Top Edge

Something was obviously not right.

Miller and Adolf had been involved in consecutive incidents, and Dr. Chen coincidentally goes missing at that time. Shen Siwei didn’t believe it was just a coincidence.

“Did you report it to the police?” he asked.

“We did, but they said it doesn’t meet the criteria for filing a case. We’re still waiting,” the person replied.

I see. Shen Siwei wondered why the front desk was so leisurely, apparently having nothing else to do.

“How did you discover his disappearance?” Shen Siwei asked again.

“It was after the day you escaped?” the person said. “Dr. Chen came to the lab, took a look around, and then shortly after, we couldn’t contact him anymore. The upstairs still looks the same as when you escaped, and we don’t know what to do.”

In fact, Shen Siwei didn’t escape; he was taken away by Moran. He looked at klet beside him and asked, “Should we go up and take a look?”

“Okay,” klet replied.

The guards looked at each other, unsure whether to make way or not. But before Shen Siwei could say anything, the person at the front desk waved his hand and said, “Go ahead and do whatever you need to do.”

With Dr. Chen, the backbone of the team, absent, the employees in the laboratory seemed to have lost their motivation to work. Perhaps they were more concerned about their own future compared to going after Shen Siwei, ‘the dangerous experimental subject’.

Following the remembered route, Shen Siwei arrived at the core laboratory and found that the various instruments inside were mostly unchanged, except for the destroyed lift doors and control console.

From the scene alone, it was clear that Moran had indeed fabricated the illusion of Shen Siwei’s escape.

“Is this where you were frozen?” klet looked around, his gaze suggesting that he should have gone there sooner.

The past couldn’t be changed. Shen Siwei said, “Let’s look for anything suspicious.”

“Sure.” klet walked to Dr. Chen’s workstation and casually pressed a button, immediately triggering a video log on the screen.

“On the 9010th day, Captain Shen returned from a mission. His behavior showed rebellion, indicating a possible restoration of his memory. However, I am certain that I stored his memories in the control console. How was he able to retrieve them? Could it be that no matter how many times his memories are lost, he can’t erase the people and things that are important to him? This speculation requires further observation.”

klet frowned, clenched his fists, as if he wanted to grab Dr. Chen from the video and beat him up. But Shen Siwei had long been angry about that matter. He held Cret’s fist softly rubbed it with his thumb and said, “Keep scrolling.”

The previous contents were all observations of Shen Siwei and had nothing special. Shen Siwei searched for other files and found that Dr. Chen’s research scope was very broad, including biotechnology, astrophysics, and more.

But it was just research. There were no hidden secrets on his computer. The most classified research was about Shen Siwei, which was also a well-known transformation project.

“Based on what we’ve seen, he doesn’t seem to be a problem,” klet said.

Shen Siwei also thought the same. Someone who didn’t even set a password for his computer didn’t seem likely to have any conspiracy or trickery. He contemplated and said, “Where could he have gone?”

“The timing of his disappearance is not normal,” klet said. “If he is indeed involved in the top-level matters, then he most likely—”

“Went to the top level,” they both said in unison.

At least it could be confirmed that Dr. Chen didn’t disappear for no reason. If he was involved in the events, it was almost certain that he had gone to the top level.

“Go get Malken and the others,” Shen Siwei said, copying the experiment logs related to himself into a handheld computer. “We’re going back to the top level now.”

Rita clearly didn’t expect Shen Siwei and klet to return so soon.

In the spacious and quiet living room, Adolf’s personal guard displayed the recently received documents, projecting them into the air, and said, “These are all the entry and exit records of the passageway for the past two days.”

The guard referred to the entrance and exit passageway outside Miller’s house. Over the past two days, there were hundreds of records, but most of the entries were concentrated around Miller’s funeral.

“Who are you looking for?” Rita asked.

She must have rested for a while, as her complexion had improved compared to when they separated in the morning, and her light makeup was enough to hide her fatigue.

“Dr. Chen,” Shen Siwei waved his right hand in the air, carefully examining the entry and exit records line by line.

“The military’s chief scientist?” Rita asked. “How is he related to this matter?”

“Not sure yet,” Shen Siwei continued scrolling through the list. If he encountered people who might be related to Dr. Chen, he would open the detailed records and check if there were any images of Dr. Chen captured by the surveillance cameras.

Page after page, just when Shen Siwei began to doubt his judgment, whether he had made a mistake, Dr. Chen’s name finally appeared on the list.

—So he did come to the top level.

“At 11:40 PM, during the night,” Shen Siwei looked at the numbers on the screen, “half an hour after Miller was killed.”

“The timing doesn’t match,” klet frowned.

“But we can be sure he’s involved in this matter,” Shen Siwei said.

