It was perfectly normal for her to prepare for a long journey home with a large bag of food, but carrying a broken, non-functional ball and hanging it on the forklift was very strange.
There was absolutely no reason for it.
Her skills were excellent, and she was accompanied by a robot from the Ministry of National Defense and Security. At a time like this, traveling alone with so many suspicious points was highly unusual.
Pei Ran remained calm and wrote on the screen:
[There’s no electricity anywhere. It can be used as a flashlight.]
Shige Ye didn’t believe it and turned to Hai Po.
Hai Po raised her dark, thick eyelashes and glanced at Pei Ran, then wrote: [This type of robot from the Ministry of National Defense and Security has a rigorous operating system. All its functions are controlled by a core processor. It’s not a flashlight that turns on with the flip of a switch.]
She was saying that Pei Ran was lying.
Pei Ran silently raised her hand, extended a finger, slightly bent her knuckle, and gently tapped the middle of the back of the spherical shell.
She was so weak that she could barely stand without support, and her fingers had little strength, so the tap was very light. But with a whoosh, a strong beam of light shot out from the metal sphere.
The brightness was startling even in broad daylight.
Shige Ye raised an eyebrow slightly.
It really was a flashlight that lit up when tapped.
Shige Ye seemed to smile faintly and tilted his head toward Hai Po again.
He still didn’t believe it.
Hai Po didn’t need his prompting. She had already crouched down, pried open the cracked shell of the metal sphere, and carefully examined its internal structure.
After fiddling with it for a while, she stood up and typed on the virtual screen:
[The lighting component is damaged. There’s a wire exposed. Tapping it just happens to bypass the core processor and connect the lighting control module directly to the power source.]
After writing this, Hai Po casually tapped the shell of the metal sphere a few times, and the light on the sphere turned on and off, on and off.
This time, Shige Ye was somewhat surprised: The girl hadn’t lied. She really had just picked up a ball on the road that lit up when tapped.
Equally surprised, aside from Shige Ye, was Agent W.
The moment Pei Ran extended her finger, as a sensitive artificial intelligence, W immediately understood what she wanted him to do—
He just needed to cooperate with her actions and put on a little act: she tapped lightly, and he turned on the light. Perfectly seamless.
However, the moment her finger touched him, before he could even activate the light, the lighting component lit up on its own.
It had nothing to do with him.
W quickly figured it out.
“Pei Ran, when you repaired me this morning, did you casually turn me into a flashlight?”
Pei Ran: “Yes. What’s wrong? Don’t like it?”
W: “…”
He understood her reasoning perfectly.
She had planned ahead, thinking that carrying a robot from the Ministry of National Defense and Security on the road required a very plausible explanation.
Of course, he could have played along with her act, turning the light on and off, but as soon as they encountered an expert like Hai Po, the ruse would have been exposed.
It was far better to actually modify him to have a lighting function.
Pei Ran had done this quietly and seamlessly, making it seem as though the sphere’s internal components had simply torn, exposing a wire that had been misconnected.
This time, Shige Ye was reassured and turned his attention back to the metal sphere.
He wrote: [Using it as a light is a waste. I’ve heard the weapon systems built into these patrol robots are quite good. Can you dismantle it?]
Hai Po replied: [Of course, no problem. It’s simple.]
She reached inside, skillfully disconnected the wiring, flipped the latches, and within moments had removed the firing component.
Pei Ran and W, both human and sphere, were momentarily stunned.
They had been disarmed.
After removing the firing component, Hai Po handed it to Shige Ye and then wrote: [But it requires an authorization code to use. Unfortunately, we don’t have the means to crack it right now, so it’s temporarily unusable.]
Shige Ye nodded, signaling the scorpion man to take the metal sphere and the firing component: [Let’s keep it for now.]
Taking someone else’s belongings and acting as if it were completely justified.
Pei Ran quietly grumbled to W in her mind: “Stealing my stuff outright is so shameless.”
She had called him her stuff.
W paused, then paused again, before finally speaking up, tactfully: “Actually, I am public property under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of National Defense and Security.”
He then immediately added, meticulously and thoughtfully: “But strictly speaking, I belong equally to every taxpayer in the federation. So, it’s not wrong for you to say I’m your stuff.”
Pei Ran: “…”
Pei Ran: Agent W, isn’t your focus a little off?
Shige Ye continued writing:
[We’re also heading in the direction of Yehai. Come with us. In dangerous times like these, there’s safety in numbers.]
Pei Ran: Thanks, I was perfectly safe before meeting you. It’s only after meeting you that I’m not safe.
She had no idea what he was really plotting, but he actually wanted to bring her along.
The metal sphere was now in their hands, and without Agent W, there was no way to retrieve the life-saving medicine from Black Well. More importantly, the only box of JTN34 had also been thrown into the backpack, which was now in their possession.
