Chapter 144.1 – Fire Seed (13)
◎ Who kidnapped Song Ke? ◎
“What?”
“What—the—?!”
“Song Ke’er was kidnapped???”
Shouts, escalating in volume, echoed through the entire Garden Apartment building.
Just after finishing packing up, getting ready to enjoy a day off, the entire V587 team was in a state of confusion.
Xu Xing, carrying a small yellow duck backpack, rushed into Song Ke’s room, opened the curtains, opened the wardrobe, and even stubbornly bent over to look under the bed: “Sister—!!”
“Our Song Ke’er, the dignified S7-level attack-type awakener, undefeated in direct confrontations, you’re saying she was… kidnapped?”
Lin Youyou incredulously pinched her own cheek and, in passing, pinched Su Cha’s thigh. She still doubted her ears, finding this whole thing unbelievable.
“No, are you two intentionally messing with us, you lovebirds? Where did Song Ke’er hide to slack off?”
Su Cha remained composed despite being pinched, instead gently pushing Lin Youyou’s back, indicating her to look at someone.
Lin Youyou raised her gaze and, upon seeing the expression on that person’s face, instantly fell silent.
Zhuang Qingyan’s complexion could no longer be described as unpleasant. Leaning against the bar with one hand in his pocket, he held the terminal that Song Ke had left at the bedside. His long crow-like eyelashes hung low, lost in thought, silent to a somewhat eerie extent.
Zhuang Qingyan, to put it nicely, had a naturally large heart, showing no emotions of joy or anger. To be blunt, he was cold-hearted and cold-lunged, with a detached demeanor. Due to his high intelligence, he lacked interest in almost everything, and his true thoughts were impossible to fathom.
While others joined V587 due to being lonely and wandering with nowhere to go or having unfulfilled wishes, Zhuang Qingyan was the first to meet Song Ke. Since their first encounter, he had been in a wheelchair due to a leg injury, and he was the only person “without a goal.” No one knew what he was thinking or what he intended to do.
This was the first time Lin Youyou saw Zhuang Qingyan in a state of rage, and yes—rage.
Even though he remained silent now, with a calm and pale expression, everyone could feel the terrifying pressure emanating from him. It was a level of suppression belonging to the S-level, amplified by his awakened psychic abilities, easily inducing a chilling sense of tremor.
Like a precarious live volcano, the calmer he appeared now, the more shocking his eruption would be.
“The surveillance footage has been retrieved,” Lu Xiaoyu said.
A clear image appeared on the projection, and everyone quickly shifted their gaze.
At five in the morning, Song Ke, wearing pajamas and sleep pants, holding a garbage bag, yawned and walked out, kicking and stepping along the way. After leaving the apartment gate, she turned into a shaded area of trees and never came out again.
“Fixed-point camera, conveniently in a blind spot of the surveillance.” Lu Xiaoyu enlarged the footage, rotated the angle, but the situation under the tree shade couldn’t be captured.
He switched to other cameras in the community, patrolling one by one. Half an hour passed since Song Ke disappeared, and apart from a few regularly entering and exiting AI property personnel, there were no other suspicious figures.
This made the kidnapping case even more puzzling. Without any movement, a person disappeared into thin air?
Su Cha said coldly, “The other party scouted in advance, came prepared.”
Zhuang Qingyan’s hoarse voice sounded, “She didn’t resist immediately, indicating that the intruder is not a stranger.”
Everyone was stunned.
“You mean, Song Ke knows the kidnapper?” Lin Youyou whispered.
“Not necessarily familiar, but at least they’ve met, confirming that the other party is not an adversary.”
If the kidnapper was a stranger and showed malice, given Song Ke’s vigilance, she wouldn’t sit idly but would immediately counterattack. In that case, the degree of commotion in the apartment would have been impossible for others to miss.
Zhuang Qingyan tightened his fingertips. “To silently take her away, the culprit must be an awakener, and… probably of the control type.”
“The captain is S-level,” Su Cha reminded abruptly.
At first, this statement seemed inexplicable, but the group quickly grasped the implication: Indeed! Song Ke is S-level; to control her, the other side must be at least S-level!
“Probably more than one,” Zhuang Qingyan’s eyes revealed a mocking smile. “If I were the one orchestrating from behind, to ensure nothing goes wrong, I would send out two, three, even four… at any cost.”
As the reasoning deepened, the truth of Song Ke’s kidnapping gradually surfaced, but the answers became increasingly absurd.
In the Northern Base, who could mobilize two or more S-level awakener? Everyone vaguely had an answer in their hearts—the deputy leader of District B10, the highest official of the Awakener Department they had encountered briefly.
