Night's Nomenclature
Chapter 243: The Mastermind

In the elevator shaft, Qing Chen carried Li Changqing on his back, and Li Changqing helped him carry the sniper rifle.

"I'm really not a Metahuman, I was just so nervous that I hugged you so tightly," Li Changqing said, leaning on Qing Chen's back, "If I made you breathless, I apologize, but I didn't mean to."

"You're really not a Metahuman? You're so strong, I couldn't even break free," Qing Chen said expressionlessly, continuing to climb upwards. The elevator was still stopping at each floor.

He wanted Li Changqing to climb the ladder herself, but she refused.

When he reached the twelfth floor, he found a maintenance access to a central air conditioning system. He said to Li Changqing, "Can you get off my back now? This maintenance access can't fit two people at the same time. I'll climb ahead, you follow behind."

"Okay," Li Changqing reluctantly loosened her grip.

When the two hid in the central air conditioning duct, they slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

Climbing the elevator shaft wasn't a long-term solution, as someone would eventually come to check the elevator. Once someone discovered that the elevator ceiling had been smashed open, they would surely follow into the elevator shaft.

At that time, the other party only needed to fire a shot at the top, and Qing Chen and Li Changqing would die here together.

Sure enough, not long after the two had just squeezed in, a shout came from the elevator shaft: "Someone climbed into the elevator shaft from the elevator ceiling!"

As soon as the words fell, someone shone a cluster-type flashlight through the hole in the ceiling into the elevator shaft, but the light swept past the elevator shaft wall beside the two of them without discovering anything.

Li Changqing glanced at Qing Chen and thought, thankfully they had gotten into this duct in advance.

Slowly, the elevator continued to ascend, passing slowly through the elevator shaft beside them. The killers got off the elevator when it stopped on the next floor, seemingly searching upwards.

"Aren't you scared?" Li Changqing curiously asked.

"Scared," Qing Chen said, "But fear won't help me now, so I have to discard it."

Li Changqing looked surprised. Discard it? Can you just discard fear like that?

The central air conditioning duct of this building was quite spacious, enough for two people to sit side by side.

The two sat in the dim duct, and there was a certain illusion of stealing half a day of leisure.

Qing Chen knew that it was the calming of emotions caused by the secretion of endorphins after tension.

There was a lot of dust in the central air conditioning duct, so much so that when the woman climbed in, she was covered in dust, her Face^[-] also dusty.

This was the first time the woman had hidden in a place like this, and she felt a sense of novelty. In this confined environment, she could hear the breathing and heartbeat of the young man beside her, and she seemed to be able to feel his body temperature.

"I can feel your temperature," Li Changqing whispered.

Qing Chen calmly said, "It's December now, that's the warm air from the central air conditioning system sent to the entire building, not my body temperature…"

"Um," Li Changqing was a little embarrassed. She stuffed the sniper rifle into Qing Chen's arms, "Next time you want to go to the sniper range, you don't need to find Old Six anymore. I'll give you a card, unless you want to go to Baopu Building, otherwise you'll have smooth sailing everywhere."

Qing Chen asked, "Don't change the subject, does anyone else know you're a Metahuman? Do I need to keep it a secret?"

Li Changqing thought for a moment, "Forget it, I won't hide it from you. I am indeed a Metahuman, but no one else knows yet."

"Old Six doesn't know either?" Qing Chen asked.

He suddenly thought, no wonder Li Changqing dared to use herself as bait, it turned out that as a Metahuman, she was fearless.

However, at this moment, Li Changqing explained, "Actually, I only became a Metahuman a little over a month ago. Recently, there's been a lot of talk about Time Travelers, and the think tank in the Conglomerate has suggested that if you change your genes, you won't be able to be Substitution-crossed. Many people don't want to use this method because Gene Medicine has side effects, but I'm not afraid of those, so I injected a dose of Gene Medicine. If you don't believe me, feel my waist, maybe you can still find the needle hole."

Speaking, in the darkness Li Changqing pulled Qing Chen's hand, about to touch her waist, Qing Chen quickly retracted his hand.

"Being able to come up with this excuse temporarily is quite resourceful," Qing Chen sighed. The other party was certain that he wouldn't touch her, so she dared to make up such a lie.

Just from the moment the other party's body stiffened in the car, if Qing Chen really touched her, Li Changqing would probably have dodged.

Qing Chen asked, "After taking Gene Medicine, will you really not be Substitution-crossed?"

"You're a Gene Soldier, you don't have to worry about this," Li Changqing said, "Li Clan captured more than 300 Time Travelers, including Metahumans, but none of them were Gene Soldiers."

This matched the information Qing Chen and the others had.

Qing Chen asked, "What are you doing capturing so many Time Travelers?"

Li Changqing turned to look at him, "Since you protected me, it's okay to reveal some information to you. In the direct bloodline of a certain family in the north, someone has been successfully replaced by us."

Qing Chen was greatly shocked. He didn't expect this reverse time travel method to actually work, and Li Clan had already succeeded once!

The Outer World was just immersed in the joy of protecting household registration information, and here, new progress had already been made.

