Chapter 174 Hibernation
The empty studio was pitch black, with only the faint blue light from the computer screen making the man standing in front of it appear blurry.
Zhou Yunze was silent for a long time, and finally tapped the keyboard lightly.
[Data being deleted... 1%, 3%, 7%, 13%...] The white data on the screen kept jumping and soon reached 100%. With a "ding" sound, all the text and data disappeared, and the screen turned blue again. He turned off the computer, and all the light sources disappeared. The room suddenly became completely dark.
Zhou Yunze closed his eyes and stood there motionless for a long time.
The door creaked and a man pushed it open and walked in. His face could not be seen clearly against the light, but they were too familiar with each other. Even though they were in the same space, they could recognize each other by their breath alone.
"I heard you turned down the promotion. Why?" the man asked after closing the door. He didn't turn on the light, but walked behind Zhou Yunze accurately in the dark.
"Boss..." Zhou Yunze whispered.
"You are not my subordinate now, so you don't have to call me that." Jin Nan asked, "What happened?"
He knew Zhou Yunze very well, so he could tell at a glance that he was not in a normal state.
"I think I violated my duty, but what's more damning is that I still don't regret it." Zhou Yunze didn't look at Jin Nan. He looked at the black screen of his computer and said, "I owe someone a lot. So even though I know this is against discipline, I still want to protect him."
He wanted to catch the crow, he always wanted to, but he never thought of hurting Jin Yang. He had failed to protect the child, deceived him, used him, but he still enjoyed the trust and care given by the other party. He regarded himself as a brother, but he never fulfilled his responsibilities as a brother. At this moment, in front of his real brother, Zhou Yunze tried to hide him behind his back.
He was aware of Jin Nan's loyalty to the country and his ruthless and efficient execution, so even though he knew that he cared very much about his family, he was unwilling to give up Jin Yang's name.
Jin Nan was silent for a while, then asked, "Do you still remember why you retired?"
Zhou Yunze looked pained and said, "Of course."
At that time, they were on a mission in Pear Country. They sneaked into the enemy's base camp. Jin Nan ordered to kill everyone, but Zhou Yunze softened his heart for a woman holding a baby and let her go. As his gun was slowly falling, the woman shouted "For Pear Country!" and detonated the bomb hidden in her arms. A teammate died for this, and Zhou Yunze himself was seriously injured and almost died. Because of his drag, Jin Nan and others were in crisis when they evacuated Pear Country. Almost everyone survived the hail of bullets.
The teammate who died was once the lover .
Afterwards, Zhou Yunze was forgiven by everyone for his mistake, and Jin Nan also said that this was a testament to his humanity, and that he would probably make the same mistake if he were in his place. But Zhou Yunze himself could not let it go, and after a long period of psychological treatment, he finally chose to retire.
Jin Nan knew how painful it would be for the other party to bring up the past, so he asked, "If it were now, would you pull the trigger?"
"I will." Zhou Yunze said without hesitation, almost in a pleading tone like atonement.
"But what if you have no idea what will happen next?" Jin Nan asked again.
Zhou Yunze was stunned.
Jin Nan patted his shoulder and whispered, "No matter what you want to do, I am your friend. Do what you think is right, Yunze, I believe you will not make the same mistake again."
Zhou Yunze was speechless.
Jin Nan had already put down his hand, looked at the computer and said, "I heard that you told them at the beginning that they were going to catch a crow, and it was not until the end that everyone realized that they were looking for a gambling ship?"
"Yes." Zhou Yunze said, "Gambling boats involve too many people. I'm worried..."
"It's a wise choice, otherwise the news will leak out and we won't be able to catch those people. So the crow is your smoke bomb?" Jin Nan finished speaking for him, and the next question made Zhou Yunze even more nervous.
Zhou Yunze couldn't help but clench his hands beside his legs, and said, "Yes."
"I also heard that you tracked down the location of the gambling ship with the help of an informant. In order to protect his safety, you didn't tell his name to anyone... I guess you couldn't tell me either?" Jin Nan asked.
