Fate's Choice: Livestream at the Start Summoning Billions of Ravens

Nine o'clock in the morning.

The fluorescent lights in the intensive care unit emitted a continuous, monotonous hum, illuminating every corner of the room with white light that cast no shadows.

Zhou Dazhuang sat on the hospital bed, leaning against the bed frame that had been rocked at a 45-degree angle, holding a thin briefing in his hand.

The briefing was only three pages long, with the words "Gui Xu" printed in bold on the cover and a red security classification mark below.

He read very slowly.

It wasn't because he couldn't understand it, but because after reading each line, his right palm would twitch, as if something beneath his skin was responding to the words on the paper.

Academician Qi sat on the folding chair by the bed, his hands on his knees, waiting for him to finish reading.

When Zhou Dazhuang turned to the second page, he paused and pressed his thumb on the diagram of "Void A," which showed a depth of -68 meters.

He turned to the third page, read the last line, closed the briefing, and placed it on his lap.

The ward was quiet for about ten seconds.

The humming sound of the fluorescent tubes became exceptionally clear during those ten seconds.

Zhou Dazhuang raised his head.

"Should I take the tiger tally down there?"

Academician Qi's lips moved slightly, but he did not speak immediately.

He looked at the twenty-one-year-old in front of him, at his face pale in the light, at his right hand placed on the briefing cover, the dark red brand on his palm gleaming with a thin metallic sheen under the incandescent light.

three seconds.

Academician Qi nodded.

"The current assessment is that the Qin Dynasty facilities inside the cavity may still be in some kind of dormant or locked state."

His voice maintained the same rhythm he used when explaining data in the lab, neither too fast nor too slow, with each word enunciated clearly and precisely.

"The Tiger Talisman is the only known unlocking credential."

He paused for a moment, then pressed his right thumb against his knee.

"If you don't go, even if we manage to get inside, we might just end up looking at a copper wall."

Zhou Dazhuang lowered his head.

His gaze fell on his right palm. The light shone down from directly above, revealing the fine layers of the branded lines. The dark red lines curved and extended along the direction of the palm lines, like a circuit diagram pressed into the flesh.

The veins below my fingertips were throbbing, once, twice, three times, the rhythm exactly the same as the star pulse I felt yesterday in the No. 7 underground palace.

He turned his hand over and looked at the faintly bulging blue veins on the back of his hand.

"I'll go."

The two words came out of his mouth without any extra breath, as if he were just saying what to eat for lunch.

Academician Qi paused for a moment on his knee with his right thumb.

He stood up from the folding chair, took a pen from the breast pocket of his white coat, and signed his name and the date on the blank space of the briefing cover.

"I've checked your medical report, and your health indicators are currently in a very unusual state."

He placed the signed report back to Zhou Dazhuang's side, his voice unchanged, but his speaking speed was half a beat slower than before.

"After the drilling is completed, the first group to go down into the infiltration area will be the engineers and the three researchers I brought. You will go with the second group. We'll assess the situation once we reach the entrance."

Zhou Dazhuang nodded.

"Teacher Qi."

Academician Qi had already reached the door when he heard this address, so he paused and turned halfway around.

Zhou Dazhuang ran his fingers around the brand on his palm, his fingernails scraping across the raised lines, making an extremely faint rustling sound, like fingernails scratching sandpaper.

"What do you think that thing down there is?"

Academician Qi looked into his eyes. The young man's pupils appeared a deep brown under the white light. There was no fear or excitement in them, only a simple, almost dull curiosity.

"have no idea."

Academician Qi answered very decisively.

"But whatever it is, people today should at least be able to understand what people could create two thousand years ago."

He pushed open the door and walked out. The door slowly closed under the action of the hydraulic hinges. The last ray of corridor light shrank into a line through the crack in the door and then disappeared.

Zhou Dazhuang sat alone on the hospital bed, raising his right hand to his eyes. His five fingers spread open and closed, the edges of the brand being squeezed and deformed when he clenched his fist, and then precisely returning to their original shape when he loosened it.

He remembered the one-yuan coin he had found in the drawer yesterday, and with a gentle pinch of his thumb and forefinger, he squeezed a dent into the stamped metal surface.

He lowered his hand and placed it on the blanket, palm down.

The brand, even through the thin cotton quilt, allowed the heat to seep downwards.

London.

The curtains in the Cabinet meeting room on the third floor of Downing Street had not been drawn for three days. The room was lit by six long, pale yellow beeswax candles that had been found at the York Antique Market. The candlelight cast everyone's shadows on the wall, which swayed as the wicks burned.

The Prime Minister stubbed out his cigar in the glass ashtray on the table, using so much force that the bottom of the ashtray cracked with a sharp sound.

There were three documents piled on the oak table in front of him.

The document on the far left is a pre-reviewed draft of the Financial Times intercepted by MI5. The headline on the front page has twelve words, each word like a nail.

The middle document is a joint open letter from residents, passed down through a handwritten relay within the force field. It has over six thousand signatures, and the last page is filled with fingerprints. Next to some of the fingerprints, the words "Illiterate, leave your fingerprint" are written in a crooked hand.

The document on the far right is a motion of no confidence signed by 23 Conservative backbenchers, dated today.

The Prime Minister scanned the three documents from left to right, and then from right to left.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer sat at the very edge of the chair, his hands crossed on the table, his knuckles taut and bony.

"Prime Minister, the files are off-limits."

His voice was low, and the candlelight cast shadows on his face, dividing his expression in two, one half bright and the other half dark.

"Among the 1,427 files, more than 300 directly involve offshore accounts of the four core financiers within the party. Once made public, it will not be just one line that will be broken, but the entire network."

The Prime Minister did not look at him, his gaze fixed on the cracked ashtray pattern on the table.

The Justice Minister leaned halfway out of his chair.

"The force field lockdown has entered its eleventh day. Cabbage in the South has risen to ten pounds a head. Three private hospitals have shut down due to lack of power. More than four thousand critically ill patients are crammed into temporary tents outside the force field."

He tapped his finger on the table.

"If this drags on for another week, who will be held responsible for the deaths?"

The Chancellor's jaw muscles tensed.

"If the case files are made public, the entire party will die."

The Justice Minister turned to the Prime Minister.

"If the case files are not made public, it is the citizens of London who will die."

The air in the conference room almost solidified.

The beehive candle wick emitted a faint crackling sound, and the orange light drew ripples on the ceiling.

At this moment, the Home Secretary spoke up.

He has been sitting at the end of the long table and has not uttered a single word since the start of the meeting.

There is a third option.