in low Earth orbit used to monitor the strange objects were almost all made by the Fifth Research Institute.

"To be honest, the biggest problem right now is that we have absolutely no idea about the specific situation of the landing site." Ouyang Fu looked at the dense experimental data on the screen, put one hand on his forehead and tapped the desktop next to the mouse with the other, and said to his colleague, "According to the information before the fall of Egypt, the ground in that area may have been completely turned into quicksand. It would be difficult to stand or walk on such ground, let alone find a stable support for the rocket launch pad."

"It's so hard...so hard." The colleague picked up the cup next to him as if to drink, but found that the coffee in the cup had been empty at some point, leaving only a ring of brown coffee stains of varying shades on the cup wall.

“We’ve been given three months to resolve this issue. I think I should probably talk to someone in the materials department,” Ouyang Fu said thoughtfully.

……

Fourteen kilometers away from the rocket laboratory of the Fifth Research Institute is the main building complex of the Tian Shu Tower.

Inside a sealed room that no detection instrument could penetrate, a retro-styled gramophone was playing a very old song.

"Old Pei's taste is not bad," Sun Hang muttered.

The phonograph was one of the "legacy" Pei Zongjun left to Sun Hang, and those vinyl records that are no longer available on the market today were Pei Zongjun's private collection.

Besides scientific research, Pei Zongjun's greatest hobbies are painting and music, which are also the only two ways he releases psychological stress during his busy work.

Sun Hang looked at the thick stack of files on the table, let out a long sigh, leaned back in his soft chair.

These files belong to the participants of Operation Sphinx, including Sun Hang, totaling eight "people": Sun Hang, Zhulong, Wang Xiyi, Jin Hongyi, Xue Yue, Bai Lingqiu, Zhong Ling, and... Ye Jiu.

Ye Jiu and Jin Hongyi's condition is still unstable, so in addition to the rocket and the airdrop capsule, they need an extra container—a cryogenic coffin.

Sun Hang initially didn't want Ye Jiu to participate in this operation, but Ye Jiu's attitude was very firm—he told Sun Hang that even if he never had to touch "killing" again in his life, he would gradually be eroded by the memetic power remaining in his body in the remaining time.

Rather than spending over a decade in the intensive care unit only to become a madman or a monster and be disposed of harmlessly, Ye Jiu said he would rather shine brightly in his short life.

"Like a fucking Tsar Bomba." These were Ye Jiu's exact words.

Of course, what truly convinced Sun Hang to include Ye Jiu in the team was another sentence he said: "Anyway, I'm beyond saving now. Maybe a trip to Egypt will help me find a turning point... That's how protagonists in novels are, right?"

As for Zhong Ling, besides her own strong request, another reason she joined the team was to use her abilities to guide Jin Hongyi and Ye Jiu into becoming undead when they were fully transformed. These undead would then become her "undead artifacts"—Zhong Ling's combat power depends on the undead she controls; the stronger the undead, the stronger she becomes. Half a month ago, undead roaming the former Siberian Federation launched an attack on Baikal City. Although the "heroic souls" of Baikal City inflicted heavy losses on these undead, a large number of them bypassed the city and attacked the human army's defenses.

The troops stationed on the southern shore of Lake Baikal suffered heavy casualties, and nearly a third of the Federation's elite hunters were transferred to the front lines. Strategic nuclear weapons were also fully prepared. Just when everyone thought the second monster war was about to begin, these monsters retreated like a tide, just as they had surged in like a tide.

However, the Federation did not dare to relax its vigilance in the slightest. A Great Wall-like defense line began to be built on the shores of Lake Baikal. At the same time, all the cities along the Federation's border—including Dragon City and Tianfu City—entered a state of Level II combat readiness.

However, these were not things that Sun Hang needed to care about. He shifted his gaze from the files to the computer screen next to him.

The screen displayed an email from Ouyang Fu, who explained the progress of the near-Earth orbit airdrop plan to Sun Hang—though the email was described as progress, almost every sentence was an attempt to persuade Sun Hang to abandon the plan.

The other party's meaning was clear: I will do my best in the research and development work, but with the current level of technology, even if we concentrate all the resources of the entire Federation, it will be difficult to succeed.

This meticulous scientist used very clear figures to tell Sun Hang about the risks involved: his technical team was 60% confident in getting Sun Hang and his group to Egypt, but less than 10% confident in getting them back to Xiazhou from Egypt.

Ouyang Fu practically made it clear that this was a one-way ticket.

"Looks like I'll have to go to the rocket lab tomorrow," Sun Hang mused. With his abilities, minor technical difficulties were nothing compared to this—the Orks in the Warhammer universe could use "the power of thought" to piece together a pile of scrap metal into a warship capable of traversing the warp, so he should also be able to use his "wish-granting" ability to get Ouyang Fu's rocket to Egypt and back to Xiazhou smoothly.

Just as Sun Hang moved the mouse to close the email interface, a strange pop-up ad suddenly appeared in the lower right corner of the screen.

Sun Hang instinctively wanted to click the "X" to close the pop-up, but as soon as he moved the mouse over it, he realized something was very wrong.

This computer has the highest security in the entire Tian Shu Tower. If even it can be invaded by Trojans and viruses, then even the main brain in the Origin Palace may not be safe... Not to mention, this computer is only connected to the internal network of Tian Shu Tower and is completely isolated from the external network. So where did this pop-up ad come from?

Sun Hang glanced at the pop-up window. It was an AI-generated animated graphic reminiscent of web games, depicting a person in a black cloak slowly walking through a tunnel. Next to it, in striking bright red lettering, was the text: "The Bizarre Urban Legends of Chunming City, Click to Read"...

"Mastermind, can you trace the source of this pop-up?" Sun Hang asked in a deep voice.

"Untraceable".

"Can you confirm its safety?" Sun Hang asked again. "If I click on it, will I get a Trojan horse?"

"The link has been fully tested and it has been determined that the content of the file in the pop-up link is plain text, only 187 bytes long, and cannot be run as a Trojan or virus program."

"Plain text? Can it be parsed?"

"...Unable to analyze." After a two-second silence, the mainframe said, "Preliminary assessment: this pop-up may be... a 'phenomenon-type strange object'."

"Unable to parse... So, if I want to know the text content after the link, I can only click on it?"

(End of this chapter)