71: You want to race? I'll build you a racetrack!

Inside the cabin.

The air was sucked dry.

Only the roar of the engines and that light, yet mountain-heavy declaration, slammed frantically against everyone's eardrums.

"A... race?"

Zhao Dahai's lips trembled.

He looked at Chen Mo as if he were a dangerous patient who had escaped from a mental asylum.

Li Hu's jaw was nearly dislocated.

His mind was left with only a buzzing blankness caused by excessive shock.

"You're crazy."

There was no expression on Nightingale's perpetually icy face.

She just looked at Chen Mo as if he were a diagnosed lunatic.

She stated a fact.

"Do you know what you are saying? 'Tianhe' is a national strategic supercomputer! Every second of its computing power relates to national defense, aerospace, and meteorology! And you actually want to use it... to play a virtual game with a terrorist?"

Chen Mo ignored her.

He only looked at Li Ke, who was nearly scared senseless.

"Li Ke."

"Here... Here! Team Leader Chen!" Li Ke straightened his back abruptly, as if electrocuted.

"Now, immediately, connect me to Director Zhou's satellite phone. I need the highest authorization code for the 'heavens punishment' plan."

"Then, use this authorization code to apply to the Beijing Supercomputing Center for an independent physical data channel with the highest priority."

Chen Mo's voice was not loud.

But it carried an unquestionable madness that made the soul tremble!

"I don't care what method you use! Deception, attack, or forging commands!"

"I need you to turn this plane into 'Tianhe's'... mobile terminal within half an hour!"

Li Ke's face instantly turned paper white.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard, trembling like autumn leaves in the wind.

"Team Leader Chen... This... This is impossible! This is declaring war... on the nation's most core system!"

"Bang!"

A loud crash!

Zhao Dahai slammed his fist violently against the cabin wall!

A clear indentation of his fist was left on the hard alloy panel!

His eyes were bloodshot, and he roared at Li Ke like a cornered beast.

"Stop the damn nonsense! Do what Team Leader Chen says!"

"If anything goes wrong, I'll take the fall alone!"

Li Ke's body trembled violently.

He glanced at Zhao Dahai, and then at the terrifyingly calm Chen Mo.

A surge of hot blood rushed from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head!

"Damn it! Insane! I'll be crazy with you guys just this once!"

He let out a shriek that was barely human, and a sickly flush appeared on his face!

His ten fingers, like ten sprites dancing on a knife's edge, struck the keyboard, leaving afterimages!

Nightingale's brows knitted tightly for the first time.

She looked at the group of lunatics before her.

She wanted to stop them, but realized she had no way to intervene.

Because the lunatic who started it all was watching her calmly with those eyes that saw through everything.

"Do you think we are playing with him?"

Chen Mo's voice sounded beside her ear.

"No."

"We are saving people."

"That 'doomsday clock' is a biological signal fuse. This means he is a living person."

"A person who has been controlled by 'The Emperor' in some way and turned into a bomb."

"All his senses are connected to the control system of the jingji express line."

"What he sees, what he hears, and what he feels will all be converted into data, determining when that train to hell starts, and when it... explodes."

"If we force the train to stop, he will detonate."

"If we cut the power, he will also detonate."

"Our only way is to make him believe he has reached another... false destination before he actually reaches the end."

Nightingale's pupils suddenly contracted!

She understood!

Use a virtual Beijing to deceive all the senses of that biological bomb!

Make him think he has completed his mission, thereby forcing 'The Emperor' behind him to actively press the "Safety Disarm" button!

This was a wild, yet theoretically the only feasible plan!

"But..."

Nightingale's voice became grave.

"The computing power required to create a virtual world capable of deceiving all senses is astronomical. Moreover, we don't have the core, unpublished urban construction data for Beijing!"

"I do."

Chen Mo's voice was calm.

He pointed to his head.

Nightingale's breathing stopped.

She looked at the man before her, feeling a chill shoot up her spine to the top of her head!

He wasn't joking!

His brain really contained... an entire city!

"Connected!"

Li Ke's shriek interrupted everyone's thoughts!

"Director Zhou's authorization code passed! 'Tianhe'... The 'Tianhe' Supercomputing Center has opened up one percent of its computing power to us!"

