I Am a Salted Fish in the Interstellar Era - Chapter 34
Watching Little Beauty take away the “Judgment” and another trickle of blood escaping the corner of his mouth, Shi Yu, biting her lip, offered a tissue to him, “Can we go back now?”
Both known portals had been dissolved by the “Judgment,” and even if there were more, they weren’t an immediate concern. Otherwise, it was uncertain whether all portals would disappear, but Little Beauty would surely be the first to die.
Xie Yuyan took the tissue from her hand to wipe the blood from his mouth, silently nodding.
Just then, Shi Yu grabbed his wrist, forcefully pulling him aside, then ducked under a crumbling high wall, cursing softly, “Again?”
No sooner had she spoken than two energy guns extended from behind them, each pressed against their temples.
Shi Yu, dragging Xie Yuyan, assumed a posture of surrender, and quite justifiably declared, “We surrender, don’t shoot.”
Xie Yuyan coughed lightly, slowly wiping the blood from his lips with the tissue before lazily raising his hands.
Their coordinated action made it difficult for the individuals in mimetic exoskeletons to act.
Shi Yu flashed a bright smile, about to speak, when handcuffs were clamped around her wrists. Then she realized she couldn’t connect to her mecha ring with her mental power.
Xie Yuyan was treated similarly.
Another person in a black mimetic exoskeleton approached, Shi Yu noted their exoskeletons had numbers; the one coming towards her was 770, the one who handcuffed her was 880, and the one who handcuffed Little Beauty was 520.
This number is quite interesting!
770 came over, saw Shi Yu, and with a mechanical voice filled with disdain said, “What’s this extra person doing here? Just get rid of her!”
As he said this, he raised his energy gun. Shi Yu immediately waved her hands, “Brother, brother! Don’t be like this. I’m here to catch him too, not on his side. You can’t just attack me.”
770 paused in his action of raising the gun, sizing up Shi Yu, and scoffed lightly, “You?”
Shi Yu smiled and puffed out her chest, “Don’t you want to know who I am?”
She wasn’t flustered at all, even with the energy gun pointed at her temple, squinting her eyes and saying, “Do you know what my boss’s number is?”
Shi Yu pointed her index finger at the numbers on their exoskeleton suits.
880 pushed away 770’s energy gun and asked indifferently, “What is it?”
Shi Yu cleared her throat, “Listen well, his number is 1314.”
After loudly stating this, she looked at them with a ‘you better not mess with me’ gaze, which was quite threatening.
770, 880, and 520 exchanged glances, and then heard Shi Yu say, “If my boss wasn’t tangled up by Xie Jiangsa, would it be your turn to come catch him?”
She snorted with her nose in the air.
Xie Yuyan kept his eyes downcast, his eyelashes trembling slightly, lost in thought.
770 glanced at 880, “What do we do with her now?”
“Bring her along to see. If she’s lying, we can still deal with her later,” 880 said cautiously.
After saying this, 880 grabbed the collar of Shi Yu’s coat and lifted her up, while 520 gestured to Xie Yuyan. Shi Yu immediately raised her eyebrows, “Why are you so rough with me but so polite to him? Are you judging by appearances?”
“Shut up!” 770 pointed the energy gun at her head.
Shi Yu deflated and lowered her head, “In this day and age, why is everyone so focused on looks? Am I that ugly? My boss always said I look pretty good.”
As Shi Yu muttered, something was put over her head.
She didn’t get discouraged, continuing to babble incessantly, “How did you get here so fast? I finally had a chance to make a contribution, and now, if my boss finds out I’ve lost both the lady and the troops, and he has to come and bail me out, he’s definitely going to kill me when I get back.”
“Can you take this hood off? We’re supposed to be on the same side, and this isn’t a nice way to treat your own people, right? 770? 880? Brother 520? Say something!”
With a swoosh, the hood was pulled off, and a fruit was stuffed into Shi Yu’s mouth before the hood was put back on.
Crunch. Shi Yu bit into the fruit, chewing slowly.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, the sound of frantic crunching filled the hover car. About ten minutes later, the crunching stopped, and the annoying honking sounded again, “Thanks, brother. What fruit is this? It’s sweet and pretty good. How about another one?”