Lin Youyou frowned. “Did He Qiuhong make a move?”
Fang Zhixu couldn’t understand, “Wasn’t her attitude good before? Why did she suddenly turn hostile?”
“I think this is the reason.” Zhuang Qingyan pointed to the little bee terminal. Song Ke hadn’t set any permissions, and he effortlessly opened it.
Zhuang Qingyan had already checked through it. He released the Awakener Department officials from the blacklist and opened those unread bombardment messages in front of everyone, stopping his fingertips on the words “Further Inspection.”
In the past three days, V587 had been busy with missions non-stop, not even having time to talk. Given Song Ke’s personality, she probably forgot about this or treated it as simple harassment messages.
Zhuang Qingyan said in a deep voice, “There’s an issue with Song Ke’s awakener report.”
Everyone was genuinely shocked, “What issue?”
“The returned report is missing pages, and someone deliberately erased information about the gene sequence and radiation stability.”
Zhuang Qingyan had noticed the abnormality in the report earlier, but those two items were routine checks, not directly related to ability awakening. So, even though he suspected that He Qiuhong was hiding something, it didn’t attract enough attention.
“I made a mistake,” Zhuang Qingyan sighed. “He Qiuhong must have noticed something was wrong, but she couldn’t confirm it. She could only temporarily suppress it and find an opportunity to verify it with Song Ke.”
Repeatedly urging her to undergo the examination indicated that this matter was crucial to He Qiuhong, important enough for her to risk confronting a powerful S-level.
“What if they found out Song Ke is a dual-class awakener and want to capture her for study?” Fang Zhixu asked anxiously.
V587 internally knew about Song Ke’s S-level dual-class abilities, but they had kept it a secret externally, never mentioning a word about it.
Zhuang Qingyan clenched the terminal and slowly shook his head, “Dual-class awakened abilities cannot be detected by instruments.”
“In theory, dual-class awakened abilities are divided into dominant and recessive. For example, Punk’s bloody explosion is a dominant ability, and time reversal is recessive. On the same temporal axis, a coordinate point cannot possess two different awakened abilities. This means that Punk cannot simultaneously trigger bloody explosions and time reversal. When facing instrument checks, he can actively choose which ability to reveal, which is why it could be concealed for so long.”
“Song Ke’s second ability is related to the rapid healing of the body, a passive ability within the recessive category. Unless her heart is severely damaged, even an R-type won’t be able to detect it.”
It was because Zhuang Qingyan understood the functionality of R-type that he felt at ease letting Song Ke undergo genetic testing.
Fang Zhixu became even more puzzled, “But if it’s not because of the dual-class… why would He Qiuhong want to kidnap her?”
Zhuang Qingyan couldn’t figure out what issues those two routine indicators—gene sequence and radiation stability—could have. What secrets could be hiding on Song Ke’s body that even he couldn’t discover?
Lin Youyou snapped her fingers, bringing everyone’s attention back, “Now that the kidnapper has been identified, how do we rescue her?”
Even if not explicitly stated, they all understood implicitly. Song Ke was the soul of V587, the core that brought them together. Lin Youyou didn’t ask “Do we rescue her?” but rather “How do we rescue her?”
“Daring to kidnap my sister, I’ll definitely kill them!” With Song Ke absent, Xu Xing’s young lion’s claws were exposed, and his angelic, innocent face was covered in dark clouds.
“Should we just break into the Awakener Department building?” Fang Zhixu absentmindedly rubbed his chin, his thoughts involuntarily turning more violent.
“Not feasible,” Lu Xiaoyu decisively opposed, “Did you forget the safety education videos we watched?”
Su Cha’s remark was incisive, “The most important thing now is to confirm the captain’s specific location.”
Zhuang Qingyan’s expression changed slightly. He opened a profile from the terminal and initiated a video call.
The call was quickly answered, and a lively voice came through, “Good morning, Song Ke. Any new requests…”
“Miss Ye, it’s me. Song Ke is missing,” Zhuang Qingyan coldly interrupted her.
A look of obvious astonishment appeared on Ye Zimei’s face.
Zhuang Qingyan’s next words directly dismantled her composure, “Do you think she would be at the Awakener Department now?”
Ye Zimei: “Huh?”
Although Ye Zimei had a carefree personality, her mind worked quickly. After the initial shock, she quickly calmed down, “Mr. Zhuang, are you suspecting me?”
Zhuang Qingyan: “I am equally suspicious of everyone.”
Ye Zimei: “…”
