Jiang Yuan and Qin Xin were already at odds, and Qin Xin had begun to disregard Jiang Yuan’s own wishes.

Jiang Yuan was a very proud person. He didn’t like placing his hopes in other people.

A little later.

The two of them flew home by helicopter. But when they reached the rooftop helipad, Jiang Yuan saw another helicopter already parked there. Four fully armed military police stood nearby. What stood out was that Jiang Yuan had never seen any of the gear they were carrying.

Whether from games or movies, none of their equipment looked familiar to Jiang Yuan.

“Yi Nanye, who are they?”

“Probably a special unit from the Superpower Management Bureau. They’ve been assigned to keep an eye on you for now.”

“You’re going out later?”

“Who do you think is going to meet Li Xiaoyan?”

Yi Nanye rolled her eyes. There was no way they’d send a special unit to tail Li Xiaoyan. How would they catch anyone that way?

Of course she was going. She was an inconspicuous target, unlikely to be noticed, and her ability was surprisingly well suited to tracking and infiltration. The moment someone’s attention slipped, she could turn into a blur and dart away—or close in on them.

As for losing her target?

That was impossible for her.

“All right, got it. Be careful.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. What happened with Zheng Chengjie was just an accident.”

Yi Nanye wasn’t too fond of Jiang Yuan showing concern for her. She couldn’t help feeling he was looking down on her again.

“Then I’ll wait for your good news.”

“Just go back and lie down.”

With that, they parted on the rooftop. Yi Nanye held the helicopter in a low hover. Once Jiang Yuan had jumped out, she flew off at once.

Two of the four squad members immediately stepped forward to take charge of Jiang Yuan.

They didn’t even need to say anything. Jiang Yuan already knew what to do. On his way downstairs, he spotted two more people patrolling the stairwell. Two stood guard outside his door, and three others stood rigidly in the corners of his home like statues.

The special unit had eleven people in total: presumably one leader and ten squad members.

“Jiang Yuan, the mandatory monitoring function on your supervision device has now been activated. You won’t be able to leave this room until it’s deactivated. If you do, you’ll immediately be subjected to Neural Punishment.”

The squad member standing closest to Jiang Yuan told him that he wouldn’t be allowed to go out from now on. Jiang Yuan had no objections.

“Understood. Are there any other things I need to know?”

“No.”

“Thank you.”

Jiang Yuan was fairly polite to them. Once they’d finished talking, he went straight to his bedroom and got online on his computer.

First, he opened the post Li Xiaoyan had made. Then he took out his phone and compiled the information using the notes he’d made that afternoon.

Next, he opened a map app and started marking locations with pins.

Before long, Jiang Yuan had pinned the IP locations of everyone who’d asked Li Xiaoyan to meet up.

Then Jiang Yuan used software provided by the Superpower Management Bureau to pull in the unscreened comments and automatically mark their locations.

Soon, the map Jiang Yuan needed appeared on his computer screen.

With Li Xiaoyan’s location at the center, markers crowded the surrounding area. They came in different colors and fell into three categories.

The first category consisted of people who didn’t seem to have any particular agenda and simply wanted to meet Li Xiaoyan.

The second category consisted of people who wanted to ask Li Xiaoyan out just to see what would happen.

The third category consisted of people with a very clear agenda who wanted to meet Li Xiaoyan.

The first two groups were scattered irregularly across the country and even overseas. Most of the third group came from the city and nearby towns, though some had foreign IPs too. Jiang Yuan immediately enabled the filtering function and started looking for patterns. In the end, he actually found one.

He then filtered the accounts and marked those that had been registered recently, had frequently changing IP locations, or had frequently changing login devices. Their distribution became much clearer. The system had recorded suspicious activity for over seventy percent of them.

In other words, they’d triggered anomalies by changing their network IPs.

These were the people who needed the closest attention.

And these were the people Li Xiaoyan was mainly being sent to meet right now.

“These guys are probably all low-level operatives. There’s no point unless we catch someone in charge…”

“Can Yi Nanye pull it off?”

Jiang Yuan stared at the map and tapped his fingers on the desk, unable to help doubting Yi Nanye’s abilities. The higher-ups had asked him to make this map because doing it in-house at the Superpower Management Bureau risked a leak. But only one department monitored Jiang Yuan’s network.

In other words, only a small number of people could see what Jiang Yuan made. And if it did leak, it’d be easier to investigate internally. Still, Jiang Yuan had his doubts. They’d really assigned such specialized work to him?

The Superpower Management Bureau sure knew how to come up with ideas.

Eleven at night.

Yi Nanye got home at eleven and reported that she hadn’t found anything yet. Jiang Yuan hadn’t expected her to uncover anything in a single day. There were still plenty of things he was unsure about.

He might only be a student, but he’d grown up in the internet age and knew his way around the online world.

Social media accounts could be bought and sold, or run by someone else. Could a crooked company have taken money from terrorists and been operating these accounts behind the scenes? Or was the company itself backed by outside forces?

Had the Superpower Management Bureau noticed this and asked its technical department to investigate?

Or was there some reason they couldn’t?

Or had someone been covering things up at a key point?

After all, before the people from the future returned to the present, the world hadn’t been united. Countries and groups had all been locked in open and covert power struggles.

“Jiang Yuan, what are you thinking about?”

After taking a shower, Yi Nanye came into Jiang Yuan’s room. She had a room of her own, but she never went in there. She spent almost all her time in his room instead.

Thinking back to when she’d just gotten home, she’d seen Jiang Yuan staring at his computer screen, deep in thought, as soon as she walked in.

“Just thinking about a few things.”

“You’re the only one on your end. They’re just asking you to do some basic analysis, so do that and you’re done. The Superpower Management Bureau’s tech department is full of professionals. Don’t get ahead of yourself and overthink it.”

Yi Nanye thought Jiang Yuan was making a problem out of nothing. He was a student. No matter how smart he was, could he really outperform a team of professionals?

“I believe their tech department is professional, but I don’t think the terrorists’ technical skills are that bad either. They must have support from certain powerful groups. Our focus should still be on the ground.”

Jiang Yuan thought that trying to outdo them online was a waste of time.

“Then what do you want to do?”

“Tell Li Xiaoyan to use her ability to gather information starting tomorrow.”

“That’s not a good idea. Her ability really can’t be exposed. It’s already dangerous enough to have her in the public eye.”

“Is that what you think, or is it the Bureau’s decision?”

“The Bureau’s.”

“Hmm…”

Jiang Yuan nodded, then fell back into thought.