770’s forehead veins bulged. He pulled out his energy gun and pointed it at Shi Yu’s head, but 880 grabbed his wrist and silently shook his head.
Reluctantly, 770 put away his energy gun, and 880’s mechanical voice sounded, “Can you be quiet for a bit? You’ll get another one when we get off.”
“Okay, brother. No problem, brother.” Shi Yu cheerfully agreed and really did quiet down.
770 didn’t expect it to be so easy to silence this annoying fly, rolling his eyes in frustration.
–
“She’s changed her location.” Luo Xiaci resent Shi Yu’s coordinates to everyone.
“What is she trying to do? The brain-computer interface shows no communication possible.” Feng Xiao’s recent call attempt was rejected.
Lu Dongyan frowned and looked at the map, then zoomed in on Shi Yu’s location, “Is she heading to the headquarters of Sea Blue Express?”
The others followed his outlined area, and Gu Qianqian raised a question, “What exactly does Major Xie want her to do?”
“It can’t be to exterminate those little spiders, can it?” Feng Xiao’s brow also furrowed.
Lu Dongyan continued, “Could it be to investigate what those little spiders are up to?”
“That doesn’t justify sending her alone.” With so many people in the shelter, even if they wanted to investigate, it’s unlikely they would send Shi Yu alone, especially in such a secretive manner.
“We can’t monitor the situation at Sea Blue Express headquarters with the orbital satellites. Before this, the headquarters were already destroyed by the insect race, and now we don’t know what the situation is like.” Luo Xiaci pulled up the space station’s monitored images, but they were all shadows, as if blocked.
This wasn’t anything unusual. Although the ring satellites had restored communication and detection functions, the situation was complex. The bug race was continuously releasing interference substances, making many places on the surface undetectable.
Feng Xiao simply said, “Guessing here is not as good as going over to take a look.”
–
The hover car sped all the way and suddenly stopped after about twenty minutes. Shi Yu was pulled out of the hover car, and as soon as she got out, she couldn’t wait to say, “Brother, you can’t go back on your word about the fruit.”
770 ferociously pulled out a fruit from the space bag and stuffed it into Shi Yu’s mouth, soon followed by the sound of crunching.
Pushed forward a few steps, Shi Yu paused, her slight movement noticed by those around her. The three exchanged glances, then heard Shi Yu’s muffled voice, “Brother, do you have a napkin? The juice is going to spill.”
770 & 880 & 520: “……”
Let her die!
No one paid her any mind, and Shi Yu quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
She had stopped because she noticed something unusual.
Shi Yu was blindfolded and couldn’t see outside, but she was sure she had been here before because she had used her special abilities here, and not far from this location, there were remnants of her abilities.
The reason she could detect remnants of her abilities was that whenever she used her abilities on a large scale, the internal structure of the metals she controlled would change. As for when the changed structure would revert without external forces, even Shi Yu herself was unclear.
While crunching on the fruit, Shi Yu recalled the number of times and the amount of her ability usage, eventually deducing a location.
Sea Blue Express headquarters.
The young doctor said the group of spiders he was tracking was circling nearby, and now these three had brought him and the Little Beauty here.
What were they trying to do?
Shi Yu bit off the last piece of fruit and soon felt like she was entering an elevator, which, judging by the gravity, was going down, not up.
Quickly, she was led to a spacious area, where their footsteps sounded particularly distinct.
Now Shi Yu was genuinely curious about where these people intended to take them.
But at that moment, the ground began to shake violently, and Shi Yu stumbled and fell to the ground, coincidentally next to the Little Beauty.
The shaking grew more intense, and she heard 770 anxiously say, “What’s happening? Is someone attacking here?”
“It’s impossible. We made sure we weren’t followed when we came,” 520 rebutted without hesitation.
His words had just ended when another violent shake occurred, followed by the shrill sound of an alarm. Taking advantage of the three’s conversation, Shi Yu’s eyes gleamed with gold, and the metal handcuffs on her wrist snapped open.
Shi Yu grabbed the hood off her head and grabbed Xie Yuyan’s hand, pulling him backward.
