Peak Immortal Palace

The aftershocks of the explosion still reverberated in the air. Zhang Dianfeng lay in the corner, his back burning as if it had been branded with a hot iron.

He was panting heavily, turning his head to look at the thug pinned beneath him—the guy had completely passed out, his mask had been blown off, revealing a face covered in scars, and his lips were still twitching unconsciously.

"Seventeen abrasions were detected on the host's body surface, none of which are fatal. The target's vital signs are stable, but the person is in a state of temporary shock." The voice in my mind sounded again, with a calm, data-driven tone.

Zhang Dianfeng pushed himself up and stood up, stretching his shoulders. His bones made a soft "crack" sound, and the excruciating pain he had just felt was slowly subsiding, replaced by a warm current flowing through his muscles.

He looked down at his hands. The calluses on his palms seemed to have faded, the soreness in his knuckles had disappeared, and even the stiffness from typing had eased considerably.

"Is the energy of the ancient jade... still healing the body?"

He muttered to himself, a complex mix of emotions welling up inside him.

This sudden power was a double-edged sword; it allowed him to survive the crisis, but it was also like a bottomless pit, hiding countless unknown secrets.

Outside the window, the three helicopters had disappeared from sight; only a few sirens could be heard in the distance, growing louder as they approached.

Zhang Dianfeng frowned. The sound of sirens meant trouble—he couldn't very well explain to the police that he had knocked out an armed thug and dodged a rocket attack with just a fifty-yuan piece of ancient jade and a power cord, could he?

"We must leave here as soon as possible."

He made a quick decision, his gaze sweeping across the room.

The wall was blasted open with a hole half a meter wide, and broken bricks and glass were scattered all over the ground. His computer tower had been overturned by the blast wave, and the screen was cracked into a spider web pattern, clearly making it completely unusable.

"Three months of code..."

Zhang Dianfeng clicked his tongue in distress, but quickly suppressed his emotions.

This wasn't the time to worry about the code. He walked over to the assailant and began searching him. He found a military-grade knife, a signal transmitter, and an encrypted black cell phone.

The phone is made of a special material; it feels like some kind of alloy. The screen is black and has no markings.

Zhang Dianfeng tried pressing the power button, but the screen didn't light up. Instead, a line of light green text popped up: "Iris verification failed, locked for 30 minutes."

"It's quite high-end."

He raised an eyebrow and put his phone in his pocket.

"This might be a clue. Let's see who's really messing with me, a junior programmer."

He glanced at the unconscious thug on the ground, thought for a moment, grabbed the bed sheet, quickly tied him up tightly, stuffed a rag in his mouth, and threw him into the wardrobe.

After doing all this, he quickly changed his clothes, grabbed his wallet and phone, took one last look at the rented room he had lived in for two years, and then ran out through the fire escape.

The streets were deserted in the early morning, with only the streetlights casting a dim yellow glow.

Zhang Dianfeng walked briskly along the base of the wall, his mind racing.

He has no relatives, and most of his friends are colleagues at work, so it's not appropriate for him to contact anyone at this time.

"Where will we stay?"

He frowned, suddenly remembering someone—Old Wang, whose full name was Wang Jianguo, was the toothless old man he met at the flea market, the one who sold him the antique jade.

"That old man said that ancient jade can calm the mind, maybe he knows something about it."

Zhang Dianfeng made up his mind, hailed a taxi, and gave an address—an old alley near a secondhand market on the outskirts of the city.

Forty minutes later, the taxi stopped at the entrance of the alley. Zhang Dianfeng paid the fare, took a deep breath, and walked into the alley, which reeked of mold and scrap.

Old Wang's home is deep in the alley, a low-lying tile-roofed house with various old items piled up at the entrance, like a small mountain.

He walked to the door and knocked: "Uncle Wang, are you there? I'm Xiao Zhang, the one who bought your jade last week."

I knocked several times, but there was no response from inside.

Zhang Dianfeng's heart skipped a beat, and a bad premonition welled up in his mind.

He tried pushing the door, and it opened with a creak, surprisingly unlocked.

The room was pitch black, but by the moonlight streaming in through the window, Zhang Dianfeng could vaguely see some things scattered on the ground.

He went inside, turned on his phone's flashlight, and gasped in shock.

The room was ransacked; the table was overturned, the cabinet doors were open, and the contents were scattered all over the floor.

In the very center of the room, Old Wang lay face down on the ground, a dagger stuck in his back, blood staining the cement floor beneath him.

"Uncle Wang!" Zhang Dianfeng's heart sank. He rushed over to help the old man up, but froze as soon as his fingers touched the man's body—the body was already cold.

He suppressed his shock and forced himself to calm down. As a programmer, he was used to finding logic in chaos.

Could Old Wang's death be related to that ancient jade? Could the armed men have targeted Old Wang, the jade seller, because they couldn't find him?

Just then, the beam of a cell phone flashlight swept across the corner of the wall, where there was an overturned wooden crate.

The contents of the box were scattered all over the floor, mostly old copper coins and jade pendants, but among these things was a palm-sized black metal disc with patterns engraved on it that were exactly the same as the patterns on his ancient jade!

Zhang Dianfeng's heart skipped a beat. He squatted down and carefully picked up the metal plate.

The plate was very light and had three grooves on its edge, like some kind of interface.

He turned it over, and on the back was engraved a line of extremely small characters, neither simplified nor traditional, but an ancient script he had never seen before.

Strangely, the moment he saw these words, the corresponding meaning automatically appeared in his mind: "Fragment of the Star Map, Part One".

"Star map?"

Zhang Dianfeng frowned, about to take a closer look, when he suddenly heard a soft footstep outside the door.

The footsteps were very light, clearly deliberately kept quiet, and they were approaching the tiled house.

He immediately turned off the flashlight, slipped behind the door, and gripped the military dagger he had taken from the assailant.

Under the moonlight, several dark figures appeared at the doorway. The leader whispered, "Target confirmed. Move quickly, grab the goods and leave without leaving a trace."

The voice was exactly the same as the voice of the thug in the helicopter cockpit just now!

Zhang Dianfeng's heart leaped into his throat—they had actually caught up with him! And the "thing" they were looking for, could it be the metal disc in his hand?

He held his breath, watching the dark figures walk into the house step by step. The cold touch of the dagger in his palm reminded him that a new battle was imminent.