Chapter 367: Thorough

Dawn City, 5:30 AM.

Cold, drizzling rain fell like silver threads, refracting a hazy halo in the neon-soaked air. The entire city seemed to be soaked in an electronic ocean interwoven with indigo and scarlet. The old city district below a hundred meters was as crowded and noisy as a beehive, while the inner city high-rises above a hundred meters were like silent giants, overlooking this steel jungle that had been gnawed by the doomsday.

Jian Xuwei stood on the balcony of an arc-shaped high-rise in the Starport district. The hem of her black windbreaker was lifted by the cold, damp night wind from high altitude, revealing the tactical bodysuit with dark silver metal fibers underneath.

She stood there motionless, her body slightly taut. The bodysuit outlined the graceful curves of her hips, her beautiful long legs stood straight, and her high-supported chest stretched the neckline wide, snow-white and deep.

"Yongcheng Port has been attacked by Red Human Ghosts for the second time today. The ability peak value of the attacking creatures is detected to exceed the Destroyer-class." A dull mechanical hum came from behind her. A man covered in dark red power armor spoke from behind a mechanical mask, energy lines flowing slowly through the gaps in the armor. "After an hour and a half of killing, their lifespan ended and they died. We lost four engineers, and the Phoenix Society lost over sixty people."

"Was the deployer captured?"

"Still the same, passive drones."

"Understood."

She didn't turn her head, just tapped the balcony railing lightly with her index finger, which was covered in a black tactical glove. Amidst the sound of metal rubbing against leather, the man in heavy power armor lowered his head and retreated as if receiving a silent command, his hydraulic joints grinding out mechanical sounds.

Jian Xuwei frowned slightly as she looked at the silhouette in the distance of the city. Two giant city walls were like world cliffs, completely isolating the inner city, the old city, and the outer city of Dawn. The dense base weapon towers and signal lights of the outposts on the city walls flickered like breathing, extending to the end of her line of sight. The No. 1 city wall was like a natural chasm, both isolating zombies and ordinary weird entities, and seemingly imprisoning the people in the city forever in this doomsday city.

The neon lights suddenly flickered violently.

A black shadow swooped down from high altitude, tearing an arc trajectory through the rain curtain, and landed steadily on the railing beside Jian Xuwei. The black shadow walked into the light; it was a handsome face that was clearly young but already carried countless frosts of time.

Jiang Yun.

"Nine hours ago, Silent City in the Luling Forest started up. Your people in Jinhai should have received the news, right?" Jiang Yun shook the raindrops off his windbreaker and said quickly.

"Silent City already has regional radio waves coming out. The main city and the Silent Metropolis have completed docking. Mochizuki Shinjin actually really drove that city out of the Star Abyss."

"That wasn't driven out by him alone."

Jiang Yun smiled. "There was also a super-large train fleet. However, Silent City seems to have sheltered this train fleet without publicizing it, but the people in the city already know."

As he said this, he looked at Jian Xuwei. "It's Longshan No. 1 and the Infinite!"

"Lin Xian and Shi Diyuan?" Jian Xuwei finally turned her face. A huge holographic billboard on the outer wall of the high-rise splashed red light onto half of her face, while the other half was immersed in shadow.

"Correct."

Jian Xuwei's eyes flickered. "Just received news: Zhou Mingyuan is inviting me to go to Silent City tomorrow. It is said that they want to discuss a large manufacturing project with Silent City, and people from the Wen family will be there too."

"Heh."

Jiang Yun chuckled immediately. "The people of the Federation are moving fast. It looks like they don't intend to let go of not only your Fenger Group but also Silent City."

Hearing this, Jian Xuwei's expression darkened slightly, and she looked at the night sky. "The No. 5 Star Abyss is getting closer and closer. The Phoenix Society is gradually withdrawing. In another period of time, the evacuation points in Luling, Baisha, Changuan, Xilin, Jinhe, Kangcheng, and Quancheng will all be taken by the Federation, and Yongcheng Port will be sooner or later. However, what's strange is that ever since Silent City came out, the people in the underground city seem... a bit more nervous."

"Is that so?" Jiang Yun frowned. "Could it be because of Lin Xian?"

"Do you think the Deep Red World has set its sights on Lin Xian?"

"One hundred percent." Jiang Yun blurted out. He tilted his neck and let out a long breath.

"Mechanical ability, and it's gotten involved with Silent City. Lin Xian must have already clashed with people from the Deep Red World."

"Should we meet him? But he probably wouldn't want to appear in the Federation's line of sight." Jian Xuwei looked at Jiang Yun.

