CH 260

Inside the old house on Yanjia Lane, Lin Chen placed his phone on the coffee table.

They hadn’t put away the arrangement they made earlier for discussing Zhourui Pharmaceutical, and there was a pile of cushions on the carpet.

Lin Chen didn’t want to go to bed and casually sat down on the floor. Xing Conglian had no choice but to stuff many cushions behind him.

However, as soon as he entered the house to get a blanket, Wang Chao barged in and carelessly threw his backpack next to Lin Chen, as if he were going to pounce on the pile of cushions.

“Stay away from your A’Chen Gege,” Xing Conglian held the blanket and sternly warned Wang Chao.

Wang Chao was still panting heavily, his face turned pale from intense running. He didn’t care about Xing Conglian’s tone and replied while resting his head on one of the cushions near Lin Chen, lying down and shouting at the ceiling, “Fuck me… damn… Boss, do you have no humanity… I… I took a taxi back… sprinted a hundred meters!”

“Are you tired and causing trouble by coming near?” Xing Conglian interrupted him. “Don’t you know your A’Chen Gege’s health isn’t good? What if you’re pressing on him?”

Upon hearing this, Wang Chao immediately sat up, panting, and carefully examined Lin Chen. He asked seriously, “A’Chen Gege, do you have any physical discomfort? Is the effect of that drug still present?”

Xing Conglian was afraid that Lin Chen would feel embarrassed, so he rushed over to pick Wang Chao up and take him away. But just as he was about to grab the back of Wang Chao’s neck, he heard Lin Chen say, “It’s fine. I’m normal. It’s just the usual discomfort after same-sex intimacy.”

Wang Chao was thunderstruck by his words. He stared at Lin Chen with his mouth wide open, almost letting the gum in his mouth fall out.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Chen reached back and petted the teenager’s hair.

Only then did Wang Chao snap out of it, and his face turned bright red. He stood up abruptly and couldn’t even speak properly. “I-I-I… A’Chen Gege, the Boss is a beast!”

Xing Conglian was bewildered by his sudden outburst. He saw Wang Chao rush into the bathroom like a gust of wind, and then, as if he had gone to the wrong place, he immediately rushed out and ran to the kitchen sink to drink water.

Finally, Xing Conglian bent down and had the opportunity to spread the blanket over Lin Chen. He half-knelt in front of Lin Chen and whispered, “Why are you so straightforward?”

Lin Chen hooked his neck, kissed him lightly, and smiled. “Why are you so shy?”

The gaze of his lover was calm and gentle, with long eyelashes that made people want to kiss them. Seeing him lying on the blanket was undoubtedly a very beautiful scene. Although they had already done what should and shouldn’t be done, at this moment, Xing Conglian also wanted to rush into the bathroom to calm down.

After Lin Chen finished speaking, perhaps feeling that if he continued, something would go wrong, he let go of Xing Conglian and called out stiffly to the young man drinking water in the kitchen. “Wang Chao, wait to drink water. I have something important to discuss with you.”

“Ah!” Wang Chao howled halfway in the kitchen, then rushed out like a little pet and obediently crouched next to Lin Chen.

Without need for any preamble, Lin Chen said directly, “After I woke up this morning, I received a text message.”

As he spoke, Lin Chen reached for the phone on the coffee table and lit up the screen.

A text message appeared on the white smartphone screen, still unopened and displayed in red letters.

Xing Conglian lowered his head to look. The sender was a long string of numbers that didn’t look like a phone number. The content of the message was also a string of characters.

——30:1103-1126

Wang Chao leaned in and glanced at the phone. He changed his sitting position to a cross-legged one, as if he was still feeling embarrassed. He deliberately kept a little distance from Lin Chen and said, “A’Chen Gege, is it a scam message? Don’t worry, I’ll make that jerk regret ever existing.”

Lin Chen shook his head and pushed the phone in front of the teenager. “Take a careful look, but don’t open the message yet.”

Wang Chao picked up the phone and looked left, right, up, and down. He almost put the phone in his mouth to taste it, but he still looked very puzzled. “Then, should I scan the phone for viruses or trace the source of this message?”

“What’s wrong?” Xing Conglian held his hand, but Lin Chen withdrew it, a subconscious physiological reaction that made Xing Conglian feel that Lin Chen was afraid of something. He immediately felt a sinking feeling in his heart.

The text message that made Lin Chen fearful and drove three hours back, disregarding his arrangements, must be something out of the ordinary.

Lin Chen held his hand back; even though his palm was cold, he remained emotionally restrained.

He looked at Wang Chao and asked slowly, “The content of this string of characters and the numbers displayed as the sender’s name—do they have any specific meaning in your field… In the field of technology? Can they be transformed into directly downloadable files, for example?”

Wang Chao’s face wrinkled, and he leaned on the table to observe carefully. “It’s not a magnet link, and it’s not a Bitcoin account address either. But now that you mention it, this string of numbers does seem strange. It doesn’t match the usual meaning of a phone number, nor does it look like a code from mass messaging software. It seems to have been tampered with… Should I try to decrypt it?” The young man hesitated slightly. “But there are many things to do right now. Are you sure you want me to decipher it? It’s possible that I’ve tried countless methods, and it’s just random data from a prank.”

Wang Chao’s rambling might have been a bit excessive, and Lin Chen suddenly rubbed his forehead.

