Chapter 144: The Antiquities Smuggling Case

This place resembled an underground town, with a magnificent signal tower standing tall at its center.

"I’d better not rush in just yet."

Ji Cheng lowered his tactical goggles, scanning while carefully observing the surroundings. This goggle-like equipment allowed him to see more clearly, and combined with the night vision granted by his gene prototype—the lynx—he had a full view of the vast underground space. He could even read the writing on the signs with perfect clarity.

"Living quarters, supermarket, residential area, plaza, military control zone... It’s quite large." Ji Cheng memorized the approximate locations of each section and, using the goggles’ scan results, generated a simple map.

"The scale of this place could support nearly ten thousand people living and working here long-term. That mysterious organization certainly spared no expense."

The uplink, as a signal transmitter, is sized according to its transmission range.

The exposed part of the uplink was the signal tower at the heart of the town. That alone was enormous, requiring thousands of personnel for maintenance and operation, indicating its signal destination lay at least three to four provinces away.

"There are quite a few abandoned vehicles in the living and residential areas. Seems there must be other entrances here..."

In remote, underdeveloped planets like Baishan, the quality of life lagged several eras behind the prosperous provinces. Real-time airspace allocation technology was inadequate, so aside from official work machines, ordinary people still relied on vehicles for transportation.

"Shana, stay alert. An Chan, keep an eye on the surroundings too."

Ji Cheng pressed the communication button on his earpiece. "I’m about to enter a pre-disaster ruin. I’ll keep the cameras on continuously. If anything slips past or something unexpected happens, remind me immediately."

"Understood," Chen Qian replied.

As his personal secretary, she knew what to ask and what not to. She never questioned Ji Cheng’s purposeful actions, focusing solely on her duties. That was one reason he admired her.

Tap, tap, tap.

Soft footsteps echoed faintly in the vast underground space; the emptiness muffled the sound almost completely.

Ji Cheng followed the heavily eroded pavement toward the cluster of buildings reminiscent of a small town.

The stench of decay seeped through his bio-mask. Suppressing his physiological reaction, he maintained a perfectly disciplined, alert posture as he advanced.

"I must be extremely careful—I'm alone here, without even a shield."

...

In front of a six-story low-rise, Ji Cheng summoned a sentry arrow from the corpse of a half-body salamander.

"Chen Qian, I’ve arrived at this low-rise as you instructed," he said, holding the communication button.

"I see a door to your left. It should lead upstairs. Be careful," she replied.

This self-contained building was well-positioned. Climbing to the sixth floor, the door faced the balcony at the edge; looking out beyond the railing, the uplink signal tower stood at the center of the complex.

From afar, Ji Cheng noticed numerous dark brown stains on the ground—highly conspicuous.

Chen Qian’s voice came through the earpiece: "If the signal tower in the middle is your target, it should be safe."

"The plaza east of the tower is very open. The buildings to the west and south are intact, not places where half-body salamanders usually linger."

...

Ji Cheng descended the stairs and walked further forward.

He soon realized those dark brown stains were long-decayed human corpses, with hair solidified on the ground and an overwhelming stench of rot lingering in the air.

But just as Chen Qian predicted, not a single mutated animal appeared.

Ji Cheng even circled the entire signal tower, finding no trace of half-body salamanders or other creatures.

"Chen Qian, your judgment is impressive," Ji Cheng admitted, somewhat surprised.

"It’s all thanks to the boss’s guidance," she replied.

Nicely done.

"These animals aren’t very intelligent. Once the nearby food was exhausted, they gradually left," Ji Cheng mused. "It really seems safe around here."

...

Inside the towering signal tower, over ten stories high, Ji Cheng sat cross-legged, awaiting Shana’s search results.

The uplink’s working principle was simple: compress text, data, and other information to the extreme, then send it in the form of a jump beam to its destination.

If the Empire’s galactic internet was like a highway, then the uplink was like hacking through jungle and mountains to forge a dirt path.

Low efficiency, limited transmission content, high energy consumption, but extremely covert.

"All records have been deleted. Every piece of information wiped clean and unrecoverable," Shana said, lowering her brows in remorse, even though it wasn’t her fault.

"Hmm," Ji Cheng was not surprised.

The uplink was designed to be open and accessible to anyone. Records were always deleted after use.

If intact information remained, he would suspect its authenticity.

"What do we do now?"

An Chan, perched lightly on Ji Cheng’s shoulder, voiced concern. Though her expression was hidden, her tone betrayed a hint of anxiety.

Regardless of personality, their loyalty to Ji Cheng was unwavering; they all worried for him.

"Don’t panic. I have a way."

Ji Cheng grinned, then explained:

"Anything used frequently will show signs of wear."

"And the uplink is no different. Each time a certain character or string is compressed, the next time that character is processed, it’s faster."

This wear was essentially an iteration and update of its compression algorithm. Normally, this was good, saving time and improving efficiency.

But in certain cases, it could be fatal.

According to history, during the Empire’s later period of division and civil war, the famous warlord Jin Hou Wu Ran exploited uplink wear to reconstruct key intelligence from an opponent, enabling him to prevail against stronger forces and seize the entire Jin Ge province.

...

Since then, major factions reset their uplink algorithms every two years.

But in the present era, this phenomenon had yet to attract attention; it was not called "wear" but "optimization."

"This uplink has been active for five or six years," Ji Cheng said with a smile.

He loved reading background stories when playing games, which now proved invaluable.

"I understand what you mean!" Shana said excitedly. "You’re amazing!"

"Tch," An Chan exhaled in relief, then raised her lovely face, resuming her aloof demeanor.

Ji Cheng accepted the praise calmly and began giving orders.

"Shana, input all commonly and uncommonly used characters, compress them through the uplink."

"Record the compression time for each character and select the 50 fastest ones—choosing 50 is more reasonable than 100."

Too many characters might interfere with the analysis.

...

Inside the signal tower, Shana’s pupils reflected countless swirling, flickering characters.

Suddenly, she stretched out slender, greenish fingers and gently tapped Ji Cheng’s tactical goggles.

Light specks appeared on the lenses, multiplying until fifty semi-transparent characters were neatly arranged.

Ji Cheng scratched his head, staring at the dense page, then said:

"Remove pronouns and function words like 'you', 'I', 'he', 'this', 'that'..."

Still dozens of characters remained, in a jumbled order.

"Hmm... try simulating word formation with the remaining characters. They don’t have to form complete sentences; just a few words possibly related to the clues will do."

These most frequently used characters rarely formed sentences on their own. But often, three to five keywords could reveal most of the truth.

Within ten seconds, Shana looked up.

"There are seventeen possible combinations forming words. One combination can make as many as seven words!"

"Tell me."

"Relic, smuggling, probability, Black Island, coincidence, engine, Eye of Order."