247: Chapter 247 Dad will be home soon

The hall was brightly lit and bustling with people; travelers pushing suitcases hurried past them like streams of flowing water.

Zhou Yan stood outside the boarding gate, holding his wife's luggage in one hand, while using the other to adjust her scarf.

His movements were gentle and meticulous, as if he were afraid a single draft might slip through.

"Call Mom as soon as you land, so she doesn't worry," he said.

His wife nodded.

"Also, I put some medicine in the small side pocket of your suitcase. You've been coughing a bit these past two days; don't forget to take it when you get back."

His wife nodded again, her eyes already turning red, though she still tried her best to smile at him.

"I know."

Zhou Yan gave an acknowledging hum, paused, and then added as if suddenly remembering something: "Don't forget to take out that box of rainbow chocolates I bought for Niannian. She mentioned it several times during our last video call."

At the mention of their daughter, the shimmer of tears in his wife's eyes finally wavered.

She lowered her head, took out her phone, and whispered: "How about... one more word with her?"

Zhou Yan was silent for two seconds before nodding.

The video call connected quickly.

On the other side of the screen was the familiar living room back home. An elderly woman sat on the sofa; the camera shook for a moment, then revealed a little girl with pigtails.

The little girl had clearly just been called over; she stood there a bit reservedly, staring at the screen with her round eyes. After a long while, she timidly called out: "Daddy."

Zhou Yan's throat suddenly tightened.

It had been four years.

In these four years, he had heard this "Daddy" many times, separated by the internet, by time zones, and by a small screen. Yet, not once had he been able to truly hold her in his arms, smell the milky scent of her hair, or touch her to see if she had grown taller.

The child was clearly still a bit shy, shrinking half a step behind her grandmother, but her eyes couldn't help but keep glancing at the camera as she whispered: "Daddy, when are you coming back?"

Zhou Yan opened his mouth, and it was a long moment before he managed to smile.

"Soon."

When he said those two words, his expression was no different from usual, and his voice was steady.

But only he knew that when that "Soon" left his lips, it felt as if something had fiercely twisted his heart.

The little girl nodded, half-understanding, and said very seriously: "Then when you come back, you have to celebrate my birthday with me."

The light in Zhou Yan's eyes flickered slightly.

His wife stood beside him, her fingers gripping the luggage handle tightly.

She looked at him, as if wanting to say something, but in the end, she only pursed her lips lightly and whispered: "You promised her that last time, too."

Zhou Yan paused for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, I remember."

The boarding announcement began to play over the intercom.

His wife put away her phone, looked at him quietly for a few seconds, and finally reached out to adjust his collar.

She didn't ask anything.

There were too many things about this man that couldn't be spoken of. Many years ago, she had learned not to pry, not to expose, and not to turn her reluctance to let him go into a burden for him.

She just looked at him and said softly: "Eat on time."

Zhou Yan nodded.

"Okay."

"Smoke less."

"Okay."

"Stay safe."

This time, Zhou Yan didn't answer immediately.

He looked at his wife's reddened eyes, was silent for a brief moment, and then smiled.

"I know."

His wife picked up her luggage and walked toward the security checkpoint.

After walking a few steps, she turned back to look at him one more time.

Zhou Yan was still standing where he was, just like every other time he saw her off—standing very straight, with a faint smile still on his face.

But for some reason, as that gaze landed on him, her heart suddenly felt inexplicably panicked.

It was as if, in that glance back, she wasn't seeing her husband sending her off.

Instead, she saw a person who was slowly, bit by bit, detaching himself from the direction of home.

Zhou Yan stood there until that figure completely disappeared, then turned around and left the airport with quick steps.

The night was deep.

After returning to his residence, he didn't turn on the living room lights and just stood quietly at the door for a few seconds.

Then, he walked to the bookshelf, moved aside the row of old books on the bottom shelf that he almost never touched, and revealed an inconspicuous metal plate behind them.

Fingerprint, password, iris scan.

All three verification steps passed one after another.

The basement door slid open silently.

Inside, there were no extra furnishings, only a table, an encrypted terminal, and a gray-white wall that felt cold and devoid of warmth.

Zhou Yan sat down and started the communication procedure according to the highest-level protocol.

