10. Infiltration

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The room on the top floor of the factory was dark, illuminated only by the faint blue glow of screens covering the walls. Lin Shiyue and Ori fixed their gaze on the monitor images; An Chen sat on the floor assembling parts, just as he had that morning.

“Boss,” they glanced briefly at Qiao Yuyan before returning to their tasks.

Qiao Yuyan stepped in front of An Chen and kicked the scattered pile of gun parts. “What’s the point of making a bunch of toy guns?”

Though An Chen’s modified parts were nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, those accustomed to using genuine firearms could tell at a glance these were replicas.

“Got itchy hands, just making a few for fun,” An Chen smiled broadly, his blond hair flickering softly in the screen’s glow.

Qiao Yuyan knew he was restless, but as long as it didn’t affect the mission’s progress, she usually turned a blind eye to the team’s occasional pranks.

Glancing at the time, it was just past 11 p.m.

She asked Lin Shiyue, “How’s the Gu Corporation now?”

“Gu Corporation reported to the police this afternoon; Liang Feng has already been taken away by the authorities. Gu Corporation officially announced his dismissal and will pursue criminal charges. The online uproar has since calmed, and most employees have left for the day,” Lin Shiyue enlarged several floors’ surveillance footage for Qiao Yuyan to observe. “Only a few are working overtime.”

Qiao Yuyan nodded, walked to the wall, sat down on the floor, closed her eyes, and leaned back to conserve energy.

2:24 a.m.

Lin Shiyue woke Qiao Yuyan. “Boss, most employees have left. Only some technical staff on the 24th and 25th floors are still working late.”

Qiao Yuyan opened her eyes, clear and alert, without a trace of sleepiness.

She rose swiftly; the floor was already spotless, and An Chen and Ori were nowhere to be seen.

“They went to borrow a car,” Lin Shiyue explained. “At 1 a.m., a ventilation duct malfunction was discovered on the 49th floor. Repairs have been requested, and maintenance will arrive around 6 a.m.”

“Understood,” Qiao Yuyan replied briefly. She tied up her long hair into a bun atop her head, threw on a lightweight combat jacket over her sportswear, laced up her combat boots, then strapped her prepared tools one by one in positions most accessible.

She then exited the room and leapt down from the factory’s rooftop.

2:30 a.m.

Although most of the Gu Corporation’s employees had left, the building remained brightly lit, its silhouette sharply outlined.

The empty corridors inside were silent, with no stray personnel wandering about. This stillness, however, sharply increased the difficulty of Qiao Yuyan’s operation.

They had only one chance; a single misstep would trigger a full lockdown, and no one would be allowed to retrieve the target documents thereafter.

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At this hour, most security guards were resting in the lounge during shift breaks, with only a few on duty in the monitoring room, struggling to stay alert.

Outside the building, a row of streetlights along the roadside suddenly flickered without warning. Luckily, they stabilized and glowed steadily again after just two seconds.

The on-duty guards immediately became alert and rushed over to inspect. After thorough checks, they found a minor fault caused by natural aging of the wiring, with no further anomalies.

Still cautious, they scrutinized the surveillance footage repeatedly, confirming nothing else had occurred before relaxing and diverting their attention elsewhere.

Unbeknownst to them, during those brief two seconds, Qiao Yuyan was concealed along the window ledge of an office on the second floor.

This office had been chosen as the perfect entry point during their reconnaissance—its location extremely discreet, with an exit leading directly into a blind spot of the surveillance cameras.

From behind, Qiao Yuyan produced a specially made glass cutter and lightly traced a circle on the sealed tempered glass window. With a faint “click,” the circled glass fell neatly into her palm.

She slipped her hand through the hole and pried the window open.

The gap was narrow; Qiao Yuyan had to adjust her posture and summon all her strength to squeeze through bit by bit.

Crouching in the office corner, she rubbed her chest where it had been bruised from the tight squeeze, once again marveling at how fortunate she was to have been given a petite frame by fate, enabling such nimble maneuvering.

For anyone else, this window alone would have been an insurmountable obstacle.

After a brief adjustment, relying on her knowledge of the building’s interior layout, she swiftly navigated through the surveillance blind spots, her footsteps light and ghostlike, without so much as a whisper.

2:47 a.m.

Qiao Yuyan lay prone inside the ventilation duct on the 50th floor, between the CEO’s office and the archive room, in front of a steel bar fence. Wearing night-vision goggles, she took out a miniature steel cutter from her waist.

Aiming the cutter’s blade at the bars, the machine emitted a subtle metallic friction sound as it ran—a sharp noise that made one’s teeth ache.

Fortunately, thanks to An Chen’s modifications, the cutter’s noise was minimized as much as possible.

Within five seconds, a neat gap appeared in the bars.

Qiao Yuyan gripped the steel and aimed the cutter at the other end. The machine vibrated softly, and with a crisp “snap,” the bars were cleanly severed.

She placed the cut bars aside and tried to slip through the gap but found it still too narrow for her frame.

She had no choice but to start the cutter again, repeating the process to remove another bar, barely squeezing through the opening.

2:52 a.m.

Qiao Yuyan climbed out of the vent and landed lightly on the archive room floor, the entire motion seamless and soundless.

The room had been checked during the day with detectors; no surveillance cameras were installed inside, allowing her next moves to be somewhat easier.

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But even on enemy turf, she dared not be careless.

The archive room was not large—roughly a hundred square meters—but filled with intelligent mobile shelving units.

Qiao Yuyan eyed the sea of cabinets with some vexation. With so many mobile shelves, which one contained the target documents?

She detached her phone, connecting it via data cable to the mobile shelving’s intelligent system, issuing a command: “Little Dummy, connect to Lin Shiyue and assist her in locating bioenergy technology files from 2023 to 2024.”

A cartoon smiley face appeared on the phone screen, then vanished, replaced by a progress bar.

This was an AI developed by GSC, albeit with limited intelligence, capable only of assisting with simple tasks. The base jokingly called it the “Artificial Dummy,” affectionately nicknamed Little Dummy.

While waiting for the files to be located, Qiao Yuyan observed the archive room’s layout, habitually plotting escape routes in her mind for emergencies.

The room was sealed on all sides, with only one wall featuring two small glass windows totaling about one square meter, positioned two meters above the floor.

Another wall held a heavy blast-proof door. With such tight security, no wonder previous groups had failed here.

“Target files are likely in cabinets 23 to 25. The cabinets are unlocked; you have only fifteen minutes,” Lin Shiyue’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and a countdown appeared on the phone.

After fifteen minutes, the system would detect unauthorized access.

Qiao Yuyan immediately put away her phone and headed straight to cabinet 23.

Under Lin Shiyue’s remote control, the intelligent shelving unit slowly slid outward, the subtle “rattle” of rollers on tracks unusually loud in the silence.

The archive room was pitch dark, with only cold moonlight filtering through the narrow windows, casting two faint, blurry patches of light on the floor.

Qiao Yuyan quickly searched inside the cabinet.

The room was utterly silent except for her gentle breathing and the rustle of papers.

Before long, she found the mission’s target documents in cabinet 24.

She swiftly placed the file bag into a specially designed storage compartment on her back, not yet fastening the straps.

“Click, click.”

The sound of gears turning came from the blast-proof door.