Chapter 13

Night fell, with a few scattered stars hanging far in the sky.

An Zaiyang lit a cigarette, sitting on the balcony of the hotel’s top floor, looking gloomy.

This was a remote star far from the Imperial Star. After the explosion of the highest prison, he was subsequently demoted and now found himself relegated to carrying out some marginal tasks.

An Zaiyang’s talent wasn’t high, only A-level.

In the Alliance where geniuses abounded, someone like him was hardly worth mentioning.

But being from the An family and adept at scheming, after years of effort, he became a backbone figure in the Alliance prison management.

He had hoped to rely on these connections, as well as the core missions he was involved in, to advance his career in the future.

Who knew that the highest prison he was handling would suddenly explode.

His subordinate, Ye Ping, died, and Yun Chi, who was detained, also perished in the explosion.

Above didn’t care about the life or death of these two, but with Yun Chi dead, it meant losing two vital pieces.

And losing these two pieces had led to his downfall.

An Zaiyang cursed softly, then picked up the bottle of foreign liquor on the table and drank it all in one gulp.

“Drip, drip.” The door of the hotel room was opened.

An Zaiyang didn’t even glance at it, just coldly asked, “Have you caught them?”

He had been transferred to a nearby star system’s prison, doing trivial tasks, and didn’t want to get involved, leaving it to his subordinates.

Hearing the sound, he naturally assumed it was someone returning from the mission.

“If they’re caught, just send them directly to the prison. Didn’t I say not to bother me with these things?” An Zaiyang said impatiently.

The room was very quiet, and no one responded to his words.

“What’s wrong? Are you deaf…” An Zaiyang erupted in an instant, picking up the bottle of foreign liquor from the table, ready to smash it on the intruder’s head.

But as he turned around, he saw a stranger.

The person wore a black duckbill cap and a mask, covering their face, but judging by their figure, they were definitely not the two subordinates he had sent out!

“Who are you?” An Zaiyang’s expression changed drastically. “Who let you in?”

He raised his hand immediately, reaching for the gun behind his waist.

Ji Fu leaned against the wall nearby, looking at him coldly. “You shouldn’t be very familiar with me?”

A stranger appearing inexplicably in the room, and speaking like this, infuriated An Zaiyang. “Who the hell knows who you are…”

Wait, the words he blurted out got stuck in his throat.

A young woman, black duckbill cap, and a mask.

In an instant, something clicked in his mind, and his expression changed dramatically.

Almost without hesitation, An Zaiyang pulled out the gun he always carried with him and aimed it at the intruder. His expression was panicked as he shouted, “You’re Yun Chi?”

“No, no, Yun Chi is dead!”

“Who are you? Who sent you?” After the explosion in the highest prison, he had been harshly criticized for negligence by his superiors. So now, no matter who he was facing, he insisted that Yun Chi was dead.

Whoever was in front of him couldn’t possibly be Yun Chi!

An Zaiyang’s eyes were deep and he raised his hand, decisively pulling the trigger.

He came in with lethal intent, aiming directly for the head.

But his movement was fast, and the opposition was faster.

Ji Fu lightly raised her hand, the light brain she wore on her hand mechanically transformed in a second, becoming a small crossbow. The arrows shot by the crossbow were formed of light waves. In almost an instant, they shattered the gun in An Zaiyang’s hand.

An Zaiyang’s expression changed drastically, disregarding everything else, he just bent down and rushed towards the bed, where the hotel’s emergency button was located. He found the red button and pressed it straight away.

Click.

After the button was pressed, it emitted a simple single tone, without any alarm, nor did it immediately connect to the hotel front desk.

At this moment, An Zaiyang finally realized that something was wrong.

He turned around, intending to confront Ji Fu, but as he looked up, he saw her right in front of him.

Ji Fu wore a pair of black boots. As she approached, she stepped on An Zaiyang’s leg bone.

Crack!

An Zaiyang only heard a loud noise, followed by a tearing pain in his ankle.

“Ah!” He cried out in pain, curling up.

Large beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead. He lowered his head, vaguely discerning that Ji Fu’s boots had also undergone mechanical modifications, but he didn’t know what exactly had been done.

Ji Fu bent down slightly, looking at him. “Who ordered you to extract talents from me?”

After hearing this clearly, An Zaiyang was too preoccupied with the excruciating pain to care. He raised his head, the cold sweat stinging his eyes, making his vision blurry, unable to see the person in front of him clearly.

“Are you… are you really Yun Chi?” An Zaiyang panicked, “How do you know…”

He had instructed Ye Ping never to mention talent extraction in front of prisoners, always referring to it as essence.

In an instant, An Zaiyang glanced at the unresponsive emergency button. Many thoughts raced through his mind. When he spoke again, his attitude had changed.

“Since you know about this, you should know that this is not something I can accomplish alone.” An Zaiyang looked up at her and sneered, “Let me remind you, if anything happens to me here today…”

“Tomorrow, you will pay a price a hundred times more painful than before!”

He stared at Ji Fu firmly. “You’re just a nominal low-level being who’s already dead. What do you have to fight against?”

He guessed what means the person in front of him might use and cut off communications in the room.