During the dozen seconds he waited for the connection, the basement was so quiet that only the low humming of the machines could be heard.

When the screen lit up, a middle-aged man was already sitting on the other side. His expression was composed, he wasted no words, and he went straight to the point.

"Codename Cangwu, mission start."

Zhou Yan straightened his posture: "Please instruct."

The middle-aged man pulled up an encrypted file. He spoke slowly, but every word was very clear.

"This is not a matter of commercial competition."

"The goal is not to steal technical achievements either."

"You are not to touch core R&D materials, technical parameters, formulas, or raw code."

Zhou Yan's gaze sharpened slightly; he did not interrupt.

The person on the other side of the screen continued: "There is only one thing you need to investigate."

"Where exactly this batch of technology comes from."

"As long as we can confirm the source, we can determine its nature, assess the risk level, and then decide how to respond."

At this point, the middle-aged man paused, his eyes deepening.

"The country will not easily cross the line."

"But if something capable of threatening national security is standing behind that line, someone must walk in first and take a look."

The basement fell silent.

Zhou Yan looked at the names and institutions highlighted in the file and nodded slowly.

"Understood."

The middle-aged man looked at him, his voice softening slightly as well.

"There are seven people in total who have been activated like you."

"Seven lines, all activated simultaneously."

"You do not know each other's full identities, only maintaining the bare minimum of intersecting coordinates. Do not make horizontal contact until the mission is complete."

Zhou Yan did not ask who the other six people were.

This question was not one that should have been asked in the first place.

He only counted very lightly in his heart.

Seven people.

Seven dark lines buried overseas for many years.

Some were lurking in the administrative systems of tech companies, some buried in the contractor chain, some attached to peripheral cooperation agencies of homeland security, and some stuck in peripheral positions that seemed destined to never touch core secrets.

In their daily lives, they lived like the most ordinary overseas Chinese.

Going to work, getting off work, paying taxes, grocery shopping, mowing the lawn on weekends, helping children with homework, and chatting with neighbors.

Under normal circumstances, they would never be truly activated in their entire lives.

Because the motherland never easily crosses the line.

But this time, things were clearly different.

Zhou Yan's cover was an administrative and asset coordination role.

To put it more bluntly, he was just a small cog responsible for equipment, access control, visitor procedures, office area scheduling, and permission coordination.

His position was not high, he was inconspicuous, and he would never appear in anyone's first layer of association regarding "core secrets."

But precisely because he was inconspicuous, he was better suited to appear in places others couldn't be bothered to glance at.

Meeting room reservations.

Floor scheduling.

Temporary visitor lists.

Authorization requests for special areas.

Budget approval circulation.

If taken individually, none of these things could be considered secrets.

But once strung together, they were often closer to the truth than any single technical document.

The mission briefing concluded, and the screen dimmed.

Zhou Yan sat in place and did not get up immediately.

He raised his hand and fished out a flattened photograph from his inner shirt pocket.

The edges of the photo were already a bit worn.

It showed him, his wife, and their daughter who couldn't even walk yet. At that time, he had only recently left the country; his wife was holding the child in the middle, and both of them were smiling brightly.

Zhou Yan looked down at it for a moment, then gently pressed the photo back against his chest.

Then, he stood up and turned off the basement lights.

The next morning, he appeared at the company as usual.

There was no difference from any other day.

Clocking in, checking equipment repair orders, coordinating a temporary meeting room, granting additional visitor access for an executive, and casually forwarding a floor access control anomaly report to the logistics platform supervisor.

The coffee machine in the office roared as usual, the sound of printers spitting out paper rose and fell, someone next door complained about the weather, the receptionist was looking down at her nails, and the elevators went up and down, ferrying every seemingly important person to their respective floors.

Zhou Yan stood in the midst of all this, as ordinary as could be.

Until late at night.

The flow of people in the building dissipated bit by bit, and the lights outside the glass curtain wall looked like countless cold stars in the distance.

Zhou Yan stared at the rotation time of the surveillance system. He waited until the last batch of cleaning staff had left, and until the security patrol route switched from Zone A to Zone B, before picking up his tool bag and, just like handling a routine equipment failure, swiped open the side door to the executive office area.

The corridor was frighteningly quiet.

The carpet muffled his footsteps; only an emergency light at the far end cast a ghastly white glow.