The three female chiefs left, and Silvia and Annina were asleep too. The world without women was a quiet one. Xia Lei arrived at the villa on factory grounds, carrying a backpack. The villa had been under constant guard, by his own guards and the Chinese National Guard. No one else had moved in after Silvia and Annina had moved out. Under the cover of night, the lightless villa looked like a haunted house. 

The two Special Forces soldiers guarding the door saluted Xia Lei. Xia Lei nodded in acknowledgement and went into the villa unhindered. 

Xia Lei opened up the backpack when he got to the underground laboratory and took out what was inside. There was just a notebook, that silver-coloured alloy, and the ancient canvas which had what was on it vanished. These things were what he had taken from Bobbio, Italy, from da Vinci’s labyrinth. There were a few other things, like da Vinci’s manuscripts and oil paintings, but he had not brought those things here. 

The laboratory was silent. 

Xia Lei spaced out while he looked at those three things. 

The ancient alloy, AE,...