You went on a blind date and presented an A-level wanted criminal as a meeting gift?

The next day, at 1:40 a.m.

Abandoned chemical plant in the suburbs.

The factory was ordered to shut down ten years ago due to environmental issues and has been abandoned ever since.

The factory covers an area of ​​approximately 40,000 square meters. The steel frame structure of the eight main factory buildings has rusted to its limit, and when the night wind blows, it emits intermittent metallic groans, like a group of old men coughing in the dark.

Lin Chen parked the RS7 in an abandoned railway culvert 500 meters outside the factory area.

He didn't drive in.

After getting off the bus, he stood in the shadow of the culvert and closed his eyes.

The skin, bone structure, and height proportions of the face underwent precise changes within thirty seconds.

[God-level Disguise Technique] Full Power Operation.

The one who emerged from the culvert was no longer Lin Chen.

It's Zhou Zheng.

The same square face, the same high cheekbones, the same slightly outward-pointing gait.

Even Zhou Zheng's habitual lip-smacking gesture when speaking was perfectly copied.

Lin Chen sat face-to-face with Zhou Zheng in the interrogation room for fifteen minutes. Those fifteen minutes were enough for him to etch every behavioral characteristic of Zhou Zheng from head to toe into his muscle memory.

He was wearing a dark blue windbreaker that Zhou Zheng often wore, with the collar turned up to cover half of his face, and his right hand was clutching a USB drive covered in fluorescent powder.

It was exactly 2:00 AM.

The east entrance to Factory Building No. 3.

An emergency light hanging on a steel beam emitted a dim yellow light, barely illuminating an area of ​​about ten square meters at the entrance.

A figure stands at the edge of the lamplight.

Black robe.

The hood was pulled down very low, obscuring his entire face in shadow.

He wore black leather gloves and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

From the darkness behind him, four huge, heavy breaths came from close to the ground.

Lin Chen's [God-level Hearing] precisely pinpointed the locations of the four sound sources.

Four live animals.

Its weight is estimated to be between 120 and 150 kilograms, and its heart rate is abnormally slow, only about 40 beats per minute, far below the standard value for normal canines.

The breath carried a very faint chemical odor, similar to the residue of injectable drugs.

Genetically modified dogs.

Like the three assassins in the evidence room, they were living weapons created by Prajna using biotechnology.

Lin Chen walked into the area of ​​light with the same gait as Zhou Zheng.

"Did you bring the things?"

The man in the black robe spoke, his voice hoarse, as if it had been processed by some kind of device, making it impossible to discern his original tone.

Lin Chen answered using Zhou Zheng's voice.

"It's all on the USB drive: the complete set of parameters and test reports for the fourth-generation diaphragm."

He held up the USB drive and waved it under the dim light.

The man in black robes extended his right hand.

Lin Chen handed over the USB drive.

The fluorescent powder completed its secondary transfer the instant the USB drive was transferred from his fingers to the black-robed man's glove.

Invisible nano-sized powder particles seeped into the gaps in the leather fibers on the surface of the gloves, and even after changing gloves, the powder had already been transferred to the skin on the inside of the gloves through contact.

Wherever this person goes, as long as Lin Chen scans within a reasonable distance with his ultraviolet emitter, his skin will emit a blue-white fluorescent mark.

The handover should have ended here.

But the man in black did not turn and leave.

A very faint "beep" sound came from under his hood.

The sound of an electronic device starting up.

"Your heart rate is 52 beats per minute."

The black-robed man's voice suddenly changed, transforming from a routine tone into a cold, scrutinizing one.

"Zhou Zheng has an anxious personality; his heart rate never drops below 80 during any rendezvous."

He took a step back.

Miniature heartbeat detector.

The anti-disguise equipment that Prajna equipped for his subordinates.

"You are not Zhou Zheng."

The man in the black robe pulled his right hand out of his robe, his fingers pinching a metal whistle-like object, which he then placed near his mouth.

A high-frequency whistle, almost inaudible to the human ear, pierced the stagnant air in the factory.

Four genetically modified dogs rushed out from the shadows.