"I don't believe you, it's just..."
"Don't worry, I understand ." Jin Nan interrupted his explanation and said, "No matter who the informant is or what he has done, we will protect him. Don't worry about that. But I need to take the computer you used for tracking back to check something, is that okay?"
"Okay... okay." Zhou Yunze licked his lips and agreed with difficulty. He was sure that he had deleted everything, but he couldn't guarantee that it was completely irrecoverable. Because he was not very good at computers, the software he used to delete was originally made by He Xin.
Jin Nan looked at Zhou Yunze. The room was dark. The pressure created by their gazes seemed to become real in the darkness. Even their breathing seemed to have stopped. Zhou Yunze could only hear the sound of his heart beating faster and faster.
"That's good."
It seemed like a long time had passed, and without waiting for anything else to say, Jin Nan finally spoke. He retracted his gaze, closed the computer and left. When the sound of the door closing came, Zhou Yunze felt weak and sat on the sofa with his face buried in his hands, not getting up for a long time.
After a long time, Zhou Yunze also left. In a corner of the room, something not much bigger than an ant suddenly grew larger. A few seconds later, Rong Yuan appeared in an Ant-Man suit. He took off his helmet and said, "Noah?"
A radio in the corner made a buzzing sound, and after a moment, Noah's voice came out: "I'm here, dear Rongyuan."
"You heard it all." Rong Yuan said.
"Of course, I've been listening to it." The light blue volume bar on the radio's small screen jumped up and down. Noah's voice was as cheerful as ever. It said, "Don't worry. I guarantee that no one can recover even a byte of data from it."
"That's good." Rong Yuan said, "Next time something like this happens, you should tell me in advance, don't wait until everything is over before telling me."
"Yes, yes." Noah argued slyly, "I saw you were busy! The situation was urgent, so I chose to change the target."
"It's also my fault. I didn't expect that they would track Jin Yang's phone now. Next time I make a call, you locate the signal to the laboratory and remind Xiao A to cooperate." Rong Yuan ordered.
"Understood!" Noah responded simply.
This crisis made Rong Yuan suddenly feel frustrated. What if Zhou Yunze had made a different choice before he arrived here? What if Jin Nan or someone else also discovered the problem? From the scene just now, he knew that Jin Nan actually knew what Zhou Yunze was hiding, but he didn't know who he was protecting. If Zhou Yunze could find the problem, Jin Nan, who was more powerful than him, would find it sooner or later.
"I think I'm smart, but I always make all kinds of mistakes." Rong Yuan said softly, "Am I too dismissive of other people's wisdom, or am I too careless?"
"There are seven billion humans in the world alone. You can't do everything by yourself and never make mistakes. Mistakes will always happen, my master, and that's why you need us." For the first time, Noah's voice didn't sound noisy and frivolous, but rather had a gentle tone.
Rong Yuan's frown relaxed slightly.
…
"Why did you suddenly gather everyone? I was about to catch that guy! In the end I had to hand him over to the police, which was too easy for him!" Tan Ming complained while leaning on the sofa, and when he turned around, his earrings sparkled under the light.
"Is a guy who embezzled public funds worth your efforts?" Shu Xin, who wore big wavy hair, said lazily while grinding her nails: "Zhou Dong and I dealt with a perverted cannibal. Now he and his beloved ingredients are sleeping in the basement. Honey, be efficient ."
Zhou Dong felt sick to his stomach, and felt nauseous when he thought of that scene. Looking at Gong Lan's fearful and curious eyes, he felt that it was a good decision not to let her go with him on this mission.
As everyone's understanding deepened and their cooperation became more and more skillful, these people who called themselves "New Crows" rarely acted collectively anymore. They usually split into groups of two or three according to the target's situation, and dealt with the garbage of society more efficiently while controlling the risk. Zhou Dong's initial resistance to these dangerous companions and the mysterious boss has now almost completely disappeared. The more he understands what kind of people they killed, the more he feels a heavy sense of mission and deep gratitude - fortunately, in this dirty era, there are still people like them, otherwise he would be desperate.