"Only one percent?" Zhao Dahai's face instantly darkened again.

"It's enough."

Chen Mo stood up.

He walked behind Li Ke, looking at the brilliant, galaxy-like data stream on the screen.

"Now, concentrate all that computing power onto a single point."

"Centered on Tiananmen Square, radius five kilometers."

"Su Qingxue!"

"Here!"

"Verbally describe the engineering blueprints of the jingji express line, every detail, to Li Ke! Including the material of every screw and the orientation of every ventilation shaft!"

"Yes!"

"Li Hu!"

"Present!"

"Report all the data we previously found regarding Beijing's traffic flow and population density!"

"Yes!"

The entire cabin.

It had transformed into a high-speed, precision machine for creating worlds!

Chen Mo stood in the center; he was the CPU of this machine!

"Wrong! The wind speed is wrong! Beijing at four o'clock in the afternoon blows a northwest wind! Force three wind speed! Lower the sway amplitude of all the leaves in the virtual scene by fifteen degrees!"

"Sound! I need sound! I need the sound of pigeons flapping their wings in the square! I need the clamor of The Tourists! I need the sound of car horns on Chang'an Avenue in the distance! Set their volume to 45 decibels!"

"Smell! I need smell! Distribute the caramelized scent of roasted sweet potatoes, the sweet and sour taste of *tanghulu*, and the smell of car exhaust, according to concentration gradients, at every street corner!"

Command after command poured from his mouth!

Clear, precise, and filled with a maniacal obsession with detail that only a madman could possess!

Nightingale stood aside, staring blankly at him.

Watching this man, relying on his own memory.

Using lines of code, brick by brick, he built a city in the void... a city more real than reality!

She finally understood why the people above had given this young man such a strange codename.

"The Wind Listener."

What he heard was not the wind.

It was the faintest... heartbeat of the entire world.

Time passed, minute by minute.

"Report, Team Leader Chen!"

Li Ke's voice was hoarse beyond recognition due to prolonged intense focus!

"Virtual scene... construction complete! Similarity... ninety-nine point nine percent!"

"Very good."

Chen Mo nodded.

His face was already as pale as paper.

He glanced at the watch on his wrist.

There were only... ten minutes left until the doomsday clock reached its destination.

"Now."

Chen Mo slowly walked back to his seat.

He looked at the endless darkness outside the window, a cold curve appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"Li Ke, drag him... in for me."

"Yes!"

Li Ke slammed down the Enter key!

As if pressing the switch connecting two worlds!

... Deep inside the subterranean vacuum tube.

A silver-white maglev train, brimming with futuristic technology, was gliding silently at near-teleportation speed.

Inside the carriage.

A haggard man with vacant eyes was secured to a specially made seat.

Various tubes and wires were inserted into his body.

He wore a large VR headset over his eyes.

High-fidelity headphones were stuffed into his ears.

He was the doomsday clock.

A tragic tool whose memories had all been erased by "The Emperor," leaving only the instruction to "reach the destination."

Right then!

The scene in his VR headset suddenly flickered!

The originally pitch-black tunnel was instantly replaced by dazzling sunlight!

In his headphones, the sound of bustling human voices and car horns rang out!

He smelled the mixed aroma of roasted sweet potatoes and *tanghulu*!

The terminal... had arrived.

Tiananmen Square Station.

He slowly rose from the seat.

That programmed heart began sending out biological signals representing "mission complete" at a fixed frequency.

On an island thousands of miles away.

"The Emperor" looked at the green signal representing "mission complete" on the computer screen in front of him.

On his face, handsome enough to be demonic, he revealed the elegant smile reserved for a victor.

"It's over."

He extended a slender finger toward the red button representing "detonation."

However.

Just one second before his fingertip was about to touch the button.

All the screens in front of him suddenly flashed!

And all went black!

The next second!

A familiar face, bearing a cold, mocking smile, appeared on the screen!

It was Chen Mo!

"The Emperor's" pupils suddenly contracted!

"I'm sorry."

On the screen.

Chen Mo's voice, transmitted via satellite signal, reached his ears clearly.

"Your flight has been delayed."

"Now, it's my turn to perform."