Chapter 67

In life, you will always encounter some people and things that make you feel, in this unspeakable pain, that you really just need to smile - like Mr. Wang Yansheng at this moment.

What does it mean to "have to go through with it even if it's not working"? He had a free and profound experience of it.

This special agent leader was choked up, feeling thoroughly disheartened. He could only put on a solemn face and throw out a sentence, "Of course we need to investigate and confirm on the scene when encountering an unknown emergency situation, didn't your superior explain this to you?"

Fu Luo answered methodically, "Yes."

What kind of honest person is this, it must be because of Yang Ning, being influenced by him. In just a year or two, the silly girl who used to believe whatever others said at school has actually learned this trick!

Wang Yansheng angrily closed the communication, his movements swift, making people wonder if he had dragged Fu Luo into his blacklist.

The entire battleship was quiet; everyone felt they knew too much. Only Ye Wenlin laughed stylishly, patting Fu Luo's shoulder, and said with gratification, "Not bad, you have the same flair I did when I was younger."

Hearing such shameless remarks, Fu Luo instantly felt a deep worry about her own character - always mixing with these people, she felt she was about to turn bad.

It had been five hours since the rescue team set out.

In the occupied area, in a narrow underground alley.

At this moment, the ground had already cracked and the flames of war were continuous.

This kind of underground alley was a typical product of slums. The buildings here had an extremely high floor area ratio. Residents of two buildings could open their windows to salute and shake hands. There were often some narrow gaps left between the buildings, where stray animals and drainage pipes were located. Only very, very thin people could squeeze in.

Near the drain, there was a small space, probably not even big enough for a large dog to crawl into, but a thin teenager was curled up inside.

He was dressed in gray, wearing a hood. At first glance, he almost blended in with the color of the walls. In his palm was a scalable computer they all called a "ring face".

This thing was completely transparent, with a refractive index difference from air that was negligible to the naked eye. It could expand to the size of A4 paper at most, with a thickness of only about 1 millimeter. At its smallest, it could shrink into a small, teardrop-shaped ring face, inlaid on a mount, looking like an ordinary ornament.

But it had the most powerful transmission and processing systems and, when manufactured, was connected to the virtual signal system for ground-to-air communication relay.

This kind of "ring face" computer was a product of the last month or two, coming from the black market.

The progress bar displayed on the "ring face" was advancing at a snail's pace, and the teenager's expression couldn't help but be a little anxious. He took a deep breath.

Probably to calm his nerves, he took out his cell phone and quickly browsed the crude news on it - this was also built on the virtual signal system, not very well made. The news was silent, without even a single illustration. There was only a bare row of titles. If you clicked to view the specific content, you would find that the text of the news was often missing characters.

The teenager's gaze paused on the words "Space Combat Department Two" for a moment, and he pursed his lips, then glanced at the ring face screen again.

Just then, a silent message popped up on his cell phone screen: "Ergou, is the matter done?"

This teenager was none other than Wang Yacheng, who had run away from home for more than a year. He had joined an anti-alien civilian organization that sheltered many grassroots forces and had ties to the military and the black market.

Wang Yacheng's code name was "Ergou". Who knows what he was thinking when he gave himself this code name - the spiritual world of the chuunibyou period is always so bewildering.

This time, he was ordered to infiltrate the occupied area to steal some of its production and supervision data.

Seeing the progress bar reach the bottom, Wang Yacheng breathed a sigh of relief and was about to retract the "ring face" when the transparent screen suddenly started flashing red.

The other party's firewall had been triggered!

"Damn it." Wang Yacheng immediately packed up his things, took out a simple gas mask from his pocket, snapped it on his face, turned around and skillfully lifted the iron door of the sewer pipe, and deftly crawled in. Two mechanical hands extended from his back, busily clearing his traces.

If he didn't run, he would be finished. With the signal positioning capabilities of those perverts in the other star system, the nearest patrol would find his previous location within three minutes.

The teenager scurried up and down in the small aqueduct, obviously extremely familiar with the terrain here.

At this moment, his cell phone screen flashed again, the previous message was automatically deleted and replaced with a new one: "Immediately disconnect from the virtual signal system, the other party's new round of network attacks has begun."

Wang Yacheng: "Fuck."

Unfortunately, this angry curse was muffled in the mask, and he didn't get to feel the pleasure of venting, so he became even more depressed.

A few rats that weren't afraid of people inexplicably began to follow him, their little eyes glowing dimly in the depths of the darkness, especially creepy. Wang Yacheng first quickened his pace, then remembered something and abruptly stopped, turning around to face the few big rats.

He remembered that in the previous network war, some data had been marked with a yellow line, indicating a risk of leakage, including several underground pipe maps of the occupied area!

The practice of putting tracking systems on animals has existed since ancient times. Wang Yacheng's throat moved as he swallowed, and he took a trembling step forward and asked the rats, "Are you spies sent by the aliens?"

One of the rats ran forward quickly, and Wang Yacheng let out a "wah" in fright, sitting down on the ground with a thud.

He dared to go alone with the contraband "ring face" to steal things in the enemy-occupied area, as if he had the tragic background music of "The wind blows, the Yi River is cold". The result was that although he set out victoriously, his momentum was not preserved. On the way back, he was so scared by a few rats that his legs were shaking, and his domineering air was completely lost, becoming a bit ridiculous.

