Chapter 228: Stronghold

Zhang Wenda even saw some slender, variously-shaped "little subways" on the vast "surface of the sea." Like playful dolphins, they followed their "mother," happily leaping and playing on the "water's surface."

"This is an utterly despicable affair," said Shuisheng, his voice laced with suppressed fury.

"The human resources of the 6th Thought-Tide are an invaluable natural resource, a rare resource that belongs to all of humanity. The Big Circle's blind, exhaustive exploitation—like draining the pond to get all the fish—will only deal a devastating blow to this thought-tide's stability."

'So that's what's happening?' Zhang Wenda murmured to himself, watching the backs of heads bob past on the "surface of the sea" like driftwood, their faces etched with exhaustion and numbness. "So... these prefabricated people... will they just keep 'living' like this forever?"

"Impossible." Shuisheng shook his head, his tone firm. "Once they reach a certain 'age' or meet specific criteria, they will naturally detach from this thought-tide."

Looking out the window at the seemingly endless sea of people, Zhang Wenda couldn't help but sigh deeply.

'If the 6th Thought-Tide also existed in my old world, did my former self—the me who toiled day and night in a cubicle—also unknowingly slip to the edge of this thought-tide?'

"Something wrong?" Song Jianguo, who had shrunk back into her cat wetsuit with only half her head poking out, keenly sensed the dip in his mood and asked in a muffled voice.

Zhang Wenda didn't answer directly. His gaze remained fixed on the absurd and desolate sea of people outside as he spoke softly, "Tell me, this whole life... what are we even living for?"

In this inexplicable, heavy, and melancholic atmosphere, Line 26 once again plunged like a great whale beneath the surface of the suffocating sea of people. It gradually slowed and finally came to a gentle stop. Zhang Wenda and the others followed the stream of prefabricated people getting off, struggling to squeeze their way out the doors.

Just as Zhang Wenda poked his head out of the crushingly crowded "sea surface" again, preparing to observe his surroundings, a slender yet strong hand suddenly reached out from behind, grabbed his long rabbit ears, and without a word, shoved him right back into the sea of people!

"Bro! Watch out!! There are cameras!"

Hearing Wang Xiaohua's tense, urgently hushed voice, Zhang Wenda instantly understood. He carefully peeked just his eyes above the "water's surface" and looked up.

Sure enough, in two hidden corners of the ceiling, he saw two men with camera heads and red lenses, slowly swiveling. Like lurking vipers, they were monitoring the area.

'Big Circle's people?' Zhang Wenda glanced around, quickly calculated the distance and route in his mind, and gave Song Jianguo a look. Then, like the most agile otter, he quickly swam along the seabed toward the spot beneath one of the cameras.

A dozen or so seconds later, Zhang Wenda shot up from the "water's surface" like a coiled spring.

His movements were lightning-fast, giving the camera-head no time to react. A cold gleam flashed from his hand as the sharp edge of a sickle carved a graceful arc, precisely "decapitating" the camera.

As he quickly turned to deal with the other camera, he saw that Song Jianguo had already made her move.

A spear, attached to a cat leash, shot out from the sea of people like a viper striking from its hole, precisely piercing the other camera's lens.

As the cat leash pulled taut, a powerful tug yanked the damaged camera from the ceiling, pulling it down toward the "water's surface." On the "surface," a muscular auntie was already waiting, eyeing it like a tiger.

Having dealt with the two sentries, the group didn't let their guard down. They continued to carefully make their way deeper into the subway entrance, toward the suspected Big Circle stronghold.

Along the way, on the "floor" beneath the crowd and in various nooks and crannies, they discovered several more sentries—some hidden, some in plain sight—posted by the Big Circle. However, thanks to the squad's seamless teamwork and precise strikes, they were all eliminated without a sound.

Surprisingly, even as Zhang Wenda and the others neared the core of the Big Circle's stronghold, the enemy still seemed unaware of their infiltration.

This time, it seemed the intel from the Intelligence Department was accurate for once. A B3 rating was just a B3 rating. At least so far, there had been no unexpected surprises or powerful enemies.

Soon, a skyscraper whose walls were "crawling" with countless prefabricated people appeared before them like a grotesque beehive. Based on the exceptionally dense distribution of hidden sentries, this was the core of the Big Circle's operations here.

After the outer sentries were completely and quietly eliminated, Zhang Wenda, who had silently moved to the rear of the group, watched as Shuisheng quickly used hand signals to assign the final assault tasks to his teammates. His eyes were sharp, his movements efficient.

As they slipped into the building like ghosts, they found the space inside was far more vast than it appeared from the outside. A seemingly endless plain of neatly arranged office cubicles, formed from gray partitions, stretched out before them, lifeless and immense.