Jiang Yun nodded. "Then it seems that before they enter Jinhai, I have to go meet this old friend first..."

"Jinhai..." Jian Xuwei's cold, proud brows frowned slightly. "People from the Phoenix Society should be arriving soon. The abnormal expansion of the No. 5 Star Abyss has led to movements in the other 12 Star Abysses as well. Do you think the Phoenix Society will clash head-on with Dawn City?"

Jiang Yun sighed lightly, looked into the distance, and said helplessly:

"God knows. Natural disasters are troublesome enough, and now there's man-made trouble."

The sky was still shrouded in darkness. Silent City, having just escaped the danger zone, was like a city that never sleeps, busy everywhere.

Cloud District, Wabi-Sabi Courtyard. The originally wabi-sabi-style pavilion was empty at this time. All four walls had turned into holographic light screens, and tens of thousands of surveillance images from various areas of Silent City gathered into countless blue light dots. Everything was being processed rapidly by Mochizuki Shinjin's quantum core.

Mochizuki Shinjin stood in the center, looking at the vehicles and fleets entering the docking berths and ground shelter areas of Silent City one after another, seemingly thinking about something.

The old man fishing put away his fishing rod and sat quietly in the corner of the hall, holding a pair of scissors to prune withered flowers, making a rustling sound.

"You shouldn't have hesitation." Suddenly, the old man said in a low, hoarse voice.

"I possess an independent thinking personality. The adjective 'hesitation' only measures the time consumed by my calculation process; it does not represent emotion or stance," Mochizuki Shinjin responded indifferently.

"It must be news from Dawn City. What do you think about it?"

"According to preliminary calculations, the probability of Silent City successfully entering Yongcheng Port does not exceed 8%."

Mochizuki Shinjin looked at the holographic screen in front and said, "This does not include interference factors related to darkness. Among them, the reason for the Deep Red World's expansion of the No. 5 Star Abyss is a variable. On this issue, the conservative plan should be to bypass Dawn City and unite with the Phoenix Society, but I have performed 360,000 march calculations, and the probability of Silent City entering the Polar Region is the same as Yongcheng Port."

"When there is a lack of too much key information, calculation and deduction have no meaning." The white-haired old man lowered his head to prune the withered branches and said in a hoarse voice: "Trouble, really trouble. You can hide from the dark mark, but you can't hide from people. Dawn City will not give up the fight for Yongcheng Port; that is the foundation of productivity. You revealed the information about entering Yongcheng Port, and in the eyes of Dawn City, they will think you want to negotiate."

"Trade, resources, it's all irrelevant." Mochizuki Shinjin's expression was calm. A mechanical pillar rose slowly from the ground, inside which was the brownish-red flesh tissue 【Corrosion Cells】 preserved in a cryo-chamber. He looked at the petri dish and said softly: "The Deep Red World is conducting dangerous research. If they are cooperating with Dawn City, then there must be some conditional factor that exceeds the survival risk brought by the expansion of the No. 5 Star Abyss. This point might be the key."

After saying this, he turned his head, his nano-pupils shrank slightly, and he said:

"As for current factors, the Phoenix Society has gradually withdrawn from the Asia-Pacific region and will not intervene in the radiation range of Dawn City without the premise of a survival threat. So there are no other variables; Silent City cannot avoid this storm."

"Hmm~" The old man hummed low, without speaking.

"Do you think my analysis has become emotional?" Mochizuki Shinjin looked at the old man and asked indifferently.

"No, you added some emotional rendering words, but you're still a cold piece of machinery." The old man responded indifferently.

Mochizuki Shinjin smiled and raised a finger. "Let me try; I'll rephrase it."

He seemed to have become interested. His face showed a bit of solemnity, and he said in an analytical and heavy tone: "Dawn City left the Fenger Group to carry out the Firmament project and starship manufacturing. Now, immediately after we left the Star Abyss, they sent a cooperation invitation. Could this possibly be related to our triggering of the key research of the White City Deep Red World? Hmm, this inference is the most deviant from reality but is crucial."

"Even based on rational considerations, for Dawn City, Silent City itself is a key productivity asset~ How could Chu Zhaonan easily let us enter Yongcheng Port? Let me think, Dawn City people come to find us—could it be to provide a large batch of starship carrier construction orders that Silent City cannot complete in a short time? Perhaps they will also provide a part of the Jinhai industrial base to us? Oh, right, it's also possible they will give us Yongcheng Port to use, but our No. 2 city will have to dock at Dawn City first for some reason. This is enough to give us a headache, right..."

