Chapter 25: Clad in Armor, Like the Blazing Sun

Jiang Chen watched her with a face full of anxiety.

Shen Chaoxi knew that once any self-destruct program was activated, it could never be stopped.

Just like the lines of garbled data flashing incessantly before her eyes, it was already beyond reversal.

Now, the only thing she could do was to activate the entire building’s defense mechanisms.

All operational spaces within the tower were sealed off; if there was no escape, everyone inside would perish!

While Jiang Chen’s heart hung in suspense, worried for his captain, suddenly—

“Beep—”

In an instant, the red, flickering, cascading lines of data halted!

They turned green.

Jiang Chen’s eyes filled with shock and admiration as he looked at Shen Chaoxi. “Boss, the defense system is deactivated!”

“Captain! Data retrieval complete—”

Meanwhile, on the thirty-third floor, inside the group’s document storage room, Chen Yu and another team member had already infiltrated the heart of W Group.

They had pried open a small window in an obscure corner of the building’s emergency stairwell, unnoticed by anyone.

Their captain, Lu Yunzhou, led a team down from the roof, using ropes to silently enter W Group’s innermost thirty-third floor archive.

The evidence inside was what W Group’s people hadn’t had time to destroy.

It had all happened so suddenly.

When the Old Buddha realized there was no way out, he tried to initiate the building’s self-destruct program, intending to bury everyone inside along with W Group’s criminal evidence.

That way, no one would ever know the full extent of W Group’s crimes.

But of all his calculations, he never expected to die at the hands of a young woman.

In his twilight years, all his painstaking efforts—W Group, built over a lifetime—would be reduced to ashes in a day.

Amid the smoke and chaos of W Group’s headquarters, survivors and black-clad bodyguards were gradually escorted out from the dozen or so towers.

Some were under armed guard.

They were loaded into vehicles outside.

Many vehicles had come—some from the Eastern Nation, some from Country Y, and some from the Eastern Continent Joint Special Operations Force.

The various powers assembled outside the building, taking stock and cleaning up the battlefield.

Only Yu Mo stood at the front of his team, his brow tightly furrowed as he cast a glance toward the lobby of W Group’s first floor.

There, the men from Country Y remained to handle the aftermath.

Perhaps, even now, he hadn’t fully come to terms with his own heart.

For the mission, for his country.

He had to do what was necessary.

But as the operation concluded, a deep, suffocating heaviness filled his chest—on this day, the infamous girl from the Eastern Continent, the eldest daughter of W Group, had died.

She died on the very day his three-year undercover mission was completed.

He would be returning to the Eastern Nation.

“Captain Qin, what are you thinking about?”

Seeing their usually decisive team leader lapse into silence, a fellow detective stepped up, following his gaze to the smoldering W Group tower, and asked with concern.

Yu Mo replied, “It’s nothing.”

His spirits were low.

Though the mission was complete, the others couldn’t tell how little joy their captain felt.

Of course.

The one he vowed to protect—

Had perished here.

“Boom—”

Suddenly, a tremendous explosion rang out! The W Group building erupted in flames, fire lighting up half the sky.

Jiang Chen, who had been the first to lead his team out, spun around!

His eyes were riveted to the inferno behind him, pupils quivering.

“Boss?!”

Shen Chaoxi was still inside.

Though she had disabled the defense system and opened the sealed building so those inside could escape, she had told Jiang Chen to lead the team out first, promising she’d follow.

Jiang Chen assumed that deactivating the defense system meant the self-destruct sequence was also canceled.

Clearly, it was not!

The building exploded right before his eyes.

Smoke billowed, flames raged.

That luxurious tower was reduced to ruins in an instant, swallowed by a sea of fire!

“Boss!…”

Jiang Chen shoved aside those in his path and rushed toward the flames.

#

Shen Chaoxi dreamed a long, long dream.

In the dream, everything was drenched in blood.

On the dim wall, a young man used his bleeding finger to write, one character after another, dense with crimson words.

Zhou Xu.

Zhou Xu.

How much pain must he have endured then!