Pei Ran had no choice. She had to follow them to find an opportunity to steal back the sphere and the medicine.
Shige Ye didn’t seem to care about her response. As if it were a given, his decision was final, and no one was allowed to object.
Meanwhile, someone had finished examining the forklift and came over to report:
[This vehicle doesn’t have an AI interaction system, but it’s equipped with a speed limiter. The maximum speed is only ten kilometers per hour.]
Shige Ye typed: [Drive it back for now. It might be useful. How many vehicles do we have now?]
The scorpion man looked down at his wristband and replied on his virtual screen: [Not counting this forklift, we’ve collected seven vehicles so far.]
When he said “collected seven vehicles,” it was likely that they had stolen seven vehicles from others.
At a time when vehicles were extremely scarce, they had already managed to seize seven, enough to form a convoy.
Shige Ye continued: [Find one or two more, and then we’ll set off.]
As if in response to his words, the sound of a vehicle engine echoed from not far away, accompanied by a loud clattering noise.
Shige Ye tapped the control panel on his wheelchair’s armrest, and the wheelchair smoothly turned around, automatically retreating to the side of the road. The others quickly followed.
Driving down the road was a blue antique car.
Unlike Helan Ting’s antique collectible, this car was rusty, dilapidated, and looked like it had been dug out of a junkyard.
Still, it seemed to function well enough, moving at a decent speed on the road.
Inside the car appeared to be a family. The driver was a woman in her thirties, the passenger seat was occupied by a man in a plaid coat, and a little girl around four or five years old sat in the back. To prevent the child from accidentally making noise, a scarf was tightly tied around her mouth.
They had also noticed the group by the roadside and looked nervous, speeding up as if planning to rush past them.
Shige Ye only glanced at them before lowering his head and casually opening the black leather notebook on his lap to a new page. He picked up the comic pen.
Green light, like ghostly flames, flowed to the tip of the pen.
He could actually use his supernatural ability at such a high frequency.
Shige Ye was a skilled artist. With a few strokes, he outlined the vehicle, smoke rising from the hood, and added a bold, black character:
“Sss—”
Next to it, he quickly wrote a vertical line of small text: [Probably engine overheating. The car stopped.]
After writing, he twirled his pen.
“Sss—”
Pei Ran looked up and saw that, for some reason, the antique car’s hood suddenly emitted a puff of white smoke, coming to a stop just a dozen meters away from them.
The couple in the car panicked.
They hesitated, seemingly discussing for a moment, before the man in the plaid coat in the passenger seat finally opened the door and stepped out. His first action was to glance nervously in their direction.
Shige Ye remained motionless, giving no signal, so his subordinates also stayed still.
The group by the roadside stood quietly, while the man in the plaid coat, clearly unnerved and unsure of what to do, glanced at them again before quickly opening the car’s hood to inspect it.
Shige Ye, calm and unhurried, twirled his pen a couple of times before bringing the tip back to the notebook, sketching a new frame.
In the drawing was a single man in a plaid coat, standing in front of a crudely drawn car hood.
Shige Ye drew an oval speech bubble next to the man’s head and leisurely wrote inside it:
“What should I do…”
Pei Ran felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
After finishing the drawing, Shige Ye twirled his pen again and looked up.
Pei Ran followed his gaze and saw the man in front of the car part his lips.
“What should I do…” he muttered unconsciously.
As soon as the words left his mouth, he seemed to realize what had happened, frozen in place as if struck by lightning.
“Boom—”
Flesh and blood splattered. The car hood and windows were instantly stained red, covered in scattered fragments.
The energy level required to make a human body explode wouldn’t damage the car, leaving only a neat, charred ring of death on the hood.
The woman in the driver’s seat was stunned by the sudden turn of events. Gripping the steering wheel, she opened her mouth in terror but made no sound.
Shige Ye tilted his head, looking at the woman and child in the car, as if waiting for them to step out.
Pei Ran stared intently at Shige Ye, fully aware of what he intended to do—he wanted to kill them but didn’t want their flesh and blood to dirty the car.
However, neither of them moved.
After a few seconds of stunned silence, the woman suddenly snapped back to reality and frantically stepped on the gas pedal, as if trying to restart the car and escape this place as quickly as possible.
Shige Ye was displeased.
He lightly furrowed his brow and picked up his pen again.
This time, in the lower left corner, he added a small close-up frame of the little girl in the back seat. She had twin ponytails, her eyes wide with terror, and the scarf tied around her mouth had come loose.
Shige Ye drew an oval speech bubble next to her and wrote inside it: “Daddy…”
There was absolutely no way out.
Pei Ran’s mind raced. Shige Ye could force people to speak, and in this situation, there was no escape.