The rats sat around him as if holding a meeting to discuss how to deal with such a petulant brat. At this moment, one of the rats raised its head, and Wang Yacheng saw that there was a small sensor under its neck, hidden in the dull gray fur, not very conspicuous.

He suddenly calmed down, realizing that these rats were indeed released by the enemy. Wang Yacheng reached behind his waist, where there was an arc gun. It was very small in size and low in power, like a child's toy, but it should be enough to take out a few rats at this range.

"These are enemies, enemies, can't treat them like those scary little creatures on Earth. Pretend their true nature is alien—that they're just disguised as rats. How did you say it? When you see aliens, chop them down one by one, absolutely can't go weak in the knees. Hmm, what rats? They're not rats."

Wang Yacheng silently gave himself a pep talk as he crawled up on all fours. The word "enemy" instantly imbued him with the courage of warriors throughout history. The surging blood in his veins seemed to smooth the hairs standing on end on his back.

He kept one hand behind his back, gripping the arc gun hidden there, and tentatively retreated in one direction.

The rats immediately gave chase.

Wang Yacheng ran quickly a few steps, suddenly reaching a corner. He felt the timing was about right. Abruptly turning around, the arc gun emitted a beam of eerie light in the dark air, taking out all the rats in the blink of an eye.

...Except for one rat that ran too fast. Propelled by inertia, it staggered a few more steps forward, turning into a frightening dead rat and flopping onto Wang Yacheng's shoe.

Wang Yacheng looked down at the rat on his shoe, speechless for a moment. His mind went blank. Then, mustering all his strength, he kicked the dead rat away and started sobbing in fright.

Of course, he had to cry while running, because the enemy would soon search this place. Getting caught would spell doom.

Wang Yacheng cursed through sobs as he ran, "Using rats as spies, you aliens, f*** your ancestors!"

Sure enough, not far away, he heard the sound of uniform footsteps.

Wang Yacheng gritted his teeth. This speed was too fast. He almost suspected the few rats he had just killed had really gotten up and transformed into aliens, chasing after him.

The footsteps got closer and closer. He desperately tried to calm himself, but couldn't think of a way out. Just then, a figure pounced at him in the dark, a hand tightly covering his mouth.

Wang Yacheng's heart jumped violently. It took all his strength not to cry out.

"It's me," the person said in a low voice. "I'm here to assist. Let's go."

"Auntie Chun?"

"Mm, hurry!"

It was the fat woman who had opened the door for him in the alley that day. The fat woman had immense strength, practically carrying Wang Yacheng onto a close-to-ground mech.

Wang Yacheng had never seen such a small ground mech before. The cockpit only had room for one person. The two wings were extremely thin, pocket-sized like a model, able to freely shuttle through such cramped spaces. The tall and sturdy Auntie Chun could only crouch uncomfortably in the cockpit. She stuffed Wang Yacheng into a weapons compartment embedded on one side of the cockpit.

"Squeeze in, there's nothing much inside, just a few laser guns. Just hold onto them."

The ground mech flew out of the narrow underground tunnel like a gust of wind, silent. Wang Yacheng was stuffed into the weapons compartment like a miniature cannon, nearly flattened by the intense acceleration.

"Grow a bit slower, kid," Auntie Chun drawled after they had long left the searchers behind. "See, girls and boys your age are all much taller than you. If it was anyone else today, they wouldn't fit. They'd have to hold onto the mech's tail outside the cockpit. You're just right like this."

Like hell it's right...

Wang Yacheng thought dizzily in the weapons compartment without seatbelts.

"Kid," Auntie Chun said, "let me give you a heads-up. Things aren't looking good for us this time."

Wang Yacheng: "Ah...ouch, I mean, what's wrong?"

"Haven't you noticed the tension in the occupied zone? Eight of our people infiltrated the occupied zone separately this time. Including you, three came back. The others lost contact, don't know if they're dead or alive."

Wang Yacheng was stunned. "Maybe they just temporarily cut off contact for safety because the virtual signal system was attacked?"

"Not that optimistic." Auntie Chun's expression was grave. "I think something bad is going to happen."

Wang Yacheng leaned back in the weapons compartment, putting on a brave face. "It's already like this, what else could happen?"

Auntie Chun was silent for a moment. "Do you know about the food rationing starting in the occupied zone?"

Wang Yacheng was taken aback.

Auntie Chun: "I'm afraid the rumors about the enemy planning to send out a negotiation signal aren't baseless."

At the same time.

The members of the Second Department who had caused a huge misunderstanding had already returned to the Saturn Fortress. Zhang Liping was writing a 100,000 word self-reflection in confinement - of course Fu Luo didn't want to read a long reflection paper, it was just to keep him under control and prevent him from further colluding with Wang Yansheng.

Although she clearly knew this wasn't the only mole, she couldn't block the chief spy's line of sight at all.

Only Fu Luo was left in the command cabin. Besides the unavoidable engine roar, there was only the mechanical voice reporting the coordinates of Yang Ning and the others every five minutes.

Perhaps from nerves or overusing her brain, after a long time, Fu Luo felt a bit drowsy. Suddenly, an urgent communication request appeared before her.

Fu Luo startled awake with an inexplicable chill.

After a moment of surprise, Fu Luo accepted the request. Wang Yansheng appeared on the other end.

"Girl, this might not be good."

Fu Luo's eyes widened.

Wang Yansheng: "That old fogey Graf from the other star system just publicly released a video. I sent it to you. Is it convenient for you to contact Yang Ning on your side? Better let him know quickly."