The entrance and exit passageway outside Miller’s house mostly had the people from the mansion coming and going. Since Dr. Chen entered the top level from there, it was highly likely that he was there to find someone related to Miller’s family.

“Why did he come up here?” Rita couldn’t help asking. “Did you find anything?”

Shen Siwei was also puzzled, but at that moment, klet suddenly asked Rita, “Who is this person?”

Following klet’s gaze, Shen Siwei saw that he had stopped the screen cursor on a name that was both unfamiliar and ordinary.

“I don’t know…” Rita looked puzzled, “Could he be a guard?”

She was confused because there was no additional information after the name. If he was a guard, his identity should have been mentioned in the remarks column.

“Click and take a look,” Shen Siwei said.

A new page popped up with scarce information about the stranger. It only listed his date of birth, height, weight, and so on, while the work history column was completely blank.

“Have you seen him before?” Shen Siwei asked Rita.

There was a photo of the person in the information section, an ordinary face that would easily get lost in a crowd.

“I haven’t seen him,” Rita said, looking towards the other guard. “Have you?”

The guard also shook his head.

klet waved his hand to close the page and opened the archived photos of the entry and exit records. It showed the person driving a flying vehicle with a honeycomb pattern on its exterior. The golden body of the vehicle reflected light intensely, making it impossible to see the situation inside, only countless hexagonal patterns.

“Look at all of his entry and exit records,” Shen Siwei said.

The guard operated on his mini-computer for a moment, and when he projected it again into the air, only a few sparse entry and exit records appeared on the screen.

It turned out that this person first arrived on the top level more than ten minutes before Miller was killed, and he left the top level before Miller’s funeral began the next day.

However, about two hours later, he returned to the top level and hadn’t left since.

“Do you have detailed information about this person?” Shen Siwei asked.

After operating on his mini-computer for a while, the guard strangely said, “No. This person gained access to the top level for the first time just ten minutes before he arrived.”

“What?” Rita looked surprised. “Are you saying this person has no information, suddenly gained access to the top level, and shortly after he arrived, Miller died?”

“Yes,” the guard nodded.

“That doesn’t make sense,” klet whispered to Shen Siwei.

Shen Siwei was lost in thought, how could this person suddenly appear out of nowhere?

Neglected details gradually connected, and an absurd thought formed in Shen Siwei’s mind. He held back his sinking heart and said to the guard, “Bring up all the entry and exit records again.”

Five minutes later, Shen Siwei exhaled complicatedly, “I know what’s going on.”

…,,,,…..

After nightfall, Miller’s residence was still brightly lit.

Rita lay on the four-poster bed, facing the ceiling, with her hands resting outside the thick covers. She asked Shen Siwei, who was standing by the bed, “Will this really lure him out?”

“It will,” Shen Siwei said. “After all, he attended the funeral.”

“But…” Rita worriedly said, “What if he comes after me too…”

“He doesn’t have the opportunity,” Shen Siwei said, glancing at the guard standing in the room. “And he doesn’t have the ability.”

“But he got to Adolf…”

“Don’t worry. Your ‘sudden illness’ was an unexpected event; he definitely wasn’t prepared for it.”

In fact, even without Shen Siwei arranging for Rita to pretend to be sick, her current mental state was indeed not much different from being sick.

“Is it almost time to keep watch?” klet asked.

“Yeah.”

The small team of guards responsible for guarding the entrance and exit passage stood at their posts as usual. The calm night seemed no different from previous nights.

However, Shen Siwei and klet stood in the shadows at a street corner several tens of meters away, attentively watching the movements at the entrance and exit passage.

“Will he really show up?”klet leaned against the wall, arms crossed in front of him, looking quite bored.

“He will,” Shen Siwei kept his gaze on the entrance and exit passage. “Rita specifically asked him to come back. If he doesn’t show up, it will only raise unnecessary suspicions.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the front lights of a flickering aircraft appeared in the night sky not far away. Although still at a distance, they could see that the exterior of the aircraft was adorned with a honeycomb pattern.

The aircraft quickly arrived above the passage. Following the normal procedure, after a brief scan, the passage door slowly opened, and the aircraft safely left the top level.

However, unlike before, after the blue light of the scan flashed, the passage door didn’t open. Instead, several aircraft suddenly rose from the shadows and surrounded the reflective aircraft.

Shen Siwei took slow steps forward, and the person inside the cabin must have noticed him. After hovering in mid-air for a while, the person landed the aircraft in an open space next to the entrance and exit passage.

The cabin door opened upward, and a neatly dressed, well-mannered young man stepped out from the driver’s seat. He took off his silver-framed glasses and said to Shen Siwei, “Captain Shen, good evening.”

Shen Siwei let out a heavy breath.

“It’s really you,” he said, “Amor.”