"One hour." That was the last thing Lei Zhijian said after Chen Xu signed the papers.
Chen Xu and Shen Qingyuan were "escorted" downstairs by two soldiers. The open space in front of the law school, usually cluttered with shared bikes and delivery scooters, had been completely cleared. Under the blazing sun, a bus waited. It looked like an ordinary tour bus, but from the outside, the windows revealed nothing but blurry patches of light.
The privacy tint on the windows was heavy; it was impossible to see clearly in or out.
"Get in." The soldier's voice came through his mask, devoid of any emotion.
Everything was happening too fast. Just hours ago, Chen Xu had been agonizing over his research topic. Now, everything had changed.
Before stepping onto the bus, Chen Xu instinctively looked back. Mingde Hall still stood tall, lights glowing in a few of the windows. From the distant sports field, he could faintly hear the cheers of graduates taking photos: "Three, two, one, Cheese!"
That was the place he had lived for seven years. That was the "human world," familiar down to his bones. But one step forward, and he would be in a different world entirely.
"Stop looking." Shen Qingyuan gave him a gentle shove from behind, his voice low and raspy. "From the moment you signed that paper, that world had nothing to do with you anymore."
Chen Xu gritted his teeth and stepped onto the bus.
The temperature inside the bus was freezing; the air conditioning was blasting, making Chen Xu shiver as he stepped in from the sweltering heat. Seven or eight people were already seated. No one was speaking. The atmosphere was suffocatingly oppressive.
Chen Xu found an empty seat and quickly scanned the room. Aside from the "Plaid Shirt" guy clutching a laptop he'd seen in the hallway earlier, and the elderly defense expert, there were several new faces. Sitting to his front left was a female doctor in a white coat, her hands gripping a first-aid kit tightly, her eyes fixed anxiously on the air vent above.
Behind him sat a polite-looking middle-aged man with thick glasses. He had the air of a sociologist or someone from the Statistics Bureau. He was nervously tapping a rhythm on his knee with his fingers.
These people didn't know each other. Their fields were vastly different. Yet, they were all headed to the same destination.
"You may send messages and handle private matters now. Once the vehicle departs, all phones, watches, and electronic devices must be deposited here. They will be returned to you upon arrival," an officer announced, walking from the front of the bus with a lead-sealed metal case.
Chen Xu pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up with a WeChat message from his girlfriend:
[Want to try the new spicy hot pot at Canteen 2 tonight? I heard it's super spicy!] [Why aren't you replying? Did old man Shen keep you late?]
The last message was a sticker of a sighing cat.
Chen Xu's finger hovered over the screen. He could reply "Busy," or "Don't wait for me." But his mind was a mess; he didn't know what to say.
The officer had said the phones would be returned, and they weren't blindfolded like characters in a sci-fi novel, which suggested there were other surveillance methods in place to prevent leaks.
Click.
Chen Xu turned off the screen. He tossed the phone, still warm from his hand, into the cold metal box. As the lid snapped shut, his girlfriend, the spicy hot pot, the unfinished thesis, the basketball game next week—all the fragments that made up the person known as "Chen Xu"—were temporarily sealed away in that dark box.
The bus doors closed. The officer stood at the front, his gaze sweeping over everyone. "Everyone, for your safety, please fasten your seatbelts. The road ahead will be bumpy. Also, until we reach our destination, do not open the curtains."
No one responded. They simply obeyed in silence.
Once the engine started, Chen Xu lost all sense of direction. The black curtains blocked everything; he could only judge their movement by the swaying of the bus. At first, it was the smooth asphalt of city roads—likely leaving the campus and hitting the Third Ring Road. The bustling, congested city of Beijing was passing him by, separated only by a layer of sheet metal.
After about an hour, the ride grew slightly bumpy, and the ambient noise changed. The constant hum of the city faded, replaced by an empty silence, broken only by the occasional whoosh of large trucks passing by. They had left the city. North? West? Into the depths of the Yanshan Mountains?
Chen Xu closed his eyes. The red spectral map of the sun and Lei Zhijian's cold voice—"Thirty-four years"—kept flashing in his mind. A profound sense of absurdity wrapped around him. The world outside was still noisy with housing prices, promotions, and celebrity gossip, while on this silent bus, a dozen people burdened with humanity's greatest death sentence were rushing to the battlefield.
"Hey..."
A very low voice suddenly came from the back row. It was "Plaid Shirt." He seemed unable to bear the dead silence any longer and leaned across the aisle, whispering to the elderly defense expert. "Sir, do you know where we're going? I still have a server running data. If the power is off for too long, I'll lose it..."
"Shut up."
The answer didn't come from the old man, but from the officer at the front. He didn't even turn his head, just spat out the two words coldly. At the same time, the soldier sitting next to Plaid Shirt rested his hand on the holster at his waist.
Plaid Shirt shrank back in terror, a strangled gulp escaping his throat. He didn't dare make another sound.
Chen Xu lost track of time. Maybe three hours passed, maybe five. It must have been dark outside. The bus jolted violently, then began a long descent. Chen Xu felt pressure building in his ears—the air pressure was changing. They were going underground. Deep underground.
Finally, the bus stopped.
"We're here," the officer said. "Everyone off."
The doors opened, but there was no night breeze. Instead, a stale, turbid air rushed in—a mix of machine oil, dampness, and high concentrations of ozone.
Chen Xu followed Shen Qingyuan off the bus. The scene before him made his pupils contract.
It wasn't a suburban lot, but a massive underground cavern. It looked like the hollowed-out belly of a mountain. High above, faint explosion-proof lights hung from a jagged rock dome dozens of meters up. The surrounding walls were rough concrete, with countless thick ventilation ducts coiling across them like giant pythons, emitting a low, constant roar. In the distance, rows of prefabricated container housing were neatly arranged, with armed patrol vehicles weaving between them.
But the most striking feature was the colossal structure in the center of the cavern.
It was a windowless black cube, completely sealed, looking like a block of obsidian excavated from hell. Countless cables snaked into it from all directions. Even from hundreds of meters away, Chen Xu could feel the ground beneath his feet trembling slightly—resonance caused by some ultra-high-power equipment running at capacity.
"Where is this?" Chen Xu whispered.
"Beijing Base 0," Shen Qingyuan said, staring at the black cube with a complicated expression. "It used to be a nuclear bunker from the Cold War. Abandoned for decades, only recently reactivated."
"What's inside that?" Chen Xu pointed at the black cube.
Shen Qingyuan didn't answer immediately. He straightened his collar, as if preparing to meet a very important "person."
"That is our future colleague," Shen Qingyuan said softly. "And the reason we are here."
Just then, a staff member walked over with a stack of ID badges. "Experts, please wear your temporary passes. Red indicates the highest security zone, which is over there—" He pointed to the black cube. "That is the 550 Computing Center. Without special authorization, anyone approaching the perimeter will be shot on sight by the guards."
Chen Xu took his badge. It bore only the headshot taken on the bus moments ago and a simple line of text:
[Group 109-B | Chen Xu]
He hung the badge around his neck. It felt as heavy as a block of lead.
Here, hundreds of meters underground, in this shadow world beneath the surface, a story about saving all of humanity had begun.