This time, he brought a total of five subordinates on the mission. Besides the two he sent out, there were three others in the hotel.

But he indulged himself and only stayed on the top floor alone. Now, it wasn’t easy to shake someone over, especially in such a critical moment. He didn’t count on those people to come to his rescue anymore. All he needed was to distract the person in front of him and release the mech.

Regardless of whether the other person was Yun Chi.

Or rather, it was better if it was Yun Chi.

She wasn’t the same as she used to be, nor did she have a black mech to protect her. As long as he released the mech, Yun Chi would be doomed.

Then, he could kill her, make up for his mistakes, and bring her body back. He would definitely be reinstated.

An Zaiyang breathed a sigh of relief and reached for the mech storage space.

For the convenience of storage, when making advanced mechs, mech engineers would compress the mech to the size of a fingernail, storing it in the light brain.

This ensured that the mech could be released for battle at any time.

But when An Zaiyang reached for his light brain, he found that the storage space had been sealed.

“What’s wrong? Couldn’t find your mech?” The person in front of him chuckled lightly.

At that moment, An Zaiyang was finally afraid.

Goosebumps formed all over his body, and his gaze towards Ji Fu changed.

In fact, he didn’t know much about Yun Chi. He only knew that the Alliance classified her as SSS-level, but people like them all had the same idea—how could a low-level being like her be worthy?

Yet, just a few minutes after encountering her, not only did he not know how she got in, but he was even stealthily deprived of his mech.

In an instant, all his retreats were blocked, and his life was in the hands of the person in front of him.

“I’ll ask you again, who ordered you to extract talents?” Ji Fu looked at him, exerting force with her foot.

“Ah!” An Zaiyang cried out in pain, “I… I don’t know!”

To gain her trust, he urgently lifted his head. “You should know that although I am a backbone of the prison, in the entire Alliance, I am just a small role.”

“I simply follow the orders given by my superiors!” He looked earnest, “If you don’t believe me, you can check my light brain!”

“Is that so?” Ji Fu seemed to believe his words, and the force under her foot lightened.

“Who is your superior?”

The intense pain in his leg bone subsided a bit, and An Zaiyang gasped heavily, “I don’t know.”

He saw Ji Fu hesitate slightly and hurriedly explained, “We communicate through the Alliance’s advanced network. I only know that the other party should be a mid-level figure in the Alliance with advanced privileges.”

“At the beginning of each month, the other party directly gives me instructions and medications, and every medication is accurately delivered to my desk.”

“What about the things you extracted?” Ji Fu asked him.

An Zaiyang hesitated, wiping sweat from his forehead. “The essence extracted will be taken away by unmanned mech soldiers on the same day. As for where they are sent, I have no idea… Go to hell!”

As he spoke, he pulled out a mechanical grappling hook from his sleeve. The hook shot out, like the claws of a strange beast, aiming for Ji Fu’s head.

The force of the mechanical grappling hook could crush a person’s bones directly!

He was confident it would be a fatal blow, so he adjusted the strength of the hook to the maximum.

But just as the grappling hook shot out, Yun Chi’s light brain on her wrist sensed the mechanical fluctuations. The black mech instantly covered her entire arm.

The seemingly ordinary light brain actually mechanically reconfigured in an instant, turning into a mechanical arm nearly half the length of her arm.

The mechanical arm was pitch black, emitting a faint glow. As Ji Fu raised her hand, there was a mechanical sound of clicks and clacks at her knuckles. Before An Zaiyang could react, the grappling hook he had shot out had already been crushed by that mechanical arm.

In the light brains of ordinary people, there were usually mechs stored.

But in Ji Fu’s light brain, what was stored was Flame.

A Flame modified with S-grade mechanical locks, even though it was still a semi-finished product, once it underwent mechanical reconfiguration, the deterrence it caused was unimaginable to others.

An Zaiyang, at his wit’s end, also realized that he was absolutely no match for the person in front of him. Shocked and angry, he shouted, “If you kill me today, you’ll never know about talent extraction for the rest of your life!”

“Without talent, you’ll only ever be a lowly creature! Even with these crude methods, you’re still no match for those with high talent…”

Before An Zaiyang could finish his words, he knew how important this matter was to a lowly creature like Yun Chi. So he wanted to provoke her to gain a chance for survival.

As long as she still wanted to know about the extracted talents, she would have to spare his life.

He thought it through, but Ji Fu acted even faster.

She took out a deep red nutrient from her bag. This was the high-energy nutrient she had made over the past few days. One dose of it could cause a surge in all adrenaline levels.

This was her second dose tonight.

As she drank the nutrient, she raised the mechanical arm and threw An Zaiyang directly onto the opposite wall.

Under An Zaiyang’s incredulous gaze, she emptied the nutrient in her hand in one gulp.

Crack.

The test tube shattered under An Zaiyang’s feet.

He raised his head abruptly, hearing Ji Fu say, “Since you don’t want to talk, then there’s no need to talk.”

With a forceful throw, she pinned An Zaiyang’s entire body to the wall.

She clenched the hand wearing the mechanical arm, raised it into a fist, and smashed An Zaiyang’s heart with one punch.

“I can’t find them easily, so…”

“Let them come find me.”