197: Chapter 197 Runes Appear in the Forge, Surveillance Quietly Deployed

The roar of the Furnace Workshop felt particularly heavy in the afternoon; waves of heat surged out from the alloy tunnel entrance like gasps exhaled from deep within the earth.

Chen Tiezhu squatted in front of the energy circuit maintenance hatch of Furnace No. 3. Beads of sweat slid down his brow and dripped onto the faintly glowing spiritual energy detection board in his palm with a soft "sizzle."

He didn't wipe it, nor did he look up; he just squinted, his fingers lightly tapping on several intersecting conduits.

This old fellow had been acting up lately. The energy output fluctuations were three percent higher than usual. It wasn't much, but to an old craftsman like him who had been doing Artifact Refining for thirty years, it was like a grain of sand in a bowl of rice—irritatingly noticeable.

"I'm not some new apprentice; how could I let such a small flaw slide?" he muttered, twisting a wrench to remove the last protective plate.

The inner wall was exposed, the high-temperature alloy glowing a dull red, its surface covered with dense stability runes.

But in an inconspicuous corner at the bottom right, his pupils suddenly constricted—where there should have been a smooth metal surface, someone had used an extremely fine carving knife to leave a set of crooked, chaotic symbols.

It didn't look like a manufacturing error.

Nor did it look like natural wear and tear.

The symbols were arranged strangely, their edges finely serrated like the claw marks of some creature, or like the solidified patterns of dried blood.

Stranger still, after staring at them for two seconds, his head suddenly buzzed. His vision went dark, and a low-frequency hum rang in his ears, like someone humming an unintelligible nursery rhyme inside his brain.

"Damn!" He jerked backward, nearly falling to the ground, only steadying himself by bracing his hand.

After catching his breath, he stared intently at the set of symbols, growing more alarmed the more he looked.

This didn't belong to any rune System of any sect in the Eastern Desolation, nor was it the technological rune coding the Chen family had developed in recent years.

It was too... filthy.

As if it had been rubbed off something decaying.

He didn't touch it, nor did he dare take a photograph.

He snapped the protective plate shut, stood up, and headed for the exit. His pace quickened until he was almost at a trot.

The main tower was three miles from the Furnace Area. He hurried through the workshop corridors, passing several technicians who were calibrating Mecha Arms, but he didn't stop to greet them.

Seeing his grim expression, those people wanted to ask what was wrong, but he simply waved them off and headed straight for the core elevator.

As soon as the elevator doors closed, he punched the wall.

"Something's happened."

Chen Wuwang was standing in the dispatch room on the third floor of the main tower. His finger slid across a hovering permission list, his gaze landing on three names marked in red—the three foreign technicians who had applied for transfer to the Furnace Area.

Just as he was about to issue a new round of post-audit commands, urgent footsteps echoed from outside the door.

It wasn't the rhythm of the Shadow Guards.

It was an acquaintance.

The moment the door opened, he saw clearly who it was.

Chen Tiezhu was drenched in sweat, his chest heaving, still clutching that detection board in one hand with white-knuckled intensity.

"What happened?" Chen Wuwang's voice wasn't loud, but his eyes changed instantly.

"The furnace," Chen Tiezhu panted. "The inner side of the energy circuit in Furnace No. 3... there's something there."

"What is it?"

"Runes," he gritted his teeth. "They aren't ours, and they aren't from the Eastern Desolation. I looked at them for two seconds, and my head nearly exploded."

Chen Wuwang's brow furrowed. Without another word, he turned and left.

The two of them hurried through the corridors one after the other and stepped onto the Maglev Track leading to the Furnace Area.

Wind whistled past the sides of the tunnel, making the corners of Chen Tiezhu's clothes flap loudly.

He stole a glance at Chen Wuwang's back and noticed that the other man's right hand was already resting on the Titanium Alloy Dagger at his waist.

By the time they reached the perimeter of the Furnace Area, the alert level had automatically risen to Rank 2.

Several patrolling Shadow Guards saw the Family Head arriving in person and immediately lined up to make way; no one spoke.

