Nominal: Hou Liangping blocking the door? He was slapped away!

Late at night, in a high-end residential compound in the city.

Several SUVs with military license plates braked suddenly in front of Building No. 3.

The car door opened, and more than a dozen fully armed Dragon Fang special forces members filed out and quickly took control of all the exits.

The captain leading the team, wearing tactical gloves, led four team members upstairs and kicked open the security door on the top floor of Unit 2.

This is Hou Liangping's old residence. Since he was expelled from the Party and removed from his post and sent to Handong, this house has been under seizure.

The interior furnishings remained the same, but the air was filled with a pungent smell of dust.

The captain made a hand gesture.

The team members immediately spread out and began a thorough search, checking every nook and cranny of the walls, floors, and ceilings.

The high-frequency detector swept across the wall, emitting a beeping electronic alert.

"Captain, we've found something."

A team member squatted in front of the bookshelf and pulled out a thick stack of "Supreme People's Procuratorate Annual Procuratorial Yearbook" from the bottom shelf.

The middle of the book's pages had been hollowed out, revealing a cleverly concealed compartment inside.

The captain stepped forward, pried open the hidden compartment with a tool, and took out a silver metal object.

This thing looks like an ordinary USB flash drive, but its surface is engraved with a row of complex numbers, which are the exclusive codes used by the Zhong family to distinguish the access to core assets.

The accompanying technician immediately opened the portable military terminal and connected the silver key to the system.

A series of complex codes scrolled rapidly on the screen, and the progress bar advanced at breakneck speed.

"Sir, the outer shell has been removed."

The technician reported into the communicator.

"The underlying data needs to be verified a second time using a paper authorization number; otherwise, forcibly cracking it will result in the physical self-destruction of the data."

Inside the underground command center.

Shen Zhong watched the images transmitted back from the big screen, tapping his fingers on the table.

"Check the location of this number."

The technical team leader's hands flew across the keyboard, and a few seconds later, a floor plan of a classified archive was projected onto the main screen.

"Found it."

"This set of numbers corresponds to the confidential room on the second floor of a certain national classified archives center."

"The original paper authorization letter for the Chung family's participation in the outsourcing of military projects is sealed there."

Shen Zhong did not hesitate at all and immediately issued the order.

"Zhou Weiguo, take some men and retrieve the files."

As soon as he finished speaking, the surveillance footage in the lower right corner of the large screen suddenly flashed a blinding red light.

Immediately afterwards, the piercing fire alarm blared throughout the command center via the audio link.

In the footage, thick smoke is billowing out of the window of the confidential room on the second floor of the archives.

Shen Zhong stared intently at the flames on the screen, his face showing no extra emotion.

"They acted quite quickly."

"It seems someone is even more eager than us to cover up the crime."

Zhou Weiguo grabbed the pistol on the table and strode toward the exit.

"Small squad, follow me!"

Three heavy armored assault vehicles roared out of the military base, sirens blaring, and sped through the empty streets.

With just two blocks to go before reaching the archives, the convoy was forced to slow down.

A heavy semi-trailer truck fully loaded with steel bars was parked across the intersection, white smoke billowing from its cab. The driver was nowhere to be found, completely blocking the only passage to the archives.

Behind them, several fire trucks rushing to the rescue were stuck in traffic, honking their horns in frustration.

The driver stepped on the brakes and turned to ask for instructions.

"Sir, the road is blocked. It will take at least ten minutes to take a detour."

Zhou Weiguo looked at the truck that was clearly parked there on purpose and pressed the communicator.

"Ten minutes is enough for them to burn the file to ashes."

"No need to take a detour."

"The armored vehicle should just ram it!"

The driver floored the accelerator.

The heavy armored assault vehicle roared deafeningly, its tracks leaving two deep white marks on the asphalt road.

"boom!"

The front of the armored vehicle, weighing tens of tons, crashed violently into the side of the semi-trailer truck.

With a piercing metallic tearing sound, the massive semi-trailer was rammed open, creating a gap, and slid backward several meters.

The armored convoy did not slow down and forced its way through the gap, leaving behind a pile of scattered steel bars and stunned firefighters.

This is the way the Dragon Fang Special Forces operate.

Faced with overwhelming military power, any underhanded tactics aimed at delaying the inevitable are futile.

The convoy rammed through the archives door and stopped in front of the office building.

Zhou Weiguo, carrying an assault rifle, was the first to jump out of the vehicle.

"Seal off all entrances and exits; not even a fly is allowed to get out!"

He led his five team members up the stairs to the second floor.

The corridor was filled with a pungent, burnt smell, and visibility was extremely low.

Several people wearing gas masks pierced through the thick smoke with the beams of tactical flashlights.

The heavy fireproof door to the confidential room was tightly closed.

Outside the door lay a uniformed archivist, with a pool of blood on the back of his head, already unconscious.

Zhou Weiguo stepped forward and checked the carotid artery, then gestured to the medic behind him.

"He's still breathing, take him down for emergency treatment."

He turned and walked to the fire door, then reached out and pushed it.

The access control system is showing a red light, indicating it has been forcibly locked from the inside.

In a normal fire, the access control system would automatically shut off and open; this was definitely a premeditated and precise arson.

"Demoman!"

A team member strode forward and placed two directional C4 explosives on the door lock.

"Back off!"

The group quickly stood close to the wall.

"Bang!"

A muffled explosion echoed through the corridor, blasting a large hole in the heavy fire door.

Zhou Weiguo kicked open the broken door and rushed into the confidential room, braving the scorching heat.

The fire was mainly concentrated on a row of filing cabinets in the center of the room.

Several team members quickly took out portable fire extinguishers and sprayed them at the source of the fire.

The fire was quickly brought under control.

Zhou Weiguo walked up to the file cabinet that was burned black.

The mechanical lock on the cabinet door showed obvious signs of being pried open.

The innermost layer, where the Zhong family's files were kept, was now just a pile of smoldering ashes.

All the paper authorization documents have been burned to ashes.

One of the team members brushed the ashes aside with his tactical knife and shook his head.

"Captain, it's all destroyed, not even a scrap of paper is left."

Zhou Weiguo stared at the pile of ashes, pressed the communicator, and prepared to report to Shen Zhong.

Just then, a medic's shout came from the corridor.

"Captain, he's awake!"

Zhou Weiguo walked quickly back to the corridor.

The archivist leaned against the wall, clutching the bleeding back of his head, panting heavily.

The medic is bandaging his wounds.

The administrator did not panic excessively when he saw the fully armed special forces soldiers; he simply reached out and grabbed Zhou Weiguo's sleeve.

"Backup..."

He uttered two words in an extremely faint breath.

"What backup?"

Zhou Weiguo moved closer.

"Important classified authorization documents...all have paper copies..."

"Not in the second-floor confidential room..."

"In the temperature-controlled cold storage room on the third basement level..."

After the administrator finished speaking these few words in fits and starts, his head lolled to the side and he fainted again.

Zhou Weiguo flung his sleeves open and shouted.

"Go to the third basement level!"

The assault team raced along the fire lane.

The air in the basement was unusually cold, and no smoke spread down.

The doors to the three-story constant-temperature cold storage were wide open.

Zhou Weiguo led his men inside and immediately spotted a figure preparing to slip away at the back door at the end of the cold storage.