Chapter 287: The Immortal

The hardest nationality to obtain in the world is not that of America, but of a certain great power in the East. Before the Killing Ground descended, it issued only seven hundred to a thousand green cards per year on average. Those who actually naturalized were even fewer.

Only foreigners with advanced degrees, rich work experience, good health, a law-abiding disposition, long-term residency, outstanding contributions, or special national needs—who passed strict review and interviews—had a slim chance of applying for and receiving a green card.

Hui Yu, as a liquid-metal robot of a future civilization, was herself a "high-tech talent,"

Though not "a talent who mastered high technology,"

But rather "a talent who herself was high technology,"

She nonetheless met the basic conditions for applying for a green card—after all, isn't she high-tech?

As long as she put in some effort and earned her middle and high school diplomas, getting a green card or even naturalizing wouldn't be hard, and she could become a true chosen Hua Zi. Probably.

As a "spiritual Hua Zi," Hui Yu battered Yang Hua with all manner of bizarre questions, making the latter's eyes spin in circles.

If Li Cheng had offered to use the 【Brain Entropy Extraction】 skill to pull out her memories directly, Yang Hua would probably have agreed on the spot.

Clang-clang-clang—

An armored transport rolled over gravel, crawled past broken walls, and arrived at the ruined building Yang Hua had mentioned.

Li Cheng sent a drone up to patrol and surveil from on high, then called for the two people in the vehicle to disembark. With a sweep of his information-integration glasses, he scanned out the carefully concealed traces of human passage in the building's underground parking garage.

Lifting aside a rusted steel plate, he descended step by step, passed through a narrow corridor, and the moment he opened the door to the civil-defense functional room, a metal lasso looped around Li Cheng's right foot as he stepped forward.

The lasso snapped tight, trying to hoist him upside down.

At the same moment, a metal spear honed to an especially keen edge thrust out soundlessly, hovering beside Li Cheng's neck.

"Don't move!"

A muffled bellow rang out from the darkness. A short figure in a tattered cloak and a pig-snout gas mask, a long spear in the left hand and a SIG Sauer P30 pistol in the right, leveled both at Li Cheng.

This must be the otherworld native Yang Hua had mentioned.

Li Cheng stood in the doorway without moving. The civil-defense functional room had only a faint light source, but his information-integration glasses could ignore the darkness and see the surroundings clearly.

Besides that otherworld native girl, there were three other people in the room: a Black girl, a white girl, and Li Cheng's cousin Xue Luomeng.

Their condition was still all right, though their spirits were somewhat panicked.

Such good luck? Found them this quickly.

Li Cheng breathed a sigh of relief, settled his nerves, raised both hands in a French military salute, and with keen interest began observing the otherworld native.

Her aesthetic was very much that of a post-apocalyptic scavenger—beneath the tattered cloak she wore a bulletproof vest and a stab-resistant jerkin, the SIG Sauer P30 in her hands was fitted with a suppressor, and a shotgun was slung across her back.

The gaps between her gloves and sleeves were sealed with tape to keep out outside gases, and even the soles of her boots were fitted with sound-dampening rubber to minimize the noise of running footsteps.

"Tina, don't attack! This gentleman was sent from our world to rescue us."

Yang Hua hurriedly said in English, but the scavenger named Tina was unmoved, still pointing the spear and pistol at Li Cheng, and said coldly, "Take off your hood, slowly."

"Hmm? Yanking someone's hood off and dumping them on the ground is usually my line."

Li Cheng said with a light laugh, "But, as you wish."

He slowly removed the hood of his hazmat suit and took off his gas mask.

By the faint light, everyone in the basement got a clear look at his face—and instantly felt as though they had fallen into an icy pit.

They saw the features on Li Cheng's face constantly writhing and shifting, his two eyeballs roaming about as if possessed of their own will, then suddenly going wide.

The startled scavenger instinctively retreated several steps, her hand jerking and pulling the trigger, firing a bullet.

Whoosh—

Hui Yu darted forward, waved her hand and grabbed something, then opened her palm to reveal a bullet resting quietly in its center.

"Next time you point a gun at us, you'll be looking at your own brains."

Hui Yu said with an extremely pretentious coldness, flipped her palm, tossed the brass casing into her mouth, and crunched it to bits.

Uh. Actually she hadn't really caught the bullet like Fire Cloud Evil God at all—it was purely thanks to her tank-like constitution that she'd tanked the round and pretended to catch the bullet.

Hui Yu, who had just shown off in front of everyone, was quite pleased with herself, and continued coldly, "Don't look at me like this now—back when I was still at the Earthly Immortal realm, my qi circulated for eleven hundred li, a wave of my hand moved mountains and filled seas, a stamp of my foot shook the earth and made the mountains tremble."

"It wasn't until I was surrounded and slain by ten thousand armored cavalry that I was forced to undergo military dissolution and reincarnate."

Thanks to the Killing Ground's built-in translation, whether the otherworld scavenger or Xue Luomeng and the others from different countries on real-world Earth, everyone could understand Hui Yu's words—and they all fell into a state of utter bewilderment.

Uh. This immortal can move mountains and fill seas, shake the earth and topple mountains—how could she possibly have been surrounded and killed by ten thousand cold-weapon-era cavalry? Shouldn't she have been able to slaughter mortal armies in minutes? Your combat power is way too broken.

Is the next line going to be that Tang Sect hidden weapons can assassinate a God King?

Of course, these thoughts they only dared to keep to themselves; they wouldn't dare ask these two "rescuers" whose mental states seemed worrying.

"Just kidding."

Li Cheng slapped his forehead, ending the 【Assembled Puppet】 special effect, restoring his facial features one by one. To keep Xue Luomeng from recognizing him, he had deliberately used worm genes to alter his appearance.

"I was sent by the United Nations to rescue you and get you out of this world. You can call me—"

Li Cheng paused—he had no talent for naming things, and couldn't think of a good code name on the spur of the moment—"Just call me 【Shi Shi the Poet of the Shi Clan, lion-lover, swears to eat ten lions. The Shi clan often went to market to watch lions. At ten o'clock, ten lions happened to come to market.】"

Who could possibly remember a name that long?!

Perhaps noticing the panicked expressions on Xue Luomeng and the others, Li Cheng said considerately, "Just call me Mr. Shi. Come with me—let's go somewhere safer."

Having said that, he paused and looked at the scavenger girl Tina. "That includes you."

The information-integration glasses showed Tina's current age as fourteen; the disaster had struck when she was ten. Over those four years she had survived the apocalypse with her parents, so she must have picked up a great deal of post-apocalyptic intel. Naturally, she had to be brought along as a guide.

"No need. They're people from your world, nothing to do with me. I'm leaving."

Tina tightened her grip on the suppressed pistol, her eyes darting about beneath the pig-snout respirator as she searched for an escape route.

Without further ado, Li Cheng drew his flag-spear and, with a "thud," drove it into the reinforced concrete beneath his feet to display his martial prowess.

The situation being stronger than her, Tina obediently holstered her pistol. "I'm willing to cooperate."

"A wise man knows when to yield,"

Hui Yu nodded approvingly. "As long as you cooperate with us, there'll be plenty of gold tickets."