In front of the maintenance hatch, Chen Tiezhu reopened the protective plate.

Chen Wuwang crouched down, his left Mechanical Prosthetic Eye activating instantly as a blue light swept over the alloy inner wall.

Spectral analysis layers overlapped, stripping away high-temperature interference, Spiritual Qi residue, and metal reflections...

Finally, the set of symbols was completely reconstructed.

An asymmetric spiral structure, its edges laced with fine blood-like veins, with a recessed point in the center as if some living tissue had once been attached to it.

His pupils shrank.

"The mark of the Demon Race."

His voice was very soft, as if he were talking to himself, or perhaps confirming a suspicion.

Chen Tiezhu heard him clearly, and his heart sank. "You recognize it?"

"I captured a batch of encrypted fragments years ago," Chen Wuwang said without looking back. "The structural similarity exceeds eighty percent. This isn't an attack rune; it's a beacon-type. Its function could be remote sensing, a positioning anchor, or... eavesdropping."

"Who did it?" Chen Tiezhu lowered his voice. "One of our own? Or..."

"Outsiders," Chen Wuwang stood up, scanning the surroundings. "And it was carved within the last three days. This position avoids all patrol routes; if you hadn't manually calibrated it today, it never would have been discovered."

Chen Tiezhu took a sharp breath. "How did they get in? Didn't you personally modify the permission System?"

"No matter how strictly you modify it, you can't prevent internal cooperation," Chen Wuwang sneered. "Someone applies for a transfer, someone approves the passage, and someone turns a blind eye. When leaks occur layer by layer, bugs can crawl in."

He looked down at the runes, his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye constantly refreshing the data stream.

There was no risk of explosion, no accumulation of spiritual power, and no traces of activation.

The enemy was still in the observation phase and hadn't made a move yet.

This was actually more dangerous.

"We can't remove it," he said.

"Why? Leave it there as a target?"

"If we remove it, they'll know they've been exposed," Chen Wuwang shook his head. "They'll change locations, pause their plans, or even set a counter-trap. What we need to do now isn't to clear the traces, but to follow them and drag that hand out into the light."

He raised his hand and took out a chip the size of a fingernail from his sleeve, pressing it lightly onto the corner of the bracket above the maintenance hatch.

The chip instantly merged into the metal, its surface revealing a nearly invisible ring of light.

"A monitoring Spirit Array disguised as a Temperature Controller," he said in a low voice. "It can capture the spiritual power fluctuations, identity token signals, and even the breathing frequency of anyone who approaches. The data is transmitted directly to my Consciousness Terminal and won't be leaked."

Chen Tiezhu watched as he skillfully adjusted the Array Core's orientation, precisely covering the entire work area with the surveillance range while cleverly avoiding the runes themselves so that the energy field disturbance wouldn't expose the anomaly.

"You had this thing ready all along?"

"I've had it ready since the Gray Shield Protocol was activated." Chen Wuwang pulled back his hand and stepped back. "Now, it's starting its work."

He took one last look at the runes and turned to leave.

"Seal off this area. Aside from you and designated Shadow Guards, no one is allowed in. Daily maintenance continues as usual, but all operation records must be uploaded in real-time. I want this person to feel that everything is normal."

Chen Tiezhu nodded. "Understood. Just like nothing happened."

"Exactly." Chen Wuwang didn't stop his pace. "Let them keep acting."

When they walked out of the Furnace Area gates, the sunlight was blinding.

He raised a hand to shield his eyes, and his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye automatically adjusted its light transmittance.

The rhythmic hammering from the distant workshop continued as before, and the laughter of children chasing mecha models in the plaza drifted over on the wind.

Everything seemed normal.

But he knew the fire had already been lit.

The wind just hadn't picked up yet.

As he walked back to the main tower, deep within his consciousness, the data stream from the monitoring Spirit Array had already begun to trickle in.

Temperature, humidity, background spiritual power values... everything was normal.

But within a certain subtle frequency band, there was a faint resonance that pulsed gently once every seventeen seconds.

Like a heartbeat.

Or like something in the shadows, quietly responding to that set of runes.