A Missed Encounter

Barbie was furious at the vague location report.

"Be more specific. Where exactly?"

The reply was disappointing.

"Sorry, no can do. Luo Shu modified his tactical terminal—disabled the GPS chip. We can only trace the MAC address, which narrows it down to Beijing."

"That's useless!" Barbie snapped. "Beijing is 16,410 square kilometers! How am I supposed to find him in that?"

To put that in perspective:

A standing human occupies ~0.2 m². A common house ant? ~2 mm²—a 100,000x difference.

Scaling Beijing down by 100,000x gives 160,000 m²—larger than the Bird's Nest stadium.

Finding Luo Shu in Beijing was like finding one specific ant in the Bird's Nest.

No wonder Barbie was livid.

The voice on the phone sighed. "Without GPS, we could've used cell tower triangulation to pinpoint him within a square kilometer."

"Then why not?"

"He added 'ByteDance' encryption—scatters his signal through Beijing's main telecom hub. We can't get closer than that."

Luo Shu didn't know encryption—his tactical terminal had upgraded itself after studying IR1901's secure phone.

Still, he kept it off most of the time to avoid detection.

Yet one brief activation was enough to alert them.

The Chase Begins

Half an hour later, Luo Shu convinced himself: Worrying about Jianjia wouldn't help. He needed power—enough to storm Area-13 and rescue her.

Meanwhile, Barbie boarded a Gulfstream G700 with Achilles' Heel, heading for China.

Even without precise coordinates, she had another tool—"White Eyes."

White Eyes could lock onto any known target within 1 km, tracking them until 10 km separation.

If Luo Shu stayed in Beijing, she'd find him eventually.

She had to move fast—before he left.

Near Miss

The next morning, the G700 landed at Beijing Capital International Airport.

Barbie's team—now with new faces Luo Shu wouldn't recognize—took a Foundation bus to the "Lord's Manor Resort."

At that moment, Luo Shu—exhausted from his nightly infiltration—was sound asleep, oblivious to the danger approaching.

The airport was in Shunyi District (northeast), while the hotel was in Daxing District (south).

Taking the G4501 Sixth Ring Road, the trip was ~60 km—under an hour.

But Barbie changed plans.

"Take the city route. Pass as many hotels as possible."

It was early morning—Westerners would still be asleep.

She was gambling that Luo Shu was still in a hotel bed.

She was right—but wrong about his boldness.

Had she gone straight to the resort, she'd have caught him in his pajamas.

Instead, the bus crawled through downtown traffic, arriving at 10 AM—by which time Luo Shu was already up.

After breakfast, he decided to play tourist—visiting the Mutianyu Great Wall to avoid suspicion.

He booked a ride-hailing car, taking the G4501—passing within 1 km of Barbie's bus near the Shuangyuan Bridge interchange.

Neither knew how close they'd come.

The Search Plan

Exhausted from the overnight flight and hours of city driving, Achilles' Heel just wanted sleep.

After settling in, Barbie ordered:

"Rest up. We move at dusk—he's less active at night."

By 5 PM, the team regrouped in the dining hall.

A white-haired, bespectacled man (codenamed "The Master") opened his laptop.

"While you slept, I mapped our search."

The screen showed Beijing with a snaking route overlay.

Barbie grinned. "The Master never misses."

This was the optimal path for White Eyes to scan the entire city efficiently.

"At 100 km/h, 12 hours daily, we'll cover 2,400 km² per day," The Master explained. "We'll find him within a week."

White Eyes smirked. "With my luck? Tonight."

Thirty minutes later, Achilles' Heel set out, driving clockwise from east to west.

At the same time, Luo Shu's ride-hailing car—also traveling clockwise on the G4501—returned from Mutianyu to the hotel.

Another perfect miss.