The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Yu Qing's fingertips tapped the chair unconsciously. Suddenly, a long-forgotten fragment of memory pierced his mind, so clear it was startling—Yu Guiyi was the owner of the medicinal bath shop in Qiongshan.

This discovery instantly made Yu Qing's spine straighten. Qiongshan is located in the relatively underdeveloped western region. Why would a tycoon who only operates in the top circles of the east go all the way there to run a seemingly ordinary shop? This in itself is full of contradictory and bizarre questions.

But he shook his head almost immediately, dismissing the overly direct association. "No, impossible," he muttered to himself, the sound echoing in the room. It didn't make logical sense.

Yu Guiyi's influence is rooted in the east. Every public appearance and every transaction he makes is accompanied by the interplay of power and influence in the eastern district. Such a person has neither the reason nor the time to personally run a small shop in the western border region that requires hands-on management.

“A more likely scenario,” Yu Qing’s thoughts gradually became clear, “is that the owner of that shop is just a direct relative of Yu Guiyi; they just look alike.”

Yu Qing silently added this investigation to his to-do list, deciding to check the registration information, actual controller, and social connections of the herbal bath shop later. This would take time, but it couldn't be skipped.

At this moment, his attention was completely captivated by the holographic monitoring screen in front of him. Through surveillance equipment pre-embedded in the corner of the warehouse—dozens of miniature bionic insect eyes—he was remotely watching a tense search.

Yu Guiyi himself was furious, dressed in a well-tailored dark overcoat, looking menacing in the dimly lit environment filled with discarded materials. He was accompanied by several agile, sharp-eyed humanoid women.

They are currently surveying the site that Yu Qing left not long ago, scanning every inch of the ground and air, trying to capture any remaining biological information or energy traces.

Yu Qing watched their efficient and ruthless movements, feeling no fear, only a cold calculation. He knew what they would find there—traces he had carefully left, pointing in the wrong direction.

Next, a humanoid figure walks to a corner of the warehouse, where Dong Hao's "remains," or rather, the remaining parts, are quietly placed.

Without hesitation, it reached out, its movements precise and brutal, and with a "snap," it twisted Donghao's beautiful head off. The sound, transmitted through the audio sensor, was exceptionally jarring.

The humanoid girl docked the head interface with a sophisticated instrument extending from her arm; blue light flashed, and data began to flow.

"Just as I expected." Yu Qing snorted coldly. Yu Guiyi's purpose was crystal clear—he wanted to steal all the memory data in Dong Hao's memory about the mission execution process, about Yu Qing himself, and about his last hiding place.

In this era, memory, whether biological or electronic, has become the most vulnerable privacy and also the most deadly weapon.

I'm so glad. Luckily, he was prepared. He knew that the technology of this era was all-powerful, and the key to invisibility wasn't how deep you hid, but how many layers of fog you could create.

Before leaving the warehouse, he had already thoroughly and selectively erased Dong Hao's core memories. Everything he didn't want Yu Guiyi to know—key action routes, people he had contacted, and final destination information—had been cleared. But he left behind what he wanted Yu Guiyi to know.

Not long after, the humanoid figure seemed to have completed its operation, and the blue light went out. It casually tossed Dong Hao's head onto a nearby pile of scrap metal like a piece of trash, making a dull thud. It seemed that the memories Dong Hao "retained" had been completely absorbed by them.

Yu Qing slowly exhaled a breath of pent-up air, a slight smile playing on his lips. The first step of his plan had succeeded. Yu Guiyi, this cunning fish, would soon swallow the bait he had deliberately left behind, baited with a sharp hook.

The most crucial step is about to begin. To verify this stolen "intelligence," or rather, to launch his next operation based on it, Yu Guiyi will inevitably mobilize his forces. And once they act, they will fall into Yu Qing's second trap.

At this moment, in an inconspicuous room rented by Yu Qing in a high-rise building directly opposite the warehouse, a large environmental dust monitoring instrument is working diligently.

This instrument has an extremely singular objective: it blocks out billions of other particles in the air, focusing solely on tracking a specific substance—a colorless, odorless, and imperceptible powder of benzoic acid. This powder has extremely strong adsorption properties and is difficult to detach easily.

As early as when he infiltrated the warehouse to set up the scene, Yu Qing had the humanoid Shu use a special spray gun to spread a large amount of benzoic acid powder evenly in the key passages of the warehouse, the boxes he had deliberately touched, and most importantly, near the entrance of the ventilation system.

When Yu Guiyi and his humanoid female team entered the warehouse, walked around, and breathed the air, these tiny powders would silently adhere to their clothes, shoe soles, and even their skin and respiratory tract.

