Level-One Beacon

Three years ago, a tunnel on Qingfeng Mountain collapsed and exploded.

Lin Yan, a member of the special operations team, trusted the “optimal rescue plan” provided by the command System and led his team inside. In the end, he was the only one who made it out alive.

Years later, Lin Yan is in command of the national-level Chenxing Rescue Team. The Hongyan satellite constellation conducts full-area patrols, the Beichen II System models disasters, and swarms of drones, humanoid robots, and suborbital airdrops weave an aerial and space-based rescue network. Everyone says technology can pinpoint every dead end. Only he knows the truth: data can be tampered with, algorithms have blind spots, and no matter how advanced the technology, it cannot calculate the good and evil in people’s hearts or account for every glimmer of hope in a desperate situation.

When floods strike Xiling Mountain and satellite signals go awry, he rappels down a sheer cliff to save an asthmatic girl. When an underground utility tunnel collapses and falsified blueprints throw the model off, he finds an escape route by relying on an old worker’s account. When a deep-sea drilling platform erupts in flames and an electromagnetic pulse disables the equipment, he rappels into the inferno and shuts the valve by hand. When torrential rain floods the city and the AI’s predictions fail, he joins forces with local volunteers to reconnect the city’s safety network.

From mountain gorges to underground utility lines, from deep-sea platforms to bustling cities, some rush toward danger on the front lines, while others hold them up from behind.

Satellites watch from above, equipment is at hand, but the human heart is the compass that never shifts.

As rescue operation after rescue operation unfolds, every disaster points to tampered engineering inspection software, and to the truth sealed away three years ago. Together, they form a single web of darkness.

He must save more than the lives before him. He must also defend the bottom line that protects every life beacon in the world.