Ninth District, Eighteenth Residential Area, Ninth Street, Room 13 of the Blood of Baal Inn.
The streetlights dimmed, indicating that night had fallen.
The wide streets unfurled like silk between the hive city's tall buildings, dotted with small stalls.
Many Upper hive residents did not return home after dark but strolled leisurely on the streets.
They walked alone, or with their lovers, or as a couple holding their child's hand.
From time to time, they would buy some food, trinkets, or small crafts from the roadside.
More people headed to the churches, piously praying to the Emperor, thanking him for another day of his protection.
Alexander stood by the window of Room 13, observing a sight absolutely unseen in the Lower Nest.
He had been somewhat tormented by numbers recently.
When choosing a room, he deliberately picked Room 13.
Thirteen, what a wonderful number.
The Emperor… oh no, the Great Horned Rat's sacred number.
Demonic stuff! Die, die, die!
Tzeentch stuff! All ruined!
Great Horned Rat! Yes! Yes!
Alexander prayed piously to the Great Horned Rat.
The Great Horned Rat's power will punish Tzeentch! Skaven, yes! Yes!
"What kind of strange faith is this… Wait, why is the Emperor the Great Horned Rat?"
While Alexander was praying piously, the noisy Warp heretic in White Light was denying the truth of the Great Horned Rat and the Emperor being one and the same.
"No, I can tell you for certain, there isn't a god named the Great Horned Rat in the galaxy," Sanguinius retorted.
"Isn't it sitting on the Golden Throne?" Alexander replied with a chuckle.
Just then, he saw Reyna outside the window.
Reyna seemed to be holding something, panting as she jogged into the inn.
Alexander walked to the door with some curiosity, opening the room with the number 13 on it.
Reyna rushed in from the corridor, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling with vibrant light, nearly colliding with Alexander.
Alexander stared at Reyna, seeing joy, happiness, and delight in her eyes.
"Guess what I found?" Reyna exhaled a rough breath, her voice made melodious by joy.
Reyna now seemed to have shed her usual dull demeanor due to the aura of joy.
To be honest, she looked somewhat alluring right now.
Oh my, could this big idiot Reyna have been corrupted? This was the first thought that popped into Alexander's mind.
His finger subtly moved to his Pocket Tornado.
"Guess! Guess!" Reyna widened her eyes, looking at Alexander.
Alexander could even smell her faint fragrance and see her sweat-soaked hair.
It's Slaanesh! Slaanesh's corrupting influence wants to corrupt him, a healthy and upright Imperial youth.
Alexander's eyes instantly showed murderous intent.
"Wait, wait, wait!"
The murderous intent in Alexander's eyes startled Reyna, who quickly retreated a few steps and pulled something out from her clothes...
A model?
A model of a starship?
Alexander looked at the crudely painted plastic starship model in Reyna's hand, momentarily stunned.
"If you don't want to guess, then don't, but why did you want to attack?" Reyna said with lingering fear.
Alexander carefully examined the crudely painted plastic starship model, which looked like a child's work.
It was a golden starship, slender and beautiful, with a large crimson eye-stone at the front and golden wings decorating both ends.
"What is this?" Alexander asked, bewildered.
"It's the Red Tears!" Reyna said.
"It's the Red Tears!" Sanguinius said.
Alexander blinked in confusion.
"It's the Archangel's flagship, the great Gloriana-class Battleship, Red Tears!"
Reyna held up the starship model in her hand, excitedly saying:
"I made this with my mom when I was little!"
"I buried it under a steel plate in the Ninth District, and I can't believe it's still there!"
Oh, so it was a model of Sanguinius's Gloriana-class Battleship, the Red Tears, from back then.
Seeing Reyna's not-so-smart demeanor return, Alexander breathed a slight sigh of relief.
It seems this dummy hasn't been corrupted.
"Did you find anything today following Namakor?"
"Mrs. Namakor was normal, just like yesterday."
Reyna shook her head and said:
"Oh, but I confirmed her movements."
"Tomorrow, the factory where she works will be working overtime to ship a batch of weapons. She's responsible for the precise calculations, so her home will be empty tomorrow night."
"You plan to act tomorrow?"
Alexander frowned, handing over the files he had obtained from Augustus:
"Take a look at this."
Reyna blinked, taking the file bag from Alexander's hand.
She opened it and was surprised:
"Mrs. Namakor's file, so detailed? Where did you get this?"
"I have my own channels, take a close look," Alexander said to Reyna.
Then he turned his head to look at the wall.
A calendar hung on the wall.
It not only marked the local Ashford calendar but also included the Terra calendar.
This was because some Imperial festivals were set according to the Terra calendar.
For example, the Sanguinius Festival was a festival in December of the Terra calendar.
Alexander was very familiar with this Terra calendar; it was the solar calendar from many years ago.
According to the Terra calendar, tomorrow was October 9th.
It has a nine in it… but it's not as extreme a date as September 9th.
If it were truly September 9th, Alexander would probably recite a poem titled "September 9th, Remembering Battle Brothers," and then absolutely not take action tomorrow.
But October 9th… it's more like Alexander's nerves are a bit tense.
For convenience in calculation, it also indicated how many days into the year tomorrow was, according to the Terra calendar.
"October 9th, the 282nd day of the year."
"It doesn't seem strange."
Alexander stroked his chin.
There was only one nine in these numbers, and 282 was not a multiple of nine.
387, 420, 489, six thousand five hundred and sixty-one blood coins, one hundred and fifty-three prayers in four years, October 9th, two hundred and eighty-two days…
This string of numbers intertwined, constantly echoing in Alexander's mind.
But Alexander couldn't find any pattern among them.
Some of these numbers were multiples of nine, some contained nine, and some had absolutely no relation to nine.
Nine is Tzeentch's sacred number.
If it truly used mathematics to transmit corruption, then it should use nine.
After all, other numbers might lead to other Chaos Gods, causing interference instead.
Alexander even considered whether he should cover himself with sevens, representing Nurgle, to counteract Tzeentch.
"Hmm, I don't think there's anything wrong with this information," Reyna said, pointing to the file in her hand.
"In this file, I see a woman so devout she's willing to spend most of her savings, a wife whose husband died for the Imperium, and a kind lady."
"She certainly has a unique interest in mathematics, but it's not enough to suspect her of being corrupted, is it?"
Alexander listened to Reyna's words, silent for a long while.
The idiot Reyna couldn't possibly be corrupted by Tzeentch; after all, her intelligence wasn't up to par, so what she said should be true.
Could it be that Alexander was too sensitive?
Alexander glanced at Sanguinius in the corner of his eye: "What do you think?"
"No signs of corruption have been found, at least not yet."
Sanguinius whispered:
"But corruption is always insidious and subtle."
"Until the Great Heresy began, who would have thought that so many Primarchs and Astartes would be corrupted?"