The wall behind them cracked open without warning, and the two of them tumbled in. 770, 880, and 520, taken by surprise, looked at each other when the wall healed, seeing disbelief in each other’s eyes.
770 gasped, “Is this mental materialization? Impossible!”
Regardless of possibility, the fact was right before his eyes. The two they had finally caught had made a hole in the wall and escaped right under their noses!
520 picked up an energy gun and aimed at the wall where the two had disappeared, but 880 grabbed his wrist, “Don’t shoot!”
Before he could finish his sentence, a more violent shake hit, and the three stumbled and fell to the ground. At the same moment, a terrifying roar came from deep within the corridor, and the three looked at each other, seeing the horror in each other’s eyes.
–
Shi Yu gave Xie Yuyan a cushion to lean on. She lay on the ground, gasping for breath, and pitifully said, “Little Beauty, can we move a bit? I’m about to be crushed to death by you.”
Lifting him up wasn’t too heavy, but being pressed down felt like being crushed by a mountain.
Xie Yuyan still wore a mask on his head and had not removed the handcuffs on his wrists. Hearing Shi Yu say this, he apologized softly and then found a seat to the side.
Shi Yu’s eyes flashed with a golden light as she removed his handcuffs and then his mask, revealing his pale face, as white as paper, which made her involuntarily frown. “Are you okay?”
Xie Yuyan shook his head, looking at the handcuffs that had fallen to the ground, and asked with rare curiosity, “How did you take them off?”
Once worn, these handcuffs not only block mental energy but also have a numbing effect that makes one unable to exert strength in their hands. Even someone with SSS-grade physical strength couldn’t break free by brute force.
Shi Yu’s gaze flickered, and she said matter-of-factly, “Didn’t you hear me telling them my brother is 1314?”
While spouting nonsense, Shi Yu surveyed her surroundings, but her gaze surreptitiously brushed across the Little Beauty’s face, then she saw his lips curve slightly.
Shi Yu, as if discovering a new continent, squatted in front of the Little Beauty: “Did you just smile?!”
Her surprise was understandable; having seen the Little Beauty so many times, Shi Yu had never seen him smile. He always had a cold and distant demeanor, like an ice sculpture moved out of an ice cave.
Xie Yuyan clenched his fist and pressed his lips, looking around: “Where is this?”
Such a boring change of topic!
Shi Yu humphed at him and pulled him up, then began to look around.
They were in a corridor, wide, large, and high, with lights on the ceiling casting dim shadows of the two on the ground.
The corridor was eerily quiet, bare on both sides, and more importantly, there was no entrance; it was a closed space.
Feeling the Little Beauty’s gaze on her face, Shi Yu knew what he was thinking and explained with feigned calmness, “I might have triggered something earlier, and then we both came in here. I’m not sure if those three people will follow.”
Despite her confident bluffing, she was not sure at all, guessing that those three were also acting on someone’s behalf and couldn’t make a decision, which is why they dragged their feet bringing her here.
Xie Yuyan responded softly, not sure if he accepted her unreliable explanation.
Seeing he didn’t ask further, Shi Yu, with a flick of her finger, pointed towards the door ahead: “Shall we see what’s inside?”
The door resembled the central control room they had visited before, uncertain if it was a similar place.
After they entered, the intense vibration that had occurred just vanished, and with no way out, moving forward seemed the only option.
Xie Yuyan led the way, a virtual screen popping up by his right eye, quickly displaying a series of analyses.
As they approached the door, Xie Yuyan activated his smart interface, and a virtual tentacle from his brain computer stretched out to the door, followed by several virtual screens popping up.
Shi Yu watched the Little Beauty’s index finger flutter like a butterfly, and the door opened.
She clenched her fist, readying herself, as the air inside dispersed, carrying a faint fragrance.
Shi Yu instinctively frowned; the scent was somewhat similar to that of the Little Beauty.
Inside the door was silent and pitch-dark. Shi Yu strained her eyes but couldn’t make out anything inside, while Xie Yuyan took out a long object from his space bag, bent it, and threw it inside, lighting up the entire space.
Both looked inside, Shi Yu took a step back in shock, and Xie Yuyan even gasped in disbelief, “How is that possible!”