Sound waves in a specific frequency range can repel mutant species, but they are only effective over a small area and are of little use against the massive insect swarms erupting in urban centers.

Beyond considering insect repelling, one must also safeguard the populace. For a third-tier residential planet, the garrison has limited equipment, generally relying on physical pest control—such as the high-temperature roasting currently being used.

The appearance of such sound waves in this corner was abnormal.

Song Jin: “Since we’re already here, let’s go take a look.”

They turned back through a corridor on the other side to reach the inpatient department, where a side door led to a small garden, but it was currently locked.

Qian Can checked the rooms one by one: “These are all standard wards, containing only standard medical equipment.”

Seeing the elevator reach the first floor, Li Xiao signaled for them to hide in the emergency stairwell.

09: [The sound waves are coming from underground.]

Li Xiao: “Can you pinpoint it?”

09: [Of course I can!]

Song Jin had 07 and 09 connect, activating dual-battle armor vision. Their field of view now included a scan map generated by 09, with a route marked in red pointing toward the space beneath the emergency stairwell.

Song Jin: “Block the security cameras.”

07: [Currently hacking into the security system—random-loop footage enabled.]

They descended one floor and found a sealed metal door in front of them. It was old and covered in dust, clearly having not been touched for years. On it, written in Danse script, was “No Entry.”

“How many years has it been since anyone came here?” Qian Can covered his nose and mouth, looking disgusted. “Surely this isn’t the morgue downstairs, right?”

Jiang Hao: “This is a hospital. Isn’t it normal to have a morgue?”

Li Xiao’s gaze swept over a few faint footprints on the ground. Judging by the depth, they weren’t left at the same time.

The metal door didn’t use a sensor lock, so Li Xiao had 09 open it. The silver ring on his ear transformed into wisps of silk that snaked through the gap in the door; a moment later, there was a click, and the door swung open.

Song Jin looked at Li Xiao’s ear. When they met at the vehicle, he had seen Li Xiao’s earring and wondered if the pair Li Xun gave him were the only ones. He hadn’t expected them to be 09.

Noticing Song Jin’s confusion, Li Xiao walked in front and said casually, “That’s the only one in all of Danse. Don’t lose it.”

Song Jin followed behind, feeling a bit amused, and teased, “I thought you bought them in bulk, gifting them to everyone you met.”

“Earrings can only be given to the younger generation of the family,” Li Xiao said with a straight face. “Calculating it, you’re the only one I can give it to.”

Song Jin’s smile stiffened: “What do you mean by ‘younger generation’?”

Li Xiao: “Like a son, nephew, or niece.”

Song Jin scoffed: “At the ripe old age of 68, you don’t even have someone to give accessories to, yet you insist on tricking people into being your son. That’s truly pathetic.”

Li Xiao walked downward: “It doesn’t have to be a son. It could be a grandson.”

Song Jin: “…”

You win.

Jiang Hao and Qian Can, walking behind them: “…”

So you two are playing at a ‘grandfather-grandson’ romance? That’s wild.

After descending two more floors, the walls began to darken, and a faint, charred smell permeated the air. The two stopped joking. The motion-sensor lights were broken, leaving the area in total darkness.

07 automatically flew to the front, acting as a high-powered light, and everything became clear.

Half a floor down, two more metal doors appeared, but they were charred and twisted, as if they had been blown up. Entering through the gaps in the doors, they found the walls and floor covered in a thick layer of black ash. The pungent odor grew stronger, so the four of them put on purification masks and continued downward.

Just like at the entrance, there were many footprints here.

09: [There is an anti-detection device here; I cannot scan the spatial structure.]

Li Xiao was puzzled. The place had already been blown to bits—why was the anti-detection system still operating normally?

The passage stopped descending. Li Xiao mentally calculated their height above the ground; they were roughly fifty meters down. The paths below branched frequently, and every path had footprints, leaving Li Xiao to choose based on his own intuition.

After walking for about half an hour, Song Jin patted Li Xiao and pointed to the ground ahead: “These are our footprints.”

Li Xiao observed his surroundings. They had indeed been here. They were walking in circles.

“Even you have moments of misjudgment,” Song Jin teased, turning back to walk the other way.

Li Xiao: “This isn’t the first time I’ve made a mistake.”

Song Jin: “When was the other time?”

Li Xiao turned his head to look at him but didn’t speak.

Song Jin: “…?”

What is that look supposed to mean?

Twenty minutes later, they were back at the original intersection.

