Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

Chapter 970 Burning

Gear Puzzle The whistle of the steam locomotive pierced the haze of the foggy city of Tran City, and Lin Xia paused with her hand holding the wrench. The brass watch parts in front of the workbench glowed coldly. This was the seventh faulty mechanical watch she had repaired this month - but the moment she unscrewed the cover, her pupils suddenly contracted. The back of the dial was engraved with strange gear patterns, and between those precisely interlocking metal teeth, there were tiny secret codes. Lin Xia held her breath and put the magnifying glass in front of her eyes. She couldn't understand those symbols, but as a watchmaker who had inherited the tradition for three generations, she was keenly aware that the rotation rules of these gears were completely different from those of ordinary clocks. "Ms. Lin, is it fixed?" A sharp female voice came from behind. The woman in the black silk cheongsam held a diamond-studded handbag, and her scarlet nails tapped the counter impatiently. Lin Xia closed the cover calmly: "It will take two more days to debug. The escapement of this watch is a bit special." The woman snorted coldly and left with her mink shawl. Lin Xia looked at her back disappearing in the fog, her heart beating like a drum. She remembered the pawnshop owner's instructions three days ago: "If you find anything unusual, go to the dock warehouse immediately." At this moment, she clenched the copper key in the shape of a watch needle, which was the only relic her father gave her before he died. When night fell, Lin Xia wrapped her windbreaker tightly and walked towards the dock along the wet bluestone road. The iron door of the warehouse was half-closed, and the kerosene lamp cast a swaying shadow on the wall. "Come in." The deep male voice startled her and she took a half step back. A man with round-framed glasses walked out of the darkness. He was dressed in a straight silver-gray suit and his tie clip was shaped like a gear. "Lu Chen." The man handed over a cup of steaming black tea. "I heard that your father was a mechanic at the Royal Academy of Sciences?" Lin Xia took a sip of tea cautiously, and the taste of bitter almonds rose on the tip of her tongue. Lu Chen chuckled: "Don't worry, it's English black tea with absinthe. Miss Lin, do you know that the owner of the watch in your hand is a spy from an enemy country who sneaked into the city of Telan?" Suddenly, there was a sound of glass breaking outside the window, and Lin Xia instinctively fell to the ground. The bullet grazed her hair and nailed into the wooden beam. Lu Chen had already overturned the table to block her. The hum of gears turned in the darkness, and three mechanical puppets broke through the window, with blue electric light at their joints. "Take it!" Lu Chen stuffed a pocket pistol into her and took out his pocket watch. Complex runes appeared on the surface of the pocket watch, and as he turned it, the puppet's movements were obviously slow. Lin Xia gritted her teeth, aimed at the gear at the puppet's neck and pulled the trigger. With the sound of metal collision, the puppet fell to the ground with a bang, and parts were scattered all over the floor. "Who are you?" Lin Xia asked, panting. Lu Chen wiped the pocket watch, his eyes flashing dangerously behind the lens: "I am your only ally. The enemy is making the ultimate weapon that can cause a steam explosion, and that watch is the key to unlock the core device." In the following days, Lin Xia moved into a mechanical workshop on the outskirts of the city under Lu Chen's arrangement. The basement of the workshop was filled with various precision instruments, and the map on the wall circled the key facilities of Telan City with a red pen. Lu Chen placed the mysterious mechanical watch on the inspection table. As the gears were disassembled, a transparent film slid out of the interlayer of the dial. "Holographic projection code." Lu Chen pointed the film at the light, and a dynamic gear matrix immediately appeared on the wall. Lin Xia looked closer and found that there were micro-text engraved on the edge of each gear, which combined into a top-secret formula of the Royal Academy of Sciences. "This is impossible!" she exclaimed, "These formulas should have disappeared with the laboratory explosion three years ago!" Lu Chen looked solemn: "Someone is using the old drawings of the Academy of Sciences to make weapons. Miss Lin, your father participated in that project back then. The copper key he left behind may be the key to cracking the code." Just as they were trying their best to decipher the code, strange explosions occurred one after another in Telan City. The steam boiler at the chemical plant suddenly lost control, the locomotive at the train station derailed, and the whole city was shrouded in panic. During the deciphering process, Lin Xia discovered that the word "Abyss Gear" appeared repeatedly in the code - it was a forbidden device that was said to cause the steam of the earth veins to run wild. "We must stop them!" Lin Xia clutched the deciphered coordinates, which was the abandoned site of the Royal Academy of Sciences. Lu Chen stopped her: "Wait until I deploy the manpower..." "It's too late!" Lin Xia shook off his hand, "Do you think I don't know what you are hesitating about? You are a double agent, who wants to stop the conspiracy but doesn't want to expose your identity!" Lu Chen was silent for a moment, took off his glasses and wiped the lenses: "It's up to you. But when you get there, don't trust anyone." The old site of the Academy of Sciences was shrouded in thick fog, and the rusty gears made a whimpering sound in the ruins. Lin Xia held the copper key, her heartbeat almost breaking her eardrums. When she inserted the key into a moss-covered iron door, the whole building suddenly shook. At the end of the passage, the woman in the black silk cheongsam was standing in front of the huge gear device with a cold smile on her lips. "It's you." Lin Xia raised her pistol. "Did you kill the pawnshop owner?" The woman stroked the runes on the device. "Poor Miss Lin, don't you understand yet? Your father is the designer of the 'Abyss Gear', and you are just the bait for us to retrieve the device." Before she finished speaking, Lu Chen's voice came from behind: "Put down the gun, Lin Xia." She turned around in surprise, only to see Lu Chen's gun pointed at her. The woman laughed wildly: "Look, this is your ally. As long as you kill her, I will give you wealth and glory." Lin Xia's hands trembled slightly, and tears blurred her vision. Suddenly, she inserted the copper key fiercely into the control console beside her. The whole device made a harsh roar, and the gears began to rotate in reverse. "Are you crazy?!" The woman screamed, "This will cause an explosion in the whole city!" "You are wrong." Lin Xia wiped away her tears, "My father left a backup plan when designing it. Lu Chen, start the countermeasure program!" Lu Chen, who had been silent all the time, suddenly pulled the trigger, and the bullet flew past Lin Xia's ear and hit the energy core behind the woman. In the violent explosion, he protected Lin Xia under him. When the smoke cleared, Lin Xia woke up in the ruins. Lu Chen was lying not far away, his suit stained with blood, but he was still holding the mysterious mechanical watch. "The code... the last gear..." he said breathlessly. Lin Xia opened the cover of the watch tremblingly, and on the deepest gear, she saw the dying message engraved by her father: "Protect the light, even if the price is to burn yourself." Three months later, the city of Telan has regained its former vitality. In Lin Xia's watch shop, a brand new mechanical clock hangs on the wall. Every time it strikes the hour, a pattern of a dove of peace composed of gears will appear on the clock face. In a corner of the city, Lu Chen, wearing a hood, watched all this silently. In his pocket watch, there is a note left by Lin Xia for him: "Next time we meet, I'll treat you to wormwood tea."