The final leg of his return journey saw Yang Ying depart from Sydney, staging a diversion. To complicate the investigation for the Baiyuan Cult, he purchased a ticket to Cairo but never boarded the plane. Instead, he slipped into the airport restroom, donned his electronic camouflage suit, bypassed the boarding gate entirely, boarded the flight to Hong Kong, and then transferred in Hong Kong to a flight bound for Wudang Mountain.

Yang Ying remained invisible throughout the entire transit, rotating between two electronic camouflage suits—one in use, the other charging. The journey took fourteen hours to reach Wudang Mountain, most of which was spent waiting for connections, but he deemed it worthwhile.

Though he wasn't sure how long he could evade them, the entire Swordsman Qualification Exam spanned only four days; gaining even one or two days' delay for the Baiyuan Cult was a victory.

At the foot of Wudang Mountain, the scene was already a sea of humanity. Such was the fervent global reverence for swordsmanship that the bi-annual Swordsman Qualification Exam had become a grand spectacle.

Since swordsmanship emphasizes real combat, the rules stipulated that one hundred thousand aspiring swordsmen would compete in one-on-one ring duels for the hundred available Swordsman titles. This method was inherently random; it was not uncommon for a swordsman with genuine master-level skill to face an equally formidable opponent in the very first bout and be eliminated, though such misfortune could only be blamed on poor luck.

The night before the competition began, Yang Ying emerged from the airport wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a scarf. It was the coldest part of winter, and many people on the street were dressed similarly, save for the missing sunglasses.

Regarding his choice to wear shades at night, no one bothered to question him.

Yang Ying arrived at a street-side taxi stand—a semi-open booth about the size of a phone booth, containing a control console.

Yang Ying pressed the button on the console to summon a cab. A ticket slipped out from the slot beneath the console, bearing a string of numbers—the queue number, designed to maintain order when many passengers were waiting.

Soon, the nearest taxi arrived. There was no driver inside; all vehicles operated via autonomous satellite navigation. This system was highly perfected, possessing driving skills equivalent to a seasoned chauffeur, strictly adhering to traffic laws, and capable of preventing accidents with 100% certainty, unless another vehicle deliberately caused a collision. Due to its exceptional safety record, this technology had entirely replaced human drivers; the profession of taxi driver no longer existed.

The front windshield of the taxi served as a display screen, currently showing a sequence of numbers corresponding to the ticket Yang Ying held.

After entering the cab, Yang Ying inserted his ticket into the slot before the seat. The windshield screen displayed options for inputting the destination—it was a touchscreen interface. Yang Ying typed in the name of his hotel, and the taxi automatically pulled into traffic toward its destination.

If the ticket number was incorrect, the vehicle would not respond, and if the correct ticket wasn't received within three minutes, the taxi would simply drive itself away.

Upon reaching the hotel, Yang Ying bypassed the front desk and the process of registering for a new room, proceeding directly to the elevator and up to a luxurious suite.

Knock… knock-knock…

Yang Ying rapped the door in a pattern of one long and two short beats. After a moment, the door opened.

A massive, burly Western man stood in the doorway. He bowed slightly, ushered Yang Ying inside, and then closed the door firmly.

Once the door was shut, the large man turned back, snapped to attention, and saluted. "Sir, Private First Class Green of the Machine Gunner Corps reporting to the officer."

"Good. Do you have anything to report to me?"

Yang Ying returned the salute. Green was one of the agents dispatched to Earth by the Tran Corporation, operating under a legitimate cover. His assignment on Earth was complete, and Yang Ying was borrowing his credentials to secure the hotel room as a safe house.

"Yes, Colonel Callya wishes to be contacted upon your arrival. He has preliminary findings regarding the Baiyuan Cult to report to you, Sir. My report is concluded!" Green stood ramrod straight, his face taut, his gaze fixed straight ahead.

Yang Ying nodded. "Understood. Your assignment for me is complete; do you have further arrangements?"

"None, Sir!"

"In that case, continue to provide cover for me here while I select a room inside."

"Yes, Sir!"

Yang Ying entered one of the inner rooms, retrieved some snacks and beverages from the refreshment cabinet, and sank onto the soft, resilient leather sofa. He activated his communicator to contact Callya.

On the screen, Callya snapped a crisp salute to Yang Ying. "Sir, have you met Green?"

Yang Ying nodded. "How is the investigation into the Baiyuan Cult progressing?"

Before he began his globetrotting detour, Yang Ying had instructed Callya to closely monitor the movements of the Baiyuan Cult. His seemingly random itinerary wasn't just an evasion tactic; it was also designed to flush them out.

"We intercepted several key pieces of data across the global network. Analysis suggests the Baiyuan Cult has a significant number of moles embedded within various government departments, allowing them to track your movements through official channels quite openly."

Callya forwarded the critical data packets to Yang Ying’s communicator.

Yang Ying glanced over them. They were all internal communiques sent from regional transportation and police investigation departments to an unknown address. The content was uniformly like: "Mr. Y appeared in location X on date Y," and "Mr. Y purchased a ticket for flight Z destined for location W." The final message read: "Mr. Y has gone missing in Sydney; he purchased a ticket to Cairo before disappearing."

Yang Ying understood immediately.

"This Mr. Y must be me."

"Affirmative. Based on our cross-referencing of this data, wherever you travel, this information follows. Besides yourself, Sir, there is no one else on the planet whose movements match those of this Mr. Y," Callya stated with absolute certainty.

With over ten billion people on Earth, there might be others who traveled widely like Yang Ying, but the odds of sharing passage on the same ten flights during this specific timeframe were minuscule.

Yang Ying frowned. "I hadn't realized the degree to which Earth's various agencies have been corrupted."

However, after a moment of deep consideration, the answer became clear: "Mind control techniques, when stripped down, are not complex. They are particularly easy to use against unawakened civilians. The people of the Nian Neng Temple sometimes employ them; it’s hardly surprising for the Baiyuan Cultists."

He then inquired, "Regarding the destination of this information—this unknown address—what are your thoughts?"

Callya shook his head. "The mastermind is extremely cautious. That address is shrouded in layers of obfuscation. Our current equipment cannot crack it, though a system assisted by the Superbrain at the Command Center could decrypt it quickly."

The Human Command Center was the crystallization of Human technology. Base commanders could even link their own brains with the base's Superbrain, forming a semi-intelligent, semi-artificial consciousness—a state that Murphy currently inhabited.

Yang Ying nodded. "You will have that soon enough. Wait until I reach the Asteroid Belt. Everything on Earth is constrained; only in the Asteroid Belt can one truly have boundless freedom."

"We await your return, Sir," Callya replied from the screen, bowing deeply.