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

The East Third Ring Road under the cover of night felt more oppressive than ever before.

The piercing sound of sirens cut through the sky, growing louder as it approached, then abruptly stopped at a certain point, as if an invisible hand had choked it.

The once bustling main road is now cordoned off with hundreds of meters of police tape. The red and blue police lights, like countless anxious eyes, illuminate the outlines of the surrounding buildings.

At the entrance of the main hub of the underground pipeline network, the atmosphere was so heavy it was almost palpable.

Dozens of fully armed special police officers, holding Type 95 assault rifles, spread out in a battle formation in a fan shape, their dark gun muzzles fixed on the bottomless underground entrance that resembled the mouth of a giant beast.

The heavy riot shields formed an iron wall, behind which were young faces filled with tension and solemnity.

"A madman! Chen Yuan is a complete and utter madman!"

Inside the command vehicle, Li Mingyu slammed his fist hard on the table, making the map jump.

His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like a raging lion trapped in a cage, pacing back and forth. His bulletproof vest made a rustling sound as he moved violently.

"Advisor Lin, we have followed your instructions and sealed off the main hub and all thirty-seven known maintenance ports in the surrounding area. But... but down here, it's practically a damn underground city!"

He grabbed a hastily printed diagram of the pipeline network structure from the table. The dense lines and nodes on it made his scalp tingle.

"The total length of the passage exceeds 150 kilometers, with thousands of intersections! Let alone finding one person, even a whole regiment of soldiers wouldn't be able to search it all in less than ten days or half a month! What's worse, Chen Yuan destroyed all the surveillance equipment before entering, so we're completely blind now! He could just find a corner and plant a bomb..."

Li Mingyu couldn't continue; he couldn't bear to imagine the consequences. Several tons of high explosives detonating next to a main natural gas pipeline—that was no joke; it would turn half of Beijing into a living hell!

Su Qingge stood to the side, her face ashen, her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

She knew better than anyone that every word Li Mingyu said was true.

Conventional search methods would be like finding a needle in a haystack in such a vast, complex, and perilous underground labyrinth.

Time is not on their side at all.

Just as everyone in the command center was enveloped by a tremendous sense of powerlessness and despair, a calm voice rang out, like a drop of ice water being poured into a boiling oil pan, instantly silencing all the anxiety.

"Who said we had to use the conventional method?"

Lin Chen slowly stood up from the chair.

He even had the leisure to straighten his slightly wrinkled collar; his composed demeanor seemed completely out of place in the tense atmosphere around him.

He walked over to Li Mingyu, not even glancing at the crumpled sketch the latter had made, and simply said:

"Throw this trash away."

"What I need is the original, complete, and unaltered architectural drawings of this hub station, from design to construction."

"All of them, everything."

Li Mingyu was stunned.

"Consultant Lin, what time is it? What do you need that for? That thing is thicker than an encyclopedia, even if you bring it over..."

"Then let's go move it."

Lin Chen interrupted him, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Qingge immediately grabbed the walkie-talkie.

"This is Su Qingge! Contact the Municipal Planning Bureau and the Urban Construction Archives immediately! Use the highest authority; I need all the original blueprints for the East Third Ring Road underground pipeline hub project! Send them to me within ten minutes!"

Ten minutes felt like an eternity to those who were enduring the agony.

When several staff members, panting, carried a heavy metal box into the command vehicle, everyone's eyes were drawn to them.

The box was opened, and rolls of slightly yellowed kraft paper drawings, worn from age, were carefully taken out and spread out on the largest conference table in the entire command vehicle.

The complex lines and dense markings made the assembled elites dizzy and disoriented.

However, Lin Chen only glanced at it before activating [God-level Architecture Mastery] and [God-level Actuary Mastery]!

hum!

In an instant, his world changed.

In his eyes, those still drawings seemed to come alive!

Countless streams of blue data cascaded down the drawing like a waterfall, constructing a complete, three-dimensional, and transparent 3D model on his retina!

The diameter, material, and pressure limit of every pipe; the voltage, direction, and insulation class of every cable; the thickness, structure, and stress distribution of every wall... all of this was transformed into the most precise and intuitive data, which flowed rapidly through his brain, which was comparable to a quantum computer!

He saw the lifelines pulsating beneath the city like the blood of a giant, and he also saw the fatal, vulnerable points between these lifelines!

"Chen Yuan is an arrogant 'artist' who pursues not simple explosions, but the most gorgeous and destructive 'stage effects'."

Lin Chen's fingers gently traced a core structure diagram. The sound was soft, yet it struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.

Therefore, bombs cannot be placed randomly.

"He will definitely choose a point that can trigger a chain reaction and cause the greatest damage."

Lin Chen's speech quickened, his eyes sharp enough to pierce through paper and gaze into the depths of the earth.

"The explosion of a natural gas pipeline requires specific pressure and temperature thresholds, while a short circuit in a high-voltage power grid can provide that energy instantaneously."

"Therefore, what he's looking for must be a structure where the main natural gas pipeline and high-voltage cable intersect most closely, in a relatively enclosed space, allowing the blast shockwave to be effectively focused!"

As he spoke, he picked up a red marker from the table.

Everyone present, including the self-proclaimed elite police officers and experts, listened intently to Lin Chen's "lecture" like primary school students.

They discovered that their prized expertise was like a kindergarten sandbox in the face of this young man.

This is not even a single dimension of thinking!

"Based on calculations in fluid mechanics and structural mechanics, only 'cross-stress points' in a building structure can simultaneously satisfy the conditions of 'gas pipeline sympathetic explosion' and 'high-voltage power grid short circuit,' and amplify the explosive force by at least twenty times!"

The moment the words left his mouth, the red pen in Lin Chen's hand moved!

Without the slightest hesitation, he domineeringly drew three bright red circles directly on the dozen or so complex drawings covering different areas of the table!

One, located in the gas main valve room of Zone A on the third basement level.

One, located in Zone C, on the fifth basement level.

Another one is the abandoned flood discharge channel in Zone D, which is located at the deepest part of the area and is only marked with a dotted line on the drawings!

"These three positions are his only three possible bomb sites."

Lin Chen tossed aside the marker, raised his head, and glanced at the stunned faces in the room. With a tone that seemed to seal the deal, he said calmly:

"He must be in one of these three places."

The entire command vehicle was deathly silent.

Li Mingyu's mouth was agape as the simple diagram in his hand, which he regarded as an incomprehensible book, fell to the ground with a "thud," but he was completely unaware of it.

He felt his brain was no longer working properly. His worldview had been repeatedly crushed by Lin Chen tonight, leaving nothing but shattered fragments.