At this moment, on Yu Qing's monitoring screen, the bright yellow dots representing high-concentration benzoic acid powder, like a swarm of disturbed fireflies, began to move from the warehouse location and gradually disperse into the intricate street grid of the city below.

Each point of light represents a marked target.

In the vast sea of ​​people, everything suddenly became crystal clear. Yu Guiyi and his men, who thought they were operating covertly, were unaware that they had become the most conspicuous beacon in the darkness, obediently reporting their real-time movement routes to the hunters in the distance.

Yu Qing leaned back in his chair. All he had to do now was wait for the tagged fish to swim into its hiding place.

In fact, Yu Guiyi did not disappoint Yu Qing. He eventually went to his headquarters. Although he had disappeared for at least fifteen minutes, he had only gone into the underground passage and eventually reappeared in a building.

That building is the headquarters of Ruyi Company. In fact, this small company only owns this one building. The fact that Yu Guiyi stopped here indicates that he is the real boss behind the company.

All suspicions about Guiyi and Ruyi Company ultimately fell on Yu Guiyi. His use of the authorities' satellites to smuggle his own agenda and attempt to eliminate Yu Qing was proven true.

Yu Qing immediately ordered the two humanoid figures left in Yadu to quietly approach the Ruyi Building, find a suitable position and angle, and film Yu Guiyi's activities within the building. Of course, Yu Qing didn't want this footage; he wanted to hand it over to the Yadu authorities.

The case of the satellite attack on civilian aircraft by the Asian Games authorities has not yet been finalized. They are still taking the blame, even though they have identified Guiyi and Ruyi companies as suspects, but there is no evidence. However, if it is discovered that the two suspects are actually the same person…

Even without direct evidence, they certainly wouldn't let him go at this point, and would take some measures, at least keeping a close watch on him for a long time, trying every possible way to catch him red-handed. In this way, Yu Guiyi's every move would be being watched by someone on Yu Qing's behalf.

Yu Qing then further provoked Yu Guiyi. He submitted another application to the foundation, requesting that Yu Guiyi's temporarily frozen benefit be temporarily credited to his own account, and that he could then advance one ten-thousandth of that amount.

This application is logical. Since Yu Qing is currently the only confirmed beneficiary, even if his doubts about Yu Guiyi's identity are unfounded, the amount he pre-draws is still within his total limit.

The application was approved automatically, and within almost a minute, another 700 billion RB entered Yu Qing's account, and the information was synchronized to Yu Guiyi.

Needless to say, Yu Guiyi must have been furious at this moment—but he didn't have a heart or lungs. Due to an abnormality in the heart and lung genes of his lineage, his heart and lungs were replaced with artificial iron lungs at birth.

Yu Guiyi now has to find evidence in his favor within 30 days to avoid losing his status as a descendant of the Yu family. This means he must start from the root, searching for clues, that is, making a case based on the few words and documents Yu Yunshan spoke while he was alive.

Therefore, finding all of Yu Yunshan's records and files was crucial. This was no challenge for Yu Guiyi. In less than half a day, he had obtained all the publicly available information he could find. A dozen or so humanoid maidens immediately filtered out the useful parts of these documents.

The memorandum, which conditionally allows Yu Xiong's descendants to return to the Yu family, was soon handed to Yu Guiyi.

Yu Guiyi's eyes lit up, as if he had seen a priceless treasure. With this document, the doubts about his qualifications would soon vanish. When he saw the "conditional" clause, he suddenly laughed until tears streamed down his face, muttering to himself, "Heaven is helping me!"

He read aloud, “As long as his descendants come to my residence to pay their respects and curse Yu Xiongzhi three times, they can regain their original status. That’s settled, that’s settled.”

Then, he commanded a humanoid woman, “Prepare everything, we’re going to Qiongshan in the west immediately.”

Yu Guiyi was no stranger to Qiongshan; in fact, he was born there. His great-grandfather had also lived there. The reason was simple: Yu Yunshan lived there. Their family considered returning to the Yu clan a cause, because the benefits were greater than anything else.

But Yu Yunshan never gave Yu Xiongzhi's descendants the slightest chance. Yu Yunshan loathed Yu Xiongzhi to the core.

Yu Guiyi and his group flew from Yadu to Qiongshan, which only took a few hours.

He had never been comfortable with the dense fog here and had disliked the place since childhood. This time, returning to his hometown, he hadn't planned to see his father, the owner of the herbal bath shop. Besides, he hadn't been back for over twenty years.

But now he needs his father's help with a small matter: to visit Yu Yunshan's former residence to pay his respects. Although the request is not high, he has known since childhood that getting close to Yu Yunshan's former residence is not so easy.

He often overheard his father and uncle discussing the secret passage to their old house. Now he wanted his father to provide clues so he could find it as soon as possible.

