108: The disguise of a vagrant

The atmosphere in the meeting room had become incredibly eerie because of the news Chen Feng brought.

Hope and despair, like two venomous snakes, coiled around everyone's hearts.

"You mean..." Reno was the first to speak, his voice dry as he tried to wrap his head around this crazy coincidence. "On our way to rescue Miss Eve, we can pick up the antidote as well?"

"Or rather, on our way to get the antidote, we must break into the place with the most Alliance eyes to rescue a heavily guarded genius," Su Li calmly added. Her fingers tapped rapidly on the table, calculating the risk coefficient of this new plan. "Boss, this plan causes our mission failure rate to soar from the original 73% straight to 98.4%."

"But it also changes our successful outcome from just 'acquiring technology' to 'acquiring technology and surviving'," Chen Feng looked at her calmly. "Su Li, sometimes 100% risk is what yields 100% reward."

He looked around at everyone. "The question now isn't whether to go, but how to go."

"Is that even a question?" Reno's fist slammed heavily onto the table with a dull thud. "Of course we take our strongest battleship! Load every cannon to the brim! We jump directly to that 'Abyss of Oblivion', grab the goods, and run! If anyone dares to block our path, we level them!"

"I object!" Su Li vetoed immediately without a second thought, her voice as cold as ice. "Supervisor Reno, your tactical thinking is still stuck at the level of a mining district brawl! Do you know what it means for any battleship carrying a Hanhai Trade identification signal to appear near Tartarus?"

She stood up and walked to the tactical star map. "It means that within five minutes, our coordinates will be reported to the Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance. Within ten minutes, the nearest Alliance patrol fleet will surround us. We wouldn't be going to fight; we'd be going to our deaths!"

"Then what do you suggest? Do we sail a civilian ship over and talk them into handing it over?!"

"At least we wouldn't die instantly!"

"Enough." Chen Feng's voice interrupted their argument once again.

He walked between the two of them, his gaze sharp as a blade. "Both of you are looking in the wrong direction."

"We aren't going as conquerors, nor as merchants," he said, emphasizing every word. "Our identity must match our target—the 'Stasis Essence', which is 'trash' that is worthless in the eyes of others."

"We are scavengers."

Half an hour later, at the Hanhai Trade shipyard.

Under the cold lights, rows of heavy mining ships seized from Giant Star Mining stood like silent steel behemoths.

"These targets are all too big." Lao Mo shook his head, rejecting the ships Chen Feng was looking at. "It's like writing 'I'm here to cause trouble' on your forehead."

Chen Feng's gaze moved past these giants and finally landed on the most remote corner of the shipyard.

There sat a small, dust-covered transport ship. Its lines were sleek and its bow sharp, looking like a needlefish lurking in the silt.

"What about that ship?"

"Oh, the needlefish?" Lao Mo's eyes lit up. He walked over quickly and stroked its cold hull. "Boss, you have a sharp eye! This ship has huge modification potential! Its engine is military-grade, just power-limited, and its signal signature is pitifully small. With a little modification, I can make it look like a pile of scrap that could fall apart at any moment, but in reality, it'll fly like a ghost!"

"Very good." Chen Feng nodded. "This is the one."

Back in the meeting room, the discussion of the disguise plan continued.

"Intelligence update." Su Li's fingertips slid across the virtual screen, pulling up a report she had just received. "The Omni-Dimensional Trade Alliance has just secretly issued a bounty targeting several of Eve's former colleagues and subordinates from her time at the Alliance. Right now, Tartarus has become a party scene for bounty hunters. If we go in disguised as bounty hunters, we'll be walking straight into a trap."

"That's even better." The corner of Chen Feng's mouth curled into an arc. "Hunters are all chasing valuable prey. Who would care about a pack of hyenas rummaging through a trash heap for food?"

The final plan was settled.

An independent chamber of commerce named 'Stardust Scavengers'.

Scope of business: Specialized in the acquisition and processing of various 'high-risk industrial waste' abandoned by major corporations.

This identity perfectly explained why they would appear in a barren place like the 'Abyss of Oblivion', and provided a seamless excuse for their search for 'Stasis Essence'.

Modification work on the needlefish began immediately.

Under Lao Mo's direction, workers added a large number of seemingly rust-covered attachments and fake damage marks to the ship's exterior, even adding several useless external cooling pipes, making it look like a relic dragged out of some battlefield graveyard.

But beneath its dilapidated shell, Lao Mo secretly installed military-grade signal jammers, a small but lethal electromagnetic pulse weapon system modified from mining equipment, and an engine he personally tuned that could instantly burst with triple the thrust.

Chen Feng looked at this ship that was brand new—or rather, brand 'old'—and nodded with satisfaction.

"From today on, it's no longer called the needlefish."

He personally used a spray gun to paint a new name on the side of the hull.

"It's called the wanderer."

"Boss, the plan is perfect, and the wanderer is ready." Su Li's calm voice rang out, breaking everyone's admiration for the reborn ship. "However, there is still a fatal flaw in our disguise."

She looked at Chen Feng. "A convincing 'Scavenger' chamber of commerce must have real transaction records. More importantly..."

Her gaze fell upon the wanderer's massive, empty cargo hold.

"Our ship must be filled with real 'trash' that can be used as a cover."