Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

Qi Tongwei looked at her.

"Handong has already been covered. Someone has extended their reach to the northern front, and Shen Zhong is waiting for this piece of paper."

Lu Yike didn't try to persuade her anymore.

She pressed her collar down and turned to face the technical position, raising her hand slightly.

"Encrypt, use the military line."

Lin Huahua typed away on the keyboard.

"The original images of Haizhou have been packaged, the high-resolution screenshots of the fragments have been completed, and the paper fiber parameters have been extracted. Director Lu, send it out."

Push the transfer bar forward in the bottom right corner of the screen.

In the ward, Qi Tongwei tapped the bedside table again.

笃.

"A word to Shen Zhong."

Lu Yike looked up.

Which sentence?

"The 'Frontier Coordination' from 1998 has finally been put into words today."

Northern Command Post.

The light on the red encrypted terminal changed from yellow to green.

Shen Zhong stood in front of the control panel, his military uniform buttoned up to the top, his epaulets covering the overhead light, and an unlit cigarette between his fingers.

Zhou Weiguo had just finished writing down the sealing number for the investigation team's terminal when he heard the notification sound and looked up.

"Commander, he's from Handong, and Director Qi personally transferred the line."

Shen Zhong switched the cigarette to his left hand.

"cast."

The large screen lights up.

A half-page of yellow paper appeared in the northern command room. It was dated March 3, 1998, and included the words "Frontline Coordination" and a missing signature. The three marks were circled in red.

Zhou Weiguo stared for a few seconds, and the smugness on his face lessened considerably.

"This piece of paper has been hidden for over twenty years, and when it finally comes out, it's like biting someone's throat."

Shen Zhong did not respond.

His gaze fell on the edge of the remaining signature.

The right-side radical was very light, yet it made several lines in his mind tense up at the same time.

Haizhou withdrew its papers.

Sealing wax file.

A twelve-second view of the core transfer cabinet.

And there's that core page left by Gao Yuliang.

Shen Zhong raised his hand and pointed to the safe on the side wall.

"Sealing wax core page".

Zhou Weiguo turned and left.

The safe was double-locked by two people. After the confidential clerk handed over the key, Zhou Weiguo first checked the seal, then verified the serial number, and finally took out the black evidence box.

He placed the box on the workbench and changed into a new pair of gloves.

"Sir, the original document is in good condition and sealed."

Shen nodded.

The box was opened, revealing a single sheet of paper that had been individually laminated.

The core page of the wax seal file left by Gao Yuliang before his death has a very flat paper surface with no creases on the edges. Only the list of names at the top is particularly glaring.

The name at the very top was covered by a thick black ink stain.

The smearing was so heavy, it looked like someone wanted to dig those words out of the world.

No matter how thick the ink is applied, the outline will always remain at the edges.

Especially on the right side of the last character, the thin edge pressed out by the force and the ink trace at the end of the brushstroke are still hanging on the outer edge of the black block.

Zhou Weiguo lowered the high-definition acquisition arm.

"Sir, should we use the original image for comparison, or rescan it?"

"Scan it again. Paper is more honest than a telephone, and the original is more honest than a photograph."

Zhou Weiguo's lips twitched.

If you were hearing this normally, he would probably respond with a few words of praise or criticism.

But today, he didn't dare to joke.

He started a non-destructive scan, and the grating swept across the lamination surface layer by layer, breaking down the paper fibers, ink layer thickness, and pen pressure edge into data points.

On the other screen, the remaining characters on Haizhou's sign-in sheet were also displayed.

A stroke resembling half of the character "衡" stands alone on a gray background.

Zhou Weiguo rubbed the edge of his gloves.

"Sir, if this matches up, it'll be enough to lift the lid on things."

Shen Zhong stared at the screen.

"The lid has been lifted. Now we need to see who's sitting underneath."

The confidential staff connected the supercomputing interface to the isolation cabin.

The fan in the room started to hum.

Zhou Weiguo first corrected the differences in the age of the paper, and then incorporated the writing angle of the register, the stretching of the core page of the sealing wax, and the edge offset after the thick ink was covered into the model.

"The registration paper is the original handwritten document, and the sealing wax pages have been transcribed and blackened. If you stack them directly, they will be crooked."