He knew that their situation was becoming more and more dangerous. He knew that the police had been chasing them closely and getting closer and closer, and they almost raided their temporary base several times. But Zhou Dong was not afraid. Instead, he felt more and more excited in this stimulation. He even had a sense of honor of self-sacrifice. He would not regret taking so many evil people to hell with him, even if he died in the next second.
However, seeing the other people's eyes brighten instantly, he didn't want to discuss cannibalism in front of Gong Lan, so he turned to ask Bai Ruomu who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa: "Where is Xiaobai? What kind of guy is your target?"
The unknown is always more interesting. Everyone's attention immediately shifted to the guy with panda eyes all day long.
"Don't call me Xiaobai, just call me Bai Ruomu." Bai Ruomu protested habitually, but even so, his eyes did not leave the laptop screen. He said weakly: "Well, this is a man who used other people's donations to help his wife and son immigrate, buy villas and luxury cars. He is rich and has good security. The boss went with Deng Qiu."
As soon as I mentioned the devil, Shi Xingchen and Deng Qiu came in together. Shi Xingchen was carrying a suitcase, and Deng Qiu still had an icy face and a faint smell of blood on his body. As soon as he entered the room, it seemed that the temperature of the whole house dropped by several degrees.
"It seems that we are the last batch and everyone is here. That's great." Shi Xingchen took off his glasses and wiped the moisture off them, and said.
Lu Xiong, who was sitting alone with his arms and legs spread out, took up the entire sofa. He exhaled a puff of smoke and said, "Tell me, why did you gather so suddenly? Does the boss have another emergency?"
"There is an emergency, but it's not the boss's fault, it's us." Shi Xingchen put on his glasses again, glanced at everyone's face, and said, "New instructions. The current situation is too dangerous, and the boss asked us to stay dormant for a while."
"Hibernation?" Everyone was stunned, even Bai Ruomu finally raised his head. Everyone looked at each other, all feeling very surprised.
"Wow, it's a long vacation!" Tan Ming cheered, looking particularly relaxed, but there was no smile on his face.
"That's right. On the way back, I took the boss's gift." Shi Xingchen put the box in his hand on the coffee table, opened it, and turned it to the crowd. Half of the box was neatly placed with brand new green nut coins, which seemed to emit the fragrance of ink. The other half of the box was a file bag with everyone's name written on it.
Shi Xingchen handed out the file bags to everyone one by one and said, "Your ID cards, passports, driver's licenses, plane tickets, credit cards, and new identity information are all in there. Go abroad to avoid the limelight and come back when we are reassembled. But if anyone disobeys orders or commits a crime again while hiding, you all know what the boss will do, so I don't need to explain."
Even Gong Lan had a new identity. She took the file bag, said thank you blankly, and then looked at Zhou Dong at a loss.
Zhou Dong frowned, but did not take his share. He said, "If we leave, what will happen to the remaining people on the list? How many more victims will appear?"
"The world won't stop without anyone, Zhou Dong! We can only do what we can, and we can't play God." Shi Xingchen stuffed the file bag into his arms and said, "No one can go against the entire country. You want to stay, fine, if you want to take Gong Lan with you to die."
Zhou Dong's face froze, and he subconsciously turned to look at Gong Lan, who had been following him since he came in. Seeing the girl's confused yet trusting eyes like a little white rabbit, his heart trembled, and he clutched the bag in his hand without pushing it away.
Shi Xingchen looked at the others. None of them said it like Zhou Dong, but it was obvious that most people had the same idea.
The crows were either forced or tempted to gather together, and then found the value and meaning of survival from what they are doing now. They definitely feel that they have finally made a difference, protecting or helping someone every day - even if it is by hurting some individuals. Although they did not accept the gratitude and admiration in person, they all knew what they had changed, and they also knew that these things had changed them.
Shi Xingchen sighed and said, "Think about it, guys, and do the math. Would you rather kill one or two guys on the list right now and then be shot dead by the police, or endure for a year or two, then regroup and take down more villains?"
