Quick time travel: The system wants me to save the sick girl

So what they really wanted to hide was the place where Lu Yan was kidnapped.

The wheels screeched as Zhou Muchi maneuvered the vehicle through traffic, making a daring U-turn.

The engine roared, the car quickly gained speed, leaving the city lights behind again, and drove into the darkness of the suburbs.

“I’ve already notified Lao Zhao; they’ll arrive at the scene faster than us.” Zhou Muchi’s voice was tense, his sharp gaze sweeping across the rearview mirror to confirm if the black sedan was still following. “Can you recall any details? About that car, or anything unusual about your detention?”

Lu Yan closed his eyes, trying hard to search his memory. "The room was empty, with only a chair and the rope that tied me up. The window was dirty, but I remember being able to see a crooked tree outside. The car... was dark, maybe black or dark blue, a very ordinary model, but I noticed a scratch near its right headlight."

He suddenly opened his eyes. "Also, when I was breaking free of the ropes, I heard a regular, very faint buzzing sound, like the operation of a machine. At the time, I thought it was my own tinnitus or the sound of a factory in the distance."

“Mechanical sounds?” Zhou Muchi frowned. “There are no factories in that area. Old Zhao’s preliminary report didn’t mention any machinery either.”

The car communicator suddenly rang, interrupting their conversation. Old Zhao's urgent voice came through: "Team Leader Zhou, our men have reached the perimeter of the scene and are secretly surrounding it. But something's not right—it seems like there are lights moving inside!"

Zhou Muchi and Lu Yan exchanged a wary glance. An abandoned site shouldn't have anyone there, much less lights.

The place he sensed was clearly not the same as when Lu Yan woke up, but it was impossible for them to move him to a very far place in a short time.

So there should be another place where the chip was implanted in Lu Yan.

"Don't alert them. Wait for us to arrive. We should be there in fifteen minutes," Zhou Muchi replied, pressing the accelerator harder.

The rest of the journey was spent in tense silence. Lu Yan glanced at the rearview mirror every now and then to check if any vehicles were following them, but the road was now empty, which only made him more uneasy.

As they approached their destination, Zhou Muchi turned off the headlights and drove slowly by moonlight and memory of the road. He stopped the car about a kilometer from their target.

“We’ll walk there,” he said in a low voice, taking a pistol from the glove box to check the ammunition, and then handing Lu Yan a high-powered flashlight and a tactical knife, “just in case.”

The two moved silently through the overgrown wasteland, and could see the silhouette of the isolated, abandoned building in the distance. Just as Old Zhao had said, a faint light was moving inside one of the windows on the second floor, like a ghost wandering in the darkness.

Zhou Muchi contacted Lao Zhao through his earpiece: "We've arrived on the south side. What's your location?"

"The east and north sides are already blocked, and the west side is a cliff; they have nowhere to escape. We await your orders."

Zhou Muchi looked at Lu Yan and lowered his voice: "You stay here and wait for our signal."

Lu Yan grabbed his arm: "No, I have to go. Maybe I can recognize something, or...maybe they left more than just a chip on me."

Zhou Muchi hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded: "Stay close to me and stay alert."

Under the cover of shadow, they stealthily approached the building. Just about twenty meters from the entrance, a muffled thud came from the second floor, followed by the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground.

"Action!" Zhou Muchi gave the order without hesitation.

In an instant, several beams of bright light shone on the building from different directions, illuminating the entrance as if it were daytime. SWAT team members rushed out from their hiding places and quickly stormed into the building.

Zhou Muchi and Lu Yan followed closely behind. After entering the building, the faint buzzing sound that Lu Yan had mentioned earlier became even more pronounced.

“Down there,” Lu Yan said definitively, “in the basement.”

They moved quickly down the corridor and found a hidden door with the lock broken—clearly the work of the commandos.

Behind the door is a downward concrete staircase.

The sight in the basement astonished everyone.

In stark contrast to the dilapidated environment upstairs, this place resembles a high-tech laboratory.

Several screens were still lit, displaying complex data streams, but most of the equipment had been hastily removed and taken away, leaving only some cables and empty tables.

"Damn it, they still beat us to it," Zhou Muchi cursed.

Lu Yan looked around and his gaze fell on a waste bin in a corner.

He went over and started searching, finding several empty syringes and a few small glass bottles.

“Zhou Muchi,” his voice trembled slightly, “these are all used to implant chips.”

Zhou Muchi walked over and took a small glass bottle from Lu Yan. There were still a few drops of colorless liquid at the bottom of the bottle.

Just then, a SWAT officer emerged from a cubicle deeper in the basement: "Team Leader Zhou, we've found something here."

Inside the cubicle was a makeshift operating table, with various medical equipment placed around it. Most of the equipment was damaged, but its advanced nature was still evident.

There were some documents scattered on the ground. Zhou Muchi picked up a few pages, which were full of complex chemical formulas and biological terms.

“They didn’t just implant a chip in me,” he murmured, “they also injected me with something.”

Zhou Muchi gripped the documents tightly, his knuckles turning white. He turned to Lu Yan, his eyes filled with a mixture of anger and worry: "We will find out the truth, no matter what."

A sudden commotion erupted outside, followed by several gunshots. Zhou Muchi immediately shielded Lu Yan behind him and raised his gun, aiming it at the doorway.

Old Zhao's voice came through the headset: "Team Leader Zhou, we caught two who tried to escape through the ventilation ducts. And one... committed suicide."

When Zhou Muchi and Lu Yan returned to the ground, the three men in plain clothes had been subdued. One of them was lying on the ground with a bullet hole in his forehead, clearly having committed suicide.

Zhou Muchi crouched down and examined the suicide victim's hands and clothing, finding a small metal device in his inner pocket. It wasn't a communicator, but a miniature data storage device.

"They're not deleting data," Lu Yan suddenly realized. "They're uploading. That buzzing sound... that's the server running! They've remotely erased the data!"

Zhou Muchi stood up and gripped the miniature storage device tightly: "But they didn't have time to destroy it."

"They must be trying to send out some message."

"So, they have two goals: one is to implant a chip in you so they can control you, and the other is to attract our attention elsewhere and then send something out."

Back in the car, Zhou Muchi did not start the engine immediately.

The night was deep, and the city lights in the distance looked like an illusory mirage.

He turned to look at Lu Yan, who was staring at the boundless darkness outside the window, his profile appearing unusually pale in the dim light of the dashboard.

Lu Yan slowly turned his head, his eyes flashing with a complex light: "What I fear is not what they did to me, but why they chose me."