Shen Zhong stood firmly, a cigarette between his fingers.

"school."

"Should we be more conservative?"

"By the highest standard."

Zhou Weiguo nodded.

"Understood. Let it speak on its own, according to the highest standards."

The model starts running.

The two windows are expanded side by side.

On the left is a torn signature page from March 3, 1998, and on the right is the dark black stain at the top of the sealing wax file.

The incomplete characters were straightened little by little, and the strokes moved along the grid.

The pressure points of the ink stains at the edges of the black spots were highlighted, revealing several discontinuous bends.

In the first round, they disagreed.

The second round involves correcting the paper angle.

The third round involves writing tilt compensation.

In the fourth round, the ink layer covers the edge and is pushed back.

Zhou Weiguo took his hands off the keyboard and stared at the progress bar.

"Sir, this is the last time we'll overlay the image."

Shen Zhong did not speak.

His cigarette was held between his fingers, the paper already creased from being pressed.

The progress bar has reached the end.

Ding.

Comparison complete.

On the screen, the two images slowly merged together.

The remaining half of the right side of the sign-in sheet fit perfectly into the ink gap outside the black spot on the core page of the sealing wax.

The strokes of the brush overlap.

The positions of the strokes overlap.

The edges of the stress points also closed.

It felt strange, like two pieces of broken porcelain that had been separated for more than twenty years finally fitting back into place perfectly today.

Zhou Weiguo stared at the screen, his throat dry.

"Sir, this character... really looks like '衡' (heng)."

Shen Zhong looked at the stacked images.

"If it resembles something, that's enough to report it. If it aligns with what's being reported, that's enough to open a case."

"But this level..."

Zhou Weiguo swallowed the rest of his words.

Those who could be listed at the top of the core page by Gao Yuliang and then obscured in ink must be of such high rank that ordinary procedures would never even come close.

Q5 is only implemented in Handong.

Q2 is just a core transit point.

The name, etched with the character for "crippled," is like a thread that plunges higher and higher.

In the command room, all the confidential staff kept their heads down, and no one dared to read that word.

Shen Zhong put the unlit cigarette back into the tin box.

"Zhou Weiguo".

"arrive."

"Overlay images, original videos, scan logs, modeling parameters, and on-site verification are all sealed. Each version requires double signatures."

"Yes."

Zhou Weiguo turned around and got to work.

He divided the screenshots of the Haizhou video, the core page scan of the sealing wax, and the supercomputing overlay results into three groups, stamped each item with a timestamp, and then had the confidential staff transfer the materials from the northern investigation team that had infiltrated the chip to the same classified directory.

"Sir, should we include the chip data as well?"

Shen Zhong glanced at him.

"Paper in 1998, chips today. The key people have connected the two things, so let's not take them apart for them."

Zhou Weiguo took a breath.

"Understood. Historical fragments prove that Qianyan visited Haizhou that year, and chips prove that Qianyan is now reaching out to the northern route. If we add Sha Ruijin's old phone and Du Wenbin's Q5 in between, the chain will be straight."

Shen Zhong walked solemnly to the red secure telephone.

The lights are not on yet.

The line requires manual switching and is at a higher level than the conventional high-density power transmission line in the north.

Zhou Weiguo handed over the last sealed catalog, lowering his voice.

"Sir, if Elder Xu accepts this, this matter will be completely out of Hanzhong."

Shen Zhong took the catalog.

The paper is very light.

It can be pressed in your hand, feeling like a piece of iron.

He glanced at the screen.

Half a page of yellow paper is still on the left, the black stains of sealing wax are still on the right, and the fragmented character after overlapping is in the middle.

More than 20 years ago, someone tore off half a page of the sign-in book.

Three years ago, someone sent a text message through the Retired Cadres Service Center.

Today, someone used a deactivated transfer order and infiltration terminals to break into the northern route.

Paper, cell phones, chips, and fragments of writing.

They don't say a word, yet they are more honest than any phone call.

Shen Zhong grabbed the red secure phone and pressed down the number one bar at a time.

"I'm going to compile the core materials and report directly to Elder Xu through the top-secret channel immediately."