They are almost twice the size of a normal Doberman Pinscher, with a shoulder height of nearly one meter. Their muscle lines appear unnaturally swollen under the dim light, and the tendons of their forelimbs look like twisted steel cables.

They attacked from four directions simultaneously.

It was extremely fast, and the sound of its claws striking the concrete floor was so dense that it sounded like four light machine guns firing at the same time.

At the same time, six more figures dressed in black robes emerged from the darkness behind the man in black robes, forming a semi-circle that completely blocked the east entrance of the factory.

Seven people and four dogs.

The encirclement net was formed in three seconds.

Lin Chen did not move.

His right hand reached into the inner pocket of his windbreaker.

My fingertips touched the first of three cold, button-sized round metal pieces.

Miniature EMP electromagnetic pulse generator.

The trump card, made in the forensic lab, was prepared specifically for this moment.

He pressed his thumb into the trigger groove in the center of the metal plate, then flicked his finger.

A button-sized EMP generator flew from his fingertips, spun twice in the air, and rose to a height of about three meters.

"Click."

A crisp sound that was almost inaudible.

The miniature capacitor instantly released all its stored energy, and an invisible electromagnetic pulse wave spread outwards at the speed of light, covering all the space within a radius of five meters.

The intensity of this pulse is six hundred times greater than the withstand limit of ordinary household appliances.

The communication device at the waist of the man in black robes exploded with a string of blue arcs of electricity in the same second, fell to the ground with a thud, and its outer casing had melted and deformed.

The screen of the miniature heart rate monitor in his hand flashed white light, hissed, and emitted a wisp of blue smoke before going out completely.

All electronic devices carried by the other six men in black robes—earphones, GPS trackers, and night vision goggles—failed to function simultaneously.

But the most fatal impact is not on people.

On dogs.

Each of the four genetically modified dogs has a miniature neural control chip implanted beneath the back of its skull.

This chip is the core component that enables them to receive commands and maintain an attack state.

The EMP pulses penetrated their skulls, pierced the thin packaging shell on the chip, and burned out all the microcircuits inside.

The four genetically modified vicious dogs, which were charging at full speed, seemed to have had their power off simultaneously.

Their limbs suddenly lost coordination between the first and second steps of running. The inertia of the forelimbs continuing forward and the braking force of the hind limbs suddenly stopping created a violent torque in the middle of their bodies. Under the action of inertia, their 140-kilogram bodies rolled forward and crashed heavily onto the concrete ground with four muffled thuds.

They convulsed and rolled on the ground, emitting hoarse howls of pain that were unlike normal canine sounds. Their nervous systems, deprived of chip control, were in chaos; the muscles in their limbs spasmed and contracted amidst conflicting electrical signals, each muscle simultaneously attempting to move in the opposite direction.

Ten seconds later, the four vicious dogs collapsed to the ground and never got up again.

The leader, a man in black robes, looked at the smoking wreckage of communication equipment at his feet and the four convulsing dogs on the ground. His face, hidden in the shadows beneath his hood, was obscured, but the step he took back revealed all his true emotions.

fear.

"withdraw!"

He turned around.

The six men in black robes moved simultaneously, retreating with practiced ease towards the evacuation route deep within the factory, their speed almost on par with their initial encirclement.

Lin Chen did not chase after him.

He stood there, watching the black figures disappear into the darkness deep within the factory.

The corners of her mouth curved slightly.

The mark has been planted on the prey.

Chasing is the most basic approach.

What he wanted was not to catch a contact.

What he wanted was to follow the contact's trail to find out the location of Prajna's supply chain, network of contacts, and even its core stronghold.

The fluorescent powder will do the rest of the tracking work for him.

Lin Chen turned and walked towards the culvert.

He stopped after taking three steps.

It wasn't hesitation, nor was it the discovery of a new threat.

He bent down and picked up the smoking, miniature heartbeat detector that had been burned to scrap metal by the EMP.

Manufacturing process, country of origin number, internal chip model.

This information is another clue.

Prajna's equipment cannot be created out of thin air; it has suppliers, a logistics chain, and procurement records.

Each clue is a rope.

The other end of the rope was tied to the same person.

Prajna, you can hide it for a while.

It cannot be hidden forever.