109: The spear and shield of the expedition

"Our ship must be filled with real 'trash' that can be used to deceive others."

Su Li's words were like a cold scalpel, precisely slicing through the final and most fatal flaw of the disguise plan. The slight sense of optimism that had just risen in the meeting room was instantly frozen by the chill of reality.

"You're right." Reno uncharacteristically didn't argue. Frowning, he said in a muffled voice, "An empty scavenger ship is more suspicious than a fully loaded warship. But... where are we going to find that much trash? We can't actually haul that waste ore from the mining area, can we?"

"No," Su Li immediately rejected the idea. "Real industrial waste is huge in volume but zero in value. No matter how fast our 'wanderer' flies, it won't earn back the cost of the jump. That doesn't fit the business logic of a scavenger chamber of commerce."

"What about high-value 'conceptual trash'? Like the kind we sold to Sequence Zero," Lao Mo suggested.

"Even worse," Su Li shook her head. "That kind of thing is too eye-catching. An unknown small chamber of commerce carrying enough 'undead crystals' to cause a mental breakdown on an entire planet would only attract two things: greedy bandits or Alliance investigators. We can't afford to mess with either."

"So, we need something that looks legitimate, has standard packaging, isn't too large, isn't high value, but is indeed 'waste'," Chen Feng summarized. His fingertips tapped lightly on the tabletop, but his gaze had already drifted toward the void—the interface of the Interstellar Exchange.

"Does such a thing exist?" Reno expressed doubt.

"The universe is vast; nothing is too strange," Chen Feng said softly, a playful smile appearing on his face. "Especially when a tenant has owed three years of storage fees and then vanished into thin air."

As soon as he finished speaking, he projected a listing from the "Bulk Waste" section of the Exchange into the center of the meeting room.

"Product Name: 'Pioneer' Type 7 military synthetic nutritional paste (Expired)."

"Quantity: 120,000 cases."

"Product Status: Forced auction by the storage provider due to contract default. Functionality has failed; only retains 'biomass waste' value."

"Price: Buyer only needs to cover transportation costs."

Reno stared at the near-zero price tag, his eyes widening. "For free?!"

"An extremely legitimate-looking scavenger chamber of commerce wins a bid for a batch of standard expired military supplies in a legal commercial auction," Chen Feng said with a smile. "Is there any disguise more perfect than that?"

"That's the one!" A hint of admiration flashed in Su Li's eyes.

That evening, the Hanhai Trade armory.

The cold lights reflected off rows of weapons gleaming with a metallic chill, making them look like silent, ferocious beasts.

"We're scavengers, not going to a coliseum," Chen Feng's voice rang out calmly, interrupting Reno's hand as it reached for a massive high-frequency battle-axe.

"Boss, this is good stuff! With one swing, any exoskeleton armor would be like paper!" Reno argued unwillingly.

"Would a scavenger carry a battle-axe taller than himself to collect trash?" Chen Feng countered. "Every pore of your body must exude an aura of 'I'm poor, I'm easy to bully, but I'm somewhat useful.' This axe would only tell others, 'I'm strong, I'm rich, come rob me'."

"Then what do I use?" Reno's face crumpled like a bitter melon.

"Use this." Chen Feng picked up something that looked like a large screwdriver from the corner of the weapon rack and handed it over.

"A high-frequency vibration dagger?" Reno took it, his face full of disdain. "Boss, this thing... it's too small even to pick the teeth of those mutant cockroaches."

"And these." Chen Feng tossed him several disc-shaped objects. "sonic riot suppressors. Non-lethal, but very effective."

Reno fiddled clumsily with the tiny dagger, looking like a giant handed a toothpick. Nearby, Lao Mo, who was checking his equipment, couldn't help but let out a suppressed chuckle.

"Alright, now for the personnel." Back in the meeting room, a new debate began.

"I must go," Reno said, taking it as his duty. "Boss, your safety is paramount. I must be by your side."

"I object." Su Li's voice was calm and resolute. "I must stay. The entire base's production and operation systems are built on models I designed. If I leave for more than three days, this place will fall into management chaos. We can't have a fire in our own backyard before the front line even starts fighting."

"Su Li is right; she must stay." Chen Feng nodded in agreement, then announced a decision that caught everyone off guard.

"This expedition team will have three people."

"Me, Reno, and..." His gaze fell upon the silent technical director in the corner.

"Lao Mo."

"What?!" Reno and Su Li exclaimed simultaneously.

"Boss, no!" Reno was the first to object. "Lao Mo is a technical expert; his value is in the rear, in the lab! Sending him to a place like Tartarus is the ultimate waste!"

"Yes, Boss," Su Li also expressed her confusion. "His body hasn't fully recovered, and he has no field experience. The risk is too high."

Lao Mo, who had been silent, slowly took off the heavy goggles from his face.

Under the light, those eyes that were always obscured by lenses glinted with a sharp light completely different from his usual gentle image.

"Before I was captured by Giant Star Mining to work as a miner," he spoke calmly, his voice not loud but clearly reaching everyone's ears, "I worked for several private security companies as a 'field equipment maintenance engineer'."

He paused and added, "The so-called 'maintenance' meant that whenever equipment failed in any environment—like under a hail of bullets or inside an enemy base—it was my job to fix it. So, I'm very skilled at assembly and repairs."

This hidden past made Reno stare at him in shock, his disdain instantly turning into newfound respect.

The next day, the batch of "expired military nutritional paste" arrived at the wanderer's cargo hold.

During the loading process, a robot made an error, causing a crate to fall from a height and crash onto the deck.

With a bang, the crate split open, scattering greyish-white paste everywhere. A peculiar, cool scent, like mint mixed with some chemical reagent, quickly filled the cargo hold.

"What happened?" Chen Feng walked over and knelt to inspect it.

In the dim light of the cargo hold and the occasional sparks from a distant repair torch, he noticed that the scattered nutritional paste was emitting an extremely faint, almost imperceptible fluorescence.

"It's nothing serious, just a benign reaction from an expired additive," Lao Mo concluded after checking. "It glows under specific radiation. It's harmless."

"Understood. Tell everyone to be careful while moving them." Chen Feng nodded and didn't think much more of it. It was just a harmless little episode.

At the final moment before departure, the wanderer's engines had entered the preheating countdown.

Su Li walked quickly to the closing gangway and pressed a small, encrypted data chip into Chen Feng's hand.

"What is this?" Chen Feng asked.

"These are some theoretical models and emergency plans I've derived from the data we bought to suppress 'Law Contamination'." Her voice was very low and her speech fast, as if she were hiding something.

"They might be useless, but..."

She didn't finish her sentence.

Chen Feng took the chip. It felt cold in his hand, yet it seemed to carry a hint of warmth. He looked at Su Li's eyes—usually as calm as a precision instrument—and saw a flash of worry that couldn't be quantified by data. He nodded.

"We're leaving."

"Take care."

The gangway rose slowly, cutting off their final gaze.

The wanderer's engines let out a low roar, preparing to break free from the planet's gravity and sail into the endless deep space.