Here, the floor was no longer submerged in an ankle-deep "sea of people." The area was much more open, but in every cubicle sat a prefabricated person. All of them were tapping keyboards and clicking mice in perfect, unnerving unison.

The range and frequency of each person's movements were identical, without the slightest deviation, like wind-up dolls, creating a bizarre, hair-raising sense of uniformity.

However, to the far left of all these cubicles, Zhang Wenda noticed a highly discordant area.

In an area several kilometers away, the cubicles, once arranged neatly as a chessboard, had been violently shoved aside.

Tents of various sizes and drab colors had been haphazardly set up there, resembling a refugee camp.

Even more eye-catching was a rather large, entirely black aircraft, bound by thick chains and parked to the side. From time to time, it would lower its head to nibble on a motionless prefabricated person standing nearby, as if for a snack.

"Go! 3-3-1!" Shuisheng gave the terse command, and Zhang Wenda saw the nine members of their team shoot forward like arrows loosed from a bow. Their figures flickered rapidly across the vast office plain.

Song Jianguo was about to excitedly join the fray, but Zhang Wenda pulled her back. "Kid, watch and learn. I'm about to show you the art of an old corporate drone slacking off."

The moment he finished speaking, a huge explosion echoed from the distance! The heavy chains binding the black aircraft snapped in response.

Startled by the explosion, the aircraft immediately began to buck and flee like a frightened wild horse, rampaging across the great plain and leaving the once-neat rows of cubicles in a state of utter chaos.

With the aircraft sent on a rampage first, the Big Circle's stronghold was now a sitting duck.

As the gray tents were knocked askew by the rampaging aircraft, Zhang Wenda saw from afar Shuisheng's signature fighting style—a red whirlwind—spinning through the enemy ranks again, leaving chaos in its wake.

With the help of intel from an inside source, combined with the element of surprise, the Big Circle members stationed here were caught completely off guard, their formations thrown into disarray.

"Seeing this, we should be able to just slack off and wait for them to finish up."

Standing at the edge of the battle, Zhang Wenda calmly assessed the situation and spoke with a hint of ease in his voice.

Just then, Zhang Wenda saw Song Jianguo and the Black Cats surrounding her suddenly grow alert. They dropped to the ground, sniffing the air and floor intently, as if searching for something.

"What is it?" Zhang Wenda asked, curious about their strange behavior.

"I smell Haozi." Song Jianguo lifted her small face and replied very seriously, her nose twitching slightly.

"A rat?" Zhang Wenda couldn't help but quip. "You've got to be kidding. Even if a real rat accidentally ended up in this thought-tide, it would probably have to carry a briefcase and squeeze onto the subway for a 996 work schedule, right?"

Jokes aside, he didn't stop her. In fact, his curiosity was piqued. He wanted to see what kind of "rat" Song Jianguo and her cats could actually find in this place.

Song Jianguo and her clowder of cats followed the scent, and before they knew it, they had arrived at the edge of the battlefield.

Amid the chaos, a gunshot rang out with a BANG. A bullet hole suddenly appeared on Zhang Wenda's white, furry stomach. Dark red blood slowly seeped out, staining a small patch of fur.

He didn't even frown. He just calmly crouched down and instantly transferred the gunshot wound from his own body to the forehead of a nearby enemy who hadn't quite breathed his last. The enemy's body shuddered violently and then went still.

"Let's wait until they're done fighting before we continue the search. It's too dangerous here."

Just as Zhang Wenda was trying to persuade her, he saw Song Jianguo stop in a corner. She forcefully lifted a floor panel that looked no different from the others, revealing a hidden basement door.

"Huh?" Surprised, Zhang Wenda strode over, grabbed the cold door ring with one hand, and pulled it open with a heave.

"Don't tell me you actually found the rat you were looking for?"

As the basement door was pulled wide open, a wave of air hit them, thick with the smell of mold, dust, and the faint, acrid stench of filth.

Zhang Wenda raised the flashlight in his hand and shone it into the dark depths—and then he saw a sight so unbelievable, it filled him with a blinding rage.

In the cramped, twenty-to-thirty-square-meter basement, countless small animals were packed together!

There were small turtles, small rabbits, small monsters, small kittens, and small mice. They were all crowded together, pressing against each other so tightly that their bodies were slightly deformed from the crush. The scene was exactly like the desperate "sea of people" formed by the prefabricated people outside.

Only, the one outside was a sea of adults. This, here, was a miniature pool of despair, made of children, crying without a sound.

Seeing this horrifying scene, Zhang Wenda's pupils shrank to pinpricks, and all the blood in his body seemed to rush to his head. He ground his teeth audibly.

"These... these are all children! These are all fucking children!!"