Injected with drugs, enduring torment worse than death, crushed in spirit!

Locked within a secret chamber.

The young man in military uniform died in the Eastern Continent.

She had witnessed with her own eyes as he leaped from the battered rooftop.

He could not bear the humiliation.

From the first moment he saw her.

That fleeting glance.

Silently, he told her—

He was not afraid.

Their rescue was almost a success—just one step away.

But they were still too late.

In the dream, that spirited young soldier in uniform saluted her.

His smile was as bright as the sun, shining on the flag flying high above the First Military District!

“Zhou Xu, be careful on this mission.”

Zhou Xu replied, “Don’t worry, Sister Xi. I promise I’ll complete the task!”

“All right.”

Shen Chaoxi hoped for his safe return.

“I will not fail my country, nor the First Military District!”

He stood proud in his uniform, like the blazing sun.

His youthful frame stood tall beneath the flag.

In the dream, it seemed she had brought him home.

“Salute by gunfire!”

“Salute—”

A funeral was held in a solemn cemetery.

The national flag draped over the youth’s coffin, slowly passing a crowd standing in silent tribute.

That day, rain poured down, the cement-washed cold gravestone bore, clear and bold, the inscription: The Tomb of Martyr Zhou Xu.

Above it, a faded photograph—a young, handsome boy, lips curved in a sunny, charming smile.

Such a bright young man, caught during the Eastern Continent Falcon Operation, endured three days and nights of cruel torture at the hands of the criminal syndicate, and though his teammates nearly rescued him—

They were still a step too late.

“Zhou Xu.”

Shen Chaoxi murmured, “I brought you home.”

Three long years in the Eastern Continent, living under a new identity—this was the oath she made beneath the national flag!

She would avenge him.

Destroy the W Crime Syndicate.

She would kill Gong Weiyuan with her own hands, not merely let him face the nation’s justice and trial.

That was why, as Gong Shenxi, she remained hidden in the shadows for three years.

All so that one day, she could bring the young man’s ashes home.

Home to the Empire of Yunzhou.

Home.

“You did it.”

“In uniform, you never failed your family or your country, nor the First Military District.”

In her dream, she seemed to see the young man look back and smile at her again.

The heroic soul had returned home.

#

Zhou Xu,

On Shen Chaoxi’s pale face, tears welled up from the corners of her eyes, mingling with the blood on her skin.

In the dream, the sound of her heartbeat gradually faded, until all was white light.

“Commander!”

“Commander, can you hear me?”

“The patient has a penetrating gunshot wound to the chest and a fractured lumbar spine. Prepare for immediate transfusion and surgery.”

With that, they rushed the patient into the operating room.

Country Y, General Military Hospital.

The heart monitor’s lines pulsed. The girl in the hospital gown lay deathly pale in bed, while outside the ICU, Jiang Chen’s eyes were red with worry!

“How is our boss—no, our commander?”

“The bullet passed through her chest, missing her heart by barely an inch. If it had been any closer, she might not have survived.”

“Fortunately, she was injected with a hemostatic agent, which saved half her life.”

“That allowed the surgery to succeed and she’s temporarily out of danger!”

Only then did Jiang Chen finally breathe a sigh of relief, gazing at the person moved into the ICU.

His eyes were bloodshot.

If one looked closely, he was still in his black special forces uniform, no time to change, spattered with blood.

It was hard to tell whether it was his own, the enemy’s, or Shen Chaoxi’s.

The blood nearly blinded him; from the Eastern Continent to here, a boulder pressed on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

When he saw the doctor emerge from surgery and heard the news that Shen Chaoxi was temporarily safe—

He collapsed against the cold hospital corridor wall, utterly spent.

But even after being brought to the military hospital, Shen Chaoxi’s condition was still critical, her injuries too severe.

Even Jiang Chen, who had followed her across borders for so many dangerous missions, had never seen her like this.

It was the first time he’d seen his captain so gravely wounded.

The first time that the leader who always charged ahead, invincible even against the wicked—

Now lay there, bloodied and lifeless.

Unconscious…