At this time, Li Changqing suddenly said, "You probably haven't had the chance to understand the Outer World either. After this incident is over, come to my house, and I'll tell you all about it. The Outer World is quite interesting… and I didn't expect that the Shendai Family and the Koshima Family are not in the same land in the Outer World, nor are they the same country."

Qing Chen curiously asked, "Will those Time Travelers listen to you?"

Li Changqing said, "A small number of Time Travelers actively surrendered to Li Clan, which is understandable, but most Time Travelers are quite resistant. However, we found that it's difficult for them to carry out missions in their home countries in the Outer World, but when we let them carry out missions in the territories of the Shendai and Koshima Families, the Time Travelers are unusually active. This seems to be related to ethnic hatred in the Outer World. They are very willing to annoy the Koshima and Shendai Families, which coincides with Li Clan's purpose."

"Let's go," Qing Chen continued to climb forward along the central air conditioning duct, "At this time, the killers in the building must have discovered that we climbed up through the elevator shaft. If they can't find us on each floor, then their next step will be to check all the maintenance access points to the central air conditioning system."

"What are you planning to do now?" Li Changqing asked, "Are you going to kill those killers?"

"Of course not," Qing Chen said, "Just find a place to wait for your reinforcements to arrive. Do I have to go up and fight myself?"

Qing Chen wasn't stupid. He had already guessed that Li Changqing had set an ambush nearby, and the killers' demise was just a matter of time. He didn't need to kill them himself.

The two climbed into a resident's bedroom through the central air conditioning outlet. After Qing Chen confirmed that there was no one outside, he carefully removed the iron grille of the central air conditioning system and lightly jumped down.

Qing Chen listened at the door between the bedroom and the living room for a while, and after confirming that there was no movement outside, he gently opened the door.

In the living room, a middle-aged man was wearing a headset and didn't even hear anyone coming from behind.

He was holding binoculars and looking downstairs, muttering something, seemingly remotely controlling the overall situation.

One of the hands holding the binoculars was clearly a modified Cybernetic Limb.

Qing Chen thought, it couldn't be so coincidental, he just accidentally found the mastermind?

But strangely, if the other party was the mastermind, why didn't he have any bodyguards.

Qing Chen didn't act rashly, but while the other party's attention was still downstairs, he turned to look at Li Changqing, but found that the woman looked very nervous, as if she was really just an F-level Gene Soldier.

You must know that this is a world with Metahumans. In the Outer World, even if you say they are gods, it's not impossible.

So in the Inner World, when you accidentally find the boss, don't just be happy, because the other party might even thank you for sending them a head.

You have no idea what level the other party is!

But Qing Chen knew that there must be a reason why this middle-aged man didn't have bodyguards…

Li Changqing pointed to the sniper rifle in Qing Chen's hand and mouthed: Blast him!

But at that moment, the middle-aged man finally noticed something was wrong. He suddenly turned his head to look back, but found that Li Changqing had already passed Qing Chen and floated in front of him like thunder, striking out a palm.

Qing Chen suddenly realized that this middle-aged man must be a master, and Li Changqing also knew exactly who he was.

He could joke around other times, but at this critical moment, she couldn't continue to hide.

The next second, Qing Chen watched this "F-level' junior Metahuman who had just received a shot of Gene Medicine, strike a palm on the middle-aged man's chest.

With a loud bang, the middle-aged man seemed to have been hit in the chest by a 155mm caliber artillery shell and was sent flying back, his chest clothes shattered.

When the middle-aged man's back collided with the thick multi-layered window glass, the entire window shattered!

He struggled to grab something to prevent himself from falling from the twelfth floor, but there was nothing around him to hold onto.

The shattered window, the middle-aged man suspended in mid-air, and the Valkyrie standing by the window coldly striking out formed an extremely absurd dramatic scene in front of Qing Chen.

Full of tension.

This is F-level?! It's at least B-level!

However, Li Changqing didn't immediately look at how her opponent died, but turned back to explain to Qing Chen, "If I say I just awakened to this level, you won't believe me…"

The next second, Qing Chen roared, "Watch out!"

But he saw a black rope whip out from the middle-aged man's cybernetic arm, just right around Li Changqing's ankle. He forcefully used his own downward force to pull Li Changqing out of the room and fall from the high altitude together!

The middle-aged man hadn't died from such a heavy palm, yet he still wanted to drag Li Changqing down as a cushion!

Qing Chen rushed to the window to try to grab the woman, but he was half a second too late.

He leaned out to check the situation, but saw that Li Changqing's falling figure was light and airy. She turned over and used her fingers to break the black rope that was entangled around her ankle, and then lightly fell downwards, landing steadily on the ground.

Qing Chen breathed a sigh of relief. He had also seen that light-as-a-feather technique in Li Shutong.

Before, he thought that it was a natural ability that Knights would have at a certain level, but now it seems that this is probably a unique secret inheritance of Li Clan.

But the problem is, Li Changqing went down, so what should he do?

The commotion in the room just now was too great, I'm afraid all the killers in the building… are gathering here now?!

…