Chapter 482: Phoenix Nest, Final Posthumous Letter
Chapter 482: Phoenix Nest, Final Posthumous Letter
Sophia's voice echoed in the sealed car, carrying a cold certainty.
Nicholas's fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He didn't respond right away, but asked a question instead.
"Putting the final key right under the enemy's nose—that doesn't sound like his style."
That sentence landed like a stone in Sophia's chaotic thoughts.
She froze.
Right. Gordon, that paranoid lunatic so arrogant to his core—how could he hand over the most important thing to the person he hated most?
That wasn't trust. That was surrender.
He would never surrender.
A memory fragment that had been forcibly suppressed suddenly surged up.
"...Sophia, Daddy's going to build you the world's best secret base, a... nest... that belongs only to us phoenixes..."
Nest.
Sophia's breath caught.
"No." She suddenly looked up, denying her own earlier judgment. "Not at the Bennett Villa. Near the orphanage where I stayed as a child, there's an abandoned forest. He built me a cabin there."
Nicholas didn't ask a single question. He turned the car around directly and called his assistant.
"Lock onto Morning Glow District. Send Team A to seal off the forest area within three kilometers and search for a standalone abandoned cabin. Fast."
With the order given, the Martinez Group—that massive machine—started running at full speed for her alone once again.
...
Two hours later, they stood in front of a cabin so overtaken by vines and time it was barely recognizable.
It was hidden deep in a dense birch forest. Without Team A's security personnel doing a carpet search, it would have been impossible to find.
There was no lock on the door, just a rusty dial engraved with patterns.
"This is the first password he taught me."
Sophia reached out, her fingertips brushing over the cold metal engravings.
Without a moment's hesitation, she pressed them in sequence according to a ridiculous nursery rhyme from her memory.
Click.
A soft sound, and the door sealed for twenty years slowly opened inward.
Everything inside was covered in thick dust, the air filled with the smell of rotting wood.
It was small—just a small bed, a desk, and a box filled with worn-out toys.
This was the only "safe zone" of her childhood.
Nicholas's security team scanned the entire cabin with instruments, ruling out all surveillance and explosive devices.
"He left something in the wall." Sophia walked to the desk, looking at a child's drawing on the wall.
The picture showed a little girl holding the hand of a tall man, with countless white orchids flying in the background.
She reached out, touching the little girl's eye in the drawing, then the man's eye, and finally, the center of the largest orchid.
Click.
Behind the desk, the wall made a dull mechanical sound, and a hidden compartment slowly opened.
Inside lay the other half of the white jade pendant.
Beside it was a kraft paper envelope sealed with wax.
Sophia picked up the half jade pendant. The broken edge fit perfectly with the half around her neck.
She opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside.
Gordon's familiar handwriting—elegant yet tinged with madness—appeared before her eyes.
"My dear daughter, my Phoenix:
When you find this place, it means you're strong enough—strong enough to face all the truth. Forgive me for making you grow up this way. That woman from the Bennett family—what she wants isn't technology, it's godhood. She destroyed everything I had and wanted to turn you into her most perfect tool. I couldn't beat her, but I could destroy her chessboard.
I made myself the final experiment. I failed, and I succeeded. I sealed all my memories and knowledge in this jade pendant. It's not a key. It's... me.
Put it together, my daughter. You'll remember everything, including those memories about 'them' that I deliberately buried for you. Graham... my other pathetic student—he thinks you're working for the Bennett family. He wants to take my 'legacy' from you. Foolish and pitiful.
Go, my Phoenix. Use everything I left you to complete my unfinished... redemption. Burn those thieves coveting the divine throne. Show them what color a phoenix's flame really is.
—Your father, Gordon"
The letter slipped from her fingertips.
Sophia picked up the two halves of the jade, and without a moment's hesitation, pressed them together.
Crack.
The jade pendant merged perfectly into one.
There was no earth-shattering glow, just a faint light that flowed along the intricate totem patterns on the jade, then disappeared entirely into Sophia's palm.
A warm current traveled up her arm and straight to her brain.
Whoosh.
All the fuzzy, fragmented, forcibly implanted memories were completely sorted, integrated, and restored by that warm flow in this moment.
The images became crystal clear.
...
In the lab, a young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses with a gaunt face blocked Gordon desperately.
"Professor! You can't continue! The Bennett family has made their move. The Anderson family... the Anderson family is gone! You need to leave now!"
"Dylan, move aside."
"I won't! You take Sophia and go! I'll hold them off!"
...
Outside the iron fence of the orphanage.
Another young man, tall and straight, his eyes filled with undisguised pain and struggle.
He looked at Sophia playing in the mud in the courtyard, his lips moving, but he couldn't say a word.
He thought she was bait deliberately left by Candice, the new heir to the "Phoenix Project."
That face... was Graham's, twenty years younger.
So he wasn't an enemy.
He was just a pitiful avenger who used the wrong methods.
Sophia slowly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, all confusion and pain had faded, leaving only a fire-tempered, hard calm.
She looked down at the complete jade pendant in her hand, now warm and translucent.
She wasn't anyone's creation or anyone's continuation.
She was Sophia.
Nicholas had been standing quietly behind her. The moment she opened her eyes, he showed her a document he'd just received.
"The Bennett Group's stock price started showing unusual fluctuations half an hour ago."
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried the force of an approaching storm.
"I sent your father's recording, along with some 'interesting' materials, anonymously to a few people in Emerald City who enjoy watching drama."
Sophia looked at the green line on the screen, slowly declining, and a cold smile curved at the corner of her mouth.