Xing Conglian noticed that at this moment, Lin Chen seemed to be forcing himself. He didn’t know why Lin Chen’s mental state suddenly worsened, but the drug given by Shen Lian clearly couldn’t be completely metabolized overnight. He squeezed Lin Chen’s hand but didn’t receive the expected response.

“Do you need to rest for a while?” he asked.

“Not for now.” Lin Chen suddenly raised his eyes sharply. “Under what circumstances could I receive an unidentified message, with the possibility of the sender’s number being tampered with?”

“Ah, then it must be a fake base station,” Wang Chao replied. “It’s not difficult technologically. You just need a host and a laptop. The other party doesn’t even need to stay near you; they just need to slowly drive through a certain area.”

Xing Conglian looked at the time the message was received, which clearly showed 21:27.

At that time last night, Lin Chen was at Tzu Chi Hospital receiving treatment.

Xing Conglian said, “If someone knows your phone number, they can completely use an anonymous app to send you a message, but with the use of a fake base station, they can tamper with the sender’s number and turn it into a special string of digits. So, this string of numbers must have some meaning.”

“That’s what I think too.” Lin Chen nodded and asked Wang Chao with keenness, “Why did you immediately associate it with a Bitcoin account?”

“Ah?” Wang Chao scratched his head and pulled out his laptop from his backpack. “Because this morning, there was some activity on the Deep Web, and I was just about to ask the boss if we should monitor it.”

“Open it. Let me see,” Lin Chen said.

Wang Chao snapped his fingers and placed the laptop flat on the table, quickly lighting up the screen. “I was going to tell the boss about this today, but he didn’t even listen to me. A’Chen Gege, you tell him, how can someone be so irresponsible with work just because of love!”

“That’s true,” Lin Chen said calmly.

Wang Chao, for the first time, gave Lin Chen a resentful look and said in a desolate tone, “A world without love… I think… it’s time for me to move.”

Lin Chen patted his shoulder and pointed to the now illuminated computer screen, saying to Wang Chao, “Get to work. What’s happening on the Dark Web?”

“I was thinking if there was a large-scale betting activity, but I have no idea what these sickos are playing with.” Wang Chao gritted his teeth in anger and continued, “But A’Chen Gege, in one of the related posts, I saw a map of the three provinces around Hongjing. I’m afraid this event is related to us.”

Wang Chao, like completing a game level, delved deeper into the website, and finally, he managed to bring up a simple page with a black background and green letters.

The page was filled with various money symbols, exuding a predictably bloody and festive atmosphere.

Wang Chao quickly scrolled down the page until he reached the reply that he was particularly interested in.

The grammar used by the person who replied was complex and difficult to understand, clearly indicating a lack of proper education. Xing Conglian’s gaze shifted to the outline of the map in the reply.

With just one glance, he recognized that it was indeed a map of the three provinces surrounding Hongjing.

The map displayed the coastal provinces of Jiangxia and Zhelin, as well as the neighboring province of Yong’an.

The specific city names and roads were erased from the white-based map, replaced by numerous small black dots connected by lines, resembling a network radiating outwards.

Xing Conglian took out his phone, found a map of the three provinces, quickly zoomed in to a similar size, and compared it to the burnt-looking white-based map on the computer screen. Then he glanced at Lin Chen.

The dots and lines on the map didn’t represent specific cities or roads; they seemed to be meaningless grids.

Wang Chao was also very perplexed. He pointed to the words in the reply and asked, “Boss, what does this passage mean?”

“It’s Russian, roughly meaning ‘a balancing game on a wire’,” Xing Conglian glanced at the post and said coldly.

Wang Chao retreated back into the pile of cushions. “What the hell is this? Is the Chuunibyou syndrome* so severe across countries?”

*Japanese colloquialism describing early teens who have grandiose delusions, who desperately want to stand out, and who have convinced themselves that they have hidden knowledge or secret powers (AKA eight-grader syndrome/teenager syndrome).

Xing Conglian noticed that as he heard his answer, Lin Chen’s gaze became colder and seemed to freeze on the map.

A touch of pain flashed across Lin Chen’s face, and his complexion turned pale.

Xing Conglian held Lin Chen’s hand again, and Lin Chen returned the grip. He said briefly, “Give me some time.” He spoke solemnly, pressing his temple and looking at Wang Chao. “I’m just speculating on the possibilities of the sender because if you’re not familiar with it, the only person who is familiar with it can only be me.”

“I don’t understand,” Wang Chao looked at Lin Chen in bewilderment.

“I’m sorry. I was just hoping to get some other possibilities from you out of sheer luck.” Lin Chen smiled bitterly at Wang Chao. “If I’m not mistaken, in fact, these numbers represent citations from a particular publication,” Lin Chen said.

“Damn it.” Wang Chao bent down again and began typing on the keyboard, as if he wanted to immediately search for the literature.

Lin Chen stopped him. “The specific publication and citations can only be found by me. It would be a waste of time for you to search. But decrypting the sender’s identity will be your responsibility. We’ll work together.”

“Who could it be?” Xing Conglian asked.

Lin Chen’s gaze grew deep, and he furrowed his brows in silence.

Xing Conglian feared that at this moment, Lin Chen already had a speculation in his mind.

The person who took the opportunity to send him a message when he was mentally disturbed, after preventing Shen Lian from committing suicide—the identity of that person had become clear as day.