The silver needle remained embedded in the Nanmu pillar of the West Wing.
“Brother, the medicine is ready,” Ruyi whispered, walking into the main hall with a bowl of viscous, bitter-smelling liquid. The scent of almonds hung heavy in the air. Her voice was pressed so low only Dashan could hear.
It was Madame Shen’s formula for “Silencing Powder.” In three hours, it would make one’s throat raspy and broken, sounding like an old tape stretched to its limit. In the old Xu family underworld, actors used this to ruin their voices and avoid performing for warlords. Today, it would serve as an acoustic filter against high-frequency sampling surveillance.
“Keep the medicine, Ruyi,” Dashan said, pointing to the wall. “Zhao’s men have already attached sensor patches to our blue bricks. Madame Shen, invite the ‘Keepers of Ritual’ to light the incense.”
Shen nodded. She walked to the center of the courtyard, holding a stack of yellowed ledgers. Instead of whispering, she cleared her throat and projected her voice with the resonant cadence of local opera, loud enough for the walls to carry:
“Thirty years ago, the Rose Garden burned. Wan Changqing borrowed the craftsmen’s ‘momentum’ to repay Old City’s ‘debts’. Today, before the spirit, the old accounts are settled. The secret key to the trust lies beneath the tongue of that—”
She paused deliberately for three seconds.
To Zhao Tianqi’s monitoring equipment outside, those three seconds of silence were like a black hole, sucking in all attention.
“—lies beneath the tongue of that stone lion.”
At that exact moment, Ruyi’s silver needle scraped sharply against the inside of the Nanmu pillar.
Zzzt—Crack!
A tiny surge of static electricity traveled through the old house’s rotting wooden structure. This was Ruyi’s calculation: if the pillar could conduct sound, it could conduct static. Using the moisture (trace moisture) in the antique furniture, she fed the listening device a spicy mouthful of high-voltage interference.
Outside, inside Zhao Tianqi’s SUV:
“Mr. Zhao! We got it!” the technician exclaimed, pointing at the screen. “Keywords: Stone Lion, Tongue, Secret Key. Location confirmed!”
Zhao stared at the waveform, his eyes narrowing like a hawk’s. The algorithm was frantically cross-referencing Shen’s voiceprint in the background.
“Voiceprint match: 89%. Background noise includes wood cracking, consistent with the old house’s acoustic field,” the system reported confidently.
“Shall we move in?” the bodyguard asked, hand on his holster.
“Not yet,” Zhao said, waving a hand. His fingernail dug a white scratch into the leather armrest. “That’s Dashan’s trump card. He’s saying this now to lure us into breaking the ‘Silence Protocol’. But he forgot: algorithms don’t just hear sounds; they calculate greed. He wants to fish? I’ll snap his rod.”
Inside the courtyard, Dashan was crouching beside the very stone lion Shen had mentioned. In his hand, he held no secret key, but a sharp skinning knife.
“Big Brother, Zhao isn’t moving,” Xiaotian whispered from behind a window crack. “Did he see through it?”
“No,” Dashan said without looking up, scraping the knife against the stone crevice to create a harsh, metallic grinding sound. “He’s waiting for his algorithm to digest this fake intel. He’s waiting for logical closure. Since he wants the truth, I’ll weave him the most perfect lie.”
Dashan stood up. From his pocket, he pulled a circuit board salvaged from a destroyed drone. With deliberate, exaggerated movements, he stuffed it deep into the stone lion’s mouth.
He knew the sensor array outside had already captured the frequency of metal colliding with stone. This physical authenticity was “hard data” that no AI could refuse. To the algorithm, Sound + Metal Detection = Truth.
“Ruyi, pull the needle from the pillar,” Dashan said, brushing the dust from his hands. “The fish has bitten. Time to reel in the net.”
He looked at the wall, a cold smile playing on his lips.
“Let’s see how Zhao likes his dose of Logical Virus.”
[SYSTEM ALERT: PHYSICAL ANOMALY DETECTED.]
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
[OBJECT IDENTIFIED: HIGH-DENSITY CIRCUIT BOARD.]
[LOCATION CONFIRMED: STONE LION MOUTH.]
[PROBABILITY OF KEY LOCATION: 99.8%.]
[RECOMMENDATION: INITIATE RECOVERY OPERATION IMMEDIATELY.]
Inside the car, Zhao’s screen flashed green. The trap was sprung.
“Go,” Zhao ordered, his eyes gleaming with greed. “Break the line. Get that board.”
But as his men surged forward, crossing the ink line, Uncle Wang didn’t move. He just watched them, a faint smile on his lips.
Because the real trap wasn’t the stone lion.
The real trap was what would happen when they touched it.
[WARNING: PROXIMITY TRIGGER ACTIVATED.]
[PAYLOAD: ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (LOCALIZED).]
[TARGET: ALL UNshielded ELECTRONICS WITHIN 10 METERS.]
Dashan and Ruyi just fed the AI a perfect lie wrapped in 'Hard Data'. Zhao thinks he's won, but he doesn't know that the stone lion is actually a Trojan Horse! ????
And that EMP payload? Oh, Zhao’s high-tech gear is about to become very expensive paperweights. ????
Next Chapter: The fireworks begin! What happens when high-tech mercenaries meet an old-school electromagnetic trap? And will Zhao survive the backlash?
Question: Do you trust sensors or your gut instinct more? ??