Using the stolen memories of Donghao, he reconstructed fragments of a conversation between Eying and Yuqing. During that conversation, Yuqing asked Eying how she managed to quickly escape from the old man's small building. Eying told him that it was actually a drainage pipe from which the people down the mountain drew their "medicine."

Yu Guiyi needs his father to help him find the drainage pipes that run down the mountain.

When his convoy silently came to a stop in front of the bathhouse, his father thought a big customer had arrived. But when he looked up and saw his son whom he hadn't seen for many years, he showed no joy at all, but instead appeared slightly flustered.

In fact, Yu Guiyi was unaware that finding the secret passage from the foot of the mountain to the former residence of Yu Yunshan was beyond the capabilities of his father. The person who would reveal the entrance to this secret passage would have to be arranged by Yu Qing.

At this moment, this humanoid beauty followed Yu Guiyi to Qiongshan. She had infiltrated the surveillance team of the Yadu authorities, so Yu Guiyi had no idea of ​​her existence.

The authorities had been investigating him, so Yu Guiyi didn't care even though he knew there were people behind him.

When Yu Guiyi met his father, he exchanged a few simple pleasantries before getting to the point, asking him to take him to the drainage outlet where the wastewater flowed down from Qiongshan Mountain.

Although his father didn't know what his son was trying to do, he knew he wanted to go to Yu Yunshan's former residence, so he sighed, "My family has wanted to know the entrance to this secret passage for generations, to apologize to our ancestors, and to return to the Yu family. How can it be so easy..."

Yu Guiyi looked at his despicable and useless father and shouted, "Just tell me where it is, I don't expect anything else from you!"

But what happened next almost drove Yu Guiyi to despair. There were a few sewers on the mountain, but their structure was peculiar: they weren't a single large pipe, but rather a dense cluster of small pipes, probably only a snake could climb up from there.

Clearly, Yu Yunshan had considered this potential loophole when building his residence.

Yu Guiyi became anxious. He sent his humanoid subordinates to search for information throughout Qiongshan and instructed them to offer huge rewards to anyone who might know about the secret passage.

He firmly believed that a generous reward would surely attract brave men. Indeed, just as he expected, a humanoid woman soon spoke on behalf of her master, offering to take him directly through the secret passage to the gate of Yu Yunshan's former residence for a fee of 20 billion RB.

Yu Guiyi immediately agreed to her request, but was only willing to pay 10 billion RB first, and then pay the remaining 10 billion RB after arriving at the destination.

In fact, this humanoid beauty was the one Yu Qing sent to tell him about the secret passage. Because this humanoid beauty was originally bound to Xiao Qin's name, Yu Guiyi had no idea that she was sent by Yu Qing when he paid the 10 billion RB deposit.

Finally, Yu Guiyi, along with his entourage and led by the humanoid woman, successfully arrived at Yu Yunshan's former residence.

The humanoid woman called out from the door, "Old man, I'm back!" and immediately the lights up the house.

Since Yu Guiyi was indeed a descendant of Yu Yunshan, the access control system quickly confirmed his identity, and the door immediately opened for him.

"It's done," he thought, and strode inside.

Unexpectedly, the humanoid woman shouted, "You still have to pay me another 10 billion RB!"

Yu Guiyi glanced back at her, thinking that killing someone would at most cost ten times the price in compensation, less than thirty million... So he gave his attendants a look, and three humanoids immediately cut off her head.

What Yu Guiyi didn't expect was that the humanoid girl's shout of "Old man, I'm back" was actually a level-one alert command for this place. Yu Qing had actually inherited this old house and was its new owner.

As Yu Guiyi stepped through the gate, a loud "click... boom!" rang out, and the gate slammed shut forever. Unless Yu Qing himself opened it, no one else could open it. If forcibly opened, it would immediately initiate a self-destruct sequence.

Suddenly, a deep blue light shone on Yu Guiyi's face, and the door in front of him quickly closed. He stood in the aisle, unable to move forward or backward.

"What's going on?!" Yu Guiyi tried to call for help from his attendants outside, but found that all signals were blocked.

The former residence itself is an elaborately crafted ancient trap, which has been thoroughly enhanced by modern technology.

Yu Guiyi thought that Yu Yunshan was still angry, so he immediately knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly.

At that moment, deep within the old house, in the shadows, an aged yet calm voice slowly resounded through a hidden loudspeaker, devoid of any emotion:
"You have fifteen minutes left in this world to look back on your life."

Yu Guiyi froze on the spot. He instantly realized that the seemingly absurd "condition" was a bait from the very beginning, a deadly trap for someone like him who was eager to prove himself.

He successfully proved his right to return, but it was through death. (End of Chapter)