“This place is too evil,” Qian Can said, scanning the area with the flashlight embedded in his terminal. “We aren’t caught in a ‘ghost wall,’ are we?”

Jiang Hao nodded, finding it entirely plausible. Even his ‘Big Brother’ had failed twice; this place was definitely not simple.

Hearing the muttering behind them, Li Xiao and Song Jin turned to see Jiang Hao and Qian Can with their hands clasped together, bowing toward a corner.

“Dear spirits, let the blame fall on those who caused it, please don’t trouble us. Once we get out, I promise to burn a golden mountain for you.”

Li Xiao: “…”

Song Jin: “…”

Song Jin truly couldn’t bear to watch, so he turned his head to observe the surroundings again. Li Xiao’s judgment relied primarily on his hearing, but this place emitted sound waves of a specific frequency that likely interfered with that.

“07, can you find the way?” Song Jin asked quietly.

07: [I’m lost too, QuQ]

The battle armor was built upon the 384 energy system, and there was currently no higher-level system available. The fact that the anti-detection device here could affect the armor meant that this place also utilized the 384 energy system.

Danse possessed a massive amount of 384 energy mines but lacked the capability to utilize them. Currently, they primarily used 362-level energy systems, otherwise, the armor would be detected at customs.

Even the Danse military hadn’t fully mastered this technology, yet this small hospital on a third-tier planet had installed it.

“We can only try them one by one,” Li Xiao said, walking toward another fork.

The air underground was stagnant; they couldn’t stay long and had to speed up. When they reached the second fork, the light swept across a spot, and Li Xiao crouched down to examine it.

On the wall was a hand-drawn triangle—ragged and irregular.

Song Jin stood behind Li Xiao, bending down to look closely: “Does a triangle represent a secret code in Danse?”

Li Xiao: “Danger.”

“Isn’t that a handwritten ‘three’?” Jiang Hao spoke up suddenly.

Qian Can was baffled: “This looks like a triangle no matter how you look at it.”

Jiang Hao pointed to the pattern: “The order of strokes is wrong; the corner on the left is open.”

Once he said that, Li Xiao also felt it looked somewhat like a ‘three,’ just extremely sloppy.

Qian Can was at a loss for words: “Does the average person write like that?”

Jiang Hao was confused: “I’ve written like that since I was a kid. Is it that weird?”

Qian Can choked. Fine, let’s respect other cultures.

They walked down this passage and, five minutes later, reached another fork. They split up to search and soon found a pattern resembling a gourd at the third junction.

Jiang Hao took one look: “This is a ‘two’.”

Li Xiao and the others: “…”

At the next intersection, they indeed found another prompt at the second turn.

Twenty minutes later, they reached a metal door that was also blown out and deformed. The door was over twenty meters high, bulging outward.

Passing through the metal door, the space opened up. 07 flew into the air, maximizing its illumination range. The space was the size of a football field but was now completely empty. The ground was uneven, with many traces of metal and other materials having melted.

09 hovered over a bulge, and a moment later, numbers flickered on the virtual screen atop its head.

“The time of the combustion is preliminarily judged to be between 28 and 32 years ago.”

This timeline was basically consistent with what the old man had said earlier. However, the cause of the explosion was clearly not the heating system.

There were many doors in the surrounding area, so the four of them and the two battle armors split up to search. Qian Can followed the footprints on the ground to a door, shone his flashlight inside, and was scared out of his wits by a human leg that suddenly appeared: “Holy—!”

He stepped back and waved the others over: “Come here, quick!”

Behind the door was a large circular space; the degree of burning was not as severe as outside. Rows of charred metal chairs were arranged around a center point where a stone pillar, as thick as five men could wrap their arms around and over twenty meters high, stood.

The pillar was covered in charred corpses nailed to it with metal spikes—a shocking sight.

The method felt familiar. Li Xiao walked closer, his flashlight sweeping over the bodies. At Cube, he had also seen people nailed to the Golden-Feather Sparrow statue.

Song Jin circled to the other side of the pillar and, through a gap, vaguely saw the Bique tribe words for “Evil,” “Suppress,” and “Generations” carved into it.

“No matter how you look at it, this looks like a cult sacrificial site,” Song Jin frowned.

No matter how technology develops, such superstitious things remain unstoppable. Even in Shengya, similar cult sacrifices had been discovered in recent years, and those involved were all powerful and influential people.

“It was blown up over thirty years ago, yet this place wasn’t destroyed,” Li Xiao looked up at the gruesome corpses on the pillar. “Why?”

