Click. The hot gun barrel pressed against Linden's forehead. He sighed helplessly... This Fat Cat was truly an incorrigible liability! The situation was obvious; CC had been cornered! Her last words were nothing more than a bluff, a desperate gamble to see if she could trick a breakthrough from Fat Cat.

Unexpectedly, Fat Cat played right into her hands! CC had no idea what was in the safe, what Fat Cat's goal was, or what he most desperately needed... Yet Fat Cat blurted it out himself: "An invitation! Is there an invitation to The Dawn Code in the safe?!"

It was truly a case of "protesting one's innocence too vehemently." Was the son of a Fields mathematician really this slow-witted?

After that, Fat Cat's brain went into overload. And CC, feigning surrender by putting her hands behind her head, was just to retrieve the gun hidden in her coiled hair and deliver a headshot.

...

"Just shoot." Linden was getting tired. Since his plan to break the deadlock had failed, there was no point in staying here.

"You truly are the most nonchalant person I've ever met about life," CC said with genuine emotion from behind her Ultraman mask. "First, impersonating me, getting into his car, then causing such a huge commotion here... are you really not afraid of death at all?"

"Stop wasting time, get on with it." Linden closed his eyes, ready to wake up and go back to sleep. "But I still want to know the answer to that question." He pursed his lips. "You're going to kill me anyway, so why not tell me the answer? It'd be a good deed, letting me die with understanding."

"What exactly do you want to ask?" CC still held the gun firmly.

"I just want to know if there's any connection between us two," Linden opened his eyes. "I don't know how to describe it. But clearly, this isn't the first time you've seen me, is it? At least you're not completely a stranger to me. There must be some special reason why you haven't just shot me dead."

"If you kill me in a moment, I won't have any complaints, kill me as you please. So now, can you honestly tell me—" Linden, with the gun still pressed against him, looked directly into CC's eyes. "Have we two ever met before?"

"..."

"..."

CC raised her gun, her serious gaze meeting Linden's. "No."

Bang!!!

...

...

A deafening gunshot. The acrid smell of gunpowder assailed him. A violent ringing in his ears made Linden's entire head throb. Piercing pain shot through his ear—

Wait.

Ear?

Linden opened his eyes... He found himself not in his familiar bedroom, but still in this safe-filled vault. The gun barrel in front of him was emitting white smoke... slightly shifted to the right. The bullet had pierced Linden's ear cartilage, embedding itself in the stone wall behind his ear. Blood slowly dripped from his shattered eardrum.

"You're not going to kill me even with that?" Linden was genuinely incredulous. He had done such outrageous things to her just now, and she hadn't even flinched when killing Fat Cat. So why, when it came to him, was she hesitant to kill? This was clearly odd... If this scene were in a wuxia drama, it would be 100% certain that this demoness had fallen in love with him!

"Just go, don't interfere with what I'm doing." CC turned back silently, holstered her gun, and walked towards the safes. She began clicking and clacking, trying to crack the code.

Linden stood rooted to the spot, silent... Time passed, second by second. Until there was a click, a crisp electrical sound, and the main circuit was restored.

Woop-woop! Woop-woop! Woop-woop! Woop-woop!

Alarms blared everywhere. CC punched the unopened safe with a sigh.

Linden walked up to her. "I have a question."

"Where do you get so many questions from!!" CC's emotions were clearly getting out of control; she turned back, gritting her teeth and shouting, "It's all because you wasted time here!"

"Just one, just one." Linden smiled apologetically, pointing at the safe. "Is the invitation to The Dawn Code really in this Linden's safe?"

However.

There was no reply.

Woop-woop! Woop-woop! Woop-woop! Woop-woop!

Amidst the alarms, CC stood up and walked towards the large hole in the wall. She didn't look back.

Boom!!!

Boom!!!

Boom!!!

The scorching white light once again engulfed the world, incinerating everything.

...

...

Sigh...

In his bedroom, Linden sighed, his eyes still closed. The duvet felt unusually heavy today, pressing down on him, making it hard to breathe.

"Sigh..." He let out a sigh into the air. "For some inexplicable reason, what is that woman trying to do?" He truly couldn't figure it out.

Linden yawned, covered his eyes, and rubbed them vigorously. Daytime work and social engagements were exhausting enough; couldn't his dreams offer some lighthearted plotlines? Linden found himself increasingly admiring his own imagination. The plot in his dreams was thrilling and tightly woven... If it were written as a novel and published, it would surely fetch a guaranteed contract from a top author.

"Time to sleep, time to sleep. Gotta hustle tomorrow." Linden turned over.

He slept without dreams.

...

The next day.

Linden met a colleague from the production department at the front desk. The colleague waved and walked over. "Team Leader Lin, your Lynx doll sample is ready. Here's one for you."

The colleague handed him an exquisitely crafted doll. It was about the size of a football, with a pleasant texture and feel, and all the details and expressions were spot on. The fluffy little tail at the back was particularly adorable.

"This is really good," Linden praised. He smiled and patted his colleague from the production department on the shoulder. "I'll take this one to Director Zhao first; you can send a few more to my office later."

The colleague nodded and left.

"Hey! Team Leader Lin! Are you going to Director Zhao's office?" The young lady at the front desk called out to him. "This morning, a lady dropped off an invitation, saying it was for our Director Zhao Yingjun... Would you mind taking it up to Director Zhao?"

"Sure, give it to me." He was going to Zhao Yingjun's office anyway; it was no trouble at all.

Linden took the invitation. It was a dark red invitation, like a folded greeting card. The opening of the invitation was sealed with a lump of red wax, obscuring the contents. On closer inspection... the wax bore an exquisite, high-quality seal.

"Is Director Zhao's friend getting married?" Linden said casually, flipping the invitation over to look at the back—

A chill spread through his body... He suddenly remembered what Gaoyang had said in the bar: "What's so strange about things from reality appearing in dreams?"

"It's when things from dreams appear in reality that real big trouble starts!"

Linden frowned deeply. Staring at the back of the dark red cardstock, five gilded characters were boldly emblazoned—

THE DAWN CODE