Rob had resigned himself to his fate and could only lie helplessly on the ground.

Seeing Chen Zheng emerge from the thick smoke, An Ran breathed a sigh of relief and shouted, "You promised twenty minutes, but you took eighteen!"

Chen Zheng approached, put down the metal box, and shrugged.

"Two minutes left is enough for me to kill them one more time."

An Ran rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth couldn't help but curl up slightly.

Chen Zheng squatted down again and re-examined the contents of the box.

The hard drive is there, the sealed files are there, and the torn pages are there.

Then, they simply put the lid on.

An Ran frowned slightly.

"Aren't you going to take a look?"

"I won't look."

Why?

Chen Zheng shook his head and sighed.

"This is not something a lieutenant colonel like me should concern myself with, nor is it something I can manage."

An Ran immediately understood.

Things that shouldn't be seen, definitely shouldn't be seen.

Even if I did see it, it would only increase my worries.

"I'm entrusting this to you for safekeeping." Chen Zheng placed the box at An Ran's feet. "Immediately contact An Jianjun and send it to the capital via a top-secret passage. Let those who need to know what's hidden inside rack their brains."

An Ran bent down, picked up the box, and nodded.

"clear."

Watching An Ran's figure walk away into the distance, Chen Zhengcai walked over and sat down.

After taking a deep breath, he reopened the three-tiered Ascension Staircase.

Subsequently, every muscle fiber and every bone was repeatedly torn apart and then remodeled under this terrifying pressure.

This is the essence of ascending to the divine ladder.

Gravity is an insurmountable mountain for humans, and three times the gravity is enough to cause continuous damage and reconstruction to the body at the cellular level.

Every second of endurance is a form of tempering.

Chen Zheng leaned against the rock, closed his eyes, and let the familiar gravity return, continuing to crush his body.

On the surface, he was just an ordinary soldier resting on a rock.

But if someone could see into his body at that moment, they would probably be so frightened that they would turn around and run away on the spot.

Ram glanced at him from afar, intending to go over and ask the instructor if he wanted some water.

But seeing the oppressive aura emanating from Chen Zheng sitting with his eyes closed, he wisely turned around and went to help An Ran count the prisoners.

……

That night.

The hard drive and documents passed the military region's overnight review and approval process and were directly transmitted to the compound in Beijing.

The capital city, within the red walls of the inner palace.

The morning session starts at 6:50.

The second-in-command had just sat down at the dining table.

The same three dishes were laid out before me: a bowl of clear soup noodles, a dish of garlic, and a cup of light tea.

The noodles were just served, still steaming hot.

He picked up his chopsticks, took a mouthful of noodles, and put it in his mouth.

The noodles were hand-pulled noodles specially made by the chef in the morning, and they were quite chewy.

The broth was clear, with only a few drops of sesame oil added, and it tasted good.

Before he could even start eating, he heard his secretary lean closer and say, "Sir, there's a performance at 8:30 this morning..."

Before he could finish speaking, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door again.

The young secretary pushed the door open and came in.

He was the one who delivered the report last time.

This time, however, his expression was even worse than before.

Not only was his forehead covered in sweat, but his lips were also a little pale.

The second-in-command's chopsticks hovered in mid-air as his gaze shifted from the bowl of noodles on the table to the encrypted file folder in the young secretary's hand.

It was sealed with a red seal again, and this time it was top secret and urgent.

The second-in-command glanced at him, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Is it Chen Zheng again?"

The young secretary nodded.

The second-in-command sighed, placed his chopsticks on the rim of the bowl, and sighed again.

"Give it to me."

As he spoke, he took the document bag, opened it, and pulled out the tablet.

The contents of the encrypted hard drive have been decrypted overnight by the national security technical department.

The complete decryption report was compiled into a 37-page electronic document, complete with data comparison charts and correlation analysis.

The second-in-command clicked on the first page and began reading.

The first three pages are an overview.

It describes the penetration network structure of egrets in the southwest region.

Node distribution, fund flow, staffing, and communication architecture.

Each line is labeled with its data source and its credibility.

The second-in-command's brow furrowed slightly, but it was still within the normal range.

These things, though serious, were not unexpected.

After all, he agreed to let Chen Zheng go to that place to cause trouble in order to find out about these things.

His expression changed when he turned to the fourth page.

That was a detailed list of contacts.

Thirty-two code names, each followed by the activity area, communication frequency, and mission type.

Some of the code names have already been matched with existing intelligence data from the national security system.

But more importantly, several special code prefixes appeared on the seventh page of the document.

LC series.

The technical department added a note to the report: "After comparing with the known code name system of the CIA East Asia Task Force, the coding rules of the LC series code names are highly consistent with those of a CIA task force in East Asia."

The second-in-command's fingers, which were turning the page, involuntarily stopped.

He placed the tablet on the table and leaned back in his chair.

Egrets are already troublesome enough.

But if the CIA is behind the egret, then the nature of this matter is completely different.

The White Heron is a spy organization of the Sakura Kingdom. To put it bluntly, the Dragon Kingdom doesn't really care about the mere Sakura Kingdom.

But the CIA is an organization that has carried out regime change operations in dozens of countries around the world, with many successful precedents.

You can say the CIA is bad, corrupt, and heartless.

But you can hardly say they're bad.

Especially when it comes to matters of conscience and moral decay, they have a flexible moral bottom line.

The emergence of the CIA signifies that this is a subversive operation by a well-organized, well-funded, and strategically-driven state.

They infiltrated funds, manipulated public opinion, bribed local forces, and established underground strongholds.

Every step was taken firmly, and every link was tightly connected.

These people aren't testing us.

They are gradually eroding the southwestern border defenses of the Dragon Kingdom.

As for what to do after the erosion...

The second-in-command closed the tablet and stood up.

He walked to the window, put his hands behind his back, and looked at the red wall outside.

The morning sun had just climbed onto the wall.

There are several old locust trees in the yard, their leaves swaying slightly in the wind.

The second-in-command stared at the wall and remained silent for a long time.

Behind him, two secretaries stood ramrod straight, not daring to utter a sound.

After a moment, the second-in-command finally spoke, his voice quite calm.

"The United States has never given up its desire to destroy our Chinese nation."

"This saying has been repeated for decades."

"Some people get tired of hearing it and think it's just clichés, slogans, or something written in documents to pad out the word count."

Upon hearing this, the older secretary lowered his head slightly.

It's normal for people to have such thoughts after a long period of peace in the country, but I don't know why the leader suddenly brought it up.

The second-in-command turned around and his gaze fell on the tablet on the table.

"But look at this!"

"They infiltrated finances, manipulated public opinion, bribed local forces, and established underground strongholds."

"They even planted liaisons, built communication networks and supply depots—they're practically disregarding the Chinese government!"

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like