"You're not mimicking it well." The old man continued to prune the flower branches. "Do you know why?"

Mochizuki Shinjin walked over with a smile, hands tucked in his sleeves, and squatted in front of the old man. "My analysis has no loopholes?"

"Humans cannot be that thorough; considering problems always involves a stance." The old man said.

Mochizuki Shinjin nodded seriously. He wanted to say something but held it back, stood up, and turned his head.

"Lin is very thorough. The timing of a life-or-death moment, the strategy of a one-in-a-million survival—aside from the emotional factors he displays, wow... he is even less like a human than I am."

Click.

The old man's scissors crisply cut off a withered branch. His movements paused slowly, and then he continued pruning.

In the train parking area, hundreds of engineers on Longshan No. 1 were already busy. Qian Suxun was the person in charge of the Technical Research City. He was leading a group of Silent City engineers and hundreds of drones and construction sequence vehicles to enter the field, preparing to perform train repairs and modifications for Shi Diyuan and the others.

With over a thousand people's livelihoods to manage, Shi Diyuan and Ning Jing were both pragmatic, directly starting the all-terrain drive modification project.

Besides Longshan No. 1, several other train fleets also accepted Silent City's modification projects—of course, they were paid. Besides that, some other fleets, because of heavy losses, were not prepared to carry out drive modifications, but instead invested their funds in weapon modifications. After all, after they arrived in Jinhai, they were prepared to head north directly to follow the Dawn Center. This stretch of road passed through several large coastal metropolises, and relatively speaking, the risk was smaller than the edge of the Star Abyss.

On the other side, the Queen Mo, which had no such concerns, appeared much quieter. Its technological train exterior was unique among all doomsday trains, quietly parked in a corner.

Except for the No. 1 carriage, all other carriages had turned off their lights to rest. But at this moment, in those carriages where the lights were already off, countless whispers were taking place.

"Dare to believe it? We actually really came out of the Star Abyss alive."

"What's there not to believe? Following Queen Mo means having a big life..."

"Hey, it's just too lonely. What do you think that woman is thinking? She recruited over a dozen beautiful women onto the train but won't let us communicate with each other..."

"Exactly. Those women have all been played with by others, but even as teammates, communicating a bit should be fine, right?"

"But didn't the boss say she has a cleanliness obsession and doesn't allow men to mess around on her train, which is why she made this rule?"

"Bullshit. She's doing it on purpose. Before, I heard Little Ma from the neighboring fleet tell me that men who hold back their Yang energy evolve their abilities and genes faster. I reckon that must be the reason."

"My god, Queen Mo is actually thinking about our bodies..."

"Buddy, you're too much of a bootlicker. Be careful you don't hold it in until you die."

"But the boss said she'll give us free time tomorrow. I heard there's a special red-light district in Silent City..."

"Wow, then we must go check it out!"

"You guys go ahead. In my heart, there is only Queen Mo. She is the most perfect woman—invincible figure, that chest, that butt, that face. Damn, dying after having her once would be worth it."

"Indeed, the figure is too foul. No, can't hold it anymore..." Someone turned over in a hurry.

At this time, the bootlicker spoke again: "What I can't stand the most is the way she looks at me like I'm trash. It's really too..."

"Are you a pervert?"

In the No. 1 carriage, Mo Mo Nika was bathing naked in a luxurious bathtub, red wine placed beside her, and misty steam rising. She closed her eyes slightly, not caring at all about the obscene words in her ears. The reason she used her ability was because in one of the carriages, Zhou Lei, whom even the radar couldn't detect, was locked up alone.

Mo Mo Nika was not only a woman with a strong desire for control but also a woman with strong principles. Since she had taken on this responsibility for Lin Xian, she would certainly not let anything go wrong, thereby ruining her reputation as Queen Mo.

Soft music played in the carriage. While enjoying her bath, Mo Mo Nika recalled the various details of escaping from the Star Abyss, and her calm heart couldn't help but feel a bit stirred.

In her slightly closed eyes, Lin Xian's face appeared, and she parted her red lips:

"Lin Xian, oh Lin Xian, I said that I, Mo Mo Nika, never misjudge a man. So... a man like you, how should I conquer you?"

She picked up the red wine, but her thoughts were suddenly interrupted. Mo Mo Nika, lying in the bathtub, suddenly had her expression freeze, and her whole body slid out of the water like a slippery snake.

Because at this moment, her sound-blade ability keenly captured a sneaky figure that had arrived outside the carriage of the Queen Mo!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 368 =====