He wasn’t sure if it was a cult, but he could feel a deep hatred for the Bique tribe. A hatred so intense that it felt like they wanted to wipe out an entire clan.

09 flew past the pillar and suddenly stopped: “Beep. Metal reaction detected, initiating automatic scan—”

Li Xiao snapped back to reality and saw a virtual screen pop up above 09, showing a metal disc inside the stomach of a corpse.

“What is it?” Song Jin walked to Li Xiao’s side.

“I don’t know. Let’s dig it out and see.” Li Xiao put on gloves and signaled for 09 to turn into a military knife.

09 complained, unhappy: “You’re making me do this dirty work again.”

Li Xiao: “It’s been sterilized by high heat; it’s not dirty.”

Song Jin couldn’t help but look sideways: “…” How can you say that with a straight face?

09: “If I’m a good boy and listen, will you give me higher-purity energy stones?”

It’s negotiating. Before Li Xiao could speak, 07 heard ‘energy stones’ and flew over.

07: “What? Doing work gets you energy stones?”

09 bragged triumphantly: “I’ve eaten 90% purity ones before.”

07: “I want some too!”

Li Xiao: “Whoever turns into the knife first gets them.”

07 immediately turned into a military knife and flew to Li Xiao’s side: “I’ll do it, I’ll do it!”

09 shoved it aside: “This is my job, don’t you dare grab it.”

Li Xiao took the knife from 07 and sliced open the dry corpse’s stomach. He reached his fingers into the gap and fumbled for a moment before pulling out a metal disc.

Upon seeing what it was, both Li Xiao and Song Jin were surprised. It was a shoulder badge with a Golden-Feather Sparrow insignia.

“A private army’s?” Song Jin poked the badge with his flashlight. “It’s different from the badges your military uses.”

For a split second, Li Xiao thought it belonged to an underground legion, but besides the Golden-Feather Sparrow, the badge had the anti-counterfeit markings of the Danse military, which ordinary organizations couldn’t replicate.

Li Xiao’s expression darkened: “It’s from the regular army.”

Song Jin was confused: “When did you ever use a bird icon?”

“Former legions were all named and reported individually. Seventy years ago, there was a reform, and like the Shengya military, they switched entirely to numerical designations.”

Li Xiao looked at the corpse he had sliced open and said in a low voice, “The icon on the shoulder badge is a unique identifier for each legion. Usually, only the commander’s team has the privilege to wear them.”

Golden-Feather Sparrow Legion. He had never heard of it. Was this what Yi Yongning meant by the former glory of the Bique tribe? Was that why they had the capability to launch a coup?

Li Xiao flipped the badge over; there were some messy scratches on the back.

Song Jin frowned: “Looks like they were deliberately carved.”

Li Xiao: “Protection.”

Song Jin took a moment to realize what Li Xiao meant—the scratches were the characters for “protection.” Li Xiao’s mood grew heavy. This person had carved a prayer onto the shoulder badge and swallowed it, using everything they had to safeguard it. And it seemed it had indeed become the only proof that the Golden-Feather Sparrow Legion had ever existed.

Li Xiao: “09, extract the tissue samples.”

09 hadn’t been chosen and was throwing a tantrum. “Do I get energy stone rewards too?”

Li Xiao: “You both do.”

09: “!!!”

09: “I’ll get you as many samples as you want!”

Song Jin: “Can you have a little more dignity?”

Bearing the voice of his childhood self, saying such bootlicking things—it was quite annoying.

09: “I only want energy stones; I don’t want dignity.”

Song Jin: “…”

Distracted by their bickering, Li Xiao’s heaviness faded, and he laughed: “Were you this easy to trick when you were a kid?”

Song Jin met Li Xiao’s smiling eyes and said gloomily: “I’ve just been very clear about what I want since I was small.”

Li Xiao nodded and, with zero mercy, exposed him: “Sweets and cookies.”

Song Jin: “…”

This guy is getting more and more irritating.

While the two were studying the badge, Jiang Hao and Qian Can searched the surrounding area and discovered a hidden door in the wall on the east side. The door had been charred, revealing an obvious seam.

Behind the door was another massive space filled with countless iron cages. Walking in from a side passage, there were iron cages on both sides. After passing twelve rooms, they reached a large laboratory. The interior was charred, but most of the instruments were largely intact.

Qian Can rummaged through the medicine cabinet for a long time and sneezed twice: “There’s nothing here.”

Jiang Hao flipped through the bottles and jars on the control desk: “Mine are empty too.”

By the time Li Xiao and Song Jin entered, they had finished checking.

Jiang Hao: “The medication is all gone, but there’s a broken terminal over there. I don’t know if it can be started.”

07: “I am skilled at repairs.”

As 07 flew over, 09 felt it couldn’t be outdone and followed: “I’m skilled at it too.”

Powered by the battle armors, the terminal’s interface lit up in mid-air, though it remained blank.

07: “The damage is severe. I’m not sure how much I can recover.”

Song Jin: “Recover as much as you can.”

Seeing Li Xiao flipping through the instruments in front of the console, Song Jin walked over: “This place has already been abandoned; it’s not the one we’re looking for.”

Li Xiao: “Yeah.”

But this place was also related to the Bique tribe.

Five minutes later, 07 signaled that the restoration was complete. What could be recovered was indeed very little—mostly routine logs. Song Jin paused when he flipped to a floor plan of a honeycomb-like structure. Judging by the location, it was the space outside that had been melted by fire.

A line was written below the diagram: “Supply System.”

“It seems this was originally a feed base,” Song Jin continued flipping. There was an incomplete inspection report that included DNA analysis, but they searched everywhere and couldn’t find the personal information of the subject.

“Save it first,” Li Xiao said, switching to the system management backend to look for useful information amidst the junk code.

Song Jin leaned in: “How is it?”

Li Xiao: “This system started being used 73 years ago.”

Li Xiao recalled that 73 years ago, the one who took over the Zifu seat was the Meng family, and the managing General at the time was Meng Shan, the father of Meng Jian.

“It really is related to the Meng family,” Song Jin said, resting his chin on Li Xiao’s shoulder, thoughtful. “But why did it explode thirty years ago? Was it discovered, or was it voluntarily abandoned for self-preservation? And why leave the ruins behind?”

Thirty years ago, the one in charge here was the Gao family. The Gao family never participated in party politics, and in his previous life, after confirming the Meng family’s intent to stage a coup, they had even helped him suppress the Meng army. In Li Xiao’s eyes, the Yi family was too deeply entangled with the royal family and had no choice but to help them, whereas the Gao family’s actions were relatively more out of national interest.

Li Xiao guessed: “Perhaps the Gao family discovered the truth, forcing them to blow it up and rush to seal it off.”

Song Jin: “Then who came in after the explosion?”

Li Xiao shook his head. Based on the clues at hand, they could only confirm that this was a feed base built 73 years ago and that the people imprisoned there might have included commanders of the Golden-Feather Sparrow Legion.

“Big Brother,” Jiang Hao came back from the office across the hall and waved at Li Xiao. “There’s a cabinet over there that’s deformed and won’t open. Come take a look.”

Upon hearing this, Li Xiao had 09 save the recovered data and went over with Song Jin. Across the way appeared to be an archive room for documents, but all the shelves were empty. Inside was a hidden door, jammed after being warped by fire. No matter how much Jiang Hao and Qian Can tried, they couldn’t open it.

Jiang Hao pointed to it: “See if there’s anything inside. If not, we won’t waste the effort.”

Qian Can was afraid of traps inside, so he only dared to shine his flashlight from afar, not daring to lean in to look. “Probably hopeless.”

The gap was only two fingers wide. Li Xiao shook his head: “Can’t see. It’s blocked.”

Jiang Hao asked with sincere curiosity: “Don’t you have X-ray vision? Is the steel plate too thick?”

Li Xiao: “…”

Qian Can was incredulous: “Xiao Jiang, are you serious?!”

Jiang Hao: “? Big Brother can even see the fighter jets behind the insect swarm.”

Song Jin leaned on Li Xiao’s shoulder, laughing uncontrollably.

“How can a single steel plate stump you? Is your X-ray vision aging and failing?”

Li Xiao looked Song Jin up and down, looking very serious: “Why aren’t you wearing underwear?”

Song Jin: “…”

Song Jin narrowed his eyes slightly: “Come here, put your face closer, and ‘Grandpa’ will tell you why.”

Li Xiao blocked the punch Song Jin threw at him: “Is it cooler without it?”

Song Jin went to pull down Li Xiao’s pants: “Why don’t you take yours off and try it?”

Watching the two of them start fighting, Qian Can was bewildered: “…?”

So in Big Brother Li’s eyes, have they been walking around with their bare asses the whole time?! The outside world is so dangerous.

Jiang Hao: “…”

So, does the boss have X-ray vision or not, or is it that Song Jin isn’t wearing underwear? No